Anton Tchekhov, "Le duel et autres nouvelles"

– Gallimard, 1989 ISBN 2-07-037433-5

Lu du 22 mai au 8 juin 2015

Mon vote :

Le droit à la médiocrité

 « Lorsque pour un effet déterminé on met en jeu le minimum de gestes, cela s’appelle la grâce. » (Anton Tchekhov)

J’avais oublié l’ineffable atmosphère de la littérature russe, avec ses héros à au moins trois noms (sans compter les diminutifs) parmi lesquels tu risques de te perdre si tu ne fais pas attention en tout temps, avec ses paysages qui alternent l’étendue infinie des steppes et l’encombrement claustrophobique de petites villes, avec ses maisons où les domovoi, ces mystérieux esprits du foyer,  accompagnent de leur chant plaintif au fond de la cheminée les discussions interminables sur le progrès, l’âme russe et le destin.

Cette atmosphère commune à toute la grande littérature russe bien que rendue unique par chaque auteur, on la retrouve pleinement dans l’anthologie d’Anton Tchekhov, Le duel et autres nouvelles, recréée dans des lignes si simples, si austères, si dénouées du tragisme, qu’à la fin de la lecture on est émerveillée d’avoir presque tout compris, d’avoir presque tout saisi, bref, d’y être. Mais peut-on vraiment comprendre ce qui l’auteur même appelait, dans une lettre à Gorki, l’état de grâce de l’artiste ?

Leonid Dimov "Texte"

 – e-book

Perioada lecturii: 30 mai – 4 iunie 2015

Votul meu:

Stiați că în popor există un obicei al schimbării numelui copiilor bolnavi pentru ca moartea să nu-i găsească? La el m-am gîndit atunci cînd am citit despre hotărîrea pe care a luat-o mama lui Leonid Dimov de a-i da alt nume, cînd poetul avea 15 ani. Hotărîre cu două tăișuri, dat fiind că prin această încercare de a-l scăpa de persecuțiile la care erau supuși evreii în perioada interbelică, deci de la o potențială moarte fizică, ea își confruntă copilul cu o criză de identitate, deci cu o potențială moarte spirituală.

Așa s-ar putea în parte explica de ce adolescentul nu numai că își reneagă originile evreiești, dar chiar trece de partea cealaltă a baricadei, devenind un înfocat susținător al legionarilor. Căci lui Leonid Dimov lașitatea îi este străină, ba mai mult, un demon al teribilismului îl va împinge, 15 ani mai tîrziu, să urineze pe statuia lui Stalin (ceea ce-l va costa închisoarea la Jilava), într-un gest nu numai de protest împotriva comunmismului ci și, cine știe, de răscumpărare a „rătăcirilor ideologice” din adolescență. 

Catherine Siguret, "Femei celebre pe divan"

 – e-book

Traducător Laszlo Alexandru

Perioada lecturii : 8-27 mai 2015

Votul meu: 

Deşi se pare că a scris peste 50 de cărţi, trebuie să recunosc că nu ştiam nimic despre Catherine Siguret cînd m-am apucat de citit Femei celebre pe divan, carte pe care de altfel am căpătat-o graţie generozităţii domnului Laszlo Alexandru,  excelentul ei traducător şi căruia îi mulţumesc pe această cale.

Ei bine, lectura s-a dovedit interesantă, şi în perfect acord cu orizontul de aşteptare al titlului : scriitoarea alege cîteva femei celebre fie din sfera literaturii (ca Françoise Sagan, Simone de Beauvoir, Virginia Woolf sau Colette), fie din sfera politicului şi/ sau a socialului (ca Lady Diana sau Jackie Kennedy), fie din sfera show-biz-ului cinematografic sau muzical (ca Dalida, Maria Callas, Édith Piaf, Josephine Baker sau Marlene Dietrich), le schiţează o scurtă biografie după care dă cuvîntul unui psihanalist sau unui psihiatru să le comenteze comportamentul.

