MAURA DALY
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the horizon - you know? Everything goes on more or less behind
His back .
MD:
You employ myths very often in your novels . For you , what
is the importance of myth in twentieth-century literature, not only
in your works, but in literature in general?
MT:
Well, I'll tell you , that doesn't really interest me very much.
What interests me a lot is the role of myth in the daily life of peo–
ple. For example, if you watch advertisements on television, you
see myths appear: the myth of purity, everything that concerns
cleanliness, etcetera . . . the myth of nature; the myth of Robin–
son Crusoe who appears everywhere-doesn't he? The desert
island, the Club Med, vacations, tans, fixing things - all that is
summarized by Robinson Crusoe .
MD:
In the history and the literature of the twentieth century one
sees a sort of progressive atomization (perhaps related to the
discovery of the atomic structure itself) . Novels have moved from
the interior monologue to those displaying a totally fragmented
psyche. Don't you think that myth attempts to put man back into
a sort of unified framework and by means of myth man is able to
unify his experiences? That view is, however, from a critical
perspective.
MT:
That seems avery, very good idea to me, because there are
unifying myths . In general , however, myths are rather destruc–
tive . I mean , myth is almost always the exaltation of an antisocial
hero-on the order of Don Juan. DonJuan is antisocial; Tristan
is antisocial. Nonetheless, you can still have unifying myths: in
France , that of Joan of Arc. So, the national myth , the national
hero, which are unifying, those belong to another category. As for
me, I am struck by the antisocial function of myth . I have the im–
pression that everything in society tends toward order and that
myth is a means for the individual to escape from an order that
suffocates him, by means of a hero who is revolting against the
established order. For example, the wife who cheats on her hus–
band can think of Isolde.
Tristan and Isolde
is a story of a woman
who deceives her husband, isn't it?
MD:
That is the question that Denis de Rougemont deals with in
Love and the Occident.
MT:
Yes, exactly . So, the woman feels exalted because she ex–
periences passion [of mythic proportions]. She can do nothing
against it. She is consumed by passion for someone besides her
husband; she is even exalted because of it. As for her husband, he
