Born to a Swiss family in Zürich, in 1940, Fleur Jaeggy grew up speaking German, French, and Italian, but it’s in the latter that she writes spare, hypnotically pellucid novels. In September, New Directions released a translation, by Gini Alhadeff, of “The Water Statues,” a novel that Jaeggy first published in 1980. Written in hallucinatory fragments of narration and dialogue, it tells the story of Beeklam—a privileged eccentric prone to rumination and reminiscence, who lives in a ruined villa crowded with drowned objects. Beeklam has only a handful of servants for company, among them his friend Victor. The book is dedicated to the Austrian writer Ingeborg Bachmann, who, until her death, in 1973, at the age of forty-seven, following severe injuries sustained in a fire, was a close friend of Jaeggy’s. In 1989, Jaeggy published the novel “Sweet Days of Discipline,” which won Italy’s prestigious Bagutta Prize and was translated into English by Tim Parks. A silken dagger of a book, it recounts the melancholy demise of Jaeggy’s schoolgirl companion Frédérique. The theme of friendship returned in Jaeggy’s most recent work, “I Am the Brother of XX,” a haunted collection of stories filled with spectral revelations from Bachmann, a lost sibling, and the thirteenth-century mystic Angela da Foligno. (New Directions published Alhadeff’s translation of the book in 2017.)
Jaeggy rarely grants interviews. But, at the end of September, I flew from Paris to meet her at the apartment in the center of Milan that she shared for years with Roberto Calasso, the Florentine novelist, polyglot, and publisher, to whom she was married from 1968 until his death, this past July. Jaeggy, impeccably elegant in crisp whites and royal blues, her fine silver hair clipped back in a signature tortoiseshell barrette—she was a model as a young woman—welcomed me warmly, complimenting the tie I had put on for the occasion. We spoke mostly in French, straying occasionally into German and Italian. I asked Jaeggy about “The Water Statues” and her other books, the life she had lived between languages, and her memories of friends, including Bachmann, Oliver Sacks, Joseph Brodsky, and Giovanni Pozzi, a Swiss-Italian priest and literary scholar. I told Jaeggy how moved I had been by her unusual evocations of relationships that, to me, seemed to be queer; using a period expression that literally translates as “special friendship,” she confirmed the suggestion. She was even more frank on the subject of gender, saying that she never distinguished between masculine and feminine. Jaeggy also expressed her lasting affection for Erich, a swan she once befriended near Berlin.
After a couple of hours had passed, Jaeggy guided me through a procession of dim, high-ceilinged rooms, stacked with colossal floor-to-ceiling bookshelves, and into her study, where books and personal effects circled an enormous desk dominated by a green Hermes Ambassador typewriter. Jaeggy calls the typewriter Hermes, and says that Hermes is the one who writes all her books. Above the typewriter’s keys, Jaeggy had pinned a piece of paper bearing the first stanza of Hölderlin’s “The Farewell.” Our conversation, which I translated, has been edited for length and clarity.
What does literature have to do with revelation?
What do you mean by “revelation”?
I’m thinking of your references to the mystics Angela da Foligno, in “I Am the Brother of XX,” and Anne Catherine Emmerich, in “The Water Statues.”
There’s always an interesting way to read the mystics. As adventure novels, even. And those are two really intelligent women. Often they seem to know much more than we do.
But, for me, it’s very difficult to respond, because I like silence so much.
Perhaps that’s why you prefer the mystics, who barely speak?
Yes, I read them with great pleasure. They’re metaphysical. Intelligent. More than us. We write novels, but they have better-made brains, with a sense of the metaphysical.
But I have the impression that you’re more interested in German mysticism than in German metaphysics or classical German philosophy.
Oh, philosophy is fine.
Less so than mysticism?
The mystics are funnier.
It’s not difficult to be funnier than Hegel, is it?
All the same, one can still read Hegel. From time to time.
Do you see yourself as something of a mystic?
I would like that.
You aspire to it?
Yes, basically.
