Novelist of the intimate and insatiable mediator, René de Ceccatty has occupied a unique place for over forty years: a writing of delicacy, never mawkish, and an ethic of clarity that honors both the living and the departed. Recently, he was heard at the Maison de l’Amérique latine. It was during a tribute to Edmund White. This evening allowed literature to stay as close as possible to life.
About the Author
The art of writing "I" without self-serving
De Ceccatty does not confuse confidence with exhibitionism. His narratives from L’Accompagnement to the Aimer pentalogy gain their strength from active modesty: saying just enough, without damaging, illuminating without imposing on the other. This approach is evident in his way of speaking about Edmund White: holding together melancholy and desire, tenderness and frankness, preferring tact over posturing.
An editor, a translator, a mediator
Writer and editor, translator of Italian and Japanese, de Ceccatty has built a lasting bridge between languages: Dante (a Divine Comedy in octosyllables, which earned him the Prix Dante Ravenna 2018), Petrarch, Leopardi, Pasolini, on the Japanese side, translations, often in long-term dialogue, that have refined his own French music. This work as a mediator accompanies his biographies of Elsa Morante, Alberto Moravia, Maria Callas, and his essays that elevate literature to a discipline of truth.
Japan as a return to oneself
In Mes années japonaises, de Ceccatty recounts less an exoticism than a return: the discovery of a rhythm, a restraint, a light. We discover the imprint of a writer for whom translation is not secondary. Indeed, it is a workshop of precision where the sentence, the breath, and the pace are chiseled.
A lesson in composure during the tribute to Edmund White
De Ceccatty reminded us during the tribute to White: writing is holding on. Holding the sentence against confusion, holding reality against noise, holding friendship against time. At 217 boulevard Saint-Germain, I saw him, sober and precise. Indeed, he gave voice to White without monument. Moreover, he did so by opening books and paths, as one lifts a beloved face.
Why read him now
- For an ethic of the intimate in the age of hyper-exposure.
- For biographies that illuminate without confining.
- For the music of a Frenchman made more vivid by Italian and Japanese.
- To learn, with him, the art of being exact and just.
Interview of René de Ceccatty by Pierre-Antoine Tsady
I. Edmund White, the friend and the gaze
Pierre-Antoine Tsady: What precise memory of Edmund White comes to mind, a gesture, a phrase that reveals the man behind the writer?
René de Ceccatty: I remember inviting him to my home on July 12, 1998, with other friends. We heard the cries of the crowd, screams, waves of hubbub in the street. It was the evening of the France-Brazil final. I hate football, which distinguishes me from men in general. Furthermore, it differentiates me from most writers and gays in particular. My indifference exasperated Edmund because he saw that the meal was unfolding in perfect calm. Indeed, everything was happening without popular jubilation or indignation, according to the players’ behavior on the field. In the end, unable to stand it any longer, Edmund asked me if I didn’t have a television. I had one that I watched very rarely. Consequently, I had stored it away and unplugged it in a corner of my room. I reluctantly went to fetch it to turn it on in the living room where we were. And Edmund was thus able to share a moment of imaginary universal community, cutting himself off from our small group. I realized then that Edmund was concerned with integrating into a certain masculine "normality." But he probably wanted to appear more French than a Frenchman. Moreover, he fanatically supported the French team against Brazil. At that time, he no longer lived in France and was only passing through Paris. Furthermore, one could sense that he had a great nostalgia for our country, which was no longer his. And by becoming a football supporter, he displayed a sort of borrowed patriotism. Edmund was someone for whom "attitude" mattered. Generally, a courteous, attentive attitude, but also snobbish or falsely popular. There was always, with him, a sort of social game. But sincere friendship remained deeply rooted in him. Without fearing to appear nonchalant. This also characterizes his autobiography, alternately attentive, warm, loving, and raw. Moreover, it is frank, direct, almost brutal, especially in sexual matters. Here, football was the metaphor of a fantasized sexuality, as it always is. A mix of repression and brutality that I have never liked in team sports. Furthermore, I appreciate it even less in the spectacle of these sports.
