The importance of the voice in Alessandro Baricco's novels «Silk» and «Sea-Ocean»

Kuchina Natalia Postgraduate student, The Maxim Gorky Literature Institute 123104, Russia, Moscow, blvd. Tverskaya street, 25 nataliek@mail.ru Other publications by this author

Alessandro Baricco is not only one of the most famous modern Italian writers, playwright, and essayist. He began his career as a philosopher, pianist, columnist and presenter, and an advertising creator. His literary works are permeated with interrelations with other types of art – music, theatrical productions, television ^[8]. The author's style of Baricco is due to his extensive activities that go beyond literature. Baricco's novels are distinguished by the presence of a playful beginning, careful work with form, linguistic minimalism combined with conceptually complex content ^[7]. E. Dzinato noted that the compactness and "miniaturization" of the narrative makes his books look like television series ^[9]. In 1994, Baricco wrote a manifesto in which he formulated the most important principle of his writing, and introduced it to the public in his author's program "Pickwick, del leggere e dello scrivere" ("Pickwick, about reading and writing books") on the Rai Tre TV channel: "... to tell not only through written words, but also through the images of cinema, musical notes, theatrical dialogues" ^[4].

Umberto Eco wrote in the poetics of the expressive form that the writer "makes expressive the very way the characters speak and how things appear" ^{[3, pp.171-189]}. The writer compares them to a film director, whose editing sets the character's way of thinking. Alessandro Baricco directs, and not only writes his novels, he gives volume, visuals and sound to the narrative.

In the novels of Alessandro Baricco "Silk" (Baricco, Alessandro, Seta, Milano, Rizzoli, 1996 ^[6]) and "Sea-Ocean" (Baricco, Alessandro, Oceano mare, Milano, Rizzoli, 1993 ^[5]), the human voice has a special role. This is especially noticeable when comparing the original text and the translation. For comparison with the original, the translations of Gennady Kiselyov, published in 2017, are considered (the Russian translation is quoted from the publication: A. Barikko, Silk and other Stories, Moscow, Inostranko, ABC-Atticus, 2017).

The novel "Silk" Seta, published in Italy by the Ricolli publishing house in 1996, is a short novel consisting of 65 chapters of various sizes, its form is fragmentary. Short nominative sentences alternate with long, complex sentences. The graphic nature and non-standard layout of the text on the page indicate the importance of silence and pauses, in general, prose often approaches poetry. Barikko imitates the style of measured oriental storytelling, using a minimum number of words to express the main idea of each episode. This corresponds to small chapters or sentence-paragraphs.

The story takes place in the second half of the nineteenth century, its main character is a young merchant, Frenchman Herve Joncourt, who goes to distant Japan to buy silk. Herve is married to Helene, who is faithful and loving. However, in Japan, he meets a mysterious "woman with a girl's face", whom he falls in love with. Hervé does not know who she is, presumably she is the concubine of the powerful feudal lord Hara Kay, from whom he buys silkworm eggs. Nothing happens between Herve and the Japanese woman other than exchanging glances. A few years after his last trip to Japan, Herve receives a beautiful erotic message in Japanese, which he believes is from his unfulfilled love. In fact, it was written by Helene, and translated by a Japanese woman living in France, Madame Blanche. The letter restores Hervé's peace of mind, he finds happiness with Helene again, and only after her death does he find out that she wrote the letter.

