Cassandra

by Christa Wolf

Cassandra, la figlia veggente di Ecuba e Priamo, attende la morte per mano dei Greci vincitori alle soglie della fortezza di Micene. Davanti ai suoi occhi scorrono intrecciate la sua storia e quella della città di Troia. L'amore per Enea e la rottura con la famiglia che, accecata dall'andamento della guerra, non riesce a vedere con gli occhi di Cassandra. La vita nelle comunità femminili sulle rive del fiume Scamandro e la distruzione e la rovina della sua città. Un romanzo che dà una visione diversa da quella omerica classica recuperando lo sguardo e la voce della sacerdotessa troiana per darci il resoconto della liberazione femminile e del bisogno di pace.

Genres: Mythology, Fiction, Historical Fiction, Classics, Greek Mythology, German Literature, Retellings

159 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1983

About the author

Novelist, short-story writer, essayist, critic, journalist, and film dramatist Christa Wolf was a citizen of East Germany and a committed socialist, and managed to keep a critical distance from the communist regime. Her best-known novels included “Der geteilte Himmel” (“Divided Heaven,” 1963), addressing the divisions of Germany, and “Kassandra” (“Cassandra,” 1983), which depicted the Trojan War.

She won awards in East Germany and West Germany for her work, including the Thomas Mann Prize in 2010. The jury praised her life’s work for “critically questioning the hopes and errors of her time, and portraying them with deep moral seriousness and narrative power.”

Christa Ihlenfeld was born March 18, 1929, in Landsberg an der Warthe, a part of Germany that is now in Poland. She moved to East Germany in 1945 and joined the Socialist Unity Party in 1949. She studied German literature in Jena and Leipzig and became a publisher and editor.

In 1951, she married Gerhard Wolf, an essayist. They had two children. Christa Wolf died in December 2011.

(Bloomberg News)

Reviews

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

"I can't love a hero."

Thus ends the fragile love affair between Kassandra and Aeneas. He has to leave the Trojan battlefield and start a new dynasty far away from Kassandra's beloved home and she has learned to hate male heroism, being a guarantee of brutal violence against women.

Kassandra, the seeing woman in a world full of blind patriotism and machismo, a fighter for the rights of women in a society that trades them in exchange for gold or honour - she is as timeless as myth itself, and as contemporary as any political character can be.

Rereading Christa Wolf's take on the Trojan princess after many years, I was stunned to see how much of Kassandra is in the author herself, how much the myth matches the way she fought against the delusional power-hungry politics of her own time, the way she tried to raise a voice of concern and reason in the middle of ideological wars raging around her - wars fought by childish, vain heroes over fake booty.

In the end, Kassandra sees the walls of her community destroyed from the inside, and like the ancient Trojan priestess, Christa Wolf was able to tell that her society was about to break down. The novel is written in the early eighties, and the DDR had all the signs of a slowly eroding system.

When Kassandra laments the rhetoric that gets louder and stronger the weaker Troy becomes, it is a mirror of Christa Wolf's experience of propaganda in a failing government. In Eumelos, Troy even has its Stasi agent and fanatic.

And there is more to it than that. The whole reason for the Trojan War is based on a fraud: Helena is not there. She is absent. Not necessary. For two demogogues to confront each other, no real reason is needed - just a valid excuse.

Fake news meets Greek myth. And it is chillingly good!

This novel needs to be read, and reread, for the Trojan War keeps going on, and on, and on.

And it will, until new roles for men and women are established. Roles that are not based on the idea that a violent hero is attractive. Roles that give women access to the decision making processes to the same extent as men. Roles that forever destroy the idea that a woman is an object that can be "won" in a (war) game or paid for with gold.

"I can't love a hero."

That's the first step towards peace. But unlike Kassandra, most people are blindly following the military piper, playing the patriarchal tune of intolerance and violence on the march towards destruction.

And the voices of women like Kassandra remain unheard.

[Kalliope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cassandra, the daughter of the Trojan King Priam and his wife Hecuba, a priestess who had to sacrifice her virginity and who could foresee the future but whose foretelling nobody would believe. Gift and curse bestowed upon her by Apollo.

Hers were to be the preposterous prophecies. That was her destiny and her identity.

During a trip to Greece with her husband in the early 1980s, Christa Wolf (1929-2011) began reading Aeschylus The Oresteia during a flight delay. Fascinated she pursued investigating the myths around the House of Atreus and the Trojan War. As a citizen of the GDR but as a prominent writer she was often granted permission to travel to Western Europe. This novel is the outcome of a series of four lectures she had to give in 1982, in Frankfurt, on Aesthetics. The novel form was published at the same time, in 1983, both in West and East Germany.

Wolf’s novel presents Cassandra upon her arrival in Argos, as a captive of Agamemnon at the end of the war. She had predicted that her brother Paris would bring about the dreadful Trojan War but nobody gave any credit to her. Now in Greek lands, and in the brink of the disappearance of her future, for her death is imminent and immanent, she uses her last opportunity to warn us for soon she will have no more future to tell. The forewarning has transformed into history. A black future. A vanishing present. A bleak past.

Like prophecies, this novel offers multiple angles.

It can be read as Wolf’s coded political criticism of the GDR regime. This entails searching for straight parallels between characters and institutions. This reading did not interest me. It is too encroached in a precise point in time and place. The significance of that interpretation can easily perish.

It can also be read as a female retelling of a male heroic past. This offers a more compelling view. And yet, I do not think Wolf entirely succeeds in this subversion of the patriarchal approach to war and its values. If heroes like Achilles are given the epithets in true Homeric fashion, such as ‘the Beast’ (das Vieh), then of course he will be received as a beast. This is Wolf acting as the traditional narrator, who with the voice of a ventriloquist is telling us how we have to see her characters. Wolf as the creator of her mythical and somewhat contrived world.

Rather, it is Cassandra’s investigation of identity that kept my reading engaged. By turning Cassandra’s gaze not into the abstract future, but inwardly, through her memory, towards the past, we follow her fascinating probe into the events, the personalities, and the motives that constituted the Aegean debacle. And we follow her internal monologue as if she were pulling the threads from a foregone future and weaving them into an intertwined past. No longer the prophetess but a bard chanting her inner and external scrutiny.

In formulating Cassandra’s internal voice Wolf’s handling of time as fungible consciousness is magisterial. But, ironically, as Wolf has also deprived her heroine of what is after all her being--her ability to prophesy, even if her curse is that no one will believe her. But, how come are we expected to believe Cassandra’s account of her past? That would be against her nature.

Is she really then Cassandra? What is legitimately her identity? Or is it that the loss of her identity is really her end, or vice versa?

[Candi · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5 stars

“Why did I want the gift of prophecy, come what may? To speak with my voice: the ultimate. I did not want anything more, anything different.”

No one is going to believe this, but my given name is Cassandra. Really, it is! Candi is not short for Candice, as you likely assumed it to be. I have no idea why my parents chose the name Cassandra, but I do know it had nothing to do with their love for Greek mythology. But I used to imagine that I was indeed named after the prophetess, simply because it made me feel more exotic somehow. In any case, I’ve always been a bit intrigued by this enigmatic woman and have always wanted to learn a bit more about her. Then, the opportunity to read this book came along! Am I still a fan of Cassandra? Of course! Did I love the book to pieces? Not even close! It had so much potential. Like this, for example:

“… the dreadful torment took the form of a voice; forced its way out of me, through me, dismembering me as it went; and set itself free. A whistling little voice, whistling at the end of its rope, that makes my blood run cold and my hair stand on end. Which as it swells, grows louder and more hideous, sets all my members to wriggling and rattling and hurling about. But the voice does not care. It floats above me, free, and shrieks, shrieks, shrieks.”

But the moments of brilliant prose were far and few between for this greedy reader. My edition included the main story, Cassandra, as well as four essays. These essays revolved around author Christa Wolf’s travels to Greece as well as her research for the novel. Where Wolf really shines is in her research capabilities. It was evident from her essays as well as the novel itself that she did an extensive amount of work before setting her pen to paper. The problem is that it’s just not a very compelling story. I don’t know, perhaps I’m spoiled after having read Madeline Miller’s Circe. Despite my relative ignorance regarding much of the background in Miller’s work, I was still entirely enchanted by her extraordinary storytelling skills. And she made up for my lack of knowledge somehow. I think I was expecting a similar wondrous experience in the hands of Christa Wolf, but the magic really fizzled out. Maybe that’s not fair, but it’s nearly impossible for me not to compare.

What I did appreciate is that Cassandra has a unique voice here. She is still the woman we’ve heard about that was given the gift of prophecy but cursed with no one ever believing her visions. But she’s a whole lot more than that. She is a very early feminist idol as Wolf shapes her for us. She’s not a woman to be pitied or scorned. She has strength of character. And perhaps her gift was not really just a random occurrence, but rather comes from her being a woman with great wisdom and the ability to understand people. Her foresight was not simply a gift bestowed on her by some god, but an instinct and genius that came from within. As Wolf explains to us:

“The visions which overwhelm her no longer have anything to do with the ritual decrees of her oracle. She ‘sees’ the future because she has the courage to see things as they really are in the present. She does not achieve this alone. Cassandra makes contact with minorities among the socially and ethnically heterogeneous groups in and around the palace. By doing so, she consciously moves off the beaten track, strips herself of all privileges, exposes herself to suspicion, scorn, persecution: the price of her independence. No self-pity; she lives her life even in war.”

