Under Arturo's Star: The Cultural Legacies of Elsa Morante

House of Liars: The American Translation of Menzogna e sortilegio

112 Marco Bardini House of Liars The American Translation of Menzogna e sortilegio Elsa Morante was always intensely private about her work and reticent about her own creative process, frequently declaring her disapproval of critical editions. She firmly believed that once a text was released by its author it became an intangible entity, unalterable in time and, above all, inscrutable in its creative development. It was for this reason that in her writings, especially in her later years, Morante went to exhausting and exhaustive lengths to specify the formal and even the typographical aspects of her work, inspired by a genuine terror of the careless and superficial changes introduced by typographers and editors. She insisted, what’s more, on the significance of the editorial elements of her work, writing, for example, to her publisher, Einaudi, that these elements “prendono un valore non solo tipografico, ma anche poetico [. . .], così come io li ho indicati [. . .] rispondono, nel mio racconto, a un determinato ritmo narrativo” (Bardini, Morante 77n67; “take on a value that is not merely typographical but also poetic [. . .] as I have indicated [. . .] within my story they follow a specific narrative rhythm”). This comment is richly indicative of Morante’s fury when confronted with some thoughtless slip. Perhaps most notable of all her efforts to protect the integrity of her work was her disavowal of the American translation of Menzogna e sortilegio, because of the severe distortions she found in it. The episode is remarkable, less for the mediocre standard of the translation as such, than for the reverberations felt for years after by the writer, who continued for many years to recall the incident with heartfelt indignation. After this affair, Morante decided in all her dealings with publishers to include an iron clause prohibiting any arbitrary cut or change in the 113 House of Liars: The American Translation text, a choice that was to cause her some difficulty and delay in sorting out rights to the text abroad. It is worth remembering here that when the prestigious translation of La Storia appeared, published by the First Edition Society, Morante insisted that the bibliographical reference to House of Liars be followed by the title Menzogna e sortilegio—Lies and Witchcraft, signaling the novel as yet to be translated. Given the extremity of the author’s reaction to this translation, it seems worth while to take a closer look at the nature of the betrayal of the original text. Menzogna e sortilegio appeared at the beginning of the summer of 1948, and thanks to the support of Giacomo Debenedetti, in August of the same year it was awarded the Viareggio prize, shared with Aldo Palazzeschi. The weighty novel had some limited success among a small, elite circle of readers, but after a year or two of fading attention, it was more or less forgotten by the wider public. In October 1948, it was suggested that the novel be translated and introduced onto the international market, and Morante, still at the beginning of her career and always keen for commercial success, agreed with considerable enthusiasm. The novel was sold through an intermediary American agency, and the date on the contract is November 19, 1948. According to this initial agreement the novel was to have been translated into American English by Frances Lanza, but it was in fact translated by Adrienne Foulke, with the editorial assistance of Andrew Chiappe, and published in 1951 by Harcourt, Brace & Company, New York, with the title House of Liars. It is not clear who chose this title, and we can only recall that “La casa dei bugiardi” was one of hundreds of possibilities noted by Morante in her manuscripts. But it is equally clear from these same manuscripts that this title, unlike only a handful of others, was never likely to have found favor with the author and been the final, privileged one. By January 27, 1949, as we can see from a letter written by Morante to Giulio Einaudi, the American editors had already declared their intention to cut a large part of the novel: Ti espressi già a Torino il mio punto di vista sulla questione dei tagli, e mi sembra strano che un autore debba difendere 114 Marco Bardini certi diritti così ovvii e naturali. Non so come i suddetti editori stranieri non si rendano conto che la mole e complessit à di un’opera (quando non si tratti di...