The novel "Sea-Ocean" "Oceano mare", published in Italy by the publishing house "Rizzolli" in 1993, is a trilogy. It is characterized by a non-linear narrative, a large number of spontaneous dialogues, and an abundance of graphically highlighted text fragments. The First Book outlines the reasons why the guests arrived at the Almayer tavern; the Second Book, "The Belly of the Sea," tells about the tragic events after the shipwreck and the people trapped on rafts in the open sea; the narrative is the internal monologues of two survivors — seaman Thomas (who takes the name of Adams) and Dr. Savigny. The third Book, "Return Songs" It resumes the thread of the narrative from where it left off in the First Book, also reintroduces the theme of shipwreck, and traces the branching destinies of people. The main place of narration in the first book is an inn called the Almayer Tavern, a place located on the seashore and completely isolated. All the characters meet in this hotel. Among them is the artist Plasson, who paints the sea with seawater. Professor Bartleboom compiles an encyclopedia of the limits and tries to figure out where the end of the sea is. Ann Deveria gets rid of the sin of adultery. The girl, Elizevin, suffers from hypersensitivity and must heal in seawater. She is accompanied by a priest, Padre Plush, who writes original prayers in which he addresses God as a friend. Admiral Langle is the man for whom Adams worked as a gardener, telling his stories about long-distance travels, and to whom Elisevin went after spending the night with Adams to continue telling these stories passed on to her at the moment of intimacy.

In order to show the importance of the human voice, Alessandro Baricco uses a kind of metonymy, synecdoche. Synecdoche is a trope "based on the relation of a part to the whole" ^[2]: it highlights one of the important and characteristic features of an object, appearing when the part is presented as a whole. This stylistic technique helps to make the voice one of the defining features of the character, but at the same time separate it from the character itself and show the independence of the spoken voice from the will of the person.

Baricco uses synecdoche to convey the idea of speaking that he derived – not a person pronounces words, but only a part of it, his voice, which can sound by itself, as in the following excerpt from the novel Silk:

Quando lei aprì gli occhi lui sentì la propria voce dire piano:

- Io ti amerò per sempre.

He heard his voice whisper:

"I will love you forever." ^{[1,p. 30]}

In "Sea-Ocean", Baricco uses the synecdoche technique even more actively to show that, more often than not, it is not the person himself who speaks, but his voice.:

Adams non parve nemmeno accorgersi di lui. Continuava a starsene in qualche posto strano, a migliaia di chilometri da li. Però le sue labbra si mossero e tutti sentirono la sua voce dire:

— Perché io le ho viste.

The translation, however, does not convey exactly what "his voice says.":

Adams didn't seem to notice him. He was still somewhere far away, far away. Only his lips moved, and everyone heard him say:

"I just saw them." ^{[1, p. 108]}

The admiral talks with Adams in his office and first the man, Adams, speaks, and after the man, his voice, as if separating, pronounces the words "sente la voce dell'altro pronouniare la parola" (translated as "hears the voice of Adams" ^{[1, p. 144]}. Elizevine has questions for Adams, which she does not dare to say out loud, but immediately hears Adams' voice in her head, which whispers the answers to them: "... sente nella sua testa una voce mormorare" (translated as "she hears a distinct whisper to herself" ^{[1, p. 134]}. Padre Plush conducts an internal dialogue with himself and then hears his own voice asking about something against his will - "sente la propria voce chiedere" (translated as "his voice suddenly utters" ^{[1, p. 174]}). At the moment of proximity to surging emotions, it is the man, Adams, who cries ("piange Adams"), and the girl does not scream herself, her voice screams: "grida la voce di Elisewin" (translated as "Elisewin's voice turns into a scream" ^{[1, p. 179]}).

At the same time, the voice is part of the integral human image, one of the most important elements in people's perception of each other. When Hervé Joncourt told Hara Kay about his life in the novel Silk, he talked not only about the city, about progress in Europe, about trains, steamships, but also about the voice of his wife Helene.

Baricco's voice is one of the main traits that define the character of a character. According to the epithets used by Baricco for the word "voice", one can trace the author's attitude towards the characters he created. However, the writer does not say anything about the voice of "la donna con il volto da ragazzina", "a woman with a girl's face", leaving this image incomplete, devoid of integrity. She only looks at the Frenchman "con occhi perfettamente muti", "with silent eyes". Her image even becomes fake when Madame Blanche reads a letter supposedly written by this woman, imitating her supposed voice.:

… leggeva piano, con una voce da donna bambina.

... she read slowly, in the voice of a female girl. ^{[1, p. 53]}.

