Pascal Bruckner, « Parias »

 – e-book

 

Lu du 15 février au 25 mars 2021

Mon vote : 

 

Ça fait tellement longtemps que l’écriture de Pascal Bruckner me fascine, plus d’un décennie, je pense, quand je l’ai découvert d’abord avec Lunes de fiel, qui m’est tombé je ne me souviens plus comment entre les mains, puis avec Les voleurs de beauté. Dès lors, l’auteur est devenu l’un de mes écrivains préférés et pourtant pour un temps je l’ai mis de côté et presque oublié.

Eh bien, Parias m’a rappelé toutes les raisons pour lesquelles je l’aime, car j’ai redécouvert dedans ses anti-héros ténébreux, ses descriptions en filigrane, ses incursions narratives en abîme de l’âme.

Adrian Schiop, „Soldații. Poveste din Ferentari”

  Polirom, Iași 2017, 260 p., ISBN 978-973-46-7108-3.  

Perioada lecturii: 6 – 19 martie 2021

Votul meu: 

 

 

Ce bine scrie Adrian Schiop! Și cînd mă gîndesc că am Soldații în bibliotecă de vreo trei ani de zile, cadou de la un văr al meu foarte darnic (mi-amintesc că m-a așteptat atunci cu o sacoșă de cărți la aeroport și pe toate le-am luat cu mine înapoi în Canada), și că abia acum, nu știu de ce, i-a venit rîndul!

Pentru că nu știam mai nimic despre autor, am parcurs opera destul de candid, fără să am adică habar de sursa ei de inspirație. Abia după ce am citit recenzia  lui Florin Dumitrescu de pe bookaholic.ro, în care acesta ezită între a o numi roman autoficțional sau jurnal antropologic, am aflat că are substrat autobiografic și mi-am pus și eu întrebarea care ar fi cea mai potrivită încadrare în specie (pînă atunci o inclusesem în categoria destul de largă a narațiunii literare documentare). Rămîn totuşi la varianta „roman autoficțional” căci mi se pare mult prea cizelată din punct de vedere stilistic și compozițional ca să lase impresia notării grăbite, pe teren, a observațiilor.

Mary Beard, "SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome"

  – kindle

 

Read from December 24^th to March 4^th 2021

My Rating: 

 

 

In the Epilogue of her SPQR: A History of Ancient Rome, Mary Beard confesses that the book is the result of about fifty years of history researching, archaeological sites visiting, Latin language learning, Latin literature reading and books with Roman subject studying, because for her “the Romans are a subject not just of history and inquiry but also of imagination and fantasy, horror and fun.”

Ancient civilizations, she says, do not teach direct lessons, either military or political, and are not necessarily models to follow. However, we are supposed to learn a lot by simply engaging with their history, which is our own:

We do not want to follow Cicero’s example, but his clash with the bankrupt aristocrat, or popular revolutionary, with which I started this book still underlies our views of the rights of the citizen and still provides a language for political dissent: ‘Quo usque tandem abutere, Catilina, patientia nostra?’ The idea of ‘desolation’ masquerading as ‘peace’, as Tacitus put into the mouths of Rome’s British enemies, still echoes in modern critiques of imperialism. And the lurid vices that are attributed to the most memorable Roman emperors have always raised the question of where autocratic excess ends and a reign of terror begins.

Lisa Smartt, "Words at the Threshold"

– e-book

 

Read from February 19^th to March 4^th 2021

My rating: 

 

 

 Maybe I wanted to read Lisa Smartt’s book, Words at the Threshold, because the agony has always been a painfully fascinating theme, with its thread of light under an otherwise firmly closed door, to take farther the metaphor in the title. Maybe because, like many others, I have always hoped to have an epiphany after hearing stories about it, in order to discover that death is nothing to be afraid of. Or maybe because apart from the fact that death is fascinating in its own terrifying way in any circumstances, it is when it robs you of a beloved that you need most to be reassured that it is only temporary, while desperately looking for explanations, for signs, for proof of another (better) world to alleviate your grief.

In such times, books like this one seem to help you cope. When my father died, I re-read Raymond A. Moody’s Life after Life for these exact reasons, somehow hoping to reconnect with my dad at another level. It did not happen, not in the way Lisa Smartt describes the reconnection with her own father, but it gave me peace, encouraging me to doubt the finality of death, to dream that sometime in the future...