Halldór Laxness, "The Fish Can Sing"

- e-book

Read from April 27^th till May 24^th 2015

My rating:

“Where fish leaves off in Iceland, Latin takes over”

I know I am unjust with my three-star rating, but The Fish Can Sing is one of those books I’ve instantly recognized the literary value of, but I couldn’t care much for. Moreover, it constantly reminded me of Salman Rushdie’s Satanic Verses (I hear some very loud, very heartfelt protests here!) in a bizarre, twisted kind of way, not only because I had the same mixed feelings about that one too, but also because it is its total opposite: instead of a rich, overcrowded, overcoloured narrative, a severe, grey and angular one; instead of an aggressive magic realism an apparently naïve, primitive one; instead of a complicated, postmodern structure, the medieval form of a chronicle, instead of a chaotic, devouring city, a quiet and uneventful village. What connects them, however, is the same search of identity, be it social like in Rushdie’s novel, be it artistic, like in Laxness’s one.

Umberto Eco, "Kant et l’ornithorynque"

  - Grasset 1999 ISBN 9782253150268

Lu du 7 avril au 21 mai 2015

Mon vote :

C'est curieux que je n’ai pensé ni même un moment à la sémiose quand j’ai acheté Kant et l’ornithorynque, étant donné que je m’attendais à ce que les catégories kantiennes soient mises en doute, mais d’une façon ironique-philosophique, disons, car le penchant d’Umberto Eco pour les paradoxes et les associations bizarres m'était familier (vous rappelez-vous Comment voyager avec un saumon ?)

De toute façon, après cette lecture je me suis rendu compte que de la sémiose me reste quelques vagues notions de mes années universitaires même si à un moment donné elle m’a passionnée tellement que j’aurais aimé approfondir mes études dans cette direction. C’est-à-dire je possédais jadis un « Contenu Molaire » alimenté de plusieurs lectures de spécialité (dont Eco était le premier favori) que j’ai perdu graduellement au fil des années jusqu’à ce qu’il se transforme dans un « Contenu Nucléaire » assez rudimentaire (plus ou moins réduit à la définition « science des signes ») et qui coïncide avec mon « Type Cognitif ».

Evelyn Waugh, "Brideshead Revisited"

 – e-book

Read from August 28^th to September 4^th 2014.

My rating:

A Catholic Epiphany

Brideshead Revisited is the third novel I’ve read by Evelyn Waugh after A Handful of Dust and Vile Bodies and I found it so different from the other two that I almost suspected someone stole his name and put it on the cover. Gone is his original and controverted technique of the external approach that used the dialogue, juxtaposition and the annihilation of the cause-and-effect chain to suggest the lack of values, the emptiness and the senselessness of the society, technique that singularized his voice in a time of the triumph of subjectivity, of stream of consciousness and other discoveries of the modernists in the interwar London. As David Lodge pertinently observed in his Modes of Modern Writing,

In Work Suspended (1942) and still more obviously in Brideshead Revisited (1945), Waugh made a radical change in his technique. His style became heavily metaphorical, given to long, elaborate analogies, but at the same time the narrative itself became more conventional in structure, following the fortunes of a group of interrelated characters as they unfolded in time and space.

Kazuo Ishiguro, "The Buried Giant"

 – e-book

Read from April 24^th to May 6^th 2015

My rating:

The Birth of Myths

In one of her short stories, Alice Munro evokes an ancestor who was the last to live at the border of reality and fantasy, for, she said, he was the last known to have encountered fairies and ghosts. It reminded me of another unusual border, imagined by Umberto Eco on an island where you could freely cross the line between yesterday and tomorrow. These are the stories The Buried Giant made me think of, before Tolkien’s mighty goblins and Yourcenar’s re-invention of history some critics compared Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel to. For it finely imagined a third border, this time between history and myth. It seems to me that this is what The Buried Giant is about: a glimpse at that illo tempore imagined by Mircea Eliade, that is at the dawn of time, when man inhabited the sacred as easily as the profane.

Alice Munro, "The View from Castle Rock"

 –Penguin Modern Classics, Canada 2010 ISBN 978-0-14-317740-1

Read from April 10^th to May 5^th 2015

My rating: 

Marin Preda, a great Romanian author, declared once in an interview, speaking of his most famous character: “Ilie Moromete, who really existed, was my father.” I’ve always used this quote as an example for my students of how writers like to maintain a deliberate confusion between fiction and reality.

