In Other Words (21 page)

These reactions don't surprise me. A transformation, especially one that is deliberately sought, is often perceived as something disloyal, threatening. I am the daughter of a mother who would never change. In the United States, she continued, as far as possible, to dress, behave, eat, think, live as if she had never left India, Calcutta. The refusal to modify her aspect, her habits, her attitudes was her strategy for resisting American culture, for fighting it, for maintaining her identity. Becoming or even resembling an American would have meant total defeat. When my mother returns to Calcutta, she is proud of the fact that, in spite of almost fifty years away from India, she seems like a woman who never left.

I am the opposite. While the refusal to change was my mother's rebellion, the insistence on transforming myself is mine. “There was a woman … who wanted to be another person”: it's no accident that “The Exchange,” the first story I wrote in Italian, begins with that sentence. All my life I've tried to get away from the void of my origin. It was the void that distressed me, that I was fleeing. That's why I was never happy with myself. Change seemed the only solution. Writing, I discovered a way of hiding in my characters, of escaping myself. Of undergoing one mutation after another.

One could say that the mechanism of metamorphosis is the only element of life that never changes. The journey
of every individual, every country, every historical epoch, of the entire universe and all it contains, is nothing but a series of changes, at times subtle, at times deep, without which we would stand still. The moments of transition, in which something changes, constitute the backbone of all of us. Whether they are a salvation or a loss, they are moments that we tend to remember. They give a structure to our existence. Almost all the rest is oblivion.

I think that the power of art is the power to wake us up, strike us to our depths, change us. What are we searching for when we read a novel, see a film, listen to a piece of music? We are searching, through a work of art, for something that alters us, that we weren't aware of before. We want to transform ourselves, just as Ovid's masterwork transformed me.

In the animal world metamorphosis is expected, natural. It means a biological passage, including various specific phases that lead, ultimately, to complete development. When a caterpillar is transformed into a butterfly it's no longer a caterpillar but a butterfly. The effect of the metamorphosis is radical, permanent. The creature has lost its old form and gained a new, almost unrecognizable one. It has new physical features, a new beauty, new capacities.

A total metamorphosis isn't possible in my case. I can write in Italian, but I can't become an Italian writer. Despite the fact that I'm writing this sentence in Italian, the part of me conditioned to write in English endures. I think of Fernando Pessoa, a writer who invented four versions of himself: four separate, distinct writers, thanks to which he was able to go beyond the confines of himself.
Maybe what I'm doing, by means of Italian, resembles his tactic. It's not possible to become another writer, but it might be possible to become two.

Oddly, I feel more protected when I write in Italian, even though I'm also more exposed. It's true that a new language covers me, but unlike Daphne I have a permeable covering, I'm almost without a skin. And although I don't have a thick bark, I am, in Italian, a tougher, freer writer, who, taking root again, grows in a different way.

B
etween 1948 and 1950, the last two years of his life, Cesare Pavese, as a consultant for the publishing house Einaudi, writes a series of letters to Rosa Calzecchi Onesti, today famous for her innovative translations of the
Iliad
and the
Odyssey
. Through a dense and lively correspondence between Turin and Cesena, Pavese, who didn't know the translator in person, pushes her to translate Homer into a faithful but modern Italian, aiming at a less archaic, plainer language. Reading with close attention, meticulously comparing the translation with the original text, examining all of it with care, Pavese reacts to every book, every line, every image, every word. His letters are full of suggestions, amendments, opinions. He intervenes frankly but always in a respectful, cordial way. Among the proposals in a long list: “I would insist on
bellissima
[very beautiful] rather than
eletta per bellezza
[outstanding in beauty] which gives a needlessly ‘sublime' tone”; “
Assassino
[murderer] seems to me better than
uccisore d'uomini
[killer of men]”; “
Del mare
[of the sea] I would make
marino
[marine].” Sometimes he fully approves a decision that Calzecchi Onesti has made;
regarding the classic Homeric epithet “wine-dark sea,” he writes, “I agree with dark sea. Out with the wine.”