“The Water Statues,” which bears the dedication “for Ingeborg,” is written partly in dialogue fragments that are somewhat reminiscent of Bachmann’s novel “Malina.” I wonder why you decided to write dialogue.
Who knows? Ingeborg was my lifelong friend. We had a lot of fun together.
This was in Rome?
In Rome, and by the sea, in Poveromo. I followed her to the end of her days. Today, I wish she were still alive.
Did the mixing of narrative with dialogue in “The Water Statues” come from this friendship?
No. I mixed them to avoid boredom, and to shift what I write.
Bachmann once said that great writers always showed the mores of their times through portraits of women. Unlike most of your books, “The Water Statues” has a distinctly male protagonist—Beeklam. How does writing relate to the body?
You’ve spoken of the body, but not of the soul.
Forgive me.
The soul seems to interest no one. But it interests me a lot.
More than the body?
Yes. Really, yes.
Do you think that one’s soul is masculine or feminine, like the body?
I never think of masculine or feminine. Why not neutral?
So much the better. But not everyone thinks like you.
Happily!
Setting aside the figure of Beeklam, you mostly write about women. But if you don’t think in terms of masculine and feminine, perhaps there’s no difference for you?
Not really, no. How difficult interviews are! In life, I’m rather mute. I respond very little. I’m mostly nothing, you see? I write, I continue to write. I have a beautiful typewriter.
Called Hermes, right?
Thank you for saying her name.
Is it far from here?
She’s in the other room. We can go see her. We can go greet her.
If you like, yes, of course.
She’s swamp green.
Does Hermes have a soul?
What a question! First of all, she writes all my books. So perhaps she has a soul somewhere. But this is very hush-hush. In any case, she’s very beautiful. I was afraid she would break, because she’s rather old, but, on the contrary, she still works. Writing by hand is quite difficult for me. If, by chance, I do a drawing, fine; but, otherwise, no. Oh, she’s going to be very happy we’re talking about her! She has her vanity.
But you don’t.
Perhaps a hidden vanity. Who knows?
You seem rather modest.
“Modest” is not a word I like very much, because speaking about oneself is always a kind of effort. And, finally, it’s not very interesting.
When you write, or when Hermes writes—
Thank you, thank you! You’ve understood everything. I hate the word “artist,” but you know I make drawings.
I didn’t know.
Hardly anyone does. There was an exhibition of them.
Here in Milan?
Yes.
What do you draw? Portraits?
No, but I would like to. I don’t know why—as soon as we started talking, I was happy to tell you everything, but I would also like to erase everything I say. I’m giving you a photo of Hermes.
Oh, thank you! How kind!
In general one gives a photo of one’s son, of one’s father. Me, I have Hermes.
When Hermes writes, do you listen to what she writes, to her music, or more to an internal voice?
Hermes is everything. I’ve had her for so long, perhaps more than fifty years. So she has always been with me. Except now I write much less. And, if I write, I write like that—by hand. I don’t like writing by hand; it’s too sincere. I don’t know.
She’s beautiful.
Hermes. It hadn’t occurred to me, but it’s a man’s name.
The Greek god.
Yes, yes, yes. She’s so intelligent, Hermes.
In the first part of “The Water Statues,” Beeklam glimpses a man “dressed in dark clothes with a white band at the neck,” who “was walking in the garden, as though, after having named every single tree, he’d just let go of”—
“Emily Brontë’s arm.”
Exactly. The book has a curious atmosphere, both disaffected and intense—like Melville’s “Bartleby, the Scrivener,” perhaps. Do you think your writing occupies a place in English-language literature?
I don’t think so at all.
Why not?
I don’t know. Perhaps I’ll write you a letter.
You read very well in English translation.
It’s because the translators are so good.
But you have written exquisite essays on Thomas De Quincey and John Keats. I imagine you’re interested in English literature.
Oh, yes. Exactly. I hadn’t thought of it.
Do you prefer to read in English or in Italian?
More in Italian. I try to read in English.
Are there English mystics who interest you?
I don’t know. I’m so tied to the Germans.
Well, English is a Germanic language.