In her Foreword of The View from Castle Rock, Alice Munro is even more ambiguous. After informing the reader that there is an historical truth behind her stories, she emphasizes the word stories as though putting it in opposition with the concept of real events, only to suggest immediately afterwards that reality and fiction are impossible to be told apart, that you can read them, without being wrong, either as the biography of a family or as a narrative inspired by this biography:

These are stories.You could say that such stories pay more attention to the truth of life than fiction usually does. But not enough to swear on. And the part of this book that might be called family history has expanded into fiction, but always within the outline of a true narrative. With these developments the two streams came close enough together that they seemed to me meant to flow in one channel, as they do in this book.

Daniel Glattauer, "Le ho mai raccontato del vento del Nord"

 – e-book

Lettura:  20-27 aprile 2015

Il mio voto:

Chi ha mai detto che il romanzo epistolare è morto, oppure almeno antiquato, poiché nessuno ha più la pazienza di scrivere lettere? Sicuramente uno che ha dimenticato il fascino delle Lettere persiane di Rousseau, dei Dolori del giovane Werther di Goethe e soprattutto del capolavoro che sia Le relazioni pericolose di Laclos.

John Gray, "Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus. A Practical Guide for Improving Communication and Getting What You Want in Your Relationships"

– Harper Perennial, 1994 ISBN 0-06-092-642-2

Read from  April 14^th to 26^th  2015

My rating:

Love. User's Manual

Do you remember the bunch of books Bridget Jones used to carry about in order to make sense of her weird and chaotic life? One of them was just this one, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus, and because of its longish and kinda stupidish, funnyish title, I assumed, when I saw the movie, it was merely an amusing invention to go with the giddy thirtish female character (as you see I’ve just discovered magic of the “-ish” suffix in the economy of the text). 

So imagine my surprise when I found the book was very real (hey, in my defence what I recall happened some eight years ago!) and very famous (according to Wikipedia it sold millions of copies). Meanwhile I’ve heard and read a lot of allusions about this book but although I bought it by mild curiosity from an antique book store several years ago, I’ve let it collect dust on my to-read shelf, for it was always another book more inciting to choose. Until now, that is.

Kurt Vonnegut Jr., "Slaughterhouse Five or The Children’s Crusade. A Duty-dance with Death"

 – e-book

Read from April 17^th to 22^nd 2015

My rating:  

Pillars of Salt

What you notice right away in Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse Five or The Children’s Crusade. A Duty-dance with Death (which is by the way all in all a masterpiece of narrative construction) is the concentric structure: there is a story that leads to a book, there is the story of the book and the story within the book. These three concentric circles (if you wish you can name each of them with one of the three titles of the novel) are drawn by three narrators: the Author who lived to tell the story and the “me and I” narrators: one who tells the story of Bill Pilgrim in a discreet, maybe even unreliable way, and one who witnesses him only from the crowd of American prisoners and feels like asserting himself in front of the reader, too, in order to give credibility not only to facts but also to the main character.

The Author is Yon Yonson from Wisconsin, who fought in the WW2, and became a prisoner, and witnessed the destruction of Dresden, and wants to write a book about it and who is, at this point, an alter ego of Kurt Vonnegut Jr., who fought in the WW2, and became a prisoner, and witnessed the destruction of Dresden, and wrote a book (this one) about it. The Author’s voice dominates the beginning and the end of the book, framing the inside story in rough edges, that is, revealing what his story was before polishing it, in an amazing mixture of fiction and Metafiction, for Yon Yonson from Wisconsin is not only the Author but also the “I”, a character, with one foot, so to speak, outside his own novel and the other one inside.

Zadie Smith, "White Teeth"

– e-book

Read from March 26^th to April 15^th 2015

My Rating:

“Every moment happens twice: inside and outside, and they are two different histories.”

In a famous short story, Henry James suggests that any work of art has a secret meaning, waiting to be discovered. He calls it “the figure in the carpet”. I’ve always thought, taking this metaphor to the extreme, that there are many kinds of carpets, and that sometimes you can figure the figure, so to speak, simply by contemplating the visible part of it, but in most cases you have to turn it upside down to study the number of knots, the direction and the overlapping of the threads – that is, the episodic characters and the eventual red herrings, the narrative layers, the time frame, etc. Obviously, a complicated inside out does not necessarily mean a beautifully elaborated figure and vice versa, a deceivingly complicated pattern is sometimes realized with few pinpricks. But it also happens that the result be an intricate design both on front and back.