Pavese and Calzecchi Onesti are doing what all the writers in the world do, along with those who are involved with writing: they are trying to find the right word, to choose, finally, the one that is most exact, most incisive. It's a process of sifting, which is exhausting and, at times, exasperating. Writers can't avoid it. The heart of the craft lies there.

Pavese's letters reveal a powerful, intimate knowledge of his own language. As a writer I aim at doing what he does, but I can do it only in English. I can't dive into Italian to the same depths. I can hope to write correctly, choose an alternative word. But I don't have a vocabulary that has been experienced, seasoned since childhood. I can't examine Italian with the same precision. I can't evaluate an Italian text, not even one written by me, from the same perspective.

Yet the impulse to track down the right word remains irrepressible, so even in Italian I try. I check the thesaurus, I leaf through my notebook. I put in a new word, just read that morning in the newspaper. But my first readers often shake their heads, saying simply, “It doesn't sound right.” They say that the word I'd like to use is now considered dated, that it belongs to a register too low or too refined, that it sounds either precious or too colloquial (thus I learned the adjective
aulico,
lofty). They say that the word order isn't natural, that the punctuation doesn't work. Correctness doesn't necessarily enter into it. They say that an Italian would not express himself like that.

I have to listen to those readers, I have to follow their advice. I have to remove the incorrect or wrong word and look for another. I can't defend my choice: one can't contradict a native speaker. I have to accept that in Italian I am partly deaf and blind, and so I'm afraid of being a spurious writer.

I now have quite an extensive vocabulary, but it's an eccentric one. I feel as if I were dressed in an outlandish manner, wearing a long, elegant skirt of another era, a T-shirt, a straw hat, and slippers. That graceless effect, those muddled tones might be the consequence of the distance, from the beginning, between me and Italian: of my having absorbed the language for years from afar, from a variety of sources, before I lived in Italy. For two years I've been learning the language in a comfortable, daily way. But now that I read in Italian my vocabulary is also molded by an amalgam of writers, of various historical epochs, who write in diverse styles. In my notebooks I list words of Manganelli, Verga, Elena Ferrante, Leopardi, without making any distinction. Beckett said that writing in French allowed him to write without style. On the one hand I agree: one could say that my writing in Italian is a type of unsalted bread. It works, but the usual flavor is missing.

On the other hand, I think that it does have a style, or at least a character. The language seems like a waterfall. I don't need every drop, and yet I'm still thirsty. I suspect, therefore, that the problem isn't the absence of style but perhaps an excess, by which I feel overwhelmed. What I lack in Italian is a sharp vision, and so I can't hone a specific style. Furthermore I can't grasp it. If I happen to
formulate a good sentence in Italian, I can't understand exactly why it's good.

I remain, in Italian, an ignorant writer, aware only that I'm in disguise. In fact I feel like a child who sneaks into her mother's closet to try on the high-heeled shoes, an evening dress, some jewelry, a fur coat.

I'm afraid of being caught in the act, of being rebuked, sent to my room. “You have to wait,” my mother would say. “These things are too big for you.” She's right. I can't walk in the shoes. The necklace feels heavy, I stumble on the hem of the dress. Although the fur coat is stylish, I'm sweating inside it.

Like the tide, my vocabulary rises and falls, comes and goes. The words added every day in the notebook are transient. I spend an hour choosing the right one, but then, often, I forget it. Now when I encounter an unfamiliar word in Italian I already know several terms, also in Italian, to express the same thing. For example I recently learned
accantonare
(set aside), already knowing
rinviare
and
sospendere
. I discovered
travalicare
(cross over), already knowing
oltrepassare
and
superare
. I underlined
tracotante
(arrogant), already knowing
arrogante
and
prepotente
. A little while ago I acquired
azzeccato
(well aimed, exact) and
ficcante
(incisive); before, I would have used
adatto, appropriato
.