Notes Introduction 1. Bakhtin, "Discourse in the Novel," p. 355. 2. Ibid., p. 360. 3. Yaeger, "A Fire in my Head," p. 959. 4. Bakhtin,op. cit., p. 271. 5. Ibid., p. 270. 6. Ibid., p. 263. 7. The term "dialogism" is explained by Bakhtin's translators in the text's glossary: "Dialogism is the characteristic epistemological mode of a world dominated by heterglossia. Everything means, is understood, as a part of a greater whole - there is constant interaction between meanings, all of which have the potential of conditioning others. [... [ This dialogic imperative, mandated by the pre-existence of the language world relative to any of its current inhabitants, insures that there can be no actual monologue. One may [... ] be deluded into thinking there is one language, or one may, as grammarians, certain political figures and normative framers of 'literary languages' do, seek in a sophisticated way to achieve a unitary language. In both cases the unitariness is relative to the overpowering force of heteroglossia, and thus dialogism." Ibid., p.426. 8. Ibid., p. 300. 9. Houdebine, "Les Femmes dans la langue," pp. 11-12. All translations from the French in this book are mine unless otherwise indicated. 10. Beauvoir, Le DeuxiCmc sexc. 11. Cixous, "Le Sexe ou la tete," p. 7. 12. Cixous, La Jeune nee, pp. 115-117. 13. Benjamin, "The Bonds of Love," pp. 46-47. 14. Foucault, L'Arc1uzeologic du savoir, p. 90. 15. The term is ambiguous because the French "feminin" signifies both "female" and "feminine." 16. Rosalind-Jones, "Writing the Body," p. 374. 17. Moi, Sexual/Textual Politics, p. 123. 18. Ibid., p. 126. 19. Ibid., p. 148. 20. Questions Feministes Collective, "Variations on Common Themes," in Marks and Courtivon, p. 226. Among the foundin? editors were Simone de Beauvoir, Monique Wittig, Christine Delphy, Monique Plaza, and Colette Guillaumin. Within a more Marxist-feminist perspective, they proclaimed women a social class, rather than an essence. 21. Ibid., p. 227. Cf. also Wittig, "The Point of View: Universal or 211 212 Notes to pp. 4-17 Particular?" and "One is not Born a Woman." For a clear exposition of the various tendencies in French Feminism, d. Duchen, Feminism in France. 22. Kristeva, "La Femme, ce n'est jamais <;a." 23. Kristeva, La Revolution du langage poNique. 24. Cf. Rosalind-Jones, "Writing the Body," pp. 363-366. 25. Ibid., p. 363. 26. Cf. for example Moi, Sexualffextual Politics, pp. 167-173. 27. Kristeva, "Un Nouveau type d'intellectuel." 28. De Lauretis "Feminist Studies/Critical Studies," p. 14. 29. Ibid., p. 17. 30. Ibid., pp. 11-12. 31. Ibid., p. 15. 32. Fraser and Nicholson "Social Criticism without Philosophy," in Feminism/postmodernisltl, p. 25. 33. Ibid., p. 26. 34. Butler, "Gender Trouble," in Feminism/postmodernism, p. 324. 35. Ibid., p. 339. 36. Ibid., p. 338. 37. Huyssens, "Mapping the Postmodem," in Feminism/postltlodernism, p.264. 38. Bordo, "Feminism, Postmodemism, and Gender-Scepticism," in Fem- inism/postmodernisltl, p. 151. 39. Ibid., p. 149. 40. Ibid., pp. 146-147. 41. Ibid., p. 155. 42. Ibid., p. 156. 43. Evans, Masks of Tradition, p. 8. 44. Duras, "Apostrophes." 45. Duras in l..es Lieux, p. 102. 46. Unpublished interviews I held with Marguerite Duras, summer 1982. 47. Interviews with me, 1982. 48. See Chapter 4. 49. Duras, "Les Goncourt aimaient L'Altlant," p. 30. 50. Bakhtin, op. cit., p. 366. 51. Interview, Duras with Husserl-Kapit, Signs, p. 426. 52. Marini, "L' Autre corps," p. 27. 53. I retain the French titles of Duras' books, since these are the texts I worked from. 1: "Ignorance" and Textuality 1. Interviews with me, 1982. 2. Duras, in Marguerite Uuras, p. 81. 3. Duras, Le Vice-consul, p. 35. Hereafter referred to as V-c. 4. Genette, Figures III, p. 226. Notes to pp. 17-32 213 5. Following Elaine Marks' practice in her work on Colette, I put quotation marks around the name "Duras" to distinguish the intratextual "Duras" from the signer. Duras often inscribes a more or less explicitly first person narrating writer in her texts. I read all Duras' onomastically unspecified "writing" narrators as "Duras". When they are male, Duras specifically designates them as such. 6. Kristeva, Pouvoirs de l'horreur.,p. 24 7. Ibid., p. 19. 8. Ibid., p. 19. 9. Ibid., p. 17. 10. Marini, Territoires du lett/inin, p. 91. 11. Cf. Chapter 4. 12. Cf. Chapters 3 and 4 13. I discuss the fear of "ignorance" and silence in more detail in Chapter 4. 14. Marini, op. cit., p. 120. 