Conversation between Dacia Maraini and Rosemary Sullivan

 CONVERSATION BETWEEN DACIA MARAINI AND ROSEMARY SULLIVAN

started on the occasion of their encounter at the Siena-Toronto Centre in 2002,
revised and continued in May 2020

Rosemary Sullivan: Let's begin on common ground, in the realm of poetry, which we both write. The mental architecture of a poem is completely different in kind from that of a work of fiction, isn't it? I think of poems as moving in vertical time. Emily Dickinson said: "A great poem takes the top of your head off." Her poems last about 3 minutes and resonate for an eternity. What's it like for you to write a poem? Is it like music, which you once called "the power to summon beauty and rapture out of nothingness."

Dacia Maraini: Rispondo con una metafora alla prima domanda: Scrivere un romanzo per me è come costruire una casa: si comincia con un disegno che tenga conto del luogo, delle fondamenta, della solidità delle strutture, poi c’è la gettata di cemento, la scelta del tipo di ferro che tenga insieme la struttura. Naturalmente per fare tutto questo bisogna conoscere le leggi della fisica, della matematica, dell’ingegneria. Poi si passerà alle stanze, ai pavimenti, al tetto e alle finestre e quindi tutto il resto, compresi i mobili e i tappeti. Insomma, è un lavoro che ha bisogno di molte conoscenze speciali, di molto lavoro e di tempo. Mentre la poesia per me è come fermarsi in un bel posto e piantare una tenda. C’è anche lì un rapporto con la terra a cui viene inchiodata la tenda, ma la mattina dopo si tolgono i chiodi, si arrotola la tenda e si riparte. Insomma, la poesia è fatta di libertà e contemplazione, mentre il romanzo è molto piu vicino a un rapporto sociale con il mondo. La narrativa la vedo come una linea orizzontale, mentre la poesia è una linea verticale, che scende in profondità.

I am answering the question with a metaphor. Writing a novel for me is like building a house: you begin with a general plan, taking into account the place, the foundations, the solidity of the structure, then there is the concrete casting, the choice of the iron to hold the building together. Obviously for all this it’s necessary to know the laws of physics, mathemathics and engineering. Then you divide the place into rooms, lay the floors, build the roof, place the windows and look after all the rest including furniture and carpets. In short, writing a novel, like building a house, requires specialized knowledge, much work and labour and a lot of time. On the other hand, poetry to me is like coming to a halt and erecting a tent in a beautiful place. Even with poetry there is a connection with the earth, the ground to which the tent is nailed. But in the morning the nails are removed, the canvas is rolled up and off you go again. That is, poetry is made of freedom and contemplation, while the novel is much more similar to a social bond with the world. I see fiction writing represented by a horizontal line, poetry is to me a vertical line which digs deep into the ground.

 

- R.S.: I love the title of your book of poems Traveling in the Gait of a Fox.You said that when you were a child in Sapporo, an old Japanese woman told you about gentle, trembling white foxes that would come out on moonlit nights to sit at the edge of wells. In Japanese fables, the fox is a woman who had undergone enchantment. Is the fox an image of your muse? What do you think we mean when we speak of the muse?

- D: M. Non so bene che significato dare alla parola musa. So che alcune fiabe giapponesi sono state importanti per me. Una di queste, che mi raccontava la mia tata, che io chiamavo Okachan ovvero piccola mamma, parlava di donne trasformate in volpi. Io le vedevo queste volpi che nelle notti di luna piena si sedevano sul bordo di un pozzo aspettando la persona che le avrebbe liberate dall’incantesimo. Beh, forse la poesia ha qualcosa della volpe che siede nelle notti di luna piena sul bordo del pozzo e aspetta che qualcuno si lasci affascinare dall’incantesimo.

I do not know exactly what a muse can be. I do know that certain Japanese fables have been very important for me. My nanny, whom I called Okachan, i.e. little mother, used to tell me the story of women who were turned into foxes. I could imagine those women transformed into foxes in moonlit nights sitting at the edge of wells to wait for the person who would free them from the spell.

 

- R.S.: I wrote a book of poems called The Bone Ladder. I meant that as an image of family, of ancestry. We climb down the bone ladder of our ancestors to become ourselves. I was really thinking of the mystery of genealogy. How much of us is a product of our genetic inheritance and how much is a product of our own desires and choices? Of course, that's a puzzle without an answer. You obviously find ancestral inheritance and how it defines one as a compelling mystery as I do.

