Occurrences In Current Unreality
I pant, I sink, I tremble, I expire. P. B. Shelley When I stare at a fixed point upon the wall at length, it sometimes happens that I no longer know who I am, nor where I am. On such occasions I experience my lack of identify from afar, as if for a moment I had become a
On The Romanian Melting Pot
When King Béla of Hungary decided to invite the Saxons to settle in Transylvania, the land had been severely depopulated by the Mongol invasion. The Germans came from the dry lands of Northern Europe and found here what must have seemed to them sort of a Promised Land.
The Chase
I first heard of the persecution of Christians when I was in the second form at primary school. Mr. Salmen, our teacher, told us that people had been thrown alive to the wild beasts and that they had gone to death with pride after agonies of pain. Much later, I happened
Purgatory
Beetle legs ran across his face and he woke up. He stretched and got up, threw the tiny insect on the floor and crushed it, still half asleep. Then he looked down over his body searchingly, pleased with the way he could make his arm muscles twitch and jump as he wanted.
Yesterday
To clarify the unities of place, time and action in this world: here, now and thus, when one can no longer believe in the laws of happening, because this place is not in the now, and this now does not thus give temporality to the here. The present reality of things past
Everything Must Go, Or 5 Reasons Why I Stayed In Bucharest Instead Of Moving To Paris, Florence Or New York
I've always been fascinated by this city. Still, I can understand it doesn't easily translate to others. Here is a list of things one should try to perceive as charming, although - by all standards - they don't qualify as such:1. Filth. It is the quintessential
The Birds Of The Sky
excerpts It was in 1985 when a young woman who had applied for an emigration visa to West Europe and was not granted it was looking for a master of Oriental practices to get strength and self-protection. She was afraid she might be arrested, and her intention was to acquire,
What We See
excerpts …Once, when his wife's condition showed signs of deterioration, Marcu entered the Sfînta Vineri church, on his way home from the shops he had called at to collect his rents. He prayed a long time and fervently, though he could hardly concentrate, choking
Chronicles Of An Optimist
excerpts NOISES OF THE CAPITAL For reasons I cannot exactly explain, the flow of ideas circulated by the independent press has strikingly dwindled to a mere trickle. One can only put it down to the times of fatigued irritation we are living through as we wait for the much
Elena Văcărescu: An Unforgettable Character Of Bucharest
Special attention should be given to Elena Văcărescu, whose outstanding personality and whose life contributed greatly to the revival of the Romanian spirit, inherited from her forerunners. Until not long ago, mention was often made of the four Văcărescu poets and the
Familiars Of The Old Royal Court
excerpt …sage citoyen du vaste univers. [1] La Fontaine With you I liked to live through, in the memory, my thirty years of voyages, with you, again, should you not feel bored, I shall live through, in the memory, my childhood and early youth. This will entail returning
Memory And Strolls
If you read travel notes by simple tourists or people on journalistic, cultural or political assignments, from the 1920s or 30s, if you peruse recurrent images about a Bucharest imprinted with evil or good charms, equally decrypted and encoded, moving and repulsive, you