Le Square was turned into a play in 1957, but even the novel consists almost entirely of spoken conversation, with scarcely any narrative. In the biography Marguerite Duras, Laure Adler says that when the book first came out, it received poor reviews: the France-Observateur critic found it a pale imitation of Beckett's Godot, the NRF found it boring, Maurice Nadeau thought it gossipy but with no 'voice', etc. Maurice Blanchot seems to have been alone in lavishing praise on it.
The whole story takes place in a small public garden. There are just three characters in it: a travelling salesman of unmentioned age, a twenty-year-old woman who is a housemaid, and the young boy in her charge who says almost nothing as he's out playing all the time and only speaks to say he's hungry, then thirsty, and at the end to say he's tired. The rest is just a dialogue between the man and the young woman.
The man just about manages to make a living out of selling the goods in his suitcase, is rarely hungry, and spends his itinerant existence going from town to town, taking small train journeys in between and sleeping in cheap hotels. He seems reasonably content with his life, but has no hopes of it ever changing.
The young woman lives with her family and eats in the kitchen. She is aware that she is being taken advantage of, hates washing the very old, fat and smelly grandmother, and has for some time been looking for a way out of her rut. She expects to be swept away by a man offering to marry her, and although nothing has transpired as yet, she goes dancing at Croix-Nivert in hope that someone will choose her.
In spite of the protagonists being ultra-polite and calling each other 'Monsieur' and 'Mademoiselle' throughout, there's a slow build-up of sexual tension, although the reader is painfully aware that the ending will be Godot-like. Or sort of. As the young girl is forced to leave the square and Jacques – the little boy is the only named character – is pressing her to leave, she asks the man if he'll be going to dance with her at Croix-Nivert that Saturday. The man says 'perhaps', which seems to upset the girl because she'd prefer him to be positive. But the man is determined to be left with what he calls his 'cowardice', and his despair.
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Marguerite Duras: L'Homme assis dans le couloir
Marguerite Duras: Agatha
Marguerite Duras: Emily L.
Marguerite Duras: Les Yeux bleus cheveux noirs
Marguerite Duras: L'Amant | The Lover
Marguerite Duras: Le Ravissement de Lol V. Stein
Marguerite Duras: L'Amante anglaise
Laure Adler: Marguerite Duras
Marguerite Duras: Cimetière du Montparnasse
Marguerite Duras: Un barrage contre le Pacifique
Marguerite Duras: L'Après-midi de Monsieur Andesmas
Marguerite Duras: Les Petits Chevaux de Tarquinia
Marguerite Duras: Le Marin de Gibraltar | The Sailor from Gibraltar
Marguerite Duras: La Douleur | The War: A Memoir
Yann Andréa: Cet amour-là
Marguerite Duras and Xavière Gauthier: Les Parleuses
Marguerite Duras: Savannah Bay
Marguerite Duras: Détruire, dit-elle | Destroy, She Said
Marguerite Duras: L'Amour
Marguerite Duras: Dix heures et demie du soir en été
Marguerite Duras: Le Square | The Square
Marguerite Duras: Les Impudents
Marguerite Duras: Le Shaga
Marguerite Duras: Oui, peut-être
Marguerite Duras: Des journées entières dans les arbres
Marguerite Duras: Suzanna Andler
Marguerite Duras: Le Vice-Consul | The Vice Consul
Marguerite Duras: Moderato cantabile
Marguerite Duras: La Vie matérielle
Marguerite Duras: La Vie tranquille
Marguerite Duras: La Pluie d'été
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