Reading the novel “The Little Horses of Tarquinia” brought about a turning point in the life of Jan, a young philosophy student, as I explained in my previous article: Marguerite Duras's Last Lover. What was it about this novel that so amazed Jan? A book that changes someone's life from end to end always piqued my curiosity. To my great delight, I found it on the shelves of the public library and read it myself. I enjoyed the book very much and was once again captivated by Diras's unique writing talent, although to a much lesser extent than Jan's…
“The Little Horses of Tarquinia”: Historical Background
First of all, I will explain the title: “The Little Horses of Tarquinia.” The Etruscans appeared in Italy in the ninth century BC, from no clear source, and ruled the north and center for about five hundred years. They established cemeteries outside the city walls, which were designed as replicas of the houses and streets in which those buried there lived. The graves also contained the objects that the Etruscans believed would be necessary for them in the afterlife.
Ancient Tarquinia, not far from the Tyrrhenian Sea, was a prosperous Etruscan city. Opposite the city of life stood the city of the dead. Its remains can be seen in an archaeological site consisting of a city of tombs, famous for its magnificent frescoes, and a temple whose pediment was decorated with a relief of a pair of winged horses in matera cotta (“baked earth”). The relief, considered one of the most characteristic exhibits of Etruscan art, is now in the National Archaeological Museum of the city of Tarquinia, housed in a medieval palace. The Little Horses of Tarquinia. A masterpiece that surpasses in its delicacy the Hellenistic art from which it was influenced, according to experts.
Or perhaps the novel refers to a mural of a man riding a horse that adorns the walls of one of the tombs, as the cover of the French book shows? In either case, the title of Duras's book contributed to the publicity of the site that tourist guides sometimes state that you can skip: for history and archaeology enthusiasts only. And now for literature enthusiasts too.
The key to understanding the characters in the novel
This is also the question that haunts the mind of Sarah, Marguerite Duras's double in the novel. Whether to join her husband Jacques at the end of their vacation and visit Tarquinia. This is what is called a “key novel”. Behind the husband of the main character, Sarah, lies Marguerite Duras' second husband, the writer Dionis Mascolo. The couple's little son in the novel, who is not named, is Jean Mascolo, in reality. Duras and Mascolo married in 1947 and separated in 1956. The novel is dedicated to Elio and Ginetta, the second couple in the novel where they are referred to as Lodi and Gina. Behind these characters, one can easily identify a famous couple in the history of Italian culture: the writer Elio Vittorini, whose best-known novel is “Conversation in Sicily”, and his wife Ginetta and Risko. Vittorini and Diras were friends in heart and soul, and thanks to him, who was, among other things, editor-in-chief of the Inaudi publishing house in Turin, Diras was translated into Italian. It should be noted that Diras's style was greatly influenced by Vittorini's.
The love story of Elio Vittorini and Ginetta Verisco is unique. Vittorini's first stories, at the beginning of his career, are published in the magazine Solaria in Florence. The magazine's editor, Gianciro Perta, introduces Vittorini to the Italian literary scene and employs him as the magazine's editorial secretary. Thus Vittorini fulfills his dream of living in Florence. In 1932, during a summer vacation, Perta introduces Elio Vittorini to his then-girlfriend, Ginetta Verisco. Perta may have regretted it later. Elio and Ginetta fall in love at first sight. However, their love is not immediately realized. Ginetta marries Perta. Elio is already married, to Maria Rosa Quasimodo, and has a child. Maria Rosa is the sister of the poet Salvatore Quasimodo, who in 1959, nine years before his death, would win the Nobel Prize for Literature. Two years later, Elio and Maria Rosa would have a second son. It was only in 1943 that Elio and Ginetta consummated their love, leaving their partners and moving to live together in Milan. They would live together until Elio's death in 1963. Three days before his death, Elio officially married his partner. In 1978, upon Ginetta's death, Elio's body was transferred, according to his wishes, from the Monumental Cemetery in Milan to the family tomb where Ginetta is buried in her hometown of Concordia. Regarding Elio and Jinta's love, Diras said that it was intense and frightening, tangible in every moment, felt and complete, absolute, frightening because it forced you to believe in love.
