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PARTISAN REVIEW
stable identities. Hence the presence of
Doppelganger
in the book: the
professor and the narrator's father, but also Alba and the other Alba who
is discovered drowned. The shiftings in the narrative, the duplication and
dissemination of identities, refer to the obvious fact that we are
experiencing contemporary culture in a process of metamorphosis. Does it
have to do with the return of the gods, as set out by Heidegger? Does it
involve another fictional experience, and if so, which one? For the time
being we are in a gothic
roman noir.
BS: But doesn't the book's shift to the first-person narrative, spoken by
Stephany, the investigator, change the perspective from the dark, negative
dimensions we have just conjured up?
JK: Absolutely. Stephany doesn't play her part on the same level as the
others. As soon as she speaks, the oneiric, confused universe of the novel's
first section assumes the shape of a detective novel; it means that a crime
has been committed and that it is possible to unravel the truth about this
crime. A truth-seeking effort takes place, thanks to Stephany Delacour,
who will show up again in other episodes, for in the book there are a se–
ries of crimes and discoveries in Santa Barbara. The wolves have reason to
be frightened: Stephany cannot be easily stopped; she intends to write a
series of mystery novels. So the "twilight of the gods" that makes up the
first part of the novel acquires a meaning in the second part, which is
simply the setting of a course, the shaping of a plot:
it is possible to know.
Henceforth, an ethics ofknowledge, let us say, is involved.
Consequently, I feel that to call my novel pessimistic is inaccurate. As
long as the investigation is being carried out, the crime is challenged, and
death does not prevail. Stephany introduces the vigilance that is the
resistant force of life, if not of hope. In the third section of the book,
Stephany imposes her diary upon the mystery novel, as a counterpoint.
Her subjective experience, her sensibility as a woman, a child, a lover is a
veritable counterweight to death and hatred. If Stephany is able to
undertake this investigative work and confront crime, it is because she
doesn't ignore her personal experience, because she is plunged to a point
of rapture, and not without cruelty, into the pain that mourning imposes
on us: mourning for her own father, until then repressed, awakens on the
occasion of the Old Man's mourning. As a consequence, the character of
the journalist-detective introduces a certain psychoanalytic tonality in the
book. Without this interior space sculpted out by mourning but given
shape by other erotic upheavals - for mourning is an eroticism full of un–
dulations, without the smooth visage of joy - no working out of truth is
possible. No investigation, no knowledge. Some base their esthetics, for