P.-A. T.: What has he, in your opinion, shifted in the writing of the self, and what remains of it today?
R. de C.: What may appear as a flaw (nonchalance, brutality, repression) can also become a great quality in literature. Indeed, this is particularly true in the writing of the self. There are a thousand ways to disinhibit oneself to speak, to write about oneself. Edmund struggled for a long time to accept his homosexuality. He declared it openly in his books, with a certain slowness. Indeed, his first books, sophisticated, convoluted, elaborate, but also very elegant, do not address the issue head-on. He is closer to David Garnett or Ronald Firbank or James Purdy than to James Baldwin or John Rechy. But gradually, he took himself as the central subject. With a sort of meticulous mistrust, he showed himself in disturbing aspects. Indeed, some of these aspects were even unflattering. He did so systematically in all his autobiographical or life-inspired work. (Notably in My Lives, The Loves of My Life, Chaos, The Beautiful Room is Empty, The Married Man). I think The Farewell Symphony is his masterpiece. But what we will miss is his generosity, his humor, his curiosity, both personal and literary, and his courage. Unlike Tennessee Williams, Gore Vidal, or Truman Capote, his predecessors in openly gay literature, he succeeded. Indeed, he managed to give an altruistic image of a gay celebrity. He had humor, but not the sour, bitter, or mean humor. Unfortunately, this humor is common among gay intellectuals and in the "camp" spirit. It was a joyful and benevolent humor (even when he made jabs at one or the other).
P.-A. T.: Does the melancholy mixed with desire in White resonate with your own work?
R. de C.: Yes, indeed, there are these components, in him and in me. Even if, in my case, the reserve is much greater. A restraint that could surprise him (as precisely on the evening of the France-Brazil final where France triumphed…) He very kindly supported me, notably for three of my books that he loved very much, L’Accompagnement, Aimer, and Eloge de la bâtarde (about Violette Leduc). He wrote about these books in the French, American, and English press. He even translated a chapter of Aimer. I annoyed him a bit with some of my social reticences. But he admired, I believe, my friendly or loving commitment. It was his translator (Gilles Barbedette) who introduced me to him. Gilles died of AIDS. And the book I dedicated to him (L’Accompagnement) deeply touched Edmund, who was himself infected. He also read my biographies attentively (Moravia, Pasolini, Elsa Morante). He shared my love for Italy, which he knew deeply. But I am much more obsessive than him in my passions. He knew my interest in Japan, and my knowledge of Japanese literature that I translated and still translate. And he thought there was some Kawabata in me. This is not false. Even if now, I feel much closer to Fumiko Hayashi. In any case, it is certain that I am more Japanese than American. And Edmund White remained, very deeply American, despite his love for France and French writers.
II. The intimate, sincerity, appeasement
P.-A. T.: How do you create the sincerity of a page without indiscretion or pose?
R. de C.: "Creating sincerity" does not seem to me a very happy formula, even if it is "without indiscretion or pose." Sincerity does not have a good reputation: it is confused with candor, naivety, if not even stupidity. Cynicism, masks, falsehood are more profitable. Sincerity should command the impulse to write, to publish, to be read. But this sincerity is always accompanied by great fear and great dissatisfaction. It is also accompanied by a feeling of incompleteness and imperfection. I speak for myself, at least… One must overcome the fear of ridicule, of course. But one never escapes it. As for indiscretion, it is unfortunately inevitable when talking about oneself and when talking about others. One implicates others besides oneself. I withdrew one of my books from publication before it even came out. I feared causing suffering to the one I was talking about, a man I had loved passionately. However, he had fled from me. Moreover, I did not want to affect his entourage, his wife, and his children. The book contained a critical, raw, and of course very partial portrait. I backed down. I do not regret it. I had a harmful and unnecessary indiscretion. One can always reproach an author who stages himself for posing. Moreover, he often laments. But one must overlook these inevitable reproaches. They reproached Rousseau, Proust, Violette Leduc. Unique consolation.
