Η νίκη του πόνου και της αγάπης [The victory of pain and love]

Almost one hundred years after it was written, this is the first publication of an unknown novel by Psycharis, edited from the author’s manuscript, which was found in the Library of Parliament. The novel, which was completed in 1914, when Psycharis was almost seventy years of age, radiates youthful vigor, with its provocative love theme and the vividness of the narration. These choices, however, come as no surprise for an author who, as he himself declared, fell in love forty six times, seven of which were ‘deadly’.

Set against the backdrop of two cultural centres, two different social, linguistic and cultural fields, Constantinople and Paris, and through the story of two brothers of different mentality and psychological make-up, the novel explores the theme of love behaviour as part of the different identities of the Western-European and the Oriental. Thus, it is associated with the European tradition of literary duality and the psychological novel. The end result also functions as a mirror of the dual existence of Psycharis himself as a writer with two countries, France and Greece, which epitomize the conflicting aspects of his own self. Written in the personal style for which Psycharis had been castigated repeatedly, the work is presented as a form of autobiography, a kind of pseudo-diary or thought notebook. In the novel’s pages, motifs familiar in other Psycharic works recur, such as the narcissistic thematization of the author’s life as well as sexual desire and envy. However, the novel’s primary concern is mainly contained in the title’s three nouns: both the pain of true love and fulfilment through love can lead one to overcome and transform themselves.