The Review of Contemporary Fiction
The Woman Watching by Paola CaprioloSusann Cokal
Paola Capriolo. The Woman Watching. Trans. Liz Heron. Serpent’s Tail, 1998. 214 pp. Paper: $13.99.
The eponymous woman of Paola Capriolo’s new novel is watching a play about the life of Casanova; an actor known to us only as Vulpius has a small but important role, and night after night he feels her eyes follow his every gesture. Under her enigmatic gaze he hones and refines his technique, showing signs of becoming the great actor that his girlfriend, Dora, is certain he will be one day. Finally he attempts to meet the woman who has taken over his life—only to find her box empty and a wristwatch left waiting on a seat, like Cinderella’s slipper. The woman does not appear in the theater again. Capriola uses the beautiful wristwatch, which cannot tell time, and the romance that never was as a springboard for discussion of fictional reality: is the watching woman “real”? What, in this community of actors and actresses, writer and readers, can pass for real? What is the nature of fiction, of what gestures and words is it composed, and how can we tell the difference between them and reality? Such timeless questions, however, remain secondary to the story itself, as a monomaniacal Vulpius takes over the theater after hours, compelling his besotted but uncomplicated girlfriend to try on costumes, roles, and lines, all for his analytical eyes alone. The real power of The Woman Watching lies in Capriolo’s tracing of the psychological effects the ghost-muse woman’s manifestation has on these two lives, effects that pass all but undetected by the community of actors in which Vulpius and Dora live. The ending of this postmodern gothic is as gripping as it is inevitable; like Vulpius, Capriolo “prepares for [each] moment with care” and “celebrates it like an apotheosis.” [Susann Cokal]