Margaret Atwood, "The Penelopiad"

 – Alfred A. Knopf, Canada 2005 ; ISBN 0-676-97418-X

Read from April 17^th to 9^th 2015

My rating:

I’m not the first to say that, even though I could hardly remember the episode of the twelve maids’ hanging in Penelope’s myth, after reading Margaret Atwood’s Penelopiad I will never forget it again.

As you probably know, this novella was written as part of an ambitious and interesting project called “Canongate Myth Series” and started by the Scottish publishing house Canongate Books, which challenged over a hundred authors to rewrite universal myths. It is said that the first choice of the author was a Norse legend, followed by a Native American one, but in the end she remembered the twelve maids from Odyssey and decided to make them speak for themselves, together with Penelope, as she states in the Introduction:

I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The maids form a chanting and singing Chorus which focuses on two questions that must pose themselves after any close reading of The Odyssey: what led to the hanging of the maids, and what was Penelope really up to? The story as told in The Odyssey doesn’t hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. I’ve always been haunted by the hanged maids; and, in The Penelopiad, so is Penelope herself.

Ian McEwan, "Saturday"

– Vintage Canada Edition, 2006 ISBN 978-0-676-97762-2

Read from to April 2^nd 2014

My rating:

“…here as on a darkling plain”

Freud, I think, said once that the man’s main objective in life, the pursuit of happiness, is prevented by at least one of the following factors: his own body, the external world and the relationships with the others. Family, which could be his refuge and personal heaven is continuously threatened by a society that cannot permit isolation which would lead to its extinction. 

Thomas Mann, "Casa Buddenbrook"

 – e-book

Perioada lecturii 10 – 25 martie 2015

Votul meu:

Din ce spune Wikipedia, Thomas Mann s-a apucat să scrie Casa Buddenbrook la 22 de ani (şi a publicat-o în 1901, cînd avea 26 de ani), pe de o parte din admiraţia pentru operele realiste ale secolului al XIX-lea (în special Stendhal), pe de altă parte din dorinţa de a-şi măsura talentul cu acela al fratelui său mai mare Heinrich, căruia deja îi apăruse un roman şi lucra la al doilea. 

Deşi nu este cea mai buna carte a lui, este cu siguranţă cea mai populară, mai ales în Germania dar nu numai (se spune că Faulkner o considera o capodoperă) şi este sigur că în mare parte datorită ei a primit premiul Nobel pentru literatură. 

Doris Lessing, "The Grandmothers"

 – four short novels, Perennial 2005 ISBN 0-06-053011-1

Read from to March 5^th 18^th 2015

My rating:

All the reviews on Doris Lessing’s The Grandmothers I’ve read claim that the book is oddly uneven, with two brilliant and two poor stories. All of them put A love child on top, followed by Victoria and the Staveneys and they generally agree that The Grandmothers and The Reason of It are the worst.

Well, I beg to differ. As usual, Doris Lessing is a master of the literary techniques and the unity of The Grandmothers is realized by subtle but strong links between themes, motives, narrative perspectives, framing, narrative voices etc., that create a pattern of a beautiful discreet symmetry, giving the book all the coherence it needs to claim its unity either in structure and literary value.

Michel Houellebecq, "La possibilité d’une île"

 – Livre de poche 2008, ISBN : 2253115525 (ISBN13: 9782253115526)

Lu du 20 février au 12 mars 2015

Mon vote : 

La possibilité d’une île est le premier roman de Michel Houellebecq que je lis mais c’est sûr qu’il ne sera pas le dernier. Son écriture incitante et provocatrice, ou, comme lui-même le dit « singulièrement décapante » a, à peu près, tout ce que je cherche dans un livre : équilibre compositionnel, maîtrise du fil narratif, finesse stylistique, bref, une image qui ressort du tapis (pour emprunter la fameuse métaphore de Henry James) à la fois claire et compliquée, reposante et bouleversante, lumineuse et ombragée.

