The Barga Book Club met , with very reduced numbers yet again, in November, to discuss Alessandro Baricco’s book Seta (Silk). It was suggested that everyone try to read the original as it is a short book and the language is not too difficult to follow. It should be added that the translation is not good. Comments were varied. Here are two:
1)I found it empty, devoid of interesting characters, characterization and psychological plausibility. It stuns me that this empty and hollow narrative is supposed to be internationally popular. It could possibly be clumped together with other books written by young authors who seem to want to show their intellect and just lose the plot after the second page. I found the style, plot and characters completely dull, thin, and perfunctory, plodding. The only good thing is, it’s short.
2)In this novella you are left with a deep sense of the people, the places and the time (19th century France and Japan) not as a result of character development and descriptions, but conversely, by the lack of them. Like hypnotic suggestions the author flits from one idea to another giving you just enough information for your imagination to create the world of Herve Joncour , a world which you want to return to. Consequently, this poetic fable still lingers, and like an unresolved evocative dream remains in the subconscious.
Not by chance is the French town in which the protagonist lives, called Lavilledieu, (the town of God)which leads to considerations on the nature of the character Baldabiou (we are told no one knew how old he was), who seems to play a decisive role in the lives of the population and in particular the life of Hervè Joncourt, who says that Baldabiou had rewritten his destiny. Taken at face value the book may appear facile, repetitive and empty, and one person described the book as boring, plodding and thought the characters were flimsy. It was also observed that given the title there was not the sensual feel to the book that one might have expected, as with for example with the book Chocolat, a feast of luscious sensations. However, it is as delicate and as light as silk and, for some, as unsubstantial.
It is written as a fable and rich with symbolism, some of which we did not actually uncover. It is also a love story and perhaps a moral fable. The protagonist seeks an elusive love that is never consummated except by proxy and is willing to risk his life and that of others to follow ‘to the end of the world’ what is in fact an empty dream, an illusion, unaware that he already has what he is searching for: his wife, Helene, who loves him enough to let him go. It is she who writes a lyrical letter to him, which can only be described as a declaration of undying love, and which he believes comes from the unknown woman he loves . Only after Helene’s death will Joncourt realise that it was she who wrote it.
Perhaps the saddest thing is the comment that Joncourt is one of those men who are unable to ‘live’ their life, they merely ‘witness’ it , men who ‘observe their fate as others observe a rainy day.’
So in his search for a ‘love’ that he feels will fulfill him he travels time and time again to Japan, so alien to the French culture, in the latter half of the 19th century, that it embodied the fascination of the unknown. His quest is involved with the silk industry. Silk, the name of the book , that beautiful sensual material woven from the cocoon of the silk worm. In France there is an epidemic that causes the death of all the silkworms; those in Japan are unaffected so the lengthy journey to procure fresh healthy eggs is undertaken by Joncourt. It is while he is there falls in love with a woman with whom he cannot speak and whom he can never know. This over-riding passion will take him there one last time, during a period of war. It will cause the death of an innocent boy and bring disaster , for the return home takes too long and all the eggs die. The ‘affaire’ is over. Joncourt lives the rest of his life feeling that he has lost something precious, and that the most precious thing he had was unappreciated by him.
The moral of the fable ? Perhaps that we should appreciate, enjoy and explore what we have, and not seek for it in worlds that do not belong to us. It is inevitable that only when it is too late does Joncourt realize what he had and what he has really lost.
To quote Proust;
The true journey of discovery is not to seek new lands but to have new eyes.