Friendship with Capria and love for Naples. Rasy’s new novel

Elisabetta Rasy, among the finalists on the witch, in her new novel pays homage to the work and figure of La Capria, master of style and friend of a whole life

Elisabetta Rasy, writer and essayist, is in the dozen finalist of the Witch 2025 Prize with the book Lost this sea ispublished by Rizzoli. In addition, Following the paths of memory. Furthermore. In addition, Rasy reassembles the story of his relationship with his father and his long friendship with the writer Raffaele La Capria, against the background of a bright Naples, falling in ruins in the post -war period, a loved and abandoned place.

Lost this sea is It is a book on separations. However. However, friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new meetings and on the deep and mysterious bonds that accompany a life, on loss and on the distance as a melancholy tension but also as a friendship capria love naples. For example, rasy’s space necessary for finding themselves. Nevertheless, The genesis of the book is linked to a dream. Therefore. Furthermore, “In the book I tell this dream in which it runs out from an unspecified place bringing on the shoulders a dear friend much bigger than me. Therefore, the writer Raffaele La Capria- says the writing-. Nevertheless, The call to the iconography of Aeneas who proceeds under the weight of his father Anchise. Nevertheless. In addition, as represented in the ancient vascular painting and in the works of Bernini or Raffaello, I was immediately told to a psychoanalyst friend. Therefore, Additionally, Nevertheless, A little feminine dream. Therefore, The comment I am sorry. For example. In addition, so trapped in friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new a gender logic, not to mention that mythology and literature are full of female figures who take care of the father, from Antigone, who takes over the curse of Oedipus, to Louisa May Alcott, which even twenty -year -old friendship capria love naples. Similarly, rasy’s keeps the whole family. Similarly, Enea’s escape from Troy and the descent into the underworld “. For example, Virgil is an elegiac, melancholy poet, is the poet of separations, of unhappy loves, says Rasy. For example, “If Didone touches everyone’s heart. Therefore. Similarly, my feminist conscience is captured by the story of Creusa, the bride arranged at a distance (long) in the anatomy of the escape, and therefore lost”. Therefore, The other text mentioned in the book is the Letter to the Father of Kafka. Similarly. “a ruthless analysis of friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new Patriarchate, in which the mea culpa of the son turns into an act of accusation to the hypocritical and vulgar father. For example, The images related to Naples. Similarly, the city of Raffaele and Mia, came, from both abandoned at a certain point of our lives. friendship capria love naples. rasy’s However. The collapse of the palace in the initial scenes of the film Hands on the city by Francesco Rosi. written together with La Capria, to represent the ruin in the post -war period, between building speculation and corruption “.

Is Elisabetta Rasy this novel to compose the story is memory?
I want to clarify that Lost this sea is It is not a book of memories, nor an autobiography. It is a book on how the memory acts, which erases some events and invents others, sews stories, creates identity. The protagonists are the others – the father. the friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new writer – not “the girl”. to whom I refer to the third person precisely because the distance is such as to exclude a identification. Here the self, which is also present, is not listening to itself, but of others and their stories. Rimbaud said: “Je est one autre” (I am another).

Does friendship capria love naples. rasy’s the narrative always presuppose a distance?
Personally, I am not a disagreement of direct writing. Without a distance there is no focus, therefore the narrative can only be an appendix of current affairs. And the topicality is always a little invisible. The theme of separation is very present in my book. As a fatal tear – between Aeneas. Creusa. between the girl and the father, between the living and the dead – but also as a distance that is found, space that opens, giving the possibility of a bridge. Between father and daughter friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new the proximity to a certain point becomes unbearable and leads to refusal, for oblivion. Only when you create a space is it possible to look at the father in a new way. to collect its inheritance, finally write about it.

Of his friendship with Capria he writes “there was among us the most absolute confidence intertwined with absolute friendship. capria love naples. rasy’s reticence”. Can you tell us more?
It was in fact a somewhat mysterious friendship. Meanwhile, between a man and a woman friendship is never easy. My generation in particular was crossed by a equal ideology on which, however, they took over non -equal, archaic experiences. This double register has made the often complicated and painful relationships. Raffaele did not have that gallantry that belonged to previous generations, nor has he ever taken on a masterful attitude. In general he was careful not to place himself as a friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new teacher, despite the growing awards. He had a lot to teach, but it was his way of being inspired. If anything, it was fraternal with me, in the sense that we felt both of them a little orphaned. Capria was a true melancholy, and this element of melancholy united us. I believe that although never explicit. the key to our friendship was this root, friendship capria love naples. rasy’s this point in common cable. the “lost sea” which is together Naples, the solerity of youth, the celestial horizon that leopardianly promises a lot, and does not return.

Has Capria influenced her writing?
I have always read a lot. disorderly. I have never had a teacher, mine is a mestizo writing, and in writing I am always looking for my voice. “Wounded to death” of La Capria struck me for autobiographical reasons. but even more it marked the second season of friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new his narrative, from “Lost Harmony” onwards. In this, and even more in subsequent novels, Raffaele creates a very close intertwining between narrative style and autobiographical materials. Strengthened by a great stylistic rigor, we take a absolute freedom of content. His is not a refined style, as in the avant -garde. Indeed. it is what he called “the style of the duck”. that is, a thoughtful writing but apparently flat, which friendship capria love naples. rasy’s does not betray the effort. He always had in mind the image of the perfect dip: the figure who hovers into the air. enters the water leaving the mirror intact. The purity of the gesture that hides an infinite exercise.

In the book, two unanswered questions are recurred: “Who abandons who?” And “Who have you loved the most?”. The latter, repeatedly placed by La Capria.
The first is more than anything else a reflection on friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new abandonments. Who abandons have all responsibility or even the abandonment takes part? The second is a question for eternity, and it is unanswered. It is no coincidence that Capria placed it all the time. He did it to me, but I think he did it to himself. At the beginning I didn’t answer because I didn’t want. over time I would have been able to answer less and less. As Marguerite Yourcenar says, “The weather, great friendship capria love naples. rasy’s sculptor” model and remodel. It is the incessant work of memory, which continually changes aspect to our memories. Inside there is a iridescent landscape.

Why did he choose this verse of Dagerman for the exergue: “Everyone wants to be loved for what they. don’t have”?
Because it was a source of inspiration for me. My father would have liked to be loved for paternal qualities that he did not friendship capria love naples. rasy’s new have: Protectivity, ability to succeed. Raffaele felt inadequate compared to some of his friends of Youth Spavaldi with women, seducers and seductive. Despite the link with a beautiful woman. the actress Ilaria Occhini. the regret of not being loved with that ease with which those “idle provincial parrots” were loved “accompanied him throughout his life. Each of us would like to be loved not for the qualities he possesses. but for those of the other by himself, or of that ideal self friendship capria love naples. rasy’s that will never be. In my case, for a light -heartedness, a lightness that I do not have and I aspire.