P.-A. T.: In an era of hyper-exposure, how do you keep introspection as a force of resistance and not of complacency?
R. de C.: The internet, blogs, networks, and tweets have weakened literature. Indeed, making public is enough to justify literarily any exposure of oneself and others. A great confusion has arisen from what has been called "auto-fiction," an unsatisfactory concept that brings together great works (Hector Bianciotti, Hélène Cixous, Edouard Louis, Gilles Leroy, Fumiko Hayashi, Edith Bruck, Marguerite Duras, Violette Leduc) and insignificant and vulgar works, or demonstrative and sectarian ones. Introspection is an integral part of literature (there are extraordinary pages on introspection, on the use of "I" in a great theoretical essay by Dante, entitled The Banquet, Il convito, just as in the Confessions of Saint Augustine, of course). There, the "I" becomes noble, like the "I" used by the Japanese Nagai Kafû, Natsumé Sôseki, Mori Ôgai…
P.-A. T.: Has a passage from your books ever shifted your perspective on someone (or on yourself)?
R. de C.: By "displaced," do you mean "modified," "altered," "changed"? Yes, of course, it has happened to me, and I have deepened my view of the one I called Hervé. In my pentalogy Aimer, composed of five books, or in L’hôte invisible and Raphaël et Raphaël, I have constantly brought variations. Indeed, these variations were about the love he inspired in me. And I go as far as his death. I am not saying that I have shown myself to be more clear-sighted, more indulgent towards him, less complacent towards myself. But I understood the extent of his own suffering and, in a certain way, his love. When I wrote about Elsa Morante, I delved quite deeply into her psychology (through her novels and short stories that I analyzed and through her life that I reconstructed) to understand flaws that were not immediately apparent to me. But otherwise, generally speaking, I only start writing when I have a more or less "settled" idea. Therefore, there is no revolution in my view of what I want to write.
III. A Renunciation Greta Garbo, the Chosen Erasure
P.-A. T.: What about Garbo touches you deeply: her mastery of her image, or her choice of erasure?
R. de C.: What touched me about her was her way of living, besides her superhuman beauty. Her unclassifiable acting also left a mark on me. Indeed, she lived her status as a Hollywood icon in a unique way. She did not like her films, finding most of them stupid (the silent ones). Moreover, she considered the talkies inept due to their excesses and their overly melodramatic tone. The hysteria she aroused in her admirers was contrary to her phlegmatic and cold temperament. Her homosexuality was in contradiction with the roles she was given, except in Queen Christina. She loved several men. But it was mainly two homosexuals who moved her: Mauritz Stiller, her Swedish discoverer, and Cecil Beaton, the English photographer and costume designer. Even though she had romantic friendships with some of her partners, it was three women who were decisive in her life: the actress Mimi Pollak, the actress and screenwriter Salka Viertel, and the heiress and golf champion Cécile de Rothschild. Hollywood, in any case, was stronger than her. She realized this very quickly. She tried several times to escape, to return to Sweden, and finally, the failure of Two-Faced Woman, which occurred at the time of the declaration of the Second World War or rather the entry of the United States into the war (with Pearl Harbor), prompted Garbo to take a break. She did not actually intend to stop permanently, as she signed contracts, even agreed to do light tests, and after the "renunciation" of filming The Duchess of Langeais, considered other comebacks (mainly with Bergman and Visconti). She was extremely wealthy, having wisely invested her fortune (in real estate, art). She no longer needed to work materially, especially in a profession she never loved. This renunciation indeed became an attempt at erasure. But she did not succeed: the statue was unmovable. Frozen in her myth, she lived her retirement as a new endless film.
P.-A. T.: Does this "renunciation," the aborted Ophuls project, and then the organized withdrawal seem to you a form of freedom from public scrutiny?