This is the message I’d like to take away from Cassandra. I can live with being the namesake of such a woman! (Even if it is all in my own imagination - mom and dad have no idea!) So, despite my singing the praises to the seeress, I cannot tell a lie. This main story in particular was hard work – dry and academic for the most part. What I did enjoy was the author’s sort of stream of consciousness writing about her preparations for the book. I wouldn’t mind reading more of her non-fiction work, but I’m going to be a bit reluctant in future when it comes to her fiction.

“Believe me, not believe me – they would see. After all, in the long run it was impossible for people not to believe a person who proves she is right.”

[Rowena · Rating 5 out of 5]

“Cassandra. I saw her at once. She, the captive, took me captive; herself made an object by others, she took possession of me.”- Christa Wolf, Cassandra

This wasn’t the easiest of books to get through due to its relatively dense prose but it was well worth the effort. In a way it made me realize that I don’t know enough Greek mythology, as well as how pervasive the knowledge of ancient Greek culture is in our modern society. However, not knowing too many particulars of the Trojan War, which is the backdrop of this book, didn’t dampen my experience whatsoever.

I’d never even heard of Cassandra before, the Trojan princess who the gods had given the gift of prophecy. Most of what I’ve heard of the Trojan war has been about Helen of Troy so it was a nice experience to witness the story from another woman’s perspective. Although the gods give Cassandra the gift of prophecy, they make it so that nobody believes her prophecies. She foresees the fall of Troy and her own death.

What I realized while reading this famous story from a woman’s point of view is the importance of the feminist perspective when it comes to talking about just about anything, but history is what came to mind more strongly here. This perspective often recounts a more painful history, one where the pain isn’t kept at a distance or hidden away. In this case, this is a story recounted by a woman who was in the midst of the action. It was more painful shown this way and it clearly highlighted all that women had to deal with, matters of the heart, feelings of helplessness and so on. I found so much that would probably have been ignored or glossed over had it been written from a male perspective. However, in this case the rapes weren’t omitted, neither was the violence against women. The entire women’s experience was highlighted and that’s probably the reason why I read this as slowly as I did, it was slightly overwhelming to tell the truth.

This book was definitely feminist in its approach. It also showed the patriarchal nature of war. Cassandra could easily stand as a symbol of all women, especially those who are oppressed and don’t have a voice. Cassandra is intelligent, observant, and well-learned, yet still finds it impossible to convince people of her views, all because she’s a woman. It didn’t matter that Cassandra was a princess, she still didn’t have much say, led a claustrophobic life and was a pawn.

The book ended with four literary essays written by Wolf. I’m interested in inspiration and how people get their ideas, especially their writing ideas. The essays were a great way of learning how Wolf was inspired to write about Cassandra while reading Aeschylus’s Oresteia while in Greece:

“What does it matter if you do not believe me?
The future will surely come.
Just a little while
And you will see for yourself.”

-Cassandra, in Aeschylus, Oresteia

This book reminded me of Margaret Atwood’s The Penelopiad. Great story, one that I’d read again.

[Steven Godin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not the biggest lover of historical fiction, especially going this far back in time, and although I admired Wolf's writing and her feminist, antiwar message here, Greek mythology isn't something that I'm likely to return to any time soon. If I'm honest, it doesn't really interest me. But as I'd never read anything on the subject before, I just thought, what the heck, give it a go.
I found Cassandra, an intense, ambitious and difficult work that crammed in lots of names and actions, which for a relatively slim novel covering such an epic theme was problematic, as Cassandra, through interior monologue, looks back over her life's main events as she awaits death, having fallen prisoner to the Greeks at the fall of Troy. She remembers peaceful scenes of a society balanced between matriarchy and patriarchy, a balance represented by the closeness and mutual counsel of her mother, Hecuba, and her father, Priam. Cassandra recalls how the war destroyed that delicate balance; matriarchal vision and patriarchal political power vied with one another and the patriarchy eventually won.

Wolf's searing identification with her protagonist is made explicit in the novel's opening passage where the reader witnesses the merging of the author's voice with Cassandra's. The book was written from within a repressive regime, and its allegorical function tends to suffocate its simple existence as fiction: as a visionary whose visions were doomed to be disregarded, Cassandra stands for the female writer who struggles to be heard. Further, her guilt at her part in Troy's crimes and betrayals stands for Wolf's lifelong sense of implication in Germany's errors and delusions. The parallels to the Cold War in the 80’s when the book was written are entirely implicit, but quite apparent. Strange to say that about a book set so far apart in time. This was very much an assertive novel, and one executed with great skill, but it's a case of admiring the writer a lot more than the subject matter.

[Hannah · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mit der Erzählung geh ich in den Tod.

There are no words to describe how much this book means to me. The first time I read it in my teens, it overwhelmed me but also made me feel awed; i have reread this book plenty of times but still, I am in absolute awe in the face of the work of genius Christa Wolf has created here.

"Kassandra" is part stream of consciousness, part eulogy, part feminist manifesto. The daughter of Priamos is sitting in front of the castle in Mykene and knows her life is nearly over; most people she knows are dead and the Troy she grew up in isn't anymore - but she is still strong, still herself, still unashamed and thinking back on her life. Christa Wolf created a wonderful character, her reimagining of Kassandra is vivid and undeniably brilliant. Kassandra is flawed, her fall is very much her own making, but she owns it, herself, everything; she is always herself even in the face of tragedy, she does not lie to herself, does not make herself out to be more than she is, she is my absolute hero. Her relationship with Aeneas still to this day is my favourite fictional relationship; her refusal to agree to morally wrong decisions even if her disagreement does not change a thing is something I aspire to.

The book is short but every sentences, every word, every contraction is deliberate and packs a punch; not one sentence is without a reason in the greater flow of this work. A mixture between long, run-on sentences and short ellipses makes this book insanely readable but at the same time forces the reader to pay attention to every single thing going on.

I love this book, have loved it for a long time and will definitely keep rereading it forever.

[Jan-Maat]

Can there be spoilers in a book about a Woman who could see the future but was never believed? Can there be spoilers about the matter of Troy?

I was won over by the early mention of Penthesilea, as it happens the image there of Achilles is the one which stalks through the book, a beast the beast Kassandra calls him throughout, and yet no beast would be so bestial, as with the story illustrated on that vase I couldn't help thinking that there was a double entendre since despite Wollstoncraft's best efforts I remain unreformed in Achilles' indiscriminate lust for men and women all transfixed on his lance.

I wondered at first, since in the early few pages we are already approaching Mycenae, how Wolf would fill the 160 pages of the book, but the end is not delayed by potholes or even broken axles but by consciousness as Cassandra in a round about way tells the story of the Trojan war from her point of view. As Kalliope points out in her review there is a big problem with Cassandra's voice in that her gift was to be able to see the future but never be believed, can we believe her? Or is it wise to accept at face value her account of the past, which itself was once the future? In the end this is also a story, and all stories are lies and through editing and selection must misrepresent. It was a Cretan who said that all Cretans are liars, shall I believe him?

"Die Leute hier - naiv, wenn ich sie mit den Troern vergleiche; sie haben den Krieg nicht erlebt - zeigen ihre Gefühle" (p14) reminded me that Christa Wolf had a for a time been a Stasi informant back in the day. What one has lived through is not always so easy to communicate to others who have lived through their own different experiences. And in "In Helena, die wir erfanden, verteidigten wir alles, was wir nicht mehr hatten. Was wir aber, je mehr es schwand, für um so wirklicher erklären mussten. So dass aus Worten, Gesten, Zeremonien und Schweigen ein andres Troia, eine Geisterstadt erstand, in der wir häuslich leben und uns wohlfühlen sollten (p102) something about the nature of war and Great Causes.

I suppose what I was missing was more about prophecy and not being believed, if I was to give a star rating then for this book I wouldn't go beyond 4 stars, no, not even by your 4.173 will you tempt me, maybe my burden of expectation was too great, but I wouldn't push this on anyone, but as with Christopher Logue's War Music early exposure to the matter of Troy establishes lasting pull. For the first time though it struck me how weird it was to tug the wooden horse inside the walls - surely such plunder is always given up as a burnt offering to the gods? I liked that Wolf gave Aeneas to Cassandra as her lover, the man destined to leave broken hearts behind him all the way to Rome. It is hard, I feel, with so well established a theme to separate the author from the reader, am I moved by the words on the page or by my own sense of Mycenae's Lion gate and the Wind swept Plain of Troy, one doesn't escape one's self in the labyrinth so easily and one really has to be careful not to catch one's horns on the low ceilings. I can't say. At one point which foolishly I didn't make a note of Cassandra feels that everyone can see the future, it's just a question of looking and not putting blinkers on yourself, or not so much even looking but more simply not not looking. That is my lasting impression - this is a rereadable text, made rich by the lives of author and reader alike.