In fact, the main character's wife, Helene, wrote the letter, and her voice, "una voce bellissima", "charming" ^{[1, p. 61]}, was imitated by a Japanese woman because he made an indelible impression on her when Helene read her a letter written in French. Madame Blanche herself had a "voce fredda", a "cold voice", and the same impassive face, not illuminated by emotions:

Lo disse con voce fredda, guardando Hervé Joncour negli occhi, e senza farsi sfuggire la minima espressione.

She said it in a cold tone, looking Herve Joncourt straight in the eyes and not showing the slightest emotion. ^{[1, p. 29]}

Concealment of emotions, the same complete external dispassion is inherent in her fellow tribesman Hara Kei. Moreover, he is characterized by many faces, it is impossible to understand his soul and motives, it is impossible to predict the change of his feelings. And the author emphasizes this closeness of Haraway from the world, the variability of behavior depending on the situation and with whom he communicates, by describing his voice.:

Allora Hara Kei iniziò a parlare, nella sua lingua, con una voce cantilenante, disciolta in una sorta di falsetto fastidiosamente artificioso.

Hara Kei spoke in his own language. His lilting voice was thinning into an insistently artificial falsetto. ^{[1, p.17]}

Lo disse in francese, strascicando un po' le vocali, con una voce rauca, vera.

He said it in French, slightly stretching the vowels, in a husky, sincere voice. ^{[1, p. 17]}

The voices of the characters are carefully recorded in the novel "Sea–Ocean". Voices endow the characters with a vivid personality, they become the most subtle touch that not only characterizes the character himself, but also shows what the power of one person's influence on another can be due to the special timbre and manner of pronouncing words.:

… gli disse Elisabetta Ancher con una voce che avrebbe sedotto anche un sordo. Bartleboom vacillò un attimo ma poi si riprese.

... Elizabeth Anker said in a voice that would seduce a deaf person. Bartleboom staggered, but resisted. ^{[1, p. 206]}

One can judge the author's sympathies by whose voices Baricco makes most pleasant for listeners (as well as by the fact that, unlike other characters, there are no ironic descriptions of Thomas/Adams and Elizevin). The girl "aveva una voce bellissima – velluto", "had a wonderful velvety voice" ^{[1, p. 71]}, and the man "una voce scandire con magnifica calma", "a clear and extremely calm voice" ^{[1, p. 112]}

The skill of storytelling is given only to these two characters – absolutely opposite, but connected by love. With his inherent penchant for hints and lapidarity in describing what is happening, Baricco does not put lengthy stories into Thomas's mouth, but only briefly indicates that he told them in a way that no one else could have done, because he was endowed with a gift from above, masterfully mastered the art of narration.:

/ alla corte del sultano, dove era stato preso per la sua voce, che era bellissima, e lui, coperto d’oro, aveva l’incarico di stare nella stanza della tortura e di cantare mentre quelli facevano il loro lavoro, tutto perché il sultano non dovesse sentire la fastidiosa eco dei lamenti ma piuttosto la bellezza di quel canto che /

/ he was held in high esteem at the sultan's court; the reason for everything was his wonderful voice; and he was bathed in gold; in return, he had to appear in the torture chamber and sing until the executioners finished their work, for the sultan should not hear heart–rending screams, but wonderful chants / ^{[1, p. 106]}

Adams narrava con voce piana e calda. Misurava, con un’arte sorprendente, parole e silenzi.

Adams spoke in a low, penetrating voice. He was surprisingly adept at punctuating the story with silence. ^{[1, p. 110]}

Adams' voice made a strong impression on Admiral Langle, a man of restrained demeanor. He himself, "parlò con voce severa ma mite, quasi impersonale", "spoke in a habitually stern but calm, almost impassive voice" ^{[1, p. 110]}, but deep down he longed for more and more stories about unusual wanderings, about miracles from all over the world. And the sailor, who saw everything with his own eyes, became a gift of fate for him, he revived parables and legends that had previously lived only on paper in the form of reports on curious incidents.