- D.M.: Sì, anch’io penso che ci sia qualcosa di misterioso nella nostra identità. Di cosa è fatta? fino a che punto siamo figli delle nostre scelte e fino a che punto siamo condizionati dai nostri antenati? Sono domande importanti perché si mette in discussione il libero arbitrio. Io penso di avere un piccolo cuore illuminista e quindi sono propensa a credere che siamo soprattutto figli della storia e che siamo liberi di decidere di noi. Ma poi mi capita di ritrovare dei vizi o delle virtù che riconosco in altri membri della famiglia e capisco che siamo anche fatti di una memoria biologica.

Yes. I agree: there is something mysterious about our identity. What are we made of? To what extent are we children of our choices and to what extent are we shaped by our own ancestry? These are the questions that undermine the trust in free will. I think I am a child of the Age of Reason at the core, and am therefore inclined to believe that we are essentially the product of history and capable of free choices about ourselves. But then, I happen to encounter in myself vices or vitues that I recognize as having belonged to other members of my family, so I understand that we are also made of biological memory.

 

- R.S.: I remember someone saying: "We begin to chronicle things when we think they have been lost. A new generation knows only rumors." I suppose we spend the first half of our lives running from family and the second half returning?

- D.M.: Sì, credo che sia giusta questa osservazione. Negli anni giovanili si cerca di fuggire dalla famiglia, di farsi una indipendenza non solo economica ma anche culturale e storica. Poi, maturando si scopre che molte cose che avevamo disprezzato dei genitori, in fondo ci appartengono e finiamo per tornare da loro anche se solo virtualmente.

Yes, I believe your observation is correct. When we are young we tend to run away from our family in search of economic independence as well as of freedom from the cultural bonds of our heritage. Then, as we grow older, we discover that much of what we had not liked about our parents as a matter of fact belongs to ourselves and we end up by going back to it, albeit only in a virtual return.

 

- R.S.: I read Bagheria, which is such a loving memoir of a city. You saw Bagheria for the first time when you were a child returning from the prison camp in Japan, didn't you? It's such a free, open book. What led you to write it like that?

- D.M.: Sinceramente non lo so. Credo però che quando scriviamo di cose che appartengono alla nostra memoria emotiva, comunichiamo meglio col lettore. Si possono scrivere tante storie, anche inquietanti, ma se in queste storie lontane da noi non ci mettiamo le nostre emozioni, la lettura risulta opaca.

Honestly I do not know. I believe, though, that writing about what belongs to the memory of our emotions ensures a better connection with our readers. Even the most disquieting stories, if we do not pour our own emotions into them, remain only distant from us, offering only an opaque narration to the reader.

 

- R.S.: Your experience, of course, was unusual. To be imprisoned as a child in a Japanese prisoner of war camp. You wrote in Bagheria that your mother questioned your father's right to take a political decision for which his children would have to pay the consequences. Certainly, you were traumatized by the experience. Once you said it took you until you were 40 to begin to heal. And yet this tragedy may have played a large part in making you a writer. Yes?

- D.M.: Certo, l’esperienza del campo di concentramento è stata terribile e lacerante. Ogni sera mi stupivo di essere ancora viva. La morte era diventata una compagna quotidiana, sia per la fame che ci aveva resi deboli e malati e coperti di parassiti, sia per le bombe che cadevano regolarmente sulla vicina città di Nagasaki. E non ultimo per i terremoti che sconquassavano quel poco di equilibrio che ci era rimasto.

Correct. The concentration camp was a lacerating experience. Every single night I was surprised to be still alive. Death had become our constant companion, while we were consumed by starvation and disease and covered with fowl parasites, under the never-ending threat of the bombs discharged on the city nearby. Not to mention the earthquakes which shattered the little balance left to us.

 

- R.S. I remember one psychologist- I think it was Alice Miller, whose book The Drama of the Gifted Child is one I admire, said that creative women are their father's daughters. Do you agree? Your work is haunted by the father, is it not?

