Age-Gap Romance in 'The Lover' by Marguerite Duras and 'Thirst for Salt' by Madelaine Lucas

Episode 62: I compare, contrast, and evaluate two novels centered on relationships between older men and much younger women, both written by female authors. The classic of this episode is ‘The Lover,’ by French writer Marguerite Duras, about a 15-year-old girl's relationship with a Chinese man in French colonial Saigon. The more contemporary book, ‘Thirst for Salt’ by Australian writer Madelaine Lucas, portrays a 24-year-old woman's affair with a 44-year-old man in an Australian coastal town.

0:00 Older Men with Younger Women
0:56 A Personal Confession
2:59 Book Rants on the Defensive
4:06 Thirst for Salt by Madelaine Lucas
5:26 The Virtues of Thirst for Salt
8:10 The Defects of Thirst for Salt
10:20 The Lover by Marguerite Duras
12:54 Duras's Writing about Sex
13:44 The Improvisational Structure of The Lover
15:33 Race, Class & Sexual Identity in The Lover
16:10 Literature Tells the Best Love Stories

Books Mentioned:
The Lover, by Marguerite Duras, first published in France in 1984, first translated to English in 1985
Thirst for Salt, by Madelaine Lucas (Tin House Books, 2023)

Film and art mentioned:
The Lover, a film by Jean Jacques Annaud, 1992
“Vuelo,” a painting by Juan Carlos Vasco Rodríguez

#bookreview #intergenerationalromance #culturalcommentary