1 month ago
20
What if I told you that a surrealist fever dream of a novel could also be the most profoundly autobiographical piece of fiction I've ever encountered?
Written by Greek novelist Margarita Karapanou at the age of 28, Kassandra and The Wolf (originally published in English in 1974, translated by Nikos C. Germanacos, then in French, translated by the author herself, and finally in Greek in its original form in 1976) consists of several short, fragmentary chapters each one under its own name with one thing in common: their narrator.
Upon first reading, Kassandra, the narrator of the novel seems to be an 8-year-old girl, and this is certainly the case. However, if paying close attention one would realize the intevererence of a handful of chapters that find Kassandra as an adult, locked up in a mental institution or being in an abortion clinic. Nevertheless, the 8-year-old version of herself doesn't lead an easier life at all: From living with her grandparents' due to both her mother and father being almost permanently absent (guests one could say) in her life for different reasons each, to being sexually abused by the family's butler on regural basis. These cirmustances, many more, and the emotional impact they have on Kassandra are delivered by an extroardinary voice of child through what feels like an almost perpetual disjointed interior monologue that acrobats between fantasy, reality, and psychological representation of external reality from its lens. While Karapanou's novel, the reader witnesses the degree to which emotions, images, and the entirety of a child's soul can be distorted, to its full extent.
As if all that wasn't already extremely upsetting, some research that I did points that at least a good deal of it doesn't exclusively belong to the realm of fiction. In the novel, Kassandra is named after her mother. So was Karapanou. Karapanou's mother, Margarita Liberaki was also a writer (a very succesful one I read). After Karapanou's birth she divorced her husbund (Karapanou's father) and moved to Paris, becoming highly invloved in the literary circles, writing, leaving her daughter behind to be raised by her grandmother. While it wasn't as if he didn't want to have anything to do with her, Karapanou's father hardly ever visited her. All that feels concernignly familiar to those who have read the novel. Does that degree of truthfulness imply that the rest of it is as well. I don't expect all autofiction to be as straightforward as say Annie Ernaux or Rachel Kusk (whom I both adore). In fact her chaotic style is the reason why I adore Karapanou as much as I do. But this uncertainty is perhaps the most torturing aspect of the novel.
Karapanou went on to win the French Prize for the best foreign novel, a prize whose list of winners of the years include writers such as Gabriel García Márquez, Salman Rushdie and John Updike among others with her sophomore novel, the incredible the Sleepwalker. Her third novel, Rien Ne Va Plus is another highly autobiographical read, but writing two lines wouldn't do it justice at all. It deserves a post of its own. Unfortunately, the rest of Karapanou's bibliography has not been translated in English. However, I know quite a bit of Greek myself so I will perhaps attempt to read them from the prototype (that if I can find them). She passed away in 2008. According to the sources I consulted about her life, she's the first and still to this day one of the only Greek writers that wrote and spoke honestly about bipolar disorder, with which she lived for most of her life.
The verdict: The dedication at the beginning of the book: "To my mother, Margarita Liberaki with love."
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