- D.M.: Sì, anche nel passato molte grandi donne sono state sostenute e incoraggiate dai padri. Ma questo è normale in una società patriarcale in cui l’uomo rappresenta l’autorità della legge, il prestigio della cultura, il carico della giustizia. Non a caso siamo tutti dentro una cosmogonia che ha come punta della piramide un padre. Dio è prima di tutto padre. Non ha accanto una moglie, una dea, come succedeva nelle antiche religioni che veneravano la maternità. Dio padre è solo e la sua legge è assoluta. La parola sacra dice: ‘Io sono il tuo Dio, non avrai altro dio fuori di me’. Non parla mai di una campagna, di una divinità femminile a lui vicina. La piramide patriarcale l’abbiamo trasferita in cielo e da lì ha influenzato tutta la nostra vita. Lo dico da laica. Ma penso come diceva Benedetto Croce, che non possiamo non dirci cristiani per cultura e tradizione. Ora qualche volta i padri si innamorano delle figlie di talento e le aiutano a farsi strada. E’ successo a Ipazia, la grande filosofa greca, è successo a Emily Dickinson, è successo in Italia a Gaetana Agnesi, una matematica straordinaria del 700, è successo a Artemisia Gentileschi e a tante altre. Non potevano rivolgersi alle madri perché le madri non contavano, non avevano la possibilità di investire sul talento delle figlie. Anzi spesso le madri erano lì per reprimere la voglia di esprimersi liberamente delle figlie, come un corpo di polizia al servizio dei padri. Non per cattiveria, ma per proteggere le figlie da un destino fuori dalle regole e quindi pericoloso. Il padre disponeva della libertà di rompere le regole, la madre no.

Yes. Even in the past, many important women were supported and encouraged by their fathers, as is normal in a patriarchal society in which man represents the authority of law, the prestige of culture, the burden of justice. We are, in fact, cocooned within a cosmogony where at the top of a the pyramidical order stands the father. God is the Father. He does not have a wife, a female deity next to him, as in more ancient religions which worshipped maternity. God, the Father, stands there alone, his law is absolute. The sacred words go ’I am your God, I shall be your only God.’ There is never a mention of a female companion, a female divinity near him. We raised the patriarcal pyramid up into heaven and from up there it has influenced all our lives. I say this as a lay person. But I believe, as Benedetto Croce maintained, that we all cannot but consider ourselves christian as to culture and tradition. Some times fathers are particularly fond of their talented daughters and help to pave their way towards success. This happened to Ipazia, the great Greek philosopher, to Emily Dickinson, in Italy to Gaetana Agnesi, an extraordinary 18th century mathematician, to Artemisia Gentileschi and many others. Those daughters could not resort to their mothers’ help, because their mothers had no power to invest on their daughters’ talent. Actually their task was to curb their daughters’ desire for freedom of expression. They were a sort of police body in the service of fathers, not because they were wicked, but because it was their duty to prevent their daughters from perilously infringing the rules of good behaviour. The father had the power to let them dispose of those rules. The mother did not.

 

- R.S.: You always knew you would be a writer. Why was that? And how did you start out?

- D.M.: Premetto che nella mia famiglia paterna c’era una tradizione letteraria: una trisnonna inglese, Cornelia Berkelay, scriveva libri per bambini. Mia nonna Yoi Cornelia Crosse Pawloska, scriveva romanzi. Mio padre, pur essendo un antropologo, ha sempre scritto poesie e libri di viaggio. A casa mia i libri erano numerosi, amati, e considerati importanti. Io sono cresciuta sempre con un libro in mano. E la passione per la scrittura è nata presto. Ho cominciato a scrivere racconti per il giornale della scuola a Palermo, quando avevo 13 anni.

First of all, I have to say that in my father’s family there was a literary tradition: my English great-grandmother, Cornelia Berkelay, wrote books for children. My grandmother, Yoi Cornelia Crosse Pawloska, was a novelist. My father, even though an anthropologist, wrote poetry and travel books all the time. In my home, books were many, loved, and considered important. I grew up costantly holding a book in my hands. And I soon developed a passion for writing. I began writing short stories for my school journal in Palermo, when I was 13.

 

- R. S.: The sixties were an extraordinary time, were they not? There is a tendency to belittle that period now, to forget how much they were times full of idealism and possibility. And at least one revolution lasted and changed the way we experience the world. Namely feminism. It takes historical imagination to remember how closed things were to women. What was it like starting out as a woman writer in Italy in those days? The Canadian scene, for reasons of its own, was very welcoming to new women writers like Margaret Atwood.

- D.M.: È vero. Quello che rimpiango di quegli anni è l’entusiasmo per le nuove idee, per i nuovi progetti che erano condivisi da tante persone. Ciò che manca oggi è proprio la condivisione. Io posso avere degli entusiasmi e delle passioni civili, ma se non sono condivisi è come se non ci fossero. Il femminismo è stata una grande rivoluzione pacifica. Da noi ha cambiato tutto il sistema legale che riguarda la famiglia, la violenza contro le donne, la parità sul lavoro. Ma mentre le leggi si possono cambiare con una certa facilità, la mentalità è molto più difficile da modificare. Ci sono ancora molte persone, soprattutto uomini, ma anche donne, che non accettano i cambiamenti, che non vogliono praticare la parità, che si trincerano dietro i propri privilegi e questo crea conflitti e a volte una vera e propria violenza.

