Moderato Cantabile was published by Les Éditions de Minuit in 1958, the novel that marked Duras’s turn from conventional realism toward the radically stripped-down style that would characterize her mature work. At barely one hundred pages, it achieves its effects through what is not said rather than what is — through repetition, ellipsis, and the accumulation of silence.
Anne Desbaresdes, a wealthy industrialist’s wife, is in a cafe with her young son during his piano lesson when a man murders a woman — a crime of passion, committed in full view. The dead woman’s face shows something that obsesses Anne: satisfaction, fulfillment, as if the violence was desired. Anne returns to the cafe daily, ordering wine (more wine each visit — her increasing drunkenness marks the passage of time and the erosion of her self-control), meeting a worker named Chauvin who also witnessed the killing.
Their conversations circle the murder without explaining it: they construct narratives about the couple (who were they? what was their love?), and these narratives become projections of desires they cannot express about themselves. Anne is trapped in a loveless bourgeois marriage; Chauvin is attracted to her; neither can act on their desire within the social codes that govern them. The murdered woman’s ecstasy represents what they cannot reach — the destruction of social constraint through violence.
The title (a musical direction meaning “at moderate speed, in a singing style”) comes from the piano lesson that frames the novel — the child being taught to play moderately, controlledly, while around him adults are being consumed by passions they cannot moderate.
Collecting Moderato Cantabile
First edition (Les Éditions de Minuit, Paris, 1958): French paperback.
Market values:
- First French edition (Minuit): $30–$80
- First English translation (Grove Press, 1960): $15–$40
- Signed copies: $80–$200