The Ravishing of Lol Stein

The Ravishing of Lol Stein is a novel by Marguerite Duras, published in France by Gallimard in 1964 under the original title Le ravissement de Lol V. Stein. It appeared in the United States in 1966 in a translation by Richard Seaver for Grove Press, and in the United Kingdom in 1967 as The Rapture of Lol V. Stein, translated by Eileen Ellenbogen for Hamish Hamilton.

The protagonist, Lola (Lol) Stein, born and raised in South Tahla in a bourgeois family, is engaged to Michael Richardson at nineteen. At a ball in the seaside resort of Town Beach, Michael leaves her for Anne-Marie Stretter, an older woman. The shock marks Lol for the rest of her life. After a difficult recovery, she marries John Bedford, a musician she meets on her daily walks, and moves with him to Uxbridge. Ten years later, with three children, she returns to South Tahla and moves into the house where she grew up.

There she resumes her walks and one day believes she recognises Tatiana Karl, the friend who consoled her after the breakup. The man accompanying Tatiana, Jack Hold, makes a deep impression on Lol. She reestablishes contact with Tatiana, gets to know her husband and her lover, and learns from Jack about what happened at the ball in Town Beach. The novel is seen through the obsessive eyes of Jack Hold.