I love the German language. Unfortunately, I don’t speak it very well; I’ve forgotten quite a bit. I spoke it when I was little. It’s a very, very beautiful language. I’ve written something on the German language, I don’t remember where.
It’s here, in “S.S. Proleterka.” If I may—
Thank you! “The tone of my voice changes. I realize that I am speaking German. As if that language had been imposed on me. The language of funerals, of sermons, of the Guilds. I have prepared a tiny glossary of the German words that have marked a destiny. That have changed the course of a life.”
When you reread what you wrote on the German language, what do you think?
What can I think? First of all, I love the German language.
The sound?
Everything. The sound, and the construction.
The syntax?
Yes. And there is Latin behind everything. Then, above all, there is the sound. I like it very much. It’s unfortunate that I don’t speak with anyone in German. Everything is unfortunate. Don’t you think so?
I think you’re right. But the cover photo for “S.S. Proleterka” is beautiful.
I’m wearing a bonnet.
It’s typically Swiss?
It’s not typically Swiss, but it’s typical of a cortège I walked in when I was young.
In Zürich?
Everything was in Zürich. You see, the bonnet is pretty. The dress, too.
How old are you here?
Fifteen, maybe.
And this is your father, I imagine?
He’s wearing the hat of the guild.
He was a lawyer?
Yes. On the Bahnhofstrasse. You speak German, too, obviously.
Do you remember Hölderlin’s “Return to the Homeland”? “You gentle breezes! Heralds of Italy!” Does your language have a homeland? Does it allow a return?
I don’t know how to respond. Wait a moment. Fundamentally, it was Swiss German. Can you also speak Swiss German?
Oh, no, not at all.
But I consider my language to be Italian. It was my maternal language. And then I was in Rome. I always spoke Italian.
Do you have a homeland? Switzerland, perhaps?
I have to think for a moment. In general, I don’t think I have a homeland. But the rare times that I go to Zürich, I have the impression that I know the city very well. Also the lakes. And the swans. I love swans. Do you like swans?
Swans? Very much.
When I was in Germany, there was an adorable swan. His name was Erich.
How did you know?
Because when I called his name, Erich, he came to see me.
Did he speak to you?
Yes.
In German?
In German, I think, and very often we would walk together. I loved him very much. When I left, I suffered, because I didn’t see the swan anymore. And he was wounded. Because there were animals in the woods. But he’s always on my mind, Erich. In thinking of Erich, I already become sad.
I’m sorry.
No, no. It happens to me sometimes. People think that they like their brother, their father, their mother very much. I prefer Erich. I have a photo of Erich. Would you like to see it? This is Erich.
He’s huge!
Yes.
This is in Berlin?
Near Berlin. I suffered when I left, because he was unwell. There were some very nasty animals who bit him.
The German winter is beautiful, isn’t it?
It’s true. I used to take walks in the woods, and it was very beautiful. I was told to be careful because of the wild animals, but, personally, I hoped I would see them. But it never happened.
Do your memories belong more to one language or another? Sometimes to German, sometimes to Italian, sometimes to French?
Sometimes to French, certainly. But, for me, it’s difficult, because when I go to Switzerland—for example, to Zürich—right away, I speak Swiss German. Despite not having been there for many years, I recognize the city extremely well. All the surroundings. And I find it quite beautiful. Then life passes. Faster than one imagines.
When you think of your past, does that please you?
And if I have no past?
Nor a future?
Brief. Very brief.
And the present?
The present is you and me. I’m still here. Still here, for very little time.
When you write, do you write in the present or more in the past?
I don’t think about it.
And yet you use quite precise verb tenses. In Italian, as in French, there are also distinctions in the aspect of the verb that don’t exist in German.
Yes, and I change the verbs a lot. Past, present—a mix. It bores me to always say, “I spent,” “I did.” No: “I do.”
You have a very limpid use of the passato remoto. When you write of the death of Robert Walser, in “Sweet Days of Discipline,” it’s as if he were even closer to you than your memories of your school friends, for example.
It’s true, it’s true!
Is it because you still think about Robert Walser?