[Drusilla · Rating 5 out of 5]

That was a bit of an escapade for me. Not my normal reading behavior, but I felt like taking a little trip down memory lane. Back to the roots, so to speak, because this is one of the books that shaped me. One of the books that I was forced to read at school, but that I have never regretted. A true masterpiece and it still impresses me as much today as it did many years ago.

[Blixen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Donna, leggi Cassandra

I romanzi della Wolf, a mio parere, fanno parte della letteratura di genere. Poco o nulla come i suoi scritti offrono al lettore l'idea di cosa sia sentirsi donna nel mondo: ferita d'incomprensione, come avevo scritto nella recensione ad Unter den Linden. In Cassandra, la voce profetica destinata a non essere creduta, si concretizza il "non-ascolto" con cui la donna nel tempo, e attraverso la storia umana, ha imparato a convivere. Ma gli anni in cui la Wolf scrisse il romanzo sono stati forieri di una nuova visione di essere "donna" e il non-ascolto, la cui genesi è in una visione del mondo diversa da quella maschile, è divenuto il grimaldello con il quale generare il cambiamento:

La fortuna di diventare me stessa e grazie a ciò più utile agli altri - ho vissuto anche questo. Ma so pure che, quando ci si trasforma, solo pochi se ne accorgono.

La voce di Cassandra è antica, ma rivoluzionaria perché suggerisce che per sentirsi vive si deve cambiare l'immagine di sé, quella fornita alla nascita insieme al corredo e a un'idea di vita in cui si è sponde di un fiume, cornice di un quadro, numero di una pagina. La donna è ricchezza proprio in quanto diversa dall'uomo e in questa alterità deve riconoscersi valorizzandola: differentemente dall'uomo che si sente "per nascita", "per stirpe", parte di un popolo, la donna lo è per i racconti, per le trame che tesse attraverso la narrazione e l'ascolto di storie:

Non per nascita, macché!, per i racconti dei cortili interni sono diventata troiana

La scrittrice tedesca suggerisce di uscire dalla dicotomia maschile dell'uomo soldato: uccidere o morire e di seguire la "terza via": vivere.

"a chi ho fatto del male?Io, la debole? A tutti costoro che sono più forti di me?"
"Perché li hai lasciati diventare forti."

Va letta la Wolf, perché è terapeutica: la sua sintassi sprigiona forza ad ogni periodare. Va letta, soprattutto in quelle giornate in cui si risvegliano vecchie cicatrici, giornate di cieli grigi che alla fine potrebbero solo esser bianchi.

[Anna Carina · Rating 5 out of 5]

Wolf befreit meine allzeit verteidigte Vernunft, Ratio, den Logos, von der Fetischkeule. Sie entinstrumentalisiert sie und bringt diese in die zwingende Verflechtung mit Emotionalität, Gefühlen, Reflexion und Subjektivität.

"...das lächelnde Lebendige, das imstande ist, sich immer wieder aus sich selbst hervorzubringen, das Ungetrennte, Geist im Leben, Leben im Geist."

Kassandra ist ein Buch über Eros und Lust.
Du stutzt jetzt? Das hat mich auch am meisten verblüfft.
Wolf rahmt das Buch mit Eros.
Der Erzählung wird folgendes Zitat voran gestellt:

„Schon wieder schüttelt mich der gliederlösende Eros, bittersüß, unbezähmbar, ein dunkles Tier.“
[SAPPHO]

Ohne zu Spoilern, endet es mit Eros - der Liebe - dem Schmerz, der dem dunklen Tier Sapphos entspricht.

Eros und Lust sind Kassandras Triebfedern. Sie ermöglichen das Leben im Augenblick, der Gegenwart, des vollen Bewusstseins und Bewusstwerdung.
Zu sehen. Sich selbst zu sehen. Seine Position zu erkennen. Zu wissen wofür man lebt, wofür man einsteht, was zählt. Selbsterkenntnis.

„Du meinst, Arisbe, der Mensch kann sich selbst nicht sehen. - So ist es. Er erträgt es nicht. Er braucht das fremde Abbild. - Und darin wird sich nie was ändern? Immer nur die Wiederkehr des Gleichen? Selbstfremdheit, Götzenbilder, Haß? - Ich weiß es nicht. Soviel weiß ich: Es gibt Zeitenlöcher. Dies ist so eines, hier und jetzt. Wir dürfen es nicht ungenutzt vergehen lassen.“

Zu erkennen, das das Wir, die alltäglichen Dinge, du und ich, die gemeinsame Freude, das Spielerische miteinander, vor dem Tod, der Leere bewahren. Keine Götter. Keine Könige. Keine Herrscher.

Kassandra ist ein Buch der Bilder, des Imaginären. Ichwerdung trotz Sprachverlust „vor den Bildern sterben die Wörter“

Ein Buch der Isolation, des Schmerzes und der Angst.
Ein Netzwerk der Zeitebenen.
Eine Ästhetik des Widerstands – gegen Blindheit, zur Klarheit – gegen Macht, dem Wunschentzücken anderer. Gegen äußere Pflichten, gegen vorgegebene Rollen.

Dem Mythos wird die glanzvolle Fassade, der Schleier, geraubt.

Am Ende das Zugeständnis, der Mensch sehnt sich nach Helden, gewisse Zeiten benötigen ihre Helden. Ein naturalistischer Fehlschluss? Die Ohnmacht der Vernunft?

"Ich glaube, daß wir unsere Natur nicht kennen. Daß ich nicht alles weiß. So mag es, in der Zukunft, Menschen geben, die ihren Sieg in Leben umzuwandeln wissen."

So resignativ Kassandra sich über weite Strecken lesen mag, bricht sich ein eruptiver emanzipatorischer Befreiungsschlag Bahn.

Wolfs Sprache und Stil gleiten auf psychologischen, introspektiven, rhythmischen Bahnen dahin.
Mal analytisch - beobachtend, mal dramatisch- zuspitzend, mal gebrochen - energetisch.
Sie liebt ihre Version ihrer Kassandra und schenkt ihr einfühlsame Klarheit.

Es bewegt mich zutiefst 🥹! Aufgenommen in meinen Kanon!

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cassandra A Novel and four Essays
Christa Wolf

Read April 2018


Cassandra: A Novel and Four Essays had such an impact on me when I read it earlier this year that I have re-read it and taken copious notes.

It’s one of the most powerful books I’ve read. Wolf’s observations about war, violence and truth are just as applicable today as they were in ancient times or in central Europe in the 1980s. The essays following the novel are just as significant as the novel itself, as there Wolf reveals much of the thinking that underlies her fictional telling of the ancient stories of Troy, the Trojans and the Trojan War.

The novel opens with Cassandra standing before the lion gate of Mycenae, alone, enslaved by Agamemnon along with her women, and knowing that Clytemnestra has ordered her death to follow that of Agamemnon. She makes her way into death, asking herself why did she ‘want the gift of prophecy, come what may’, and testing herself for pain as she considers the likely coming deaths of her children and women.

As she waits she notes there is ‘nothing left to describe the world but the language of the past. The language of the present has shrivelled to the words that describe this dismal fortress. The language of the future has only one sentence left for me: Today I will be killed.’

Wolf interweaves the immediate present, as Cassandra faces her imminent death, with her telling of the past.

Central to Cassandra’s story is that she is cursed by Apollo to speak the truth, and that no one would believe her.

It took her a long time, she says, to realise that not everyone saw what she saw. She needed to know the answers many questions that increasingly divided her from her family and others in the Palace, who did not want to ask those questions themselves, or who knew the answers and wanted to conceal them.

One example was the critical fact that Helen was never brought to Troy by Paris but was kept in Egypt (this is an ancient variant on the myths of Helen).

Wolf presents Cassandra as given to bouts of madness, brought on by fury at being deceived, excluded from information and from power. She had to choose to conform, at least outwardly, with those in power, or to pursue her craving for knowledge. She couldn’t do both. She, the seeress, was owned by the palace, and imprisoned by her father the king when her challenge to the political versions of what was happening was too strong.

Through Cassandra’s eyes, we begin to wonder how many realities were there in Troy besides the world of the court? Who fixed the boundaries between invisible and visible? Slowly, Cassandra begins to remember the events moving towards the war that destroyed Troy.

Wolf’s version of the Trojan War starts with an elaborate deception – the supposed presence of Helen in Troy was a pretence for the Greek invasion and occupation, when what the Greeks really wanted was Trojan gold and access to the Dardanelles.
Cassandra argues with Priam that the Trojans can’t win a war waged for a phantom.
Priam says “Why not? ...All you have to do is make sure the army does not lose faith in the phantom’. He forces Cassandra to keep the secret of Helen – to make it known, he claimed, would undermine the hone of their house.

She contrasts life in the city, engulfed by the desolation of war, its brutalities, deceptions and betrayals; and in contrast the life outside the city walls with women in the hidden world of the ancient goddess religion displaced by the newer Greek gods.

Ten years of war was long enough to forget completely the question of how the war started. ‘In the middle of a war you think of nothing but how it will end. And put off living. When large numbers of people do that, it creates a vacuum within us which the war flows in to fill.’
‘The war, a wounded dragon incapable of further movement, lay heavy and faint over our city. The next move it made was bound to dash us to pieces’.

