Blindly by Claudio Magris (Yale UP, 2012. Trans. from the Italian by Anne Milano Appel)
Claudio Magris, one of the most respected contemporary European intellectuals, is virtually unknown in the US—that’s why the publication of his novel, Blindly, in Anne Milano Appel’s very skilful translation, is a welcome change.
As all the reviewers have observed, it is hard to identify who the narrator in this novel is: is he “Comrade Cippico,” a Communist (not “anti-Communist,” as the book jacket wrongly states!) of Italian origin, who ends up, together with other Italian comrades in Tito’s gulag on the island of Goli Otok? Or is he Jorgen Jorgenson, a nineteenth-century adventurer with a twisted background, who is condemned to forced labor in Australia? As it becomes clear from early on, he is both: Magris creates a speaker of mixed identities and a listener (the man to whom he confesses, who might be a psychiatrist) equally ambiguous.
Blindly is a challenging, intriguing and beautifully written novel, but, above all, it is a novel of ideas—hence the question: what’s the book’s message? A novel needn’t have a message, but this one clearly has one; the problem is that, although the ideas in it are easy to identify, the overall message is not. Since Comrade Cippico has been interned at Dachau before Goli Otok, we can assume that he represents the little man crushed by history from all sides, right and left, Nazis and Communists. But Cippico, who, like his comrades, is in search of “the golden fleece,” doesn’t abandon his search and his belief in communism, even after his horrific tortures in Tito’s gulag, and this is where the novel’s ambiguity becomes problematic. We don’t get the sense the Magris deconstructs this search, but rather, that he presents Cippico simply as a victim of, let’s call them some bad manipulators of history. Also, consider this reflection: “Those who want to keep man enslaved—like the Fascists, the Nazis, the capitalists…” Statements like this made me less enthusiastic than I might have been about this novel. I’m no fan of “the capitalists,” but to list them next to the Nazis, especially after having called Dachau “the apocalypse,” is the kind of rushed talk one expects from a righteous freshman, and not from someone with Magris’s credentials. (I am aware that the narrator isn't Magris, but it seems to me that in some cases, like this one, the author identifies with the character. True, I might be wrong, and this identification may be a false impression).
A technique Magris uses is the contemporary rewriting of Greek myths and characters (the golden fleece is one of them). By inserting them in a contemporary setting he demystifies them and attempts to achieve some kind of universalization of his own characters and events: “the same old Charon going by the name of Daniel O’Leary; the ruse is successful, a facelift that makes him seem much younger…” This technique was very popular before WWII, in particular among French playwrights, such as Giraudoux—but today, this might a bit outdated.
Luckily, I was patient enough to read until the end, and at page 316, I stumbled upon this great passage:
"The fleece suffocates, it brings death to whoever touches it. . . . Every previous possessor, robbed by a subsequent one, is in turn a usurper who appropriated it unlawfully [aha! We are getting to the ‘lesson’!] Give it back to the animal, killed and flayed in homage to the gods always thirsting for blood; only on the sheep’s back was the fleece in its rightful place [Italics mine].”
I confess, I wasn’t expecting this! This is definitely better than Giraudoux!
As all the reviewers have observed, it is hard to identify who the narrator in this novel is: is he “Comrade Cippico,” a Communist (not “anti-Communist,” as the book jacket wrongly states!) of Italian origin, who ends up, together with other Italian comrades in Tito’s gulag on the island of Goli Otok? Or is he Jorgen Jorgenson, a nineteenth-century adventurer with a twisted background, who is condemned to forced labor in Australia? As it becomes clear from early on, he is both: Magris creates a speaker of mixed identities and a listener (the man to whom he confesses, who might be a psychiatrist) equally ambiguous.
Blindly is a challenging, intriguing and beautifully written novel, but, above all, it is a novel of ideas—hence the question: what’s the book’s message? A novel needn’t have a message, but this one clearly has one; the problem is that, although the ideas in it are easy to identify, the overall message is not. Since Comrade Cippico has been interned at Dachau before Goli Otok, we can assume that he represents the little man crushed by history from all sides, right and left, Nazis and Communists. But Cippico, who, like his comrades, is in search of “the golden fleece,” doesn’t abandon his search and his belief in communism, even after his horrific tortures in Tito’s gulag, and this is where the novel’s ambiguity becomes problematic. We don’t get the sense the Magris deconstructs this search, but rather, that he presents Cippico simply as a victim of, let’s call them some bad manipulators of history. Also, consider this reflection: “Those who want to keep man enslaved—like the Fascists, the Nazis, the capitalists…” Statements like this made me less enthusiastic than I might have been about this novel. I’m no fan of “the capitalists,” but to list them next to the Nazis, especially after having called Dachau “the apocalypse,” is the kind of rushed talk one expects from a righteous freshman, and not from someone with Magris’s credentials. (I am aware that the narrator isn't Magris, but it seems to me that in some cases, like this one, the author identifies with the character. True, I might be wrong, and this identification may be a false impression).
A technique Magris uses is the contemporary rewriting of Greek myths and characters (the golden fleece is one of them). By inserting them in a contemporary setting he demystifies them and attempts to achieve some kind of universalization of his own characters and events: “the same old Charon going by the name of Daniel O’Leary; the ruse is successful, a facelift that makes him seem much younger…” This technique was very popular before WWII, in particular among French playwrights, such as Giraudoux—but today, this might a bit outdated.
Luckily, I was patient enough to read until the end, and at page 316, I stumbled upon this great passage:
"The fleece suffocates, it brings death to whoever touches it. . . . Every previous possessor, robbed by a subsequent one, is in turn a usurper who appropriated it unlawfully [aha! We are getting to the ‘lesson’!] Give it back to the animal, killed and flayed in homage to the gods always thirsting for blood; only on the sheep’s back was the fleece in its rightful place [Italics mine].”
I confess, I wasn’t expecting this! This is definitely better than Giraudoux!
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Notes on Books
Book reviews and occasional notes and thoughts on world literature and writers by an American writer of Eastern European origin.
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