Tools for Self-Discovery

Marie Cardinal sits with her legs crossed on the couch, poised and self-possessed. The cigarette she lets droop between two fingers is the finishing touch on a carefully designed image. Now she gestures with it, now she flicks the ash away, emphasizing the rhythm of her words with precise movements. Author of 10 novels, Cardinal has had her greatest success with The Words to Say It, published in 1975. After winning the Prix Littre, the award given annually for the best medical arts book published in France, the novel has sold nearly two and a half million copies in Europe and has been translated into 18 languages.

Although it has been published only recently in America, Cardinal feels her novel will be well received. "The Americans are not different, they are not monsters. Wherever the book is read people are enthusiastic about it--in Egypt, Japan, and now the U.S." But Cardinal feels her critics and readers often praise the book for qualities she never intended to achieve. A great deal of attention has been drawn to the fact that her story is an autobiographical novel, but she downplays this notion: "There is nothing of my own privacy in that book. A novel is necessarily autobiographical. What I have written are the feelings and experiences I have in common with other women. In fact, my novel has had a success around the world precisely because it is not my life; it has the form of my life, but it is the story of everyone--the story of a woman."

Some see The Words to Say It as a novel about the experience of psychoanalysis. Analyst Bruno Bettelheim writes, "in my opinion The Words to Say It is the best account of psychoanalysis as it is seen and experienced by the patient." But Cardinal contends that her message is a more general one. "I never intended to write a book about psychoanalysis. I wanted to write about imperialism and colonialism. I wanted to write about the life of two women, a mother and a daughter. Since I had been analyzed, I decided to use psychoanalysis as a literary vehicle between past and present. That is probably why, as Bruno Bettelheim says, it is the best over written about this subject--because it is not technical Analysis was merely a tool for me." Although Cardinal has written an account of self-discovery, she says, "analysis can be useful for some people, but not for everybody. Everyone must find his own way. There is no one solution to life."

Readers familiar with Cardinal's novel in the original French have raised some objections about what they feel is a loose and even inaccurate translation by Patricia Goodheart, but Cardinal says. "I think it is a very good translation, I helped with a few words here and there. But Pat understood the most important aspects of the book--the rhythm, the sound it makes. After all, American is American, French is French. Sometimes you can't translate word for word. I don't feel I have been betrayed if the translation of song words is not exact."

Patricia Goodheart, of the Cambridge-based publishing firm Van Vactor & Goodheart, explains her interest in The Words to Say It: "I had never before taken on the job of a professional translator. I tried to see what I could do with the book and found I was a very good person to translate the novel. I am interested in dreams, memories, and fantasies. When I came upon the material in Cardinal's book. I was very much at home and sympathetic. I feel what she has to say is very important. However, I kept in mind that Americans are used to a high level of editing and that the French have a habit of not editing at all, unless the author edits herself. I regarded Cardinal as a diamond in the rough to which I could bring my own talent as an editor and a writer. My effort was toward compression and toward establishing a rhythm which corresponded to the original at its best."

This year The Words to Say It will be released as a film in France and America. "I was very happy when I signed this contract," says Cardinal, "because it is interesting to see the characters you imagine moving, acting, existing. I had a very bad experience with another movie, so I decided I had to work on the script. Now I feel the movie is very close to the book."

Cardinal divides her time between writing and working for the women's movement in Europe, Africa, and Canada. "For 18 years I've been fighting for women in the countries I know. It is probably the most politically and economically important issue today, because it is a problem for younger people, older people, and all races. As women make up more than half of human kind, it is normal that we should be leaders for young people. Our culture is made in such a way that we believe power rests with a few people. Now we realize that this power structure is neither intelligent nor necessary. By criticizing it we can change this situation."

Cardinal lectures for individual women's groups when she tours, but she emphasizes that the movement she supports is decentralized and open to all women. "I don't like to be called a feminist, which is only one of the women's groups in France. I resist putting a label on everything because I believe it's a very masculine thing to label people. It's easier for men to label things because they feel more secure."

Cardinal has become a prominent leader in the women's movement, but she claims her novels are not specifically about this activity. "I do not write for women; I write for myself. The process of writing is completely individual and natural. You must translate what you feel into words. The communication with the reader comes afterward. For me, writing is necessary--more necessary than financial success. If I wrote only for money, I am sure I would not be happy. I would rather be poor and write what I feel in myself, pushing me."

After a promotional tour of the U.S. last fall, Cardinal hopes to return to Paris to continue her literary and political work. Her latest novel, The Embroidered Past, will be published soon by Van Vactor and Goodheart.