Secrecy, hypocrisy, betrayals, manoeuvring for power, greed, corruption – these are the symptoms of decline into war and war mentality, when evil is passed off for expediency’s sake and where speaking the truth is treated as treason. Casssandra slowly realised many things – that she is effectively a prisoner, that the Trojans were becoming like the Greeks in their brutal approach to the war, that the war has taken over all aspects of life and what was normal cannot exist again.

She muses that war gives people their shape. Achilles is the monster in this version, not a hero. He is always Achilles the brute. She begins to divide people into two groups- those who can be relied on in an unknown future emergency and those who can’t. You cannot count on Paris.

Cassandra realises too that she has lost her faith. ‘Faith ebbed away from me gradually, the way illnesses sometimes ebb away, and one day you tell yourself you are well. The illness no longer finds any foothold in you. That is how it was with my faith. What foothold could it still have found in me. Two occur to me: first hope, then fear. Hope had left me. I still knew fear, but fear alone does not know the gods; they are very vain, they want to be loved too, and hopeless people do not love them.’
‘I have experienced everything a person must experience. …They will be coming soon… They are coming.’
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The four essays that Wolf presented as lectures in 1982, here presented after the novel, help explain the explorations and thinking that went into writing Cassandra and illuminate its background and implications.

She was writing in 1980-1981, during the Iran- Iraq war, when both the US and the USSR were bombarding the news with the need to make preparations for war, which both sides call ’preparations for self-defence. Emotionally it is unbearable to see the world as it really is’, she wrote at the time. And this of course is Cassandra’s fate.

Throughout are Wolf’s despairing meditations on the insanity of war, feeling that the world in which she herself lived was doomed, bound to be destroyed by war, feeling surrounded by enemies. Can there be such a thing as hope – for oneself, for one’s children? There is no escape route in sight. Australia is not a way out (p239).

As for me, I’m delighted to live in a small city in Australia, nearly as far away from centres of power and fear as you can get!

There is much more that I’m not going to write about here in this review, which is already too long. The main theme I haven’t touched on is the separation of male and female worlds and values – that’s another essay in itself.

[Gattalucy · Rating 5 out of 5]

Siamo tutti un po' il popolo di Cassandra: davanti alla verità preferiamo non vedere.



Stavo leggendo un libro di Fallada. Ma per un viaggio in treno con una borsa minima, era troppo pesante. Così infilo nella borsa questa Cassandra, piccolo, leggero, perfetto! Magari se non mi “prende” alla fine del viaggio lo sospendo.
Ma mi ritrovo in un monologo teatrale coinvolgente, di quelli che solo un mattatore da palcoscenico può condurre, tenendoti sospeso con un atto unico a trattenere il fiato fino a sciogliere la tensione nell'applauso finale.
E' stato con un ritmo da ditirambo che mi sono imbattuta nella Cassandra-donna, diversa dalla veggente sfortunata che il mito ci ha tramandato. E nella sua dolorosa metamorfosi che la vede, da figlia prediletta innamorata del padre Priamo a scoprire gli intrighi di palazzo, i giochi di potere, e la smania di guerra che porterà inevitabilmente Troia alla rovina, fino alla perdita della fede negli dei che, invece, come sacerdotessa, avrebbe dovuto servire. E non c'è bisogno di essere veggenti sfortunate, perchè davanti alla verità spesso tutti noi preferiamo non vedere.

Vedi come è semplice semplicemente non vedere.

Universali le pagine che parlano della preparazione della guerra.

E' possibile sapere quando comincia la guerra, ma quando comincia la vigilia della guerra? Se ci fossero regole bisognerebbe trasmetterle. Inciderle nella terracotta, nella pietra, tramandarle. Che cosa conterrebbero. Conterrebbero, tra le altre frasi: non fatevi ingannare da quelli della vostra parte.

...i grandi rituali a cui dovevo prendere parte come sacerdotessa, e i pubblici annunci dell'oracolo, a cui il nostro popolo, bisognoso di consolazione, accorreva. I grandi sacerdoti erano i più popolari portavoce dell'oracolo,eppure io non potevo celarmi che diffondevano chiacchiere vuote. Ammisero che esisteva una sorta di oracolo su commissione. Su commissione di chi. Insomma: della casa reale; del tempio. Perchè me la prendevo. Era sempre stato così, giacchè i portavoce dell'oracolo erano le bocche di coloro che li commissionavano...

..Erano sorti nuovi cantori: i nuovi testi erano tronfi, ciarlataneschi, e da leccapiedi, era impossibile che fossi l'unica a notarlo. Il grande sacerdote mi fece sapere il contenuto delle disposizioni che erano state inviate ai sacerdoti di tutti i templi: il fulcro di tutte le celebrazioni andava spostato dagli eroi morti a quelli viventi.

(…)

...eravamo dalla parte della ragione, doppiamente dalla parte della ragione, se costringevamo la parola degli dei ad abbassarsi fino a noi.

...Achille, la bestia, il nemico, era utile a chi voleva la guerra...e nella cittadella sembrò che ci fosse uno solo capace di rispondere alla vergognosa tracotanza del nemico: Eumelo, che gettò la sua rete di sicurezza, che finora aveva stretto i membri della casa reale e la classe dei funzionari, sull'intera Troia, e adesso chiunque ci finiva dentro. Severi controlli su ciò che uno portava con se, in qualsiasi momento. Poteri speciali agli organi di controllo.

E tutto questo fino a scoprire che Elena non si trovava a Troia, ma era solo un pretesto per fare la guerra che si “voleva” fare...

Non ho potuto evitare paralleli fin troppo facili: la propaganda, i media asserviti al potere, la libertà limitata dal “bisogno” di sicurezza, la tracotanza di credersi dalla parte del bene contro il male, l'enfasi sul nemico per giustificare una guerra che si vuole comunque fare, fino a giurare su “pistole fumanti” che non ci sono...
E mentre io penso alla società in cui mi tocca vivere, scopro che Christa Wolf allude a quanto avviene nella sua DDR, all'ombra del “muro”, perchè si dovrebbe combattere il male prima, quando ancora non si chiama “guerra”.

Senza parlare dell'altro livello della metafora, là dove le donne, allontanate dal governo dalla società patriarcale che precipita nella guerra, da portatrici di vita sono le uniche capaci di pensare un futuro diverso se non cadono nel tranello di comportamenti simili ai maschi o, nel modello opposto, per inseguire il potere nell'unica forma che a loro rimane: la seduzione.

E così , quando ho finito il libro ho fatto una cosa che non avevo fatto mai.
L'ho ricominciato!

P.S....e poi ho scoperto che la Wolf ha fatto la tesi di laurea su Fallada...chiamale solo coincidenze!

[Neal Adolph · Rating 5 out of 5]

Several months ago I finished reading the novella in this collection and I wrote a review. It is below, under the line break. In the time since I have read the essays, though that has taken a good deal of time. I moved to Colombia and left the book in Canada, which delayed reading the last essay by several months, and I celebrated Black History Month, which meant that I set aside all literature by anybody who wasn't black, even if only for a month. There have been delays.

But the essays are fantastic, and I am a little sad to have taken so much time in reading them. Oftentimes they are unorthodox in their structure, and require re-reading of passages to understand just how they are moving forward, why they are moving in that direction, who the speaker is, what they are speaking about. Wolf didn't write for a simplistic understanding of her literature and how it developed - the story of how it developed was complex, and so was the telling of that story.

It comes with a great wide knowledge, a great wide research into the experience of women in history, and, as a result, is powered by a deep, seething, historical anger. How powerful is her frustration! It makes you stronger as you read it.

Essays are illuminating when they are well-written, when they play with the form, when they add to our appreciation of something that we love. While I would find it hard to argue that they are as stellar as the novella that they are attached to (Cassandra is a 5-star read), they are still very good, and perhaps an essential collection for anybody who wants to write one day. In fact, if I worked for a creative writing program, I would make this book - all of it - essential reading.

------------------------------------------------------

I never expected to become a big fan of the great classics, though I suppose in retrospect my high school admiration for the art of Oedipus Rex was a good indication that I could love the epic poetry of ancient Greece. And somehow it turned out that, with a nudge from a good friend, I did. I loved The Odyssey, and The Iliad is perhaps the best work to give to somebody who wishes to become a pacifist. And then I read a book about the Iliad by Simone Weil and Rachel Besparloff - a small collection of essays that only managed to enhance my appreciation for these great epics.

And now I have read Cassandra by Christa Wolf.

To say that Cassandra is a wonderful piece of writing I think fails to acknowledge the many remarkable things that Wolf has accomplished in having written it. Here she has taken the works of three incredible ancients - Homer, Virgil, Aeschylus - and discovered a character, Cassandra, hidden away in the margins, and then placed her in the centre of the fall of Troy. She, burdened by the powers of a seer, is witness to the destruction of her city, the murder of her people, the mastication of her body, many years before it is destroyed. She is the prophet compelled to speak out against the war mongering brought to the council by some unknown but trusted young man. She is the woman who is recognized as a traitor, removed from her seat of power in the council and prevented from influencing her father, King Priam, and then thrown in a cellar. She is violently disregarded, ignored, silenced.

