Gilgamesh, i miti e 'l'eterno ritorno': intervista con Paola Capriolo, Milan, September 2003

摘要

Since my 1996 interview, recorded in the pages of this journal, Paola Capriolo has continued to be an exceptionally prolific author. Five more novels have appeared since then (bringing her total to ten), in addition to four translations of German texts, and several short stories, not forgetting her regular reviews for the Corriere della sera. My questions at that time focused on the principal themes and motifs recurring in her fiction, such as obsession, solitude, anxiety, music, mirrors, and the prison-like environments. I also addressed issues of responsibility and gender, the fact that her protagonists have no ‘past’ and sometimes no name, the role of the narrator, and the role of the reader. Deriving partly from her fondness for Mann and Rilke, the theme that dominated Capriolo’s writing up to 1996 was the connection – or more accurately, the distinction – between life and art. It found expression in the characters’ search for artistic perfection in music, sculpture, painting, philosophy, or literature, or in an ideal seen as something fixed and eternal. And so Eulalia worshipped the perfect mirror man (‘La grande Eulalia’), Mur and Stiler the female statue (‘La donna di pietra’, Un uomo di carattere), Walter the exotic stranger (Il nocchiero), and Vulpius and Scarpia the perfect gesture or act (La spettatrice, Vissi d’amore). Adele and the prisoner sought the perfect performance (‘Il gigante’, ‘Lettere a Luisa’), Cara and Vulpius repetition and fixity (Il doppio regno, La spettatrice), and Stiler control and order (Un uomo di carattere). To what extent do the post-1996 novels reflect the same concerns?