By analyzing the description of the characters' voices and their communication with others, it is possible not only to reveal the images conceived by the author, but also to understand his emotional and aesthetic assessment of each particular character. Due to the expressive sound of his speech, his characters are clear and convincing, their way of acting develops logically, and is not arbitrarily imposed.

One of the most interestingly written images that has earned the sympathy of its creator is Baldabiu in Silk. The very sound of his name matters. The name is fictitious, and the author approaches the creation of such names with special care. He adjusts each sound for the best characterization of the hero. Baldabiu appeared in Lavildier from nowhere and played an important role in the fate of the city and Herve Joncourt, who preferred not to participate in it, but to be guided. This businessman is a strong and extraordinary personality, an innovator who looks to the future, full of ideas, who is not afraid of any difficulties – he simply does not notice them.

The creation of an image is greatly facilitated by its speech characteristics. Baldabiu's speech is absolutely self-confident. Baldabiu is the most verbose of all the characters in the novel, even though he is a minor character. But it is from his mouth that discussions about life, silk, Japan, Louis Pasteur, history sound - his knowledge is progressive and deep. He is rude and not restrained in his statements, and he has an ironic attitude to life, but he is a real strategist with a great sense of a successful businessman, his opinion was trusted by the whole city. And even the mayor did not contradict him in anything, although Baldabiu even allowed himself to talk to him, not being shy in his expressions.:

- Sapete cosa sono questi? (What do you think it is?)

- Soldi. (Hard coin.)

- Sbagliato. Sono la prova che voi siete un coglione.

- This is the proof that you are a fool of the king of heaven. ^{[1, p.10]}

With Herve Joncourt, with whom he had a trusting and friendly relationship, he is even more sharp-tongued. And when he asks him where to find a translator from Japanese, he replies to ask himself, because he has become a "Japanese." He also freely uses obscene vocabulary in his speech, such as the exclamation "merda" ("damn"), "idiot" ("idiot"). He directly expresses his opinion about Herve Park in a free conversational manner.:

Non è un granché come parco.

The park is not exactly ah. ^{[1, p. 39]}

When the author introduces his own indirect speech, makes some brief summary of what Baldabiu says at the meeting to all the silkworms, he observes this ironic style and carelessness in speech.:

Baldabiou comunicò agli allevatori di Lavilledieu che Pasteur era inattendibile, che quei due italiani avevano già truffato mezza Europa, che in Giappone la guerra sarebbe finita prima dell’inverno e che Sant’Agnese, in sogno, gli aveva chiesto se non erano tutti quanti un branco di cagasotto.

Baldabue told Lavildier's silk growers that Pasteur was not trustworthy, that the two Italians had already scammed half of Europe, that the war in Japan would be over by winter, and that Saint Agnes had asked him in a dream if they were a bunch of crooks. ^{[1, p. 41]}

Baricco shows the dominant role of the manner of speech and, consequently, the sound of the voice not only in the image of the character, but also indicates the presence of a voice of its own in natural phenomena and everything that surrounds a person in life. In Silk, even life itself in the monastery of this strange, incomprehensible to European perception, Japanese ruler, who aspired to complete solitude, had its own low-key voice. It is the voice that determines the rhythm of life, its dynamics and interrelationships within this world closed from prying eyes. The musical term "sotto voce" is a low voice, it is a deliberate lowering of the volume of the performance in order to give emphasis to the spoken. The sound of the voice is muted to give greater expressiveness to emotions and feelings, which corresponds to the author's intention to convey the sound of life.:

La vita brulicava sottovoce, si muoveva con una lentezza astuta, come un animale braccato nella tana. Il mondo sembrava lontano secoli.

The translator used a general literary synonym:

Other life was hushed and furtive, like an animal trapped in its lair. The world seemed to have moved away for centuries. ^{[1, p. 23]}.