That’s true. What I miss nowadays s is the enthusiasm in those years for the new ideas, the new projects that were shared by many people. What is missing nowadays is the capacity to share. We may have enthusiasms and civil passions, but if we can’t share them it’s as if we had’nt any. Feminism has been a great peaceful revolution. It has entirely changed our legal system regarding the family, the violence against women, the equality in working situations.

 

- R.S.: In North America, it's not very easy to be a man or woman of letters. You're either a poet, a novelist, a playwright, or an essayist. You don't get to write in all the genres, as you have done. Why is that possible here in Italy? Or are you a great exception? I remember you once said you don't mix your genres,

D.M.: Purtroppo anche qui è difficile per una donna acquistare autorevolezza. Non parlo di autorità ma di prestigio. Molte donne pubblicano libri di successo e sono apprezzate dai lettori, ma quando si tratta di stabilire i modelli per le prossime generazioni, quando si tratta di compilare liste di valori letterari, le donne scompaiono. Insomma ancora oggi, per il mondo culturale, il prestigio e la stima appartengono all’uomo, che è stato creato da Dio e dalla cui costola, con paradossale incongruenza, è nata la donna. Il linguaggio lo rivela chiaramente. Nella lingua che parliamo e scriviamo il genere maschile domina. Il genere maschile rappresenta l’universalità, quello femminile è un corollario, una appendice.

Unfortunately even here it is not easy for a woman to become influential, and I do not mean to become so by virtue of alleged power, but, rather, thanks to acknowledged prestige. Many women may publish books to literary critics and general readers’ acclaim, but when we get to setting models for the generation to come, women disappear from the picture. In short, even to-day, cultural prestige and recognition pertain to man, who was created by God and from whose rib, with paradoxical inconsistency was generated his female fellow being. This is clearly testified to by our current usage of the written and spoken language, where the masculine gender prevails to represent mankind, while the feminine gender is simply an appendix, a corollary.

 

- R.S.: Voices, which came out in 1994, deals with violence against women. How did you come up with the idea of making your character a radio journalist researching violence against women, because of course, it saves the novel from being polemical and yet it can still examine the statistic of domestic violence. It's a brilliant solution. Do you think women can really believe in male violence before and until it's directed at them? In the list of murdered women the journalist Michela Canova collects, all the victims open their door to their murderers.

- D.M.: Ho lavorato per un certo periodo in una radio privata. Sono stata molto povera da ragazza e ho fatto lavori di ogni genere, dall’assistente fotografa, alla postina, dall’aiuto giornalista, all’archivista. Ho anche fatto doppiaggio per il cinema, e condotto un programma per la radio. Da lì mi è venuta l’idea della raccoglitrice di voci.In quanto alle vittime che aprono la porta ai loro carnefici, succede purtroppo spesso. Infatti oggi la maggior parte delle violenze alle donne avvengono in famiglia, come rivela la cronaca. Le donne aprono la porta a chi conoscono e di cui si fidano. Non credono possibile che gli uomini che hanno amato e che credono di amare ancora possano ucciderle. Ma evidentemente non si rendono conto come un uomo che identifica la sua virilità col possesso, se sente minacciato questo possesso, può perdere la testa e trasformarsi in un assassino.

For a certain period I worked for a private radio station. As a young person I was very poor, doing different jobs of any kind, from assistant photographer, to deliverer of the post, from assistant journalist to archivist. I have also done film dubbing and conducted a radio program. Hence the idea came to me of a gatherer of voices. As to the victims who open the door to their torturers, this is something that happens frequently, alas. As a matter of fact, nowadays, as is reported in the press, most of the violence perpretated against women happens within the family. Women open the door to those whom they know and trust. They cannot believe they risk being killed by the men whom they have loved or whom they still believe to love. Obviously they are not aware of the fact that a man who identifies his virility with possessing may lose his head and become an assassin when he feels that his power to possess is undermined.

 

- R.S.: In your novels, all your women characters are desperately defending their own freedom. Were romantic relationships hard then, establishing a power balance? You lived with Alberto Moravia for 18 years. Was it hard living with another writer? Was there competition for material?