15. Benveniste: "The third person is the form of the verbal (or pronomial) paradigm that does not refer to a person because it refers to an object placed outside the allocution. But it only exists and is characterized in opposition to the person, 'I,' of the speaker, who, uttering it, situates it as a non-person" (Problemes de linguistique gbu!rale, Vol. I, p. 265). Buber: "The basic words [... J are word pairs. One basic word is the pair I-You. The other basic word is the word pair I-It, but this basic word is not changed when He or She takes the place of It" (l and Thou, p. 53). 16. Cf. Part II. 17. Benveniste, Problemes de linguistique generale, Vol. 2, p. 78. 18. " ... 'nous' is not a quantified or multiplied 'I,' it is an 'I' dilated beyond the strict person, which is simultaneously enlarged and given vague contours." Benveniste, Problertles de Linguistique generale, Vol. I, p.235. 19. Cf. Chapter 4. 20. When called, one can answer "on vient" for "I'm coming." In the following discussion, I retain the French pronoun due to ambiguities of translation. 21. For example: (1) pp. 99-100, No indication of source of voice: "Tell me about Mme Stretter.' 'IrreprochabJe and kind [... J"; (2) p. 100, Gender specified: "The women,' say the men, 'to see them like in France [... J; (3) p. 122, "We" (nous) "We know it, [on Ie sait bien, nousJ she talks about the heat first [ . .)"; (4) p. 121, General collectivity of white society: "Then all of white India looks at them"; (5) p. 135 Restricted generality: "Some say [... J"; (6) p. 139 Generality: " People don't understand"; (7) p. 147 An impersonal singular: "One person muses [ ... J." 22. Cf. Chapter 4. 23. Cf. Chapter 4. 24. Duras, Moderato Cantabile, p. 27. Hereafter referred to as M-C. 25. Duras, Dix Heures et demie du soir en ete, pp. 168-175 (hereafter referred to as D-H). 214 Notes to pp. 32-53 26. One is reminded of Anne-Marie Stretter's dozing in Le Vice-consul. There, however, "Duras" makes all the allusions to her sleeping. 27. For fuller discussion of Lol's phantasm, see Cohen, "Phantasm and Narration." 28. Duras, Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein, p. 137 (hereafter referred to as Rav). 29. Binswanger, "Dream and Existence," p. 243. Cf. also Straus in Phenomenological Psychology, p. 116: "the dreamer is alone in his dream world. No one else can enter it, nor can the dreamer leave it." 30. Montrelay, L'Ombre, p. 21. She writes on the same page: "The perversion, if there is any, comes from Jacques Hold." 31. Benveniste, Problhtles, Vol. I, p. 244. 32. Straus, The Primary World of Senses, p. 391. 33. Pontalis and Laplanche, Vocabulaire de la psychanalyse, p. 152. 34. Benveniste, Problernes, Vol. 1, pp. 71-72. 35. Benveniste, Problemes, Vol. 1, p. 72. 36. Cf. discussion Chapter 2. 37. Lol, who "survived" her own existential death at the ball, lives in an existentially posthumous mode. Cf. Cohen, "Phantasm and Narration," pp. 257-259. 38. Benveniste, Problemes, Vol. 2, p. 197. 39. Ibid., p. 200. 40. "He" appears briefly at the opening of the passage (p. 187) and conveys a temporary, and confused division of self into subject and object for the purpose of masturbation. It has little to do with the split under discussion. 41. Cf. Cohen, "Phantasm and Narration." 42. Benveniste, Problemes, Vol. 1, pp. 259-260: "Subjectivity is the capac­ ity to pose oneself as subject [... ] The one who says 'I' is '1'." 43. Evans reads this as a rape. Her chapter "Marguerite Duras: The Whore," in Masks of Tradition, pp. 123-157, gives an interesting reading of the novel, conducted in terms of vision and anonymity, in relation to which she articulates a concept of Durassian "prosti­ tution" as the radical instability and exchangeability of the subject. 44. Benveniste, Problemes, Vol. 1, p. 228. 45. Evans, op. cit., p. 153. 46. Ibid., pp. 153-154. 47. Evans, introduction Masks of Tradition, p. 20. 48. Duras, L'Amante anK'aise, pp. 191-192 (hereafter refereed to as A-A). 49. For further discussion of the question of Claire's speech cf. Chapter 4. 50. Duras, Le Marin de Gibraltar, p. 186 (hereafter referred to as Mar). 51. Duras, Le Camion, p. 11 (hereafter referred to as Cam). 52. In the book she can only be "Duras." Because the author plays that role in the film, I dispense with the quotation marks when referring to it. 53. Cf. further discussion in Chapters 2 and 4. Notes to pp. 54-64 215 54. Duras, La MaIadie de fa mort, p. 59 (hereafter referred to as Mal). 55. Duras, "Je suis muette devant Ie theatre que j'ecris," p. 97. 56. Duras, "Entretien avec Marguerite Duras." 57. Duras, Le Navire Night, p. 10 (hereafter referred to as Nav). 58. Cf. Chapter 4 for discussion of "indicative language." 59. Cf. Chapter 2. 60. Duras,"II n'y a rien de plus difficile que de decrire un amour," p.26.