The repeated mentions of a forged letter from a young Japanese lady emphasize the importance of combining what was spoken, heard, and seen. The hieroglyphs in it resembled "un catalogo di orme di piccoli uccelli", "catalog of miniature bird's feet", and were also a kind of voice – "cenere di una voce bruciata", "ashes of a burnt voice". And the voice of the "baby birds" - hieroglyphs – had an obscure, barely distinguishable timbre, moreover, to create more imagery, a visual association was added to the sound.:

In trasparenza, le orme dei minuscoli uccelli parlavano con voce sfocata.

The translation in this case is figurative, in the original there is a "fuzzy" voice.:

In the light, the footprints of the baby birds merged into a dull, unintelligible squawk. ^{[1, p. 52]}

In "Sea-Ocean," Baricco attributes a magical component to the voice – it can control a person as a higher power. So, the voice of Adams became the admiral's assistant in a game of chess for his own life, in a difficult battle with the robber who captured Langle. Thanks to his supernatural abilities, Adams learned that his benefactor was in trouble and controlled his actions in a chess game and in a duel with a bandit. He commanded the admiral's mind, penetrating Langle's consciousness and he heard "la puntuale guida di quella assurda voce", "subtle hints of a strange voice", which, "la voce non gli lasciava tregua", "would not leave him alone" ^{[1, p. 112]} until the admiral He began to follow all instructions precisely, believing that it was some higher power broadcasting. And wisdom is concentrated precisely in the voice, "quando senti la voce suggerirgli in modo perentorio", capable of "anticipating" everything ^{[1, p. 112]} and capable, "l a voce taceva", of "becoming numb" (or silent) ^{[1, p. 113]}, as a human being.

In the described episode, the human voice transformed into God's voice and guided those in trouble, helping them to escape. But it also has a more mundane function – a voice is able to give calmness by sounding nearby at a moment of fright or excitement, giving a sign that a person is ready to support another, to calm him down only with his presence.:

… sarebbe bastata la voce di Padre Pluche, anche solo la voce.

...and then Padre Plush's voice, his voice alone, will be enough. ^{[1, p. 116]}

In "Sea-Ocean", a person is equivalent to a voice, and a voice is equivalent to a person. When the voices disappear, nothing remains.:

Non un rumore, non una voce, niente».

Not a rustle, not a sound (the carrier used a synonym), nothing. ^{[1, p. 225]}

In addition to the voices in the novels "Silk" and "Sea-Ocean", it is silence that constantly "sounds". According to Baricco, "solo il silenzio lo sarebbe, musica, esatta musica", "silence is music, pure sound" ^{[1, p. 173]}. After analyzing the original text in the text analysis program "Voyant tools", it becomes clear that the word "voce" ("voice") It appears in the texts of each of the novels under consideration more than fifty times, and each time it is interspersed with "silenzio" (silence), accompanying all the events taking place in the novel. In this way, Baricco turns novels into theatrical performances, where the audience watches in complete silence, listening to the voices of the characters. The author reinforces this implicit technique with the definition of what is happening – "spettacolo" ("performance") and the author tries to express everything that happens in it as in a theatrical act.

In Silk, Barikko paints a kind of ghostly world, sometimes it even seems that it existed only in the imagination of the hero. It is too intangible, there are almost no sounds in it, most often, silence accompanies it in the monastery of Hara Kay. And the girl doesn't even have a name, and one can only speculate who she is, the ruler's wife or concubine, and why she doesn't have oriental eyes. A European who sold weapons confidently declares that there simply are no such women in Japan. And most importantly, Hervé Joncourt has never heard her voice, which gives her image an illusory and unreal quality. With the help of metonymy and meticulously chosen words, the author shrouds this woman in mystery and calls into question her very existence.:

E un silenzio strano, intorno. Sentì la leggerezza di un velo di seta che scendeva su di lui. E le mani di una donna - di una donna - che lo asciugavano accarezzando la sua pelle, ovunque: quelle mani e quel tessuto filato di nulla. Lui non si mosse mai, neppure quando sentì le mani salire dalle spalle al collo e le dita - la seta e le dita - salire fino alle sue labbra, e sfiorarle, una volta, lentamente, e sparire.

