SOURCE: "Risking an Opinion," in The Times Literary Supplement, No. 4536, March 9 & 15, 1990, p. 248.

In the following review, Josipovici claims that Practicalities is surprisingly boring and uninformative given the high quality of Duras' fiction.

Throughout the autumn and winter of 1986 Marguerite Duras talked to Jérôme Beaujour about anything that took her fancy. The conversations were transcribed, then edited by Duras into a series of distinct pieces ranging from one to ten pages. Beaujour is a mere ghostly presence, someone who is being talked at rather than an active questioner. "At most the book represents what I think sometimes, some days, about some things", Duras writes. In French the book was called La Vie materielle, but for some reason Barbara Bray has removed the Marxist echo and given English readers the meaningless title, Practicalities.

This is particularly unfortunate because the personality and life that come through are the antithesis...