Between love and death
Love and death are the themes of the key novel “The Little Horses of Tarquinia.” A small group of intellectuals, two couples and a single woman, spend a summer vacation in an isolated village in northern Italy, between mountains and sea. This is not the first summer they have spent in this place, which is full of emptiness. There is not much to do in the remote place, at the end of a road, opposite a small boat dock, except go to the beach, read, chat, play bowls, go to dances on both sides of the river that flows into the sea, wait for the wind and the rain, drink bitter Campari. Diana, an experienced single woman, the heaviest drinker in the novel, has voluntarily chosen to live alone. The couples, Sarah and Jacques, Lodi and Gina, quarrel frequently, on various issues. At the end of the novel, Sarah agrees to join the trip to Tarquinia. Gina is not interested in joining the trip to New York with her husband. The issue of infidelity also comes up. Sarah and Jacques have a kind of open marriage that doesn't make them particularly happy. Ludi and Gina, despite the temptations, seem to advocate loyalty. Despite their endless quarrels, their love seems to be strong. The owner of the village grocery store also talks about his tortuous and conflicted relationship with his late wife and the choices he made in his life.
The group of tourists in the book seem to have voluntarily chosen to confine themselves to a closed and unpleasant place, between sea, river and mountain, not at all like a resort club, where anticipation plays an important role. Waiting for the next bath that will bring a little freshness in the heart of the scorching hell, waiting for rain, waiting for some event that will bring redemption, waiting for Godot... The tragedies of human fate receive a poignant expression on this vacation. The heat is intense, a threatening fire breaks out in the mountains, the dances are canceled for a while because of the mourning that has descended on the small resort town. A young sapper was killed when he stepped on a mine, from the last war. His elderly parents gathered the fragments of his body with their ten fingers into a soap box given to them by the grocery store owner. The mother refuses to sign a burial permit. And so the grieving parents sit by the box, at the top of the mountain. Gina visits them regularly and brings them some of her cooking. The local priest tries to influence the mother to sign the consent form and return home with her husband.
The tragic death of the young saboteur serves as a mirror for the fears of little Sarah-Levena. The caregiver does not look after him properly and he may suffer from the heat, drown in the river. She may even beat him. The place reminds Sarah-Marguerite of her childhood days by another, exotic river, the Mekong, a time when she was very close to her beloved younger brother, whose place is now taken by her son. Indeed, for Marguerite Duras, her little brother was like her son and his death was experienced by her as a consequence of the family injustice done to him by the mother and the older brother, who was the favorite son. In the novels “The Lover” and “The Lover from North China,” the author accuses the mother and especially the older brother of direct responsibility for the death of the younger brother, as Cain who murdered Abel. Although her brother died at the age of 27, Duras, in a significant chronological confusion, presents the brother’s death in her book as having occurred during childhood.
The death of Duras's younger brother, Paul, at the age of 27, which she learned about in a telegram, caused her great sorrow. Marguerite had already been in France for ten years, ten years in which she had not seen him, the beloved brother with whom she had spent 17 years. Within three days, Paul had died of pneumonia. Marguerite Duras gave birth to a baby who died at birth, but according to her, she did not recognize her baby, which helped her come to terms with his death. The moment was dramatic, but Marguerite was not attacked by the desire to die that gripped her when she read the inconceivable telegram. In writing the novel “The Little Horses of Tarquinia,” there was a mixture between Indochina and Italy, between past and present, between characters from then and now (such as the brother and son), between imagination and reality. Reading the parallels between the periods, between the different geographical areas, between the characters, the reader asks himself whether Sarah-Marguerite enjoys free choice in her life or whether she is bound to a repeated and reconstructed pattern. The role of the abusive mother from Marguerite Duras' biography is played in the imagination of Sarah the caregiver (the relationship between the caregiver and her employers also hints to some extent at colonialist and indigenous relationships). The exotic lover appears in this novel in the form of a wealthy and relaxed Frenchman, a man of the world, who owns a fast motorboat who joins the group despite his great differences. He is not as intellectual as they are and he does not speak like them. The relationship between the owner of the racing boat and the group is quite ambivalent. Sarah is tempted by the courtship of the man in whose eyes the river is reflected, but it will probably be a short vacation adventure. Are the dances on the other side of the river more successful? It is assumed that it is not because Sarah decides not to come to the meeting that the owner of the race boat has arranged for her at the dance floor that has moved to the river.
And in conclusion…
Among the characters' long dialogues, which repeat themselves somewhat, like ritual formulas, empty of content, emerge essential passages about Sarah's pursuit of an absolute ideal that she sometimes holds onto and sometimes it slips away from her. Banal dialogues, sophisticated philosophies, direct and hurtful words, deliberate ignoring of specific questions, this is also a novel about the power of language and its various uses that the protagonists do or do not make of it. From time to time, the style breaks free from the grammatical framework and establishes its own original structures, which probably contributed to the coining of the term "Dirasian style." An interesting and profound novel for lovers of Diras, which may bore and disappoint those who are far from her or those who have loved her other books.