- D.M.: Non avrei potuto vivere 18 anni con Alberto se non fosse stato un compagno ideale: curioso, socievole, rispettoso della mia libertà. Non ho mai sentito competizione nei suoi riguardi. Ognuno aveva la consapevolezza del suo stile e non pensava di influenzare l’altro. Lui poi era curioso dei giovani, non si poneva mai come maestro ma al contrario voleva imparare dai giovani, dalle donne. L’ho amato per questo suo carattere libero e gentile. Non è facile trovare un uomo così poco possessivo e così poco presuntuoso.

I could not have lived 18 years with Alberto, if he had not been an ideal companion: inquisitive, sociable, respectful of my freedom. I never felt in competition with him. We were aware of our own individual style and never dreamed of influencing each other. Besides, he was eager to understand the young, he wanted to learn from them, from women. I have loved him for his gentle and free character. It is not easy to find a man less overpowering, less conceited.

 

- R.S.: I think of your moving novel The Violin as a kind of elegy in retrospect for a lover lost. The novel is structured as a correspondence written by the narrator Vera to the niece of her old lover. Where did that idea come from? It feels as if the narrator is writing to her child self. Is there a connection between a lost love and a lost youth? I know that's one that Doris Lessing made in Love, Again. The love and pain in obsession sends us careening back to those moments of longing and loss in childhood.

- D.M.: Sì, credo tu abbia ragione, Rosemary, la bambina a cui mi rivolgo in parte sono io nella mia infanzia. Penso, come suggerisci, che abbia ragione Doris Lessing, una scrittrice che amo e ho letto e riletto. Spero che la damnatio memoriae non tocchi anche lei. La storia è piena di donne di talento che vengono semplicemente dimenticate dalla storiografia androcentrica. Ricordiamo che la storia la raccontano sempre i vincitori e in questo mondo patriarcale sono i padri che raccontano la storia delle figlie. Per questo è importante che le donne si esprimano in proprio, e raccontino il proprio punto di vista. Adesso, dopo tanti secoli di repressione, lo fanno, ma come ho detto, quando muoiono, si fa in modo di dimenticarle.

Yes, I think you are right, Rosemary: the little girl I write to is partly my self in childhood. I believe in the connection that, as you say, is highlighted by Doris Lessing, a writer I love and keep reading ever and ever again. I hope that the ‘damnatio memoriae’ shall not befall on her too.

 

- R.S.: In The Violin, a love story occurs between a woman of 45 and a man of 25 and lasts for 9 years. The character says she has not managed to cure herself of her separation from Edoardo, the child's uncle. Yet it was she, following her rational intelligence, who wanted the separation. And the narrator describes Eduardo as the kind of man who, once one has been close to him, "it is impossible not to remain in his orbit like a satellite circling around an explicit emotional need one cannot run away from, any more than one can avoid the law of gravity." It sounds awful-to be tied to something or someone one can never have. Don't you think the myth of romantic love is a dangerous myth? It makes a woman define herself in terms of love only; it turns love for one man into a life solution.

- D.M: Sì, penso che sia un pericolo. Ma come la storia insegna, noi donne siamo state forgiate dal bisogno d’amore. Investiamo soprattutto sull’amore perché fino a poco tempo fa tutte o quasi tutte le professioni ci erano proibite. E la storia non si supera negandola ma affrontandola e indagandola.

Yes, I think it is a danger, But as we have learned from history, we women have been molded by the need to love. We mainly invest on love because up until very recently we were excluded from all, or at least many, professions. And the evidence of history cannot be changed by denial, but by facing and investigating it.

 

- R.S.: I love the explanation given by Aristophanes, the character in Plato’s Symposium, for the reason human beings love as they do. Apparently, the original human beings were shaped like eggs. The gods, fearing their power, split the eggs in two so that humans are eternally seeking their matching other half. In my meditation on Romantic Obsession: Labyrinth of Desire I ask whether it is another we are seeking or the missing part of ourselves. What do you think?

- D.M.: Anch’io cito spesso la bella favola di Platone che parla degli uomini in forma di palla che vengono divisi perché litigavano sempre e da allora cercano l’altra metà. È una affascinante metafora. È certamente vero che noi cerchiamo l’amore in qualcuno che contenga in sé qualcosa del nostro passato. Ma l’amore è talmente misterioso, talmente imprevedibile che sono piu propensa a dare ragione a Shakespeare quando fa innamorare Titania di un asino. Quante donne si innamorano dell’uomo sbagliato, che magari le strangola. Le donne, escluse storicamente dall’apprendimento, dal governo delle città, dalla scienza e dagli studi, sono state costrette a puntare tutte le loro energie sull’amore e sull’accudimento. Non si tratta di biologia, ma di storia, come ho già detto.

