Dan Lungu, "Fetiţa care se juca de-a Dumnezeu"

 – e-book

Perioada lecturii: 27 noiembrie – 14 decembrie 2015

Votul meu:

Ce au în comun Martin Amis şi Dan Lungu? Ei, vedeţi că nu ştiţi? Vă spun eu: două romane cu titluri inspirate, The Pregnant Widow şi Fetiţa care se juca de-a Dumnezeu (despre al doilea Alex Ştefănescu e de părere că e un titlu de premiu Nobel – dacă o exista aşa ceva – titluri care să ia premiul Nobel, vreau să spun), a căror acţiune se petrece parţial în Italia şi, cireaşa de pe tort (sau bomboana de pe colivă dacă vreţi) în care personajele au impresia că n-au păşit în Italia, ci într-o carte poştală sau într-un tablou:

Pe fereastră, peisaje de-ţi taie răsuflarea. Senzaţia e că te afli într-o ilustrată. Tu, personaj într-un tren, într-o vedere, aşa, încremenită în timp… Senzaţie de moarte frumoasă. N-o să uit clipele acelea de confuzie… Nu eram în rai, ci într-un album de artă…

(Pentru citatul din Amis, în care personajelor li se pare că fac parte dintr-o pictură tre’ să mă credeţi pe cuvînt că nu-l am la îndemînă)

Richard Adams, "Watership Down"

 – Viking 2012 ISBN: 0241953235; ISBN 13: 9780241953235

Read from November 10^th to December 5^th 2015

My rating :

One of my dearest nostalgic books has always been Kenneth Grahame’s The Wind in the Willows, for whenever I’ve felt sad and blue I returned to leaf through it and recapture some of the innocence of my childhood thinking. I’ve had the same feeling while reading Richard Adams’ Watership Down, with its enthralling story about animals which is much more than a fable or an allegory, even though the characters have some human qualities.

Julian Barnes, "The Sense of an Ending"

– Vintage Canada, 2012 ISBN 978-0-307-36082-3 ; 150 p.

Read from November 19^th to 30^th 2015

My rating:

“How far do the limits of responsibility extend?”

How often are we found guilty (not necessarily by the others but even by ourselves) of not getting it? Of sleep-walking through our life and others’? Of not stopping to think then and conveniently forgetting afterwards? The drama of Tony Webster, the narrator of Julian Barnes’ amazing novella The Sense of an Ending, the drama of the auto sufficiency in mediocrity and of mild regrets of what-could-have-been-if-onlys, is so familiar that it could easily be ours. As so could his hic jacet(s):

I could have used the phrase as an epitaph on a chunk of stone or marble: ‘Tony Webster – He Never Got It’. But that would be too melodramatic, even self-pitying. How about ‘He’s On His Own Now’? That would be better, truer. Or maybe I’ll stick with: ‘Every Day Is Sunday’.

Like any essential reading, Julian Barnes’ book dares us to search not only for the truths hidden in the writing itself, but also for the truth hidden in ourselves and in the world, for the novella raises at least three questions: a moral one: to what extent are we responsible for the others’ destiny? a philosophical one: to what extent is memory able to beat time? and an aesthetical one: to what extent life imitates art? Every one of the three subsequent to Adrian’s question I entitled my review with: “How far do the limits of responsibility extend?”