“He led me into the house of incest. It was the only house which was not included in the twelve houses of the zodiac. (…) There were windows between the rooms, little spying-eyed windows, so that one might talk in the dark from room to room, without seeing the other’s face. The rooms were filled with the rhythmic heaving of the sea coming from many sea-shells. The windows gave out on a static sea, where immobile fishes had been glued to painted backgrounds. Everything had been made to stand still in the house of incest, because they all had such a fear of movement and warmth, such a fear that all love and all life should flow out of reach and be lost! (…) In the house of incest there was a room which could not be found, a room without window, the fortress of their love, a room without window where the mind and blood coalesced in a union without orgasm and rootless like those of fishes. The promiscuity of glances, of phrases, like sparks marrying in space. The collision between their resemblances, shedding the odor of tamarisk and sand, of rotted shells and dying sea-weeds, their love like the ink of squids, a banquet of poisons.”
Anaïs Nin, House of Incest
Are there any boundaries in love? The ethical answer would be yes: they are sharp, and clear. The irrational answer of feelings would be no: of course it’s no accident the Italian word MENTE has two meanings which are so diametrically, completely opposed: “mind” and “lies”. I move into the room, now I can see only the persecutor and the victim: the first one has the keys, the second one not even the door.
10 suggested readings
HOUSE OF INCEST
Anaïs Nin, Swallow Press 1992
A MANUAL FOR CLEANING WOMEN. SELECTED STORIES
Lucia Berlin, Farrar, Straus & Giroux 2015
THE HANDMAID’S TALE
Margaret Atwood, Penguin Random House 2006
LA FINE DELLA MADRE
Lucetta Scaraffia, Neri Pozza 2017
DIOS NO TIENE TIEMPO LIBRE
Lucía Etxebarría, Suma de Letras 2015
RENDEZ-VOUS
Christine Angot, Gallimard 2008
THE CIDER HOUSE RULES
John Irving, Ballantine Books 1993
THE HEART IS DECEITFUL ABOVE ALL THINGS
J.T. Leroy, Harper Perennial 2016
THE COLOR PURPLE
Alice Walker, W&N 2014
ABSALOM, ABSALOM!
William Faulkner, Modern Library 1993