I too often quote Plato’s beautiful fable about humans shaped like eggs which were split in two because they fought against each other, and ever since they have been seeking for the lost part. It is a fascinating metaphor. It is certainly true that we search for love in someone who may contain something of our past. But love is so misterious, so unpredictable that I would rather agree with Shakespeare when he makes Tatiana fall in love with a donkey. How many women fall in love with the wrong man to possibly end up by being strangled by him! Women, traditionally excluded from learning, from the government of cities, from science and research, are obliged to direct all their efforts towards the practice of love and caring. It is not biology, it is history, as I have already pointed out.

 

- R.S.: I'd like to talk about Searching for Emma. Flaubert famously said: “Madame Bovary, C'est Moi," but you say the clue to Emma is that Flaubert secretly hates his character. You suggest Flaubert is the most autobiographical of writers. Not only is Emma based on his mistress Louise Colet, but also he sustained the relationship much longer than he wanted so that he could raid her conversation, ideas, and even letters.

- D. M.: Sì, è quello che ho scritto. Analizzando soprattutto le lettere di Flaubert, che sono migliaia, credo di avere capito queste parti certo poco nobili dell’animo dello scrittore. Ma nello stesso tempo mi viene da perdonarlo perché la sua prosa è meravigliosa e il suo modo di raccontare dona grandi emozioni. Stranamente lo scrittore ha pubblicato pochi romanzi, ma ha scritto tantissime lettere. E dalle lettere si capiscono tante cose del suo carattere contraddittorio.

Yes, I wrote that. By analyzing Flaubert’s letters, of which there are thousands, I think I became aware of these ignoble aspects of his character. But in a way I could forgive him because his prose is wonderful and his way of telling gives us intense emotion. Strangely enough, he published quite few novels and so many letters. And reading his letters we get some explanation for his contradictions.

 

- R.S.: Really, Flaubert preferred the company and friendship of men and was contemptuous of women: You quote him as saying: “Women, whose hearts are too ardent and whose minds exclusive, do not understand this religion of beauty, beauty without feeling." Do you know what he meant?

-D.M.: Se andiamo a guardare da vicino i pensieri dei grandi scrittori del passato credo che troveremo in tutti molte idee che oggi consideriamo inaccettabili. Il fatto è che lo scrittore vive nel suo tempo, condivide le idee dei suoi contemporanei. Le idee di Flaubert sulle donne sono razziste, ciò non toglie che fosse un grande scrittore. Bisogna sapere distinguere. Se penso che Celine ha scritto un odioso libro razzista contro gli ebrei, rimango perplessa, ma se leggo il suo bellissimo libro Voyage au bout de la nuit o anche il romanzo Mort a credit non posso che rimanere affascinata e ammirata. Per non parlare dei Padri della Chiesa, come Sant’Agostino, o San Paolo che scrivono cose atroci sulla inferiorità delle donne ma poi dicono anche cose sagge e profonde sull’essere umano.

If we look closely at the thoughts of the writers of the past, we’ll find very few of those ideas acceptable. The fact is that writers live in their own time, they share the views of their contemporary fellows. Flaubert’s views about women are racist views, which does not deny the fact that he was a great writer. We must be able to distinguish the writer from the man. If I consider that Celine wrote a hideous book against the Jews, I am perplexed. But if I read his very beautiful book Voyage au bout de la nuit, or his novel Mort a credit, I cannot but remain fascinated and admire him. Not to speak about the Fathers of the Church, like Saint Augustine, or Saint Paul who wrote atrocious things about women’s inferiority and then said wise and profound things about human beings.

 

-R.S.: Flaubert described himself: "I tell you, the skin of my heart is like my hands, calloused." Don't you think there is some truth in Flaubert's analysis of how women love? He says when a man loves a servant girl, he knows that this is stupid, but that won't prevent him from enjoying her. But when a woman makes love with any old clod, she transforms him into a misunderstood genius, one of the chosen ones." Was he right, that by and large, women and men love differently?