R. de C.: No, this freedom, I think, unlike Brigitte Bardot, she never had access to. Bardot did not change her nature by leaving the sets. She had been free in front of the cameras, she remained free at La Madrague. She simply dismissed the troublemakers. She did as she pleased, without worrying about displeasing. For Garbo, it was more complicated. She had never made frankness (à la Bardot) her language. She had always fled. What she wrote to her friends, she did not say to the press, nor even to the producers. She lived her beauty and fame as a kind of ordeal or imposed law. She had the greatest difficulty preserving her privacy, as the countless stolen photos proved.
IV. Translating and Transmitting
P.-A. T.: Your Divine Comedy in octosyllables, without notes: did you first want to render the music, the speed, or the light of the poem?
R. de C.: I mainly wanted to understand the text, to make it fluid for myself. Leave nothing in the shadows. But also, yes, I was looking for an equivalent to the extraordinary rhythmic chant of Dante’s prosody. The text is very rich in references that are complicated by the kinds of "riddles" Dante invented, which, if not illuminated, make the verses as obscure as those of Nostradamus! The octosyllable is the French equivalent of the Italian hendecasyllable (it is in hendecasyllables that Dante translated the French octosyllables of the Roman de la Rose). It is the verse that songwriters still often use in France. So yes, music, light, and speed. All three.
P.-A. T.: What did you receive from Pasolini by translating and accompanying him: an ethic of the real, a language, a courage?
R. de C.: I mainly contemplated a poetic life in the biographical events, poems, novels, essays, and cinema. This poetic commitment had no other restraints than the circumstances in which he lived it and the attacks he provoked or suffered. Courage, yes, it is a quality he did not lack. He had a kind of duty to expose the real. This real, he made it a sacred instance. Even if he called himself "a-religious," he had a very deep sense of the sacred, which he hoped to access through various means (narrative, contemplative, aesthetic, and political). It is a kind of "aesthetic morality," if you will.
P.-A. T.: You also translate from Japanese (with Ryôji Nakamura). How has this detour changed your French as a writer?
R. de C.: I discovered the Japanese language in 1977 when I was appointed as a teacher in Japan. And I began to feverishly read Japanese literature, and quickly to translate it with Ryôji Nakamura (starting with the very difficult texts of Dôgen, a 13th-century Zen monk). Living in Tokyo, as I recounted in Mes années japonaise, I felt immersed in an environment (human, cultural, urban) that suited me, that suited my sensitivity, my way of existing, even though this period of my life was remarkably tumultuous. The translation I practiced (from Italian) since my adolescence became (from Japanese this time) a crucial tool to penetrate this culture, and I experienced it in the company of a friend, for 33 years, including 13 years of living together, and 20 years of separate but still friendly and laborious lives. Then, after learning countless essential techniques from him, I translated alone. This allowed me to continue my work. However, when he is absent, he remains very present, as I often remember the moments shared with him. Indeed, I recall how we discovered together certain words, formulations, or circumlocutions in Japanese. Thus, I think about how to translate them into French according to his advice. I felt like I found a language even closer to my inner language than Italian, which I have practiced, translated, and used a lot (since I am able to write directly in Italian, I did so for years, being a correspondent for the Roman daily Il Messaggero in Paris, and I sometimes give lectures in Italian at Italian universities or respond to interviews, give master classes, in this language). I do not have the same mastery of Japanese. But, to give myself the illusion, when I translate, I now copy the Japanese sentence before translating it. I have done this for five or six books already (by Fumiko Hayashi, Sôseki, and even Kawabata, but I have not published my translations of this author, because he is not in the public domain, and other translations of the books I have re-translated are on the market). I am currently translating a novel by Fumiko Hayashi and poems by Sôseki. I did not experience my practice of translating Japanese as a detour. On the contrary, I experienced it as a return.
P.-A. T.: If you had to offer a young author a guiding phrase (from White, Morante, or Dante), which one and why?
R. de C.: I will allow myself to choose two other authors. From Pasolini, I would choose "Adult? Never." The reason for this choice and what it implies is self-evident. From Moravia, I would choose: "War should be a taboo between nations, as incest is within families." This phrase has never seemed more current, more necessary than now.