It’s because he was, or, he is, quite close to me, Robert Walser. And also because he lived in a house in the Appenzell that I knew quite well. I thought how he lived wasn’t bad, basically.
He was a great walker, no?
Yes, because the surroundings were quite beautiful. And there was never anyone there, so it was even more beautiful. Today, there might be three or four or five people, perhaps. Close to Robert Walser, there were also people who were a bit mad, but who were of an immense kindness. And when I went walking there, I greeted them; they greeted me. By the end, they were old friends. I didn’t understand, because they were in houses that they couldn’t leave. But, basically, they were like us.
Do you feel yourself shut in?
I think nothing of myself. It’s better that I think nothing.
That’s your mystic side, perhaps.
No, I don’t think so. Maybe, but I think it’s better if I don’t think about myself.
And Hermes, is she shut in?
No. She’s there in my room, very happy.
In general, does it take you a long time to write?
I don’t know. I hardly write at all anymore. I have to think back to the time when I wrote. When it happens, it’s like a little story of consumption. I sit there, for hours, before the typewriter. I look outside. I look inside me. And nothing comes out. For months, sometimes even for years. The more time passes, the more I think I have no existence.
At one point in “The Water Statues,” Beeklam realizes that he is as much bound to his servant Victor as Victor is to him. Do readers belong to writers? And are they tied in friendship or in servitude?
I often think there is a bit of servitude in everything. Even in the time that passes when one looks out the window. And, naturally, in memories. The more time passes, the more I think I have nothing to say.
Why do you call the friendship between Victor and Beeklam “pre-Alexandrine”?
Because the friendship is a bit strange. A bit special.
Then it is a special friendship—amitié particulière, to use the old expression?
Yes, it’s true.
It really is that. It’s implied, but . . .
Absolutely.
You suggest it, but it’s not entirely obvious.
I suggest it, as you say. Yes, yes.
Are there certain writers who enchant you? To whom you are bound?
Tabula rasa again. I don’t know. Meister Eckhart. Dickinson.
What do you think of Dickinson?
She pleases me enormously.
Her images?
She is very ancient, Dickinson. She’s someone not only to read but to reread.
“Sweet Days of Discipline” reigns supreme in the literature of special friendship. Every morning, your narrator—full of melancholy desire for her classmate Frédérique—wakes early to walk alone in the “natural grave” of the Appenzell canton. The two girls talk about Baudelaire. Frédérique plays Beethoven. Why does Frédérique reproach you for having “an old woman’s hands”?
It’s not that she reproached me, as far as I remember.
Frédérique?
She liked them.
Elsewhere the narrator tells us, “I had read a few lines of Novalis about suicide and perfection.” You know the passage in “The Novices of Sais” where Novalis predicts a universal degeneration of thought, and a general descent into madness? What do you think is the literature of the end of days?
It’s a literature that accompanies us all the time. One likes Novalis a lot. One would like to be Novalis, perhaps.
A bit of a dangerous desire, no?
All that is dangerous attracts us.
Is literature also dangerous?
No. I think nothing is dangerous, more or less. I have a beautiful sword in a room, and, if one takes a sword, and does this, it’s dangerous. I don’t know what’s dangerous, really. And then, now, near the end of my life, nothing is dangerous anymore. One doesn’t care. Who cares? You don’t think?
Can literature accompany us during these days, this difficult period?
Why do you say this period and not another?
Maybe because I’m young, and I’m not thinking of other periods.
What a marvel to say, “because I’m young”! You’re lucky!
I say it out of modesty.
But it’s still nice to hear the words. Often one doesn’t say what one means. How I would like to say interesting things!
You say them, in any case.
You think so?
I think so.
That almost gives me pleasure.
Almost?
You’re funny. That tie is nice.
It’s out of respect for you.
Ah, thank you very much! I appreciate it very much.
Blanchot says, in “The Writing of the Disaster,” that lasting friendship doesn’t let us choose—doesn’t let us live in the present. Do you agree?
I would say so! Even dogs would say so. Even dogs give us space to live in friendship. Erich, too.