To the detriment of the whole city.

Christa Wolf has written, by taking on the great story of Troy’s collapse, the narrative of women in the western world - that is, to be valuable, intelligent, essential parts of our communities who, for no reason other than patriarchy, have been disregarded, ignored, and silenced to the detriment of our whole selves. She has tied this to the beginning myths of our world - the origins of so much of our defining literature, the beach and walls from which Odysseus set off to return home and, lost for twenty years, recorded one of the great stories of the Western World - a story which has often been called Everyman’s Journey. She is wise in telling us about Cassandra from the perspective of Cassandra. Patriarchy is in everyman’s journey - either as victim or as perpetrator and sometimes as both.

I keep on reading novellas which tell so much in such a short space and continue to be astonished by them. After reading something like Cassandra, which is dense and powerful, intense, and sometimes a struggle, one wonders at why some even bother trying to write books that are more than 150 pages long. How lazy some novelists are, taking so long to tell so little, one thinks. Of course, this isn’t possibly entirely true - some novelists need the novel. But books like Cassandra illumine the power of brevity, or declarations, of compelling characters created in very few words.

This work is nothing short of a classic. The discovery of Christa Wolf will, like my discovery of Gabriel Garcia Marquez only a few weeks ago, surely go down as a landmark in my literary life.

[Dhanaraj Rajan · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the bests.........

This is my third book by Chrsita Wolf and like the other two this one is also a "FIVE STAR" book.

What is it about?

It is the re-telling of a story that is universally well known - The Fall of Troy. The fall of Troy in this novel is narrated by King Priam's daughter/priestess, Cassandra who in her captivity is expecting the death. She was the one who saw Troy's fall from the beginning but sadly nobody believed her.

What makes it a great book?

The reason is Christa Wolf and her narrative style.

About her narrative Style: I may use the term: "FLASHBACK WITH A FLASHLIGHT". Christa Wolf is fond of mingling present and past. Initially, it might hinder the normal flowing reading process. But once a person gets used to it that will be pleasure.

In Wolf's novels usually the primary character in its present time is portrayed as thinking back into the past and beginning to analyse each event with some revealing and striking reflections. That is why it is a FLASHBACK WITH A FLASH LIGHT. And the Flash light reveals many things. The shady characters, the dark events, the hidden skeletons and the impregnable inner core of persons reveal themselves to Wolf's Flash light.

For instance, in this book we get to know of many characters in a different colour. ( Two examples: Polyxena, the other daughter of King Priam who wanted to be the priestess is observed to be one who "punishes those she loved by ruining herself." Panthesilea, the woman warrior's motive is described as: "They kill whomever they love, love in order to kill.") Her observations on other characters, such as Achilles, Paris, King Priam, etc are all fantastic. These observations of characters make the well known story very fresh and new.

Wolf's 'Flash light observations' on war and other political activities/decisions relating to it are immeasurably relevant even to the present context. I think, she drew on her own experiences of war that she witnessed as a small girl in Germany. Her observations on war and war heroes are very chilling and she ends with a pessimistic observation, that the wars and their consequent human miseries will be for ever part of human history. In the novel, this is the observation Cassandra makes and sadly from her point of view the world and human history has not contradicted her till today.

If so, what are we to do today when we have 'peaceful situation' in our own region? Prepare for mourning? No. Christa Wolf answers: "This much I do know: there are gaps in time. This is one of them, here and now. We cannot let it pass without taking advantage of it."

As for me I do know one thing: "One who has not read Christa Wolf misses a lot."

[Viv JM · Rating 3 out of 5]

"Cassandra" is a re-imagining of the Trojan War, as recounted by King Priam's daughter, Cassandra, a priestess whose destiny is to be able to predict the future, but never to be believed. It is told in a stream-of-consciousness style as Cassandra is held prisoner in Mycenae and she pieces together what has happened in the lead up to the fall of Troy. There is a definite feminist slant to the retelling and I liked the emphasis on the lives of those left behind and those sacrificed in the name of the great "heroes" but the book didn't altogether work for me, mainly due to the style of writing, I think.
There were definite moments of brilliance and beauty but stream-of-consciousness with no chapter breaks is just not my thing after all.

[Carmo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cassandra a doida, Cassandra a visionária, Cassandra de língua afiada, sempre de nariz no ar, a irritar a família e os Troianos com visões de catástrofe. Era assim que a viam e não a poupavam no tratamento. Eu diria que também era incompreendida, sensível, introspetiva.
Cassandra também tinha uma beleza extraordinária, tão linda que cativou um Deus. Apolo deu-lhe o dom da profecia, e também o castigo de não se ver acreditada. Porquê? Ide googlar.
Quando Troia cai (lá está, não foi por falta de aviso, Cassandra avisou e ninguém acreditou), Cassandra é feita prisioneira e levada por Agamenon. Mais tarde seria morta por Egisto, ou Clitemnestra, conforme as versões, mas não é disso que se trata aqui.
O que este livro nos traz é a voz de Cassandra. Na primeira pessoa e enquanto viaja para Micenas, tendo já previsto a própria morte, Cassandra vai desfiando um ror de recordações, memórias dolorosas de quem sentiu a rejeição, o abandono, a sujeição, mas também algumas lembranças menos abonatórias de jovem caprichosa.
A narrativa é intimista e envolvente e tinha tudo para ser mais um preferido a juntar aos muitos que tenho sobre o mito troiano.
Ora, tratando-se de um mito está sujeito a múltiplas recriações e são muitos os desvios que se conhecem sobre a legendária guerra de Troia. Contudo, Troia sem Helena eu não consigo aceitar e a partir daí perdi grande parte do interesse na história. Sim, Paris terá raptado Helena, mas tê-la-á perdido para o Rei do Egito e a guerra terá acontecido movida por uma mentira… aqui larguei tudo e percorri ruas e azinhagas da Internet em busca desta novidade, mas nada.
Sim, sou picuinhas a esse ponto, Helena de Esparta foi para Troia com Paris, e Menelau cornudo e despeitado arma uma frota e navega para Troia desencadeando uma guerra que já estava por um fio de acontecer (e isso também é outra história) e não aceito outra versão.
Ah e tal, mas o foco aqui é Cassandra e não Helena, dirão outros…pois...🙄

[Katya]

As coisas mais importantes ninguém nunca as saberá de nós. As tábuas dos escribas, endurecidas no fogo de Tróia, deixam os registos da contabilidade do palácio, cereais, vasos, armas, prisioneiros. Não há escrita para dor, felicidade, amor. Sinto isso como uma desgraça premeditada.

A sensação com que sempre fico, ao ler Christa Wolf, é a de que os paralelos entre a sua ficção e a realidade da RDA não se descolam. E Cassandra traça esses paralelos de forma particularmente marcante.
Munindo-se de uma heroína que frequentes vezes apela às escritoras - Cassandra, a profetisa (tal como nos chega das tragédias e não da épica) -, Wolf consegue a intérprete ideal para uma época em que a ocupação suspende todas as liberdades que não lhe sejam afetas e a beneficiem. Nesse sentido, a voz das mulheres (enquanto desencadeador de alteralidade) é dos primeiros direitos erradicados - embora na RDA esta questão tenha matizes vários, incluindo um súbito alargamento na promoção da igualdade de género como marco anticapitalista. Talvez por isso mesmo, a voz das mulheres (que, embora empoderadas, sobretudo a nível de mercado de trabalho, eram muitas vezes subestimadas nas suas capacidades) seja na obra de Christa Wolf um eco maior. Talvez por isso a sua Cassandra - mais ainda do que Medeia - fale tão alto e com tanta força, talvez por isso lhe convenham a loucura e o dom profético. Eles, por si só, legitimam um discurso normalmente obliterado:

Que força me levou a querer o dom da profecia?
Falar com a minha voz: o limite extremo. Nunca quis mais, nem outra coisa.

No meio da lógica de guerra - como da lógica de ocupação - os discursos menores são facilmente erradicados. Aqueles que não sirvam a lei marcial (logo, patriarcal), não têm lugar. E é dentro dessa lógica que a voz de Cassandra ganha particular relevância:

Dez anos de guerra. Foi tempo mais que suficiente para esquecer completamente a questão de saber
como ela tinha começado. Em plena guerra só se pensa em como ela irá acabar. E adia-se a vida. Quando muitos fazem isso, nasce em nós o espaço vazio por onde entra a guerra.

No seu discurso soa a voz dos derrotados, dos bárbaros, dos outros, de todos aqueles que são apagados da história, mas têm a sua história. E Cassandra, quando fala, é por todos esses (nós) que fala. O lado B da História, como a profetisa ignorada a narra, emerge das profundezas daqueles que são agredidos...

O último triunfo dela foi obrigá-lo a levá-la a sério. Lutaram durante bastante tempo, todas as amazonas foram afastadas de Pentesileia. Ele derrubou-a, queria fazê-la prisioneira, mas ela fez-lhe um corte com o punhal e obrigou-o a matá-la. Que os deuses sejam louvados, por isto entre todas as coisas.
O que depois se passou, tenho-o diante dos olhos como se estivesse lá. Aquiles, o herói grego, violou a mulher morta. O homem, incapaz de amar a mulher viva, lança-se sobre a vítima, continuando a matança. E eu solto um gemido. Porquê? Ela não sentiu, nós é que o sentimos, todas nós, mulheres.