- D: M.: Si penso che ci sia del vero nelle parole di Flaubert, ma non la ritengo una differenza dovuta alla biologia. Ogni differenziazione di tipo fisiologico porta al razzismo. Le differenze sono tutte storiche. Le donne sono state costrette storicamente a sublimare il loro egoismo e la loro aggressività e secondo me questa sublimazione è una cosa positiva da conservare, anche se deriva da secoli di schiavitù psicologica. Semmai bisognerebbe insegnare agli uomini a sublimare di più. Anche per quanto riguarda l’amore le donne storicamente sono state costrette a investire più sui sentimenti che sul lavoro o sulle professioni che erano loro proibite. E’ chiaro che nel tempo abbiano introiettato questa capacità, che, ripeto, per me è una grande qualità femminile. Ma, insisto, non dovuta alla biologia ma a una storia vissuta in modo diverso.

I think there is some truth in Flaubert’s words, but according to me the difference in the way women and men love is not due to a biologocal cause. All differiantiations of a phisiological order lead to racism. Differences develop in the course of history. Women have been historically obliged to sublimate their egotism and aggressiveness, but according to me this is something to value and guard. In fact even men should learn a better attitude to sublimation. As to love, women have been historically obliged to invest more in feelings than in jobs and professions, from which they were excluded. Clearly, they have ended up by absorbing inwardly this need, which, I would like to stress again, I consider one of women’s greatest qualities, which is not due to their biological characteristics but to their different ways of life.

 

- R.S.: I thought it poignant that you felt confused when you first read Madame Bovary at age 16. She didn't seem to be a model. And yet women see her as a heroine, fighting against the banality of her life. You say women readers are desperate to find that rare thing, a strong female character with a visible will to action. Do you think this is still hard to find?

 - D.M.: Il coraggio è un mito per le donne. Ne hanno avuto tanto nei secoli, ma non è stato riconosciuto. Il coraggio era considerato per le donne un dovere e un destino del suo sesso.

Courage has been a myth for women. They have had a lot of it in the course of the centuries. Courage for them has always been identified with the duty and destiny of their gender.

 

 - R.S: Why in the 19th century from Mme Bovary in 1857 for the next 70 years do we get a series of female adulteresses, insubordinate wives, like Emma in fiction? Hedda Gabler, D.H. Lawrence's Ursula, Tolstoy's Anna. What male fantasy is she? Tolstoy's Anna was much more banal in the first draft, but in the second, Tolstoy was seduced by his own character and made her memorable. Do you think the writers were secretly recognizing that female emancipation would begin with women's discovery and exploration of sexual pleasure?

- D.M.: In una società repressiva e violenta nei riguardi delle donne, l’adulterio diventa un atto di libertà- Naturalmente di solito lo paga caro. Ed è quello che succede a Emma Bovary. Ricordiamo che Flaubert è stato accusato di avere esaltato l’adulterio. Ma lui capisce, per via di scrittura e di identificazione, che l’adulterio, per una sua contemporanea, era il solo modo di esprimere la voglia di libertà e per quanto alla fine condanni Emma a una morte atroce, mentre racconta i suoi tradimenti è con lei e non la condanna. Questo ha fatto sì che le lettrici vedessero in Emma una donna libera, anche se il suo autore la descrive come una provinciale che si nutre di stupidi miti esotici e di stupidi amori fasulli.

In a society violently repressive of women, adultery is an act of freedom- which is obviouly paid for dearly. This is the case of Emma Bovary. We must remember that Flaubert was accused of having highly praised adultery. The fact is that, via his narrating and identifying with the situation, he gets to understand that in his own age adultery was the only possibility for a woman to express her need for freedom, and even though he condemns Emma to a final atrocious death, he is at her side while he narrates her betrayals, and he does not blame her. Thus women readers have seen Emma as an example of female freedom, in spite of her being depicted by her narrator as a provincial woman nourishing herself on silly exotic myths and silly ephemeral love affairs.

 

- R.S.: There's a marvellous moment where you say Emma, trained within a culture of systemic mystification, always wants something else, something distant, unreachable, and fictitious. What did you mean by systemic mystification?

- D.M.: Per mistificazione intendo i falsi miti che le attribuisce Flaubert, l’egoismo di fronte alla figlia, al marito, agli amanti. Insomma, la inquietudine di Emma, che in termini esistenziali esprime qualcosa di profondo e di serio, viene continuamente e sarcasticamente criticato da Gustave che in realtà sta descrivendo con desiderio ma anche con disprezzo la sua amante Louise Colet.

By mystification I mean the fake myths Flaubert attributes to her- her egoistical behaviour regarding her daughter, her husband, her lovers. In a way, Emma’s disquiet which, in existential terms, is something seriously profound, is blamed with continuous sarcasm by Gustave who, in fact, is describing with angst and also with contempt his lover Louise Colet.

