Маргрет Дюрас: «Модерато Кантанбиле» романының мәйегі

Moderato Cantabile is a novel by Marguerite Duras. It was very popular, selling half a million copies, and was the initial source of Duras' fame.

The plot is initially the banal daily routine of a rich woman taking her son to piano lessons, and conversing with a working class man in a café, drinking wine all the way, then reaches a scandal at a dinner party in chapter 7, followed by a dénouement in the final chapter. The story concerns the life of a woman, Anne Desbaresdes, and her varying relationships with her child, the piano teacher Mademoiselle Giraud and Chauvin. Chauvin is a working class man who is currently unemployed and whiles away his time in a café near the apartment where Anne Desbaresdes' child takes piano lessons with Madame Giraud. After the fatal shooting of a woman in the café by her lover, Anne and Chauvin imagine the relationship between the lovers and try to reason why it occurred. Anne frequently returns to the café, before returning to her comfortable home, the last house on the Boulevard de la Mer, which itself represents the social divide between the working and middle classes. In the climactic 7th chapter, she returns home late and drunk to a dinner party, then causes a scandal (and is subsequently ill, vomiting) whose consequences are seen in the 8th and final chapter.

The novella is organized into 8 chapters, 5 of which recount the passage of full days. Chapters 5, 6, and 7 recount a detailed 6th day of the novella, moving first from a piano lesson to Anne's meeting with Chauvin, and finally to the reception which Anne is late for. Thus, the novel recounts the passage of a full week during Anne's life. The novelette is ambiguous at many points throughout. In some instances, the reader cannot tell who is talking because no caption is provided for speeches. With the exception of Chauvin, Anne and Mademoiselle Giraud, no other names are mentioned; Anne's husband is referred to as "on" in French. The setting is also vague as we are never given a definitive place to locate the town, other than the fact that it is close to the sea. The time can be inferred to be late spring to early summer, but we cannot tell the exact month. However, specific settings, like Anne's house and the café, are described in detail in the description and speeches of the conversations between Anne and Chauvin. Chapter 1 and 5 are set in Mademoiselle Giraud's apartment. The other chapters all start with Anne's arrival at the café, her daily conversation with Chauvin, and her inevitable return to her home due to the siren that signals the end of the working day. It is speculated that Anne returns home at the siren in order to return before her husband gets home.

Perhaps the most persistent and complex relationship throughout the novel revolves not around Chauvin and Anne, but around Anne and her child. The title is based on the tempo of a Diabelli sonatina, a child's piano piece. At various moments in the story, Anne remarks that the child has grown; the child is described as having the same blue eyes as Chauvin; the child wants a red motorboat, sustaining the image of red in the story; the child is with Anne throughout the story except when she enters the cafe and when she meditates at night. In addition, the only time the child is not present in the cafe is at the end of Anne's relationship with Chauvin the last time Anne visits the cafe.

The title is a musical direction, literally "moderately and singingly", and refers to a sonatina by Diabelli, presumably Sonatina in F major, op. 168, No. 1 (I: Moderato cantabile).

Moderato Cantabile is loosely identified as part of the nouveau roman movement started by Alain Robbe Grillet, but critics take pains to distinguish Duras's style as distinct and inimitable. The book was published with the publishing house les Éditions de Minuit, which specialized in avant garde works, unlike her previous works, which had been published by the more conventional Gallimard. Duras would not publish again with Minuit until Détruire, dit elle of 1969, and thereafter continued to publish with Minuit. The style is initially austere: in the initial chapters, the action is described shallowly, at the surface, but changes sharply in Chapter 7, where the narrator is prominent and colors the description, sarcastically describing the "absurd" ritual of dinner and the "devouring" of the salmon and duck. The austere style is the focus of much commentary and of connection with the nouveau roman movement, while the rich seventh chapter is seen as a payoff by some critics, that may not be reached by readers who "shut the book before arriving [there]". The novella is written in past tense, the French passé simple (usually translated as simple past) and "imparfait" (Imperfect). In Chapter 7, the tense changes noticeably from past to present during the dinner party, and from present to future simple during the last few paragraphs of the chapter. The format of the bulk of the novel, of a meeting between two people, is particularly prefigured by Le Square ("The Square"), Duras' previous novel, which features two strangers meeting and talking on a park bench one Saturday afternoon, a fact commented on by many critics, but which is also a focus of several, arguably all, of her previous works.

Moderato Cantabile was very popular, selling half a million copies. Critical response was sharply divided, but generally very positive. A survey of contemporary French critical response is given in the critical edition (Collection "double"), in the section "Moderato Cantabile et la presse française". It was the first winner of the short lived Prix de Mai. Critics praised the innovative, austere, "formal", allusive style, a work of suggestive words and gestures. Conversely, the work is criticized as lacking plot, as being more an essay than a work of art, and of lacking context for its images – the symbolism only being apparent in the context of Duras's oeuvre.

The novel was filmed in 1960 by Peter Brook, and starred Jean Paul Belmondo and Jeanne Moreau. The latter won the Best Actress Award at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance.