El denario del sueño

by Marguerite Yourcenar, Emma Calatayud (Translator)

La historia de un atentado antifascista en la Roma de Mussolini reúne en la ciudad a una serie de personajes trágicamente singularizados, a veces fútiles, a veces grices, vacuamente triunfantes, doloridos o simplemente cansados. Una moneda de diez liras pasa de mano en mano creando un vínculo alegórico-alegoría que el espíritu de la Ciudad Inmortal empuja hacia el mito- entre personajes y temas, que se entrecruzan en estas páginas como transeúntes en las calles.
Pero, además de una historia de un determinado momento político, El denario del sueño contiene una sutil y terrible reflexión sobre el paso del tiempo, el enfrentamiento entre la realidad y la imagen -magistralmente desarrollados en el encuentro erótico entre Alessandro y Angiola en un pequeño cine de barrio- o la impotencia del hombre ante un orden de las cosas más esencial que él mismo...
Temas recurrentes en la obra de esta autora, reconocida como una de las más hábiles artesanas de esa difícil y oscura sustancia que es la experiencia humana.

Genres: Fiction, Literature, France, Belgium, French Literature, Italy, Classics

180 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1934

About the author

Marguerite Yourcenar, original name Marguerite de Crayencour, was a french novelist, essayist, poet and short-story writer who became the first woman to be elected to the Académie Française (French Academy), an exclusive literary institution with a membership limited to 40.
She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 1947. The name “Yourcenar” is an imperfect anagram of her original name, “Crayencour.”

Yourcenar’s literary works are notable for their rigorously classical style, their erudition, and their psychological subtlety. In her most important books she re-creates past eras and personages, meditating thereby on human destiny, morality, and power. Her masterpiece is Mémoires d'Hadrien, a historical novel constituting the fictionalized memoirs of that 2nd-century Roman emperor. Her works were translated by the American Grace Frick, Yourcenar’s secretary and life companion.
Yourcenar was also a literary critic and translator.

Reviews

[Théo d'Or]

Thoughts about other thoughts.

" To give your life for a dream, means to cherish it as much as it deserves ".

Marguerite Yourcenar is one of my most beloved female authors, ( sometimes I wonder if she's not even the most beloved ) - not so much for what she writes, but especially for the way she writes.
Far from being a masterpiece, " Denier du rêve " is the privileged volume from whose reading one can configure the writer's portrait of M. Yourcenar. Paradoxically, I find that nothing happens in her books. There it is not about action, but about the atmosphere, most often, a nostalgic one, crossed by a tone of a constant and irremediable sadness.
That is why I am rather tempted to express only my thoughts about her thoughts, because in the end, this is what I found mainly in her books - thoughts.
I can't understand why M.Y is said to be a romancier. Prose-writer, yes, an essayist, even a poet, but not a romancier. Yourcenar can't empathize with the characters in this book, I always had the feeling that I was witnessing an artificial show in which the stake is not the faithful rendering of the life of these characters, but their use as pretexts for displaying a high-class writing technique. And in fact, this is exactly what's happens in " Denier du rêve " - a developement of narrative technique that can not be folded on the psychological profile of the characters.
There is an obvious discrepancy between the finesse of the style, and the blatant insignificance of the characters she's talking about. The lack of a virtue construction makes it possible to read " Denier du rêve "
on fragments, without taking into account the way in which they are chained. We are dealing here with a writing in which the way of saying something completely eclipses the meaning of what is being said.
Yourcenar places the narrative sequences juxtaposing them, not chaining them. So, all can be tasted in a separate way, without diminishing the pleasure.
Yourcenar compresses the sentence to the lapidary form of a series of sentences, which flow naturally, well connected to each other, but this compression always takes the form of an extremely laborious refinement .
It's a lot of work at Yourcenar, that's why I can hardly imagine her, writing a page at once, without any return to its lines. In her, the allusive modesty as a bypassed form of insinuating impermissible nuances - becomes a common process of expression.
Certainly, " Denier du rêve " is not the most successful book of the French-Belgian writer. But perhaps that's why a book like this is worth reading, cause in it you can find, displayed in a direct form , the intimate nature of the author.
There are books in which the author fails to hide - behind his technique of writing - his own background of his being, and I believe that such books are the best way to enter the hidden world of his personality. To have thoughts about other thoughts.
Maybe because " It is not difficult to nourish admirable thoughts when the stars are present ".

[Luís · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rome, year XI of fascism. Rolling from hand to hand, a ten-lire coin - the denarius of the title - is the witness that a dozen protagonists pass in their race for dreams. Whether they are husbands, lovers, parents, accomplices, or clients, this handful of Italians offer themselves a cheap fantasy or an emergency exit: pleasure, a lie, a wish, a good conscience, even death. A farthing of hope in an eternal city under the influence. With his quasi-imperial power, Mussolini extended the shadow of his prognathic and predatory profile over the country.
Yourcenar, curiously brutal and sensual, probes hearts, delves into stories, and penetrates the folds of each conscience with mastery. Whether she awakens an old painter, a stingy florist, a self-righteous actress, a cancerous prostitute, or a broken old maid, the writer does so with delicate ferocity. The slices of life that she lends them are sketches of novels whose pages we would have liked to leaf through.
The author bestows his tenderness on a quartet of supporters. Carlo Stevo, the writer martyred for freedom whose ghost haunts those who loved him; Massimo, the traitor filled with remorse; Alessandro, fascist by opportunism; and above all, Marcella, a weary terrorist whose planned attack resonates like suicide. Their journey of blood and tears splashes the golden lanes of Rome.

[Dagio_maya · Rating 4 out of 5]

” L’amore non si compra: le donne che si vendono non fanno altro che affittarsi agli uomini, ma si compra un sogno, merce impalpabile che si spaccia sotto molte forme.”


Trovo splendido che Marguerite Yourcenar considerasse la letteratura un cantiere sempre aperto. Il fatto che lavorasse a distanza di anni a manoscritti che all’epoca avrebbero potuto considerarsi conclusi, dà l’idea di una profonda capacità autocritica ed apertura mentale.

Questa edizione di “Moneta del sogno” - come spiegava l’autrice in postfazione- è frutto di un intreccio tra una prima redazione del 1934 ed un’integrazione scritta tra il 1958- 1959.



Una moneta, simile a questa diventa il filo rosso di questa storia.

Nel libro- intervista,Ad occhi aperti. Conversazioni con Matthieu Galey, la Yourcenair dichiarò:

«Tanti incontri della nostra vita, tanti rapporti umani sono basati semplicemente sul fatto che si dà una moneta o una banconota a qualcuno in cambio di un francobollo o di un giornale della sera, senza sapere niente di quella persona.»

Si tratta di un momento, un contatto che, spesso manca di consapevolezza, non è neppure accompagnato da uno sguardo ma compiuto come gesto meccanico.

Tutto si svolge nell’arco di una giornata romana del XI° anno del Regime Fascista.
E’ il giorno della commemorazione della marcia su Roma ma non tutti personaggi che entrano in scena sono consci di vivere sotto una dittatura.
Così Paolo Farina, il primo anello a formare questa catena, è in procinto di vivere l’ennesima giornata di rimpianto dopo l’abbandono della moglie.
L’apice del racconto ha come protagonista Marcella, ex moglie di un noto medico legato al fascismo, che lei ha lasciato per unirsi a gruppi sovversivi.

La moneta è un mezzo materiale attraverso cui entrano in contatto le reciproche solitudini.
Sono donne e uomini che vivono l’impossibilità di comunicare e comprendersi e allora questa moneta rappresenta il momento fugace in cui l’umanità può realizzare un sogno:
quello di capirsi, di comprendersi ed essere solidali.

Quattro stelle soprattutto all'idea di fondo e alla meravigliosa penna della Yourcenar anche se in alcuni passaggi mi sono inceppata ed ho fatto un po' fatica.


"Siamo tutti dei brandelli di stoffa lacerata, stracci stinti, un misto di compromessi… Il discepolo prediletto non è quello che nei quadri dorme sulla spalla del Maestro, ma quello che si è impiccato con in tasca trenta monete d’argento…"

[Argos · Rating 4 out of 5]

Birbiriyle ilintili farklı öykülerin ortak paydası karakter tahlilleri ve insanın kader veya tesadüf denilebilecek bağlantıları. Roma ve Sicilya olayların geçtiği yerler, dönem 1930’lar İtalya’da Mussolini‘nin yükseldiği dönemler. Anlatıcısı bir dil ustası M. Yourcenar. Keyifli bir okuma, öyküler değil bir kısa roman olarak okuyun bence.

[Sine · Rating 4 out of 5]

bir on liretlik madeni paranın etrafında birbiriyle bir ya da birden fazla şekilde birbirine bağlı karakterin hayatlarından kısa kısa kesitler izliyoruz. böyle olunca "bir deliler evinin yalan yanlış anlatılan kısa tarihi" gibi bir şey bekledim başta ama tabi çok daha az karakter var ve o denli derinlere inmeden anlatıyor. bazı karakterleri okurken daha çok keyif aldım, bazılarında adeta vites düşürüyor yazar. yine de kadın yazar olmakla ilgili bir durum bu sanırım, yazarın takıldığı ve anlatırken yoğunlaştığı anlar gerçekten çok farklı bir şekilde geçiyor okur olarak size de.

benim bu kitabı fark etmem ise çevirmen roza hakmen sayesinde. yine çok farklı, güzel bir kitap okudum; adeta güvenilen bir arkadaş tavsiyesi gibi bir işlevi oluyor bir kitapta çevirmen olarak roza hakmen'i görmek. fransız akademisi'ne seçilen ilk kadın yazarla da bu sayede tanışmış olduk.

[Rosanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

Secondo libro dell'autrice, scritto nel 1934 e rivisto nel 1959.
Anche per questo come per il primo, vengo colta da iniziale senso di estraniata meraviglia per la scrittura. Questo, proprio questo, me la rende cara.
Pian piano mi avventuro e distinguo due fatti principali, no, non due 'fatti', ma due personaggi: Lui e Marcella.
Lui è Mussolini, che possiede il pensiero di Marcella e permea la vita di tutti gli altri nel libro. 'Lei', Marcella appunto, mette in scena un pezzo di teatro mirabile e sconcertante.
Finisce tutto in tragedia, naturalmente, piccole vite tragiche inserite in una tragedia mondiale.
...e questa moneta da 10 lire che passa da mano in cuore?! Ci racconta le persone, quelle che potevi incontrare per le vie di Roma in quegli anni acquiescenti e rassegnati che tutte conducono a Marcella, colei che dice a pag. 92 '...Si puo fare di meglio per mettere al mondo l'avvenire', riferendosi a un bimbo solo desiderato. Marcella, amata e invidiata per quel coraggio che la porterà alla morte, perché a volte per vivere appieno bisogna necessariamente morire.

[Trina · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a spare but elegant little novel. The device of the same coin moving from person to person provides a little window on each character, some wealthy, some poor,but linked together in a sort of "six degrees of separation" way, in 1933 in Rome. The focus of the book is an attempted assassination of Mussolini, and each character's reactions, or lack of reaction.

[Dale Pobega · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the central motif of the ten lire note passing hands between characters who come into contact with one another. This is neither a collection of short stories (too many tie-ins with preceding episodes for that) nor a well structured novel in the classical sense.

The central episode that gets most attention is that to do with the assassination of the dictator and yet all of the stories are about life under Fascism in one way or another.

The opening words of "A Coin in Nine Hands" are "feeling tired." Exhaustion, frustration, disillusionment, hopelessness, failure - a kind of unstoppable historical slide into chaos - is the current pulling the lives of the characters through the narratives.

Future prospects, happiness and human feeling are stripped away under Fascism and Yourcenar's shows this from a range of perspectives.

The first - and best - episode relates the story of Lina Chari, a prostitute, dying of breast cancer. After the bad news she catches sight of her own reflection in a shop window:

"She did not recognise her face. What she saw was not the face of Lina Chiari who already belonged to the past but the future face of a Lina sadly stripped of everything."

All Lina can do is seek protection from the abyss she is sliding into by purchasing a lipstick. Only "a thin layer of makeup" stands between her and oblivion.

In the central episode about the attempt on the life of the Dictator, struggle is depicted as futile. There are attempts to discourage the would-be assassin's attempt. Yourcenar, however, suggests that support for fascism is too strong to counter, that human values have been so degraded, so perverted and compromised that there is no future to create. There is no reversing the path the people themselves have chosen to take.

"Look at the people in the street, later, when you go there, and ask yourself if they're the ones to build the future on. There is no future...there is only a man you want to kill, who dead, will rise again like a target in a shooting gallery, a man who thinks he can shape the future by banging his fists. Do you hear the voices answering him from the four corners of Europe, the voices howling hatred?"

There is much more that could be said about "A Coin in Nine Hands." I'll leave that to others.

This is a gloomy and prophetic piece of fiction written in the 30s. A master study of political evil and it's dehumanising ripple effects through society at the time.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patience, and four years later the book comes to me by accident, playing itself out. There is a remarkable concept here: the idea of a small token being both the driving element and main character of the work, passively travelling through the mundane, heroic choices of those who retrieve – bear – abandon it; creating the history (not story) that is told. As always, Yourcenar imagines worlds within a real world, brings together the necessary narrative to frame each little episode, is generous in giving each player the tragedy they deserve. Yet singularly (and possibly for the first time reading her), the execution of a promising concept fails to fully deliver.

Despite the superior motivation in writing this piece – one that must have lived long in her to the point of re-writing it – Denier du rêve does not feel like Yourcenar at her best, the beauty of her writing dissolving into trivial metaphor and relatively limited emotional reach; becoming almost mechanical in effort. There is none of MdH’s transcendence here, or the nostalgic doom of L’OaN – but the short story temperament of the author's small works that, in context, go beyond what Denier puts forth. Ambitious as its premise is, there is a significant gap between the thought and its execution; the idealised scope and its practical application. More could have been done with such a powerful starting point. More should have been done by such a powerful writer.

A 3,5.

[Bob Newman · Rating 5 out of 5]

Code Inconnu---a prequel
You might have seen "Code Inconnu" or "Code Unknown", a French film made in 2000 by Michael Haneke. In that film, people from startlingly different backgrounds and walks of life intersect for a brief moment in Paris. Their lives entangle for that instant, then they soar off into unknown regions again. The only thing that ties them (and the film) together is that one tiny moment. Yourcenar, sixty-six years previously, created a novel with a very similar approach to life. We are all interconnected, but mostly we don't know it. We live as if in a dream. Who are all the people you pass every day, the guy across the subway train aisle from you, the lady behind the counter in a convenience store ? What about the kid in a sweaty undershirt in Ecuador who wove the Panama hat you wear ? It's a powerful theme and Yourcenar presents her work most subtly, without any lecturing or pontificating. If the title didn't point it out, you could almost miss the fact that a single ten-lira coin changes hands nine times in the course of a day, linking nine lives that are sometimes otherwise connected, sometimes not. Set in Mussolini's Italy in 1933, the story has as its centerpiece an assassination attempt against Il Duce. The real theme lies elsewhere. The book was revised in later decades, but remains essentially the same. Though I sometimes tired of the propensity of the author for epigrams and clever little dictums pronounced sonorously, I still admired this novel. Are we not all lost in our own passages through Life ? What constitutes human contact and what does it mean ? Isn't it all maya, that Hindu concept of `illusory existence' ? If you are interested in such questions as portrayed in a beautiful style, give this one a try.

[Marc Lamot · Rating 2 out of 5]

Pas si réussi, ce roman-ci. Le procédé d'enchainer les personnages par une pièce de 10 lire qui va de main en main, me semble très orginel, mais ne donne pas plus d'ampleur à l'histoire. Le thème, la vie sous Mussolini dans l'Italie des années trentes, est naturellement très intéressant, mais Yourcenar le racconte plutôt d'une manière monotone. Et alors, la marque d'auteur de Yourcenar, les remarques de sagesses, commençait à m'énerver. Etrange, parce qu'elle est un de mes auteurs favoris.

[dead letter office · Rating 2 out of 5]

marguerite yourcenar might just be too educated, serious, and academic to tell the kind of story i want to read. another way of phrasing that is that i might be too dumb, young, and frivolous to handle her books.

[Lorena Francisca · Rating 1 out of 5]

No pude terminar, porque realmente no me motivó. Se supone que trata de un atentado que nunca vi muy claramente...no sé si darle una nueva oportunidad, ahí estará esperando, porque tengo que cumplir con otros libros por ahora.

[Sandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Don’t be deceived by the number of pages in this book. It is not a quick read. Emotionally intense. No wasted words. Each sentence is packed with nuance. For me, a second reading is required (if I ever run out of books to read) in order to understand and appreciate it fully.

QUOTES
Page 32-5
For Giulio, living in a world of uncomplicated ideas, a votive candle was only a nobler, finer taper of wax, a good thing to offer the Virgin when you have a favour to ask; ... But the wax object, paraffin disguised as wax, lived a mysterious life. Well before Giulio, men had appropriated the labor of bees to offer the results to the gods; century after century, they had surrounded their holy relics with an honour guard of tiny flames, as they projected on their gods their own instinctive fear of the dark. Giulio's ancestors had needed rest, health, money, love: these unknown people had offered candles to the Virgin Mary in the same way that their ancestors, buried even deeper in the accumulations of time, had offered honey cakes to Venus' hot mouth. These flickerings had been consumed infinitely faster than brief human lives: some wishes had been denied; others, on the contrary, granted: the unfortunate thing is that, because wishes sometimes come true, the agony of hoping is perpetuated.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Had he been clairvoyant, Giulio Lovisi would have agreed that praying was futile. And yet the thin wax tapers burning under the unmoving gaze of the Madonna were not useless: they were there to maintain the fiction of a hope.

[Seher · Rating 1 out of 5]

DNF
Bu kitap çevirmeni Roza Hakmen sayesinde radarıma girmişti. Arka kapak yazısında birbirlerine bağlı hayatlar vaadini okuyunca iyice ilgimi çekti ve kitabı edindim. Benim beklentim ile kitabın bana vaat ettiği şey malesef çakışmadı. Iñárritu'nun filmlerinde olduğu gibi birbirleriyle gerçekten bağlantılı öyküler bekliyordum ama kitabın sunduğu basit para alışverişinden ibaret. Yazarın önsözde, öykülerle ilgili pek çok şeyi değiştirdiğinden bahsetmesi de oldukça keyfimi kaçırdı.

[Oğul · Rating 3 out of 5]

It tastes like watching Fellini.

[Ana RLQP · Rating 4 out of 5]

4.5⭐️ muy bueno , como todo lo que escribía esta mujer .Comparto frases:

“Era el cansancio y no la edad el que había sometido sus facciones a esa lenta usura que acaba por humanizar hasta las estatuas de las iglesias .”

“ Con el sentimiento que más abunda en todos nosotros: la indiferencia.”

“ Los éxitos callejeros de una mujer están en función de la lentitud de su andar y del estado de su maquillaje, ya que, de todas las promesas de un rostro o de un cuerpo, la única por completo convincente es la de la facilidad.”

“ El había contado en vano con que las manías de su mujer se atenuarían con la edad; por el contrario, los defectos de Giuseppa, al envejecer, habían aumentado monstruosamente, al igual que sus brazos y su cintura.”

“ El odio es la más teatral de las pasiones .”

“Y la bella que empieza a envejecer, que adelgaza, y con quien uno tiene tantas ganas de hacer el amor como con una catequista.”

[Noel Cisneros · Rating 4 out of 5]

No es una de las grandes novelas de la Yourcenar, sin embargo no deja de ser admirable el despliegue de su prosa. Una moneda sirve de artilugio narrativo para presentar a los personajes que habitan la Roma (y la Italia) de Musolini, antes de que entrara a la guerra. Así esta moneda en un día pasa de mano en mano para mostrar esa sociedad y los dramas que viven, esta sociedad en la que algunos sueñan con derrocar el poder y llegan a conspirar (y a ejecutar dicha conspiración), en la que las viejas aristocracias languidecen en manicomios y las vendedoras de flores mantienen su negocio por decenios. Una actriz de cine, un doctor que atiende a la élite (y algunos días a los pobres), una prostituta con un tumor en el pecho, una mujer aguerrida que ansía derrocar el régimen, son sólo algunos de los personajes a quienes la poderosa prosa de la Yourcenar insufla vida. Ciertamente la comparación con otras obras suyas pone en desventaja a ésta, pero resulta inevitable, pero es entendible que sean tan distintas la Roma de los años 1930s que la imperial de los antoninos.

[Aymir Gamze Ünalır · Rating 3 out of 5]

Bu yazarın okuduğum 2. kitabı. Yazarın üslubu, anlatım tarzı oldukça ağır geldi bana. Yazıldığı dilin de bunda etkisi olduğunu düşünüyorum. Bahsi geçen özel isimler bir kasaba adı mı, bir otel adı mı, bir şahıs adı mı ayırdetmekte zorlandım kimi zaman...
.
Özetle kitap birbirine bağlı olay ve kişilerin hikayelerinden oluşan bir roman. Bu hikayeler kişilerin birinden diğerine geçen 10 liretlik bir bozuk para ile birbirine bağlanıyor...
.

[Mhgoblue · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a short, lovely book. On the day a young woman tries to kill Mussolini, a 10-lire coin changes hands nine times. The story follows each person who has the coin and their relationships with each other. Some of the characters interested me more than others, but the prose was always graceful, sometimes even arresting.

[Steph · Rating 1 out of 5]

I did not like the writing (or maybe the translation) and it really didn't make me think or feel anything. I'm not sure what the whole point was. But hey, you might like it!?

[Aaron Gallardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yourcenar escribe la literatura que he buscado toda mi vida. Dice cosas que yo nunca podré decir. Si me preguntan por mis escritores favoritos, ambas se llaman Marguerite y son francesas.

[Vilis]

Valoda manam līmenim drusku par sarežģītu, kaut brīžiem ļoti smuki sarakstīts. Pagaidām atliku malā.

[Nergis · Rating 2 out of 5]

Hiç beğenmedim desem yeridir. Dil o kadar yavaş o kadar bayıktı ki benim için, kendimi zorladım bitirmek için. Halbuki cevirmenine (Roza Hakmen) bayılırım.

[Fatma Burçak · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fransız Akademisine seçilmiş ilk kadın yazar olan Marguerite Yourcenar'ın Düş Parası isimli romanı, öykü biçiminde bölümlerden oluşan ve her öyküyü bir birine bağlayan 10 liretlik bir madeni para ile simgelenen kaybolan umutların hikâyesi. 1933 yılında Roma'da, faşizmin iyice kök saldığı yıllarda elden ele dolaşan madeni para sayesinde birbiriyle ilişkili ama birbirinden habersiz hayatlara tanıklık ediyoruz. İlk olarak 1934 yılında yayımlanan kitap 1959 yılında yazar tarafından yeniden gözden geçirilmiş, yenilenmiş, tekrar basılmış. Eski baskısını bilmiyorum ama metnin bu halinin çok güzel bir roman ve aynı zamanda müthiş karakter öyküleri olduğunu söyleyebilirim.

[Angélica María · Rating 3 out of 5]

"El tiempo humano, ese tiempo que se evalúa en términos de generaciones y que jalonan aquí y allá las derrotas familiares y las caídas de los regímenes, era el único responsable en lo referente a esos cambios incoherentes y a esos proyectos inacabados de que se compone lo que, desde la distancia, llamamos la estabilidad del pasado"

[Dídac Gil Rams · Rating 4 out of 5]

Una bellesa inusual en la literatura (gens estranya si només tenim en compte l'obra de la Marguerite) t'acompanya de la mà mentre seguiu aquesta màgica moneda que et va presentant, un per un, els personatges. La ciutat eterna sembla un petit poble habitat només per els protagonistes i et fa sentir un més de la família. La història, en aquest cas, és lo de menys.

[Blair · Rating 4 out of 5]

The conceit of following the coin through the hands of the different characters may feel a little hackneyed, but Yourcenar is a beautiful writer and this is a stunning look at Rome under Mussolini, first written in 1934, then revised (fairly significantly, I think) in the 1950s.

[Mihaela Lupu · Rating 5 out of 5]

Tra quel film e la vita, la sola differenza era che lì gli spettatori sapevano di essere ingannati.

[Sebastián Ramírez Torres · Rating 4 out of 5]

Está bellamente escrito. En serio, Marguerite Yourcenar me pareció una de las prosistas más brillantes que he leído. Pero la historia no me atrapó tanto.