Passionate Duras universe, I was upset by the reading of "The Lover," which I kept in my library as a precious treasure. I had always refused to read a different version of what I considered to be a form of literary perfection; I feared disillusionment, disenchantment that I did not want to know. With time (over ten years), curiosity pushed me to buy "the Lover of North China". I regret my assumption; I found this book in the same beauty, the same slow pace - the same unspoken, the same love full of pain and desire. But in addition to this, many dapprofondissements, clarifications, details: the background remains so close to the first book, so deeply "Durassian" but the form changes; it is more screenplay, clearer - or worse and no better, just very different. I enjoyed reading this in the same way that I liked "The Lover". The two together are enthroned on my bookshelf, side by side, from my (small) list of favorite books.