 

- R.S.: Flaubert kept a journal that he called The Dictionary of Received Ideas.What kind of journal do you keep?

- D.M.: Ho tenuto per tanti anni un diario. Ma ora non lo faccio più. Mi prendeva troppo tempo.

I kept a diary for many years. I do not keep one any longer. It took too much of my time.

 

 R.S.: What you're really writing about in Searching For Emma is the complex and not easily unravelled autobiographical strain in fiction. How does the autobiographical impulse function in your work?

D.M.: Non credo che si possa sempre parlare di sé. Lo scrittore ha bisogno di altre storie da raccontare. Ma naturalmente c’è sempre qualcosa delle sue esperienze e dei suoi sentimenti in quello che scrive.

I do not think writers should always write about themselves. Writers need other stories than their own to tell. But naturally there is always something of their experiences and feelings in what they write.

 

R.S.: Your masterpiece is, in the opinion of many, The Silent Duchess. She was actually an ancestor of yours? Did you begin by identifying with her silence out of the trauma you experienced as a child?

D.M.: C’è troppa distanza fra una donna del 18° secolo e una del 20° secolo. Però naturalmente, come ho detto prima, c’è qualcosa di me in Marianna.

The distance is too great between an 18th century woman and a woman of the 20th century. However, as I have already suggested, there is something of me in Marianna.

 

- R.S.: What did you love most about writing this novel?

- D.M.: L’immersione in una epoca diversa, lontana e affascinante. Ci ho messo 5 anni per entrare davvero in quel mondo. Cinque anni di ricerche, di indagini, di studi ed è questa immersione in un secolo diverso, fra gente così lontana che mi ha dato piu emozioni. E infine anche l’immedesimazione in una donna sordo muta. Non era facile. Solo la volta in cui ho capito che se qualcuno bussava alla porta, io non l’avrei sentita, ho capito di essermi calata nel personaggio. Una sorda, quando bussano alla porta, non può chiedere “chi è”? non può decidere se aprire o meno la porta perché non sa chi c’è dietro quell’uscio. Quando ho sentito scrivendo che neanch’io sentivo chi c’era dietro la porta, ho capito che l’identificazione era compiuta.

The immersion into a different epoch, distant and far away. I took five years to really enter that world. Five years of research, investigations, study. And it is this immersion into a different century among people so distant from us that gave me greater emotional intensity. And also the identification with a deaf-mute woman. It was not easy. Only after realizing that, if someone knocked at the door, I wouldn’t have heard anything, I felt I had got deep into that character. When someone knocks at the door, a deaf-mute cannot ask “Who is it?”, she cannot decide whether to open or not the door, because she does not not know who is behind it. When I felt that while writing, I did not even heard who was behind the door, I understood that the identification was complete.

 

R.S.: How did you go about researching it, since you have everything, down to the chamber pots, precisely right? It took five years to write. How much of that was research?

D.M.: Mentre scrivevo continuavo a cercare. Sui libri di storia prima di tutto, ma poi ho molto lavorato sui diari dell’epoca, sui testamenti, sulle lettere. I dettagli della vita di tutti i giorni non stanno nei libri di storia. Uno storico non ti dice come si vestivano le persone in una data epoca, che musica ascoltavano, che libri leggevano, che scarpe portavano.

While I was writing, I continued my research. First of all in history books. I have also researched the diaries, the letters, the testaments of the time, because the details of everyday life are not to be found in history books. A historian does not tell you how in a given epoch people dressed, what music they listened to, what books they read what shoes they wore.

 

R.S.: Did you work on the film treatment and were you pleased with it?

D.M.: Non ho lavorato sulla sceneggiatura del film. Ho dato una mano quando si è trattato dei dialoghi. Per fortuna Faenza è una persona intelligente e attenta. Mi sono trovata bene con lui e con sua moglie Elda che era la produttrice del film. A me è piaciuto. Penso che sia una opera ben fatta e ben recitata.

I did not work at the making of the film. I only helped with the characters’dialogues. Fortunately Faenza is an intelligent and careful person. I got along well with him and with his wife, the producer of the film, which I liked. I think it is well made and well performed)

(Translation into English of Dacia Maraini’s answers by Laura Ferri)

Dacia Maraini, Caterina Ricciardi, Rosemary Sullivan at the Siena-Toronto Centre (May 9h, 2002)