Marguerite Duras: Yes, peut-être (1968)

Yes, peut-être is one of only three works of Marguerite Duras's which are humorous, the other two being Eaux et Forêts and Le Shaga. This, though, is also a work of science fiction. Set in a near future, it represents a post-apocalyse and is feminist and anti-military.

The landscape is bare and we are in a kind of desert after a war, a nuclear attack, of which there are hardly any survivors. Two women meet, one dragging behind her a wreck of a man, someone between life and death after a military experience. They all have anti-radiactivity devices on their arms.

The action, such as it is, is Beckettian. The language is mainly in phrases as the women have lost their memory: they don't remember what has happened to them, but they largely remember their language and struggle to express themselves, but often using groups of words without a personal pronoun, or mixing the pronouns, throwing in the occasional non-French word or religious term. The man, who lies on the ground most of the time because of serious problems standing up, has a vocabulary of only a few words, and mostly makes incoherent noises.

My Marguerite Duras posts:
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Marguerite Duras: La Pute de la côte normande
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