What do you think Marguerite Duras meant in her autobiography by "the story of my life does not exist"?

Question

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How, in your opinion, can it not exist?

Answer 1

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The full quotation was: "The story of my life doesn't exist. Does not exist. There's never any center to it. No path, no line. There are great spaces where you pretend there used to be someone, but it's not true, there was no one."

Most people can look back and see a path through their lives and construct their life's journey events which ked in turn to other events and an ultimate conclusion. This was a woman driven by desire who saw her life as a collection of experiences, perhaps, rather than a narrative. She was also someone who didn't relish the idea of an biographer delving into her past, discussing her with all and sundry and drawing conclusions and perhaps representing as a story -- a narrative -- something which to her was a meaningless and random series of events. She may well have said this to her biographer in the hope of persuading him that hers was not a life which he could readily relate.

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Asker's Comment:

Thank you, you were really informative. This was more or less my view too, except I see it more as an issue of the uncertainty as well as the subjectivity of memory, resulting in this collection of memories, this story, being imperfect and untrue. Thanks again for your insight

Answer 2

She has an enlightened perspective. Our lives are just stories we make-up about ourselves. When you ask the question "Who am I?" - there doesn't seem to be an answer. There doesn't seem to be something tangible. So we sting together events and call that our life.