...e daqueles que são subestimados:

De que queria eu falar, a não ser do tempo, da fertilidade, das pragas do gado, das doenças? Queria arrancar as pessoas do círculo a que estavam presas, em que se sentiam bem, sem quererem saber de mais nada? E eu, indo aos arames: Porque não conhecem mais nada! Porque eles só lhes dão oportunidade de fazer perguntas destas. Eles quem? Os deuses? A situação? O rei? E quem és tu, para lhes impores outras questões? Deixa as coisas como estão, Cassandra, é um bom conselho que te dou.

Cassandra simboliza o perigo de persistir na verdade, lembra-nos o custo de recusar as palavras, os instintos e a violência masculina.
Silenciada, violada e assassinada, Cassandra conserva em si mesma a história de muitos séculos de mulheres (mas não só) que recusaram a transgressão do seu corpo e do seu espírito, ousando denunciar os crimes de que são vítimas. Por isso, a voz que ergue visa desconstruir o mito do herói, a sua da história e o seu poder sobre os derrotados:

Se nada me sobrevivesse a não ser o meu ódio! Se do meu túmulo nascesse o ódio, uma árvore de ódio que sussurrasse: Aquiles, a besta. E se a abatessem voltaria a crescer. E se a arrasassem cada folha de erva assu-miria esta mensagem: Aquiles, a besta, Aquiles, a besta. E cada aedo que ousasse cantar a glória de Aquiles morreria logo no meio das maiores dores. Entre a posteridade e a besta, um abismo de desprezo ou de esquecimento. Apolo, se ainda existes, concede-me isto. Assim, não teria vivido em vão.

Justifica-se a procura de Wolf pela sua voz, justifica-se essa procura no contexto de ocupação, mas também se justifica olhar hoje para a história de Cassandra como a história da objetificação das mulheres, e para a sua maldição como o jugo do opressor sobre o oprimido - qualquer que seja:

Como as formigas, nós lançamo-nos para qualquer fogo, para qualquer água, para qualquer torrente de sangue. Só para não ter que ver. Ver o quê? A nós próprios.

Wolf sabia a importância que viria a ter, numa Europa pós-Cortina de Ferro, a fixação das memórias, da vivência, das palavras das mulheres. Sabendo-o, recuperou e fixou vozes que lhe chegavam de longe, fazendo delas um estandarte de um épico mais moderno (que, tanto como o anterior, nada tem de glorioso). A necessidade de deixar um testemunho - a mesma que hoje move tantas mulheres, académica, historiadoras e classicistas - habita a obra da autora, mas revela-se mais urgente com Cassandra. Talvez empatia pessoal, profissional (os paralelos entre escritora/profetisa são antigos) ou ambas. Talvez uma sensibilidade própria de quem queria apenas, desalentadamente, fixar a sua voz para que, no futuro, ela se fizesse ouvir mais forte do que nunca:

Vou pedir àquela mulher horrível que me poupe a vida. Vou lançar-me aos seus pés. Clitemnestra, encerra-me para sempre no teu cárcere sombrio. Dá-me mais algum tempo de vida. Mas suplico-te: manda-me um escriba ou, melhor ainda, uma escrava jovem com boa memória e voz forte. Ordena-lhe que conte à sua filha o que de mim ouvir. E que esta filha o conte à sua filha, e assim por diante. Para que, ao lado do grande rio das canções heróicas, também este pequeno riacho, penosamente, chegue àquela humanidade distante, talvez mais feliz, que um dia há-de viver.
E eu acreditava nisto, um dia que fosse? Acaba comigo, Clitemnestra. Mata-me. Despacha-te.

[Sara Jesus · Rating 4 out of 5]

Um releitura extraordinária da "Ilíada" de Homero. Narrada por Cassandra faz-nos navegar pelo território troiano e ouvir as vozes de dor do seu povo. Assim como è desvendado a vida da profetiza, algo que o livro original não nos favoreceu, os seus amores e as suas dúvidas. Destaque para a figura de Eneias e seu pai, Helena e Paris, Aquiles (visto como o guerreio sanguinário, descrito como a "besta") e Briseida.

Cassandra è uma figura fascinante que foi menosprezada por Homero. Fico satisfeita que Christa Wolf tenha rescrito a guerra de Troia pela voz desta incompreendida mulher. Um livro que superou as minhas expectativas, recomendo para os apaixonados pela mitologia grega e as epopeias clássicas!

[Soledad · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cele mai lungi 150 de pagini din viața mea...
Indiscutabil cartea e bine scrisă. Însă stilul narativ a fost o adevărată corvoadă pentru mine. Aveam impresia că mă adâncesc tot mai mult într-o mlaștină din care nu voi reuși niciodată să ies.
Fluxul conștiinței prin intermediul căruia protagonista rememorează evenimentele ce i-au marcat viața ei cât și a Troiei, salturile temporale spontane și incoerente, liniile narative fragmentare și deseori lipsite de finalitate, toate în ansamblu au transformat lectura într-un adevărat supliciu. Drept consecință atât aspectul psihologic, cât și stilul de scriere m-au lăsat rece. Astfel încât nu am reușit să mă bucur pe deplin de această poveste, care inițial se arăta destul de promițătoare.

[Rachel · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read and adored Christa Wolf’s Medea years ago — a fiercely human and political retelling of the myth — and have been wanting to read Cassandra ever since. Oddly, I’ve been misremembering for years that these books have the same English-language translator; they do not, and I think that factor alone might be responsible for the fact that I had a stronger reaction to Medea than I did to Cassandra. Jan van Heurck’s translation here is serviceable, but John Cullen’s Medea translation really sings in a way this one does not. (Hannah, whose favorite novel is Cassandra, has assured me that the German-language prose in Cassandra is much stronger than in Medea, but knows other English-language readers who share my assessment of the two.)

In this volume published by FSG in the 80s, Wolf’s novel Cassandra is published alongside four essays which were originally presented as a lecture series. The first two are travel diaries that detail Wolf’s journey to ancient sites in Greece, the next is a personal journal entry, and the final one is a letter. Through these essays the reader comes to not only see what a passion project this novel was for Wolf, but also to see the myriad of factors from her contemporary sociopolitical perspective that influenced her perception of the Cassandra character. She writes of the ways in which her concept of Cassandra evolve throughout her research:

The character continually changes as I occupy myself with the material; the deadly seriousness, and everything heroic and tragic, is disappearing; accordingly, compassion and unilateral bias in her favor are disappearing, too. I view her more soberly, even with irony and humor. I see through her.

The novel, which comes first in this bind-up, is essentially a monologue from Cassandra’s perspective, narrating her account of the Trojan War as her death draws nearer. Like Medea, this is a very political retelling, focused not only on Cassandra’s life but also the machinations of the Trojan court, notably subverting the romantic notion that the war was waged for Helen’s honor and beauty, instead exposing that that was a smoke screen for Greek occupation, actually driven by an interest in Troy’s trade routes.

This book in both of its halves — novel and essays — is a beautiful and thoughtful meditation on the destructive effects of war on the individual. I’m glad I finally made the time to read it, I only wish I were capable of reading it in the original German, in which I suspect it may have affected me a bit more.

[Uralte Morla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Es ist keine leichte Lektüre, die gerade mal 170 Seiten brauchen wirklich viel Konzentration (und Zeit) - aber hui, lohnt sich das Durchhalten!
Ein kluges, eindringliches Buch über patriarchale Strukturen und das Leider der Frauen seit Jahrhunderten. "Kassandra" könnte genauso in einem Krieg der Gegenwart spielen, viel ändern würde sich an der zum Teil sehr grausamen Geschichte nichts.
Ich liebe alles daran!

[Teresa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cassandra é uma das filhas do rei Tróia e uma vidente em quem ninguém acredita (por dádiva e maldição de Apólo). No fim da guerra é entregue a Agamémnon. Frente aos portões da casa onde sabe que vai ser morta, Cassandra domina o medo encetando um longo monólogo onde recorda o que levou à destruição da sua família e reino.

Inspirado na Ilíada de Homero e na Oresteia de Ésquilo, Cassandra é uma obra sobre o papel da mulher numa sociedade patriarcal e em guerra: "agrilhoada, controlada, dirigida e empurrada para um objectivo decidido por outros."


=================================

"Entre matar e morrer existe uma terceira via: viver."
— Christa Wolf



Christa Wolf nasceu em Landsberg an der Warthe, Alemanha, no dia 18 de Março de 1929 e morreu em Berlim, Alemanha, no dia 1 de Outubro de 2011.
"Defende a convicção de que cabe à mulher (e à sua escrita) o papel de instaurar a paz, por oposição à ordem patriarcal bélica, e empenhou-se ativamente na manutenção de um Estado socialista alemão, contra a corrente de otimismo que precipitou a "reunificação alemã."

[Magdarine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Auch beim ca. 6. Mal Lesen finde ich diesen Text immernoch genauso krass wie beim ersten Mal vor rund 14 Jahren.

[max theodore · Rating 5 out of 5]

my review the moment i finished this was just "whoa," and honestly? not sure what else to say.

perhaps i will start with what this is: exactly what it says it is, a novel and two essays. the novel (really a novella, i think?) is 138 pages of unbroken monologue from cassandra, the seer of troy, as she marches to the death she has foreseen in agamemnon's palace, and as she reminisces about her past and the fall of her city. first of all, top ten books to read on a plane, because there are no chapter breaks and doing it all in one big rush was overwhelming in the best way. second of all, imo one of the marks of a good retelling/derivative story is that it can stand on its own while also making me think "fuck i need to read [the original] again," and. well. fuck dude i need to read the iliad again.

what is there to say about this? that it's sharp, maybe. cassandra's monologue cuts apart all of the willful blindnesses and blindings in her life--her own self-deception and that of those around her; the upper class of troy's deceptions of the people; the widespread refusal to accept the futility of the trojan war (and war in general); the concealment of the lives of women and how they're kept in thrall to men. it’s about seeing and not seeing, and also about storytelling, in a nebulous way i can't explain because most of the time i was reading this going "ohhhh my god" and underlining lines with frenzy. (the first time i attempted reading this book, i had to give up, because it was a library book and i knew i needed to write in it.)

also, if you are one of the, like, three other people in the world who are aeneas enjoyers--jesus christ, read cassandra. there are so many good things about this book that do not involve aeneas (the prose, cassandra's character, the social commentary, the interaction with the myth of troy), but also, like. i am an #aeneasstan4life and in that regard this was a fucking MEAL

one of the notes i made while reading it was that i felt some of the meta context was going over my head--the commentary on war is certainly colored by christa wolf living as an east german writer in a time when world war two still loomed over europe and the cold war was in full swing. no fear! the second half of this book is taken up by the essays, describing the journey wolf took to the writing of the novel, and originally presented as a lecture series in conjunction with the novel's first draft. the first two are narrative descriptions of wolf's journey to greece and how cassandra took root in her mind; the third is a work diary chronicling her developing thoughts about cassandra and about the state of the world; the fourth is a letter discussing the evolution of the cassandra myth as a way to discuss ambiguity and objectivity in academia.

these essays are academic--for me, at least, they didn't go down nearly as fast as the narrative--but they were both incredibly enlighting in regard to the narrative and also deeply interesting on their own. wolf discusses narratives and cultural myths, the truth versus the manufacturing of stories and whether those things ever coincide, the way cultures swallow one another but retain parts of the cultures swallowed, the minimization of women in literary and cultural history, and the tendency of western culture toward "self-annihilation." all of this with a distinct intelligence and wit. this is a book i'm going to have to read again, probably multiple times.

Who was Cassandra before anyone wrote about her?

my personal favorite essay was the work diary--less for its thoughts on cassandra, actually, than for the way it depicts living in an age that feels like the end of the world, as the US and USSR loom toward atomic war with europe as the stage. her diary entries are from 1980-1981. they felt... uncomfortably familiar. both in the sense that atomic war still looms over the present day (though perhaps not as obviously or intensely), and in the sense that a lot of wolf's feelings echo the feelings i have as someone who grew up under the looming shadow of climate change.

Meanwhile, we talk about the situation, arrive at the conclusion that it no longer bears thinking about. And yet we cannot help thinking about it.

How can you teach younger people the technique of living without alternatives, and yet living? When did it begin? we ask. Was this course of events inevitable?

if you like the iliad, you should read this. if you like aeneas, you should definitely read this. if you're interested in the myth of cassandra, you should read this. if you're interested in how cultures subsume each other and how cultures create narratives and how cultures consume themselves, you should read this. can you tell i think you should read this because i do

🎵(what else?) Cassandra—Florence + the Machine🎵

[Hazal Çamur · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bu kitabın hakkı aslında 5 yıldız, ancak bende uyandırdığı duyguları bir araya getirdiğimde, kişisel kanaatimin 3 olduğunu görüyorum.

Yaratması, çevirmesi ve görece okuması zorlu bir eserdi. Gerek yazar Christa Wolf'a, gerek çevirmen İlknur İgan'a derin bir saygı duydum. Böyle bir eseri ortaya koymak ne kadar zorduysa, onu dilimize kazandırmak da bir o kadar meşakatliydi eminim. Eserin bu kısımları kesinlikle mükemmelik seviyesinde.

Peki bende uyandırdığı hisler neden yukarıda yazdığım gibi değildi?

Kitabı Çatal Dil'in hemen ardından okudum. Bu kendi içinde güzel oldu. İki eser başlarda el ele vermiş gibiydi. Çata Dil'de bıraktığım Delphi Kahini'nin adını ve izlerini Kassandra'da buldum. Sanki birbirlerine aynı zamanda (değilse aslında, yakın zamanlar demek daha doğru olur) farklı coğrafyalardan sesleniyorlardı. Fakat sonrasında kitabın umduğum şeyi bana vermeyeceğini anladım: Kehanetleri.

148 sayfalık kısa yapısına rağmen gerek kitabın bir bütün olup hiçbir bölüme ayrılmamış olması, gerekse anlatının yapısı çok daha kalın bir kitap okuyor hissi veriyordu. Dinlenme noktası yoktu, ancak yazar da kitabı buna göre yazmamıştı zaten.

Anlatıda bir yere kdar "şimdi konuşan?" demek zorunda kaldım. Konuşmalarda sözün sahipleri birbirine girerek okumamı zorlaştırıyordu.

Söz konusu Kassandra olunca kehanetlerin önemli bir yer tutmasını istemiştim, ancak kitabın sonlarını saymazsak büyük kısmı bir "kral kızı"nı anlatıyordu. Neredeydi kehanetlerine inanılmayan Kassandra? Yoktu. Yazar onu oldukça gerçekçi bir şekilde önümüze sürmüştü. Bu konuda da çok başarılı, hakkını teslim etmek gerekir. Ancak ben onun mitolojik yanının da bu gerçekçiliğe yedirilmesini istiyordum. Mesela görüdğü rüyaları başkalarına yorumlatması yerine kendisinin yorumlamasını arzu ediyordum. Bu böyle olmadı.

Savaşın eril doğasını, her savaşın eninde sonunda tüm kadınların (dirisinin de ölüsünün de) ırzına geçilen bir katliama dönüştüğünün çarpıcı bir portresiydi. Bazı rahatsız edici sahnelere sahipti ki, bu hayatın ta kendisi. Hatta çok daha iğrençlerine maruz kalıyoruz kadınlar olarak.

Eser, bir "eser" olarak ele alındığında oldukça etkileyici, ancak bana adıyla vadettiği şeylerin belli bir kısmını vermedi. Bu da bir hayal kırıklığı oldu.

İlginç bir deneyimdi.

[Elena · Rating 3 out of 5]

Die Geschichte von Christa Wolfs "Kassandra" beginnt eigentlich am Ende: Kassandra sitzt auf dem Beutewagen des Agamemnon, weiß, dass sie bald getötet werden wird, und blickt auf ihr Leben zurück. Ihre Gedanken mäandern dabei, nach und nach offenbart sich ihr Schicksal. Kassandra gehört zur Oberschicht in Troja, ihr Vater ist ein mächtiger Mann, sie möchte gerne Seherin werden. Diesen Wunsch erfüllt ihr der Gott Apollo zunächst, weil er mit ihr schlafen möchte, als sie sich weigert, verflucht er sie: Sie kann zwar die Zukunft vorhersehen, aber niemand wird ihr glauben. So sieht sie auch den Fall Trojas voraus, muss aber hilflos zusehen, wie sie und alle Menschen, die sie liebt, ins Verderben gestürzt werden.

Christa Wolf, eine der wichtigsten Autorinnen der DDR, interpretiert die Geschichte des Trojanischen Krieges mit "Kassandra" neu, sie verleiht ihr eine weibliche, feministische Perspektive, was ich grundsätzlich großartig finde. Leider habe ich den Text aber als extrem schwer zugänglich und sehr wirr empfunden, ich konnte Wolfs Erzählung nur mit großer Mühe folgen. Die poetische Sprache scheint, obwohl 1983 erschienen, wie aus der Zeit gefallen, es gibt keine Kapitel, kaum Absätze. Während und nach dem Lesen des Romans habe ich viel zu Hintergründen und Interpretationen recherchiert, so habe ich doch ein wenig mehr verstanden - richtig Spaß macht das Lesen aber nicht. Wodurch mir Christa Wolfs Kassandra und die Frauen Trojas letztlich aber doch näher gebracht wurden, sind die ausdrucksstarken und farbprächtigen Illustrationen von Nadine Prange in der neuen, wunderschönen Ausgabe der Büchergilde. Textstellen, die der Illustratorin besonders ins Auge fielen, hat sie eindrucksvoll bebildert, manche Motive kehren immer wieder. Von mir gibt es daher eine Empfehlung insbesondere für die Büchergilde-Version der "Kassandra" - für das Buch selbst muss man finde ich schon sehr Fan von Literaturinterpretation sein, um es wirklich genießen zu können.

