Presented at Più libri liberi “La Torre d’Amore” by Rachilde, edited by Marina Geat, published by Croce editions. An event, which was also attended by a representative of the French Embassy in Rome, interesting from various points of view.
First of all for the rediscovery of a writer of great value, a forerunner, already at the end of the nineteenth century, of many of the feminist and gender fluid issues that are today the subject of heated reflections.
As the curator, Marina Geat, professor at the Roma Tre University, explained, “through the pseudonym of Rachilde, a writer who throughout her life has sought and found her own space of expression expresses herself with the strength of an intensely poetic writing.” in a world totally shaped by male supremacy, which Rachilde has constantly contested and radically questioned”.
“In addition to the most famous and scandalous of his novels, Monsieur Vénus, which completely overturns sexual roles by representing a woman who becomes a man and a man who becomes a woman to the extreme consequences of a feminicide – adds Marina Geat – a novel like La Tower of Love, with its mythical struggle between the two men locked up in the Ar-Men lighthouse and the raging sea that avenges every outrage committed against women, shows a power of deconstruction that goes even beyond beyond just sexual confrontation, reshaping the definition of the limits between Humanity and Nature”.
Therefore, “authentic Poetry” – concludes Marina Geat, hoping that this publication is only the beginning of a broader revaluation of Rachilde.
A fundamental role in the success of this book can be attributed to the translator, the poet Sara Concato. Present at the PLPL event, Sara Concato explained how difficult and careful her work was, which implied a deep contact with the profound meaning of Rachilde’s writing: “The first difficulty came from the technical language of the Navy, which Rachilde demonstrated that he knew perfectly and that the translator had to undertake to convey in the most exact way. Then there are the gender nuances, essential in this text, which clash with the differences between Italian and French. In particular, the sea is feminine – la mer – in French, with a whole series of consequences that the translator, without betraying the meaning, had to adapt to the new linguistic context. Finally, there is an overall sonority of the text in which the delirium of the wind acts on the sound of the words and sentences. For this reason I had to assert my poetic sensitivity by seeking a satisfactory and, I believe, equally poetic result also in the translated version.”
The reading of some passages from La Torre di Amore, masterfully performed by Gilberto Scaramuzzo, teacher and director of the Mimesis performing arts company of the Roma Tre University, allowed the PLPL audience to fully appreciate the disturbing beauty of this text by Rachilde.
Jeanne Champagne then intervened, a French theater director who was the first to adapt this text for the stage, with a show which, in 1984, caused a sensation for its transgressive courage and the quality of the interpretation: “For me it was about a real love at first sight – explained the director. At the time there was still no talk of “immersive” theater, but Rachilde’s cruel text required precisely this. A complete sensorial involvement of the audience that I achieved with the scenography, the sounds, the lights, even the smells, from which one emerged prey to a sort of dizzying fascination. An unforgettable experience which, for me as a young director, brought about a success that has lasted to this day, with my direction of the Théatre Ecoute”.
Jeanne Champagne then asked the question about the definition of “feminist” often attributed to Rachilde, since this writer sometimes declared the opposite, publishing a provocative little book entitled Pourquoi je ne suis pas féministe in 1928.
The answer came from Reine Prat, present at the event, an important personality in the world of French culture, already an authoritative official of the Ministry of Culture in France for which she drafted two “explosive” reports on the situation of inequality of women in the professions of art and culture and author, in 2021, of the book Exploser le plafond. Précis de feminisme à l’usage du monde de la culture. Reine Prat explained that «beyond the labels of “feminism” which should however be contextualized and which are sometimes reductive, what is certain is that Rachilde was the object, like many women of culture, of the invisibilization action implemented for a long time from official culture, disappearing from literary histories and the catalogs of publishing houses”. Reine Prat therefore also hoped that the publication of Rachilde will continue in France and also in Italy, with authoritative publishing houses and through quality translations such as the one created by Sara Concato. “Passing on texts like these, rich in poetic intensity with a strong impact, is essential to help break stereotypes and break the limits of sensitivity and thought which unfortunately still influence us greatly”.