Dubin's Lives
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Dubin's Lives is a novel by the American writer Bernard Malamud (1979). The title character is a biographer working on a life of D.H. Lawrence.
[edit] Epigraphs
The novel begins with two quotations.
What demon possessed me that I behaved so well?
Give me continence and chastity, but not yet.
The first epigraph points to the notion that Dubin has written a biography of Thoreau and also alerts the reader to the moral complexities that the novel explores. The second connects the novel with themes of infidelity and spiritual struggle for which Augustine is famous.
[edit] Plot summary
William Dubin of Vermont is living the comfortable life of an accomplished writer. Though his marriage is slightly timeworn, it is stable and loving. While researching the biography of Lawrence, he meets twenty-three year old Fanny and begins an affair with her. Predictably, the consequences of this act rock Dubin's life and invite the reader to draw parallels with similar events in the lives of the writers Dubin is researching.
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