You’ve written quite persistently on friendship. Friendships with Frédérique, with Ingeborg Bachmann, with Joseph Brodsky, with Oliver Sacks.
If I’ve written about them, they’re all more or less things that I’ve lived. Not things that I thought of writing about. When I write about Sacks, for example, I’m looking at a fish in a tank in the restaurant where we were eating with Sacks. I was looking at him before leaving the restaurant; the poor fish—he was going to die soon. And then what, I don’t know. It’s a bit difficult for me to follow a sentence to the end. After all, like this fish who’s going to die, the destiny of humans, of fish, what can I say?
With Brodsky, we took walks along the river. He was never cold. I remember clearly I had a coat and everything, but he was just walking in a shirt, like nothing could touch him. All of that is finished.
Friendship, you mean?
No, life. With Brodsky. It’s good to think of nothing. It’s quite tiring to think of the time that passes. Not for you, but, basically, I have to say, it doesn’t interest me.
Perhaps writing about it interests you more than thinking about it?
Writing doesn’t interest me at all.
The friendship you had with Ingeborg Bachmann and Joseph Brodsky, was it the same friendship you had with Frédérique?
It was a bit different. With Frédérique, it was the years when one is very, very young, and it ended in quite a tragic fashion. And it was very “in the head.” I remember such lovely things with Brodsky; it was like the Baltic.
You know what Mallarmé says, about the winter: “Winter, season of serene art, lucid winter.”
It’s a beautiful verse. And just. Very precise.
Are you interested in French poetry?
Oh, yes. I lived in Paris, too. On the Rue Rambuteau. Do you know it?
I live a few blocks away.
I had a toilet on the fifth floor. I was penniless.
You spent time with your friend Pierre Klossowski there, didn’t you?
Yes, absolutely. I have some of his drawings here. Of Pierre’s.
Not of his brother’s—Balthus, the supposed aristocrat?
That’s true; Balthus pretended he was a prince.
Your old friend Giovanni Pozzi writes, in “Tacet,” that “the book is the dwelling place of silence, the repository of memory, the antidote to the chaos of forgetting, the place where the word lies, sleepless, ready to greet those who tread silently to seek its help.”
Beautiful, beautiful.
How can we hear the silent voice of literature?
When I think of writing with Hermes, she’s not at all silent. She’s a machine. Padre Pozzi wrote beautiful things on silence. I always have silence because I’m very often alone. If one has time to respond, one has already forgotten the question.
It’s better to stay in silence?
Always, always.
Was it Father Pozzi who taught you silence?
He was a very intelligent man. And lighthearted. We got to know each other because—I almost have to laugh—he had read “Sweet Days of Discipline.” For a priest, it’s interesting, too. He asked, “But who wrote this book?” Afterward, he became a great friend of mine. Now he’s no longer here.
Would you like to come see my typewriter?
Yes, thank you!
I have the same red socks as you.
Do you know Knize, in Vienna?
Oh, yes! It’s an excellent store.
They’re from Knize. Thomas Bernhard was a regular there, wasn’t he?
Yes. I remember seeing him in Vienna. He was also very funny.
This is Hermes? How beautiful she is!
She is beautiful, isn’t she? Hermes Ambassador. I’m trying to see if there are still a few words left there, or, if they’ve been rubbed out. They’re very difficult to see. It’s a verse of Hölderlin’s. “Trennen wollten wir uns? wähnten es gut und klug? / Da wirs taten, warum schröckte, wie Mord, die Tat? / Ach! wir kennen uns wenig, / Denn es waltet ein Gott in uns.”
Thank you for showing me Hermes; it’s an honor. You have a little terrace here?
Do you want to see? When I used to live in Switzerland, I had a garden that I loved very much. Afterward, I came to Milan. There’s a great silence here.
Do you always write here?
Always. But I hardly write at all now.
More short stories?
They’re more in my head.
Your library is enormous. So many beautiful books.
They’re my husband’s books. He was also a writer.
Of course—Roberto Calasso.
He was quite well known.
As are you!
Is that true? I’m stupefied. But I hope that people read Calasso.