[Nika Vardiashvili · Rating 4 out of 5]

ოთხ ვარსკვლავზე მეტი ეკუთვნის, მაგრამ ხუთ ვარსკვლავს ვერ დავუწერ.
წინასიტყვაობიშივე ვიგებთ თუ როგორ იმუშავა ავტორმა აღნიშნული ნაწარმოების შესაქმნელად. თუ როგორ გაერკვა კრეტა-მიკენის კულტურაში. ეს ყველაფერი ტექსტს ეტყობა და იგრძნობა შრომა.
გარდა სტრუქტურული სიმყარისა, წერის სტილიც გამორჩეული აქვს. საოცარია გააღვიძო საუკუნეებით ადრე შექმნილი მითოსები და ასე ლამაზად წერო. ყოველი ეპიზოდი ჩამთრევი იყო, მიუხედავად იმისა, რომ თავად კასანდრას ცხოვრება ასეთი არ ყოფილა. ის სიყვარული, ის სიზმრები, ის სიძულვილი, რასაც პროტაგონისტი გრძნობდა გამოკვეთილი და ხაზსგასმული იყო. და მაინც სადღაც, სადღაც მეცოდება პრიამოსი და პარისი, რომ ასეთი ბედი შეხვდათ. და მეცოდებიან სხვა პერსონაჟებიც. ვფიქრობ რომ წიგნიც ზუსტად ასეთია, საცოდავი ხალხის საცოდავი ისტორია.
მიუხედავად ამისა, იყო მომენტები როდესაც ტექსტი მღლიდა. არცერთი დიდი დიალოგი ტექსტში ძალიან მძიმე იყო. არ ვიცი ჩემი ბრალი იყო თუ არა, მაგრამ როდესაც წიგნს გადავდებდი, უკან დაბბრუნებას ძალიან ვაჯანჯლებდი ხოლმე (ამიტომ არ ვუწერ ხუთს).

[Frau Becker · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nachdem ich mit "Der geteilte Himmel" und "Kein Ort. Nirgends." so meine Schwierigkeiten gehabt hatte, war ich hier erstmal skeptisch. Und tatsächlich ist es nicht ganz einfach, in die Erzählung hereinzufinden: Für so einen recht kurzen Text ist das Personal reichlich, auf Einführungen wird weitgehend verzichtet, die Struktur folgt der freien Assoziation, die fließende, melodiöse Sprache sperrt sich zuweilen dem unmittelbaren Verständnis. Doch gerade diese Sprachmelodie trägt über diese Schwierigkeiten hinweg, und spätestens beim Ausbruch des Krieges war ich drin, las das mit atemloser Spannung. Kassandra war für mich dabei eine moderne Figur in einer archaischen Welt, eine Männerwelt, verkörpert durch sturen Militarismus, einen veralteten Ehrbegriff und rohe Gewalttätigkeit. Es braucht nicht die göttliche Sehergabe, um zu sehen, was niemand sonst sieht: Troja ist ein kaputtes System, der Bedrohung von außen nicht wirklich gewachsen, auch wenn die Stadt zäh standhält. In der DDR Anfang der 80er eine subtile, aber kraftvolle Systemkritik.

[Pam Baddeley · Rating 2 out of 5]

This work deals with the well known story of the Trojan War but through the first person viewpoint of Cassandra, the most famous of the Trojan royal family's many daughters, who was doomed to prophecy the fall of the city but to never be believed.

The novel is unusual in that it doesn't stand alone - there is a lengthy exposition that follows it, which deals with the author's ruminations while travelling in the Greek world on a fact finding mission to develop her idea. I found most of that rather rambling and not that interesting, though there were some occasional snippets of ideas and some light on the materials she had studied and which informed the novel. The work was published in the early 80s and the non-fiction part deals with the anxiety around the state of the Cold War at the time - not altogether outdated because the current political world situation is just as much a cause for concern despite the political changes. These non fiction sections do continue the novel's theme of the corrosive effect of war - that even if fought for principles, these end up being steamrollered in the interest of "winning".

The novel itself is a stream of consciousness style flashback as Cassandra waits outside the palace at Mycenae knowing she is about to be murdered and that Agamemnon, her captor, is already being murdered inside. As usual, no one believes the prophetess and she considers her whole life and various milestones along the way in a rambling discourse where it isn't always clear as to what happened when.

One thing I found interesting is the depiction of Troy as descending, during the war, into a kind of police state in which eventually anyone who is not "for us" in the sense of colluding with the various official lies is "against us" and subject to imprisonment etc - which happened to Cassandra. The official reason for the war - Helen's abduction - is a sham, since Wolf adheres to one variant of the myth in which Helen actually ended up in Egypt and never came to Troy, but the fiction that the war is about her is propped up by the men on both sides although they all know that really the Greeks are trying to get control of the sea lanes which belong to Troy because of its strategic position.

Another interesting aspect of the novel is the idea that women manage to eke out an existence despite the war, with their own alternative society off in the hills away from the city, and that Cassandra had a relationship with Aeneas, the man who, in Roman legend, founded Carthage. I didn't find her reason for not escaping with him, his father and various others they take to safety just before the city's fall, particularly convincing - that she couldn't continue to love him if he is going to become a 'hero' and a survivor-at-all-costs which she equates with the faction who have taken power and made her father the King a puppet. Especially as she had already suffered sexual abuse by the male priest of Apollo (as his "right" since she is a priestess of the god) and being married off to someone who brought soldiers to fight on Troy's side.

Inasmuch as most of the men seem to be waging a war against women more than against each other, the work can be considered feminist although Cassandra herself never succeeds in challenging the status quo effectively and is silenced more and more as the war drags on. Ultimately it is rather a downbeat tale, but then it is a Greek tragedy - the slant which Wolf brings to it is to make it Cassandra's tragedy rather than the ancient Greek view in which she was a mere adjunct to Agamemnon's fate. Given the very uneven nature of the work for me, I can only rate this as 2 stars.

[Guido · Rating 5 out of 5]

Cassandra, prossima alla morte, rivive in brevi attimi la storia della caduta di Troia. Dentro di sé, in forma di racconto, ricostruisce la città: taglia le parole come pietre, sa nascondere i pensieri come le serpi tra gli arbusti; rinnova tutte le voci, i mormorii, i lamenti, le invidie della patria perduta. Grazie ai suoi pensieri possiamo ricostruire quelle note vicende da una prospettiva insolita: la guerra di Troia secondo gli assediati, gli affamati, le donne martirizzate per volere e per vizio degli uomini. Cassandra parla dei suoi sogni, della sua famiglia, dei suoi amori e del suo ruolo così singolare, che la rende vulnerabile e porta le persone più care ad allontanarla. Com'è doloroso portare il peso di quelle visioni in una società che vive per nascondersi la verità: le sue intuizioni non sono oscure o magiche, sono semplicemente l'espressione di una sincerità coraggiosa - che gli altri trovano cinica, arrogante, irresponsabile - alla quale non è disposta a rinunciare. La sua città è destinata a scomparire, demolita dal peso degli inganni: la guerra, scatenata dall'arrogante Paride per una bugia, e sostenuta dal re e dai cittadini nella stupida, miope adorazione della bellezza di Elena; la religione, strumento del governo, sfruttata per infondere ottimismo nella popolazione stremata. I luoghi sono violati e offesi: le mura della città, i templi, le grotte, le capanne, i rifugi - e con essi le persone, le menti, le parole, e ancora le donne: vendute al nemico per miseri contratti o vendette, secondo necessità, fino all'inevitabile capitolazione. Quest'ultima, non per caso, avviene grazie a uno stratagemma dei greci; e per accogliere il cavallo di legno - un mostro, come avete potuto credere a un dono? - s'abbattono le mura intorno alle porte, si regala al nemico ciò che con anni d'assedio, di omicidi e violenze non era riuscito a conquistare. Per vanità, per orgoglio di stato, per amore della bellezza. L'assedio crudele e logorante è anche l'assedio all'integrità di Cassandra, in tutti i suoi ruoli - donna, sacerdotessa, figlia del re - e il finale è l'unico possibile.

Questo romanzo merita molta attenzione. La sua prosa ha un ritmo complicato, che il lettore può far suo dopo poche pagine, e che evoca in modo sublime l'evoluzione della guerra e dei sentimenti, il dolore di Cassandra e il fascino del paesaggio: la luce del tramonto sui leoni di pietra, le foglie argentate degli ulivi. Se Cassandra fosse soltanto una rielaborazione di racconti antichi, lo si potrebbe dimenticare dopo pochi giorni. Non è così semplice: Christa Wolf scrive intrecciando alle vicende della protagonista pensieri che non hanno nulla d'antico, tanto che le sue parole sembrano spesso far luce su aree oscure e poco visitate del pensiero moderno. Non si può classificare la complessità delle riflessioni espresse dalla sua narrazione cercando tra le note e abusate etichette - non è semplicemente femminista, né pacifista o altro: porta una voce più profonda, cavernosa, dimenticata; e non desta meraviglia che abbia sentito il bisogno di ricreare luoghi e personaggi tanto antichi per parlare ai suoi contemporanei con tanta urgenza e commozione.