Reading Blinding, the tears we feel on our face are unmistakably Cartarescu's, and it is Cartarescu's hand we feel tugging us down the twisting lanes between apartment towers, out to the far fringes of his personal past, whether remembered, reconstructed, or marvelously and eloquently re-imagined. It is testament to translator Sean Cotter's skill that this English version fairly vibrates with immediacy, its jungle-cat vigor apparent even during the book's melancholy moods. A phantasmagorical blend of fiction, memoir, surrealism, entomology, war, sex, death and destruction, the novel is, to use its own words, on a 'a continuum of reality-hallucination-dream. Nothing can prepare you for the scope and ambition of Blinding, the first volume of Romanian author Mircea Cărtărescu's acclaimed trilogy. What fantastic notion, or iteration of metamorphosing insect will pop out and regale us next? If you're game for a mystical mind-bend, give Blinding a go. the book has a cinematic quality that we don't so much read as drift through-as in an amusement park ride. Minneapolis Star Tribuneįluidly translated by Sean Cotter.
What's more, his extra-sensory vision of Bucharest (and beyond) is mind-expanding. Cartarescu astounds without resorting to showiness, and the sheer energy and exuberance of his language is intoxicating. This literary experience will bring new attention to Romanian literature, a cultural destination that for decades eluded North American audiences. Boyd Tonkin, The IndependentĪs Borges said when Joyce's Ulysses was published, this text does not aspire to be a novel, but a cathedral.A novel with a strong original voice, a unique flavor, and well-crafted poetic language, Blindingis a delight and a surprise, a major discovery of this year.
'The past is everything, the future nothing.' From that past - which stretches back to encompass all of human history - Cartarescu has fashioned a novel of visionary intensity. Above all, Blinding insists that memory can make a world. Cartarescu demands much as he scrambles memory, satire, fantasy and near-mystical speculation, but amply rewards your commitment. a hot tip for the Nobel Prize in Literature this year.
A Fiction in Translation Book of the Year, The Independent Stay with him: epiphanies and beauties abound in this deliriously ambitious work. Andrew Solomon, The New Yorkerīlinding asks much from readers as it shifts between tender family history, Ceaușescu-era satire and visionary fantasies that recalls William S Burroughs.
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