Sur le thème du manuscrit trouvé (l’histoire de Daniel1 est lue, deux millénaires plus tard par ses descendants Daniel24 et Daniel25) se construit une dystopie singulière, dans laquelle le futur n’est pas cauchemaresque parce ce qu’il a échoué dans la dictature de l’État (comme dans 1984, ou The Handmaid’s Tale, ou Brave New World pour ne pas citer que les plus fameuses), mais parce qu’il a « amélioré » l’homme, tout en le transformant  dans une « machine consciente » dépourvue de toute émotion et par conséquent, de toute frénésie d’exister qui définissait son humanité.

Denis de Rougemont, "Iubirea şi Occidentul"

– e-book

Perioada lecturii : 24 februarie – 9 martie 2015

Votul meu : 

      Am citit undeva că eseul lui Denis de Rougemont ar fi prima operă care analizează extensiv iubirea. Nu am verificat afirmaţia dar, deşi îmi vin în minte şi alte opere, ca Despre pasiunile sufletului a lui Descartes sau Despre iubire a lui Stendhal, Iubirea şi Occidentul rămîne cartea pe care aş recomanda-o în primul rînd celor interesaţi de acest subiect surprinzător de puţin studiat, dacă ne gîndim că nimeni n-a contestat încă adevărul celebrei afirmaţii danteşti despre iubirea care mişcă soarele şi celelalte stele.

      Premisa eseului scriitorului elveţian este aparent provocatoare: căsătoria şi iubirea nu sînt compatibile. Pentru a o demonstra, autorul pleacă de la mitul lui Tristan şi al Isoldei aşa cum apare el în literatura trubadurilor din secolul al XII-lea, mit care ar revela, pe de o parte, că o întreagă literatură s-a născut de pe urma crizei căsătoriei şi pe de altă parte că amorul-pasiune nu este iubirea de celălalt, ci iubirea de iubire. Denis de Rougemont pune aşadar în antiteză cele două concepte, afirmînd că au origini diferite : amorul-pasiune a fost inventat de tradiţia cavalerească (care, după cum vom vedea, ascultă de credinţe misterioase, eretice), în timp ce instituţia căsătoriei a fost consolidată de obiceiurile feudale (prin Biserică).

Stendhal, "Le Rouge et le Noir"

 – Éditions Rencontre Lausanne, 1961

Relu du 1^er février au 4 mars 2015

Mon vote :

Il a déjà été dit plusieurs fois, mais je ne me fatigue jamais de le redire, émerveillée – la fascination des classiques se trouve, pardonnez-moi le truisme, dans leur impeccable classicisme – c’est-à-dire, dans le fait qu’ils sont  en même temps anciens et actuels, connus et surprenants, lus et à découvrir.

Je relis, pour la troisième fois, je pense, Le Rouge et le Noir, et sa modernité m’éblouit comme si je le lisais pour la première fois. Je sais bien que Stendhal a été un innovateur dans le roman du XIXe siècle, et qu’il a contrarié ses contemporains par sa capacité, entre autres, de réinventer la sensibilité romantique avec des moyens réalistes, ce qui a fait Prosper Mérimée, si je me rappelle bien, lui reprocher d’avoir trahi l’idéal de l’art en dévoilant les tares indicibles de l’âme humaine. Mais je sais également que l’innovation littéraire n’est pas toujours une garantie d’immortalité, surtout étant donné la rapidité avec laquelle les nouveautés se démodent pour faire place à d’autres nouveautés.

Joseph Heller, "Catch-22"

 – e-book

Read from January 19^th to February 26^th 2015

My rating :

I can’t remember who told me, a long time ago, that Catch 22 is excruciatingly boring. It must have been someone whose judgment I trusted, for although I’ve had this book in my library for a very long time I’ve never come around reading it. Until a month ago, that is, when I decided the time had come to check the truth of this outrageous statement concerning one of the iconic books of the American literature.

It took me about 6 weeks to finish it and I must admit it was not easy. Furthermore, somewhere in the middle of the book I almost gave it up – now I’m glad I didn’t, because it improved sensibly towards the end. And now that I’m done with, I must try and put my thoughts in order a little, to make sense of my weird relationship with this novel, that sometimes irritated me immensely, and other times blew up my mind.