The relationship between mother and daughter, between journey and memory. And Virginia Woolf

“How do I explain to my wife that when I look out of the window, I’m working?” This maxim by Conrad – which he never wrote and probably never even uttered, yet which has enjoyed such popularity – finds a gender-neutral alternative in a possible: “How do I explain that when I’m travelling, I’m working?”, a phrase that Heather Christle never utters either, but which can be inferred from her intense and poignant “Among the Rhododendrons”. Memoirs in the Company of Virginia Woolf (Il Saggiatore, translated by Paola Moretti).

A novel, essay, reportage and memoir, much as Christle had done with her previous work "The Book of Tears", "Among the Rhododendrons" appears as a tapestry of memories and reflections characterised by a continuous flow, within which every shift in perspective radically alters not only the present but also the past as it had previously been defined. Comprising four journeys – two undertaken alone and two with her mother and sister – "Tra i rododendri" is a portrait of a complex and hostile relationship between the author and her mother, but also between her own memory and her tireless attempt to make sense of her own pain: “If you look at anything closely, or for a sufficiently long period, time cannot help but flood everything, bringing with it the debris of the past and the future.”

Four journeys to England in which private and literary memory intertwine, and in which Virginia Woolf acts by foreshadowing and anticipating every reflection of the author. Christle demonstrates the infinite expansion of Virginia Woolf’s “A Room of One’s Own”, which is understood as an open space within the world rather than an isolated, private space removed from the chaos of everyday life. Thus, "Among the Rhododendrons" always exists within a fragile balance in which every sentence refracts multiple worlds, between the private and the public, between memory and imagination. Everything is distinguishable and separable, yet everything remains inextricably intertwined, so much so that Heather Christle is fully aware of this and takes great care to avoid any contrivance. The author lets sensations glide onto the page as if it were a scientist’s microscope slide. There – as if viewed under a microscope – her emotions finally find a precise order. Line by line, that exact positioning takes shape, which in literature transforms a state of mind into discourse.

Amidst the rhododendrons lies a pain that is difficult to shake off. It is, in fact, a pain that for years has remained bottled up, along with an unspeakable anger towards a mother who suddenly proved to be absent, distant and, at times, a stranger. At the age of fourteen, Christle was sexually assaulted, but her mother did not seem willing to address it; on the contrary, she kept her distance from her daughter more and more, as if an irreparable rift (and a sense of guilt) had formed between them. Over the years, Christle’s pain sought possible outlets and understanding, until the day she travelled with her mother to her childhood home. There, her mother reveals to her the sexual abuse she herself suffered as a child, the fear and anguish, and, at the same time, that inability to react which, years later, would resurface in the very face of her daughter’s pain. And so the writing, drawing in part on her mother’s letters and diaries, becomes fluid and healing, reviving a different meaning each time through words that appear static on the page but which, in reality, constantly fluctuate between memory and imagination.

Travelling thus becomes the fundamental tool for a reinterpretation that is also a rewriting. Two potentially infinite movements through which to rediscover oneself, always in the same position, yet radically changed each time.