And there was an unusual silence all around. He felt the light touch of a silk veil. And women's hands-women's hands, gently rubbing his skin everywhere; those same hands and that silk-woven from emptiness. He didn't move, even when his hands shot up from his shoulders to his neck, and his fingers-silk and fingers-reached for his lips, gently touched them, just once, and melted. ^{[1, p. 26]}

This woman is just a sign of Hara Kaye's power – she is always by his side, completely subordinated to his will. And the whole world around him is subject only to his whims, people in it appear and disappear "as if by magic", from "nowhere", turning into "nothing". And this world seems expressionless, like the features of the ruler himself, devoid of vital energy.:

Intorno era il silenzio più assoluto, e il vuoto. Come per un singolare precetto, ovunque andasse, quell'uomo andava in una solitudine incondizionata, e perfetta.

There was complete silence and desolation. Wherever this man went, as if by special order, he plunged into perfect and boundless solitude. ^{[1, p. 25]}

It is no coincidence that novels are accompanied by silence, like performances in a theater. It must be present for the subtlety and depth of perception of what is happening. "Sea-Ocean" is filled with silence, which becomes the backdrop of what is happening dozens of times, it does not come for a moment, but always has a temporal and spatial length.:

Silenzio.

Silenzio per minuti.

Silence.

A long silence. ^{[1, p. 121]}

The silence becomes palpable when the craftsmen weave a silk tapestry for Elisevin's room. They do this in absolute silence, so that silence enters into the material itself, into the interweaving of the threads of the fabric – "il silenzio doveva entrare nella trama del tessuto", "silence must be absorbed into the very weft" ^{[1, p. 70]}. The girl was surrounded by silence in her father's castle, which was covered with white soft carpets that absorbed any sound and "terra che non vuole parlare", the entire "silent" land belonging to the baron was "in mezzo a questo silenzio", "in the middle of silence" ^{[1, p. 101]}. And she moved from there to another realm of silence – the Almayer tavern, which is filled with her despite the presence and communication of people among themselves. Bartalbum writes letters to his ghostly lover in silence. All dialogues are interspersed with silence, "altro imbarazzo, altro silenzio", expressing a new confusion in communication and the mental state of the characters is characterized by "nel silenzio più assoluto della mente", "complete silence of consciousness" ^{[1, p. 89]}. All of Adams' stories are accompanied by Langle's silence and focused listening, and most of the events also take place in silence. "Silenzio." as a nominative sentence, often placed on a separate paragraph from the text, occurs eighteen times in the text, which also indicates the importance of the aspect of silence in the work.

Undoubtedly, fundamental in the novels "Silk" and "Sea-Ocean" are the opposition of speaker and listener, word and look, sound and silence. The fundamental role in the considered works is played by human voices, which the author approaches with special care. Such a focus on the individuality of the human voice gives musicality to a literary work and introduces a philosophical component: when human voices disappear, the very existence ends. And the existence of a person without a voice seems like an illusion and is questioned by the author.

Barikko is not only a writer, but also a musician, a television presenter, so he constantly strives for lapidarity and musicality of the text. To convey the sound of a word, he uses metonymy, this literary trope helps to reveal the idea of the existence of an inner voice capable of expressing what a person is afraid to admit to others and to himself. By choosing a synecdoche, in order to reveal the significance of the voice, the author builds logical chains and associative series, and in some cases adds an ironic tone with the help of this literary device.

The voices in the novels under consideration are often separate from the characters, separate actors, and sound independent of their will. The voice in novels is inherent not only to people, but also to vital and natural phenomena, life, and written text. In his texts, the writer adds elements that simulate acoustic and visual effects, which allows the reader to build clear visual, similar to theatrical, images in his mind.

When comparing with the Russian versions of novels, it becomes obvious that the translator sometimes avoids accurate translation and resorts to synonyms. In such cases, the importance of the character's voice decreases, and the connecting thread that runs through the entire work disappears. However, in most cases, the translator follows the author's intention to make the human voice not just one of the defining features of the character, but a separate phenomenon.