Great summary and analysis! I really enjoyed this. I loved the readings throughout the video as well. Agreed so much regarding the prose - the sentence level writing is unreal. Solenoid is definitely one of the very best of the 21st century!
The readings were interspersed beautifully with the analysis. This novel impacted me a lot though I can't say why. Maybe it was the writing which was brilliant? Or just the stream of thoughts which were so unnerving yet so relatable? Great video.
Great summary!!!, Im reading the book right now, it is fascinating, every page make me remembering something about my own life... childhood, smells, dreams, teachers, etc. I think he touched something universal, memories, family, an so on. Also every page has a life for itself, great novel!!!
Yes, “a masterpiece.” You delivered an engaging, and personal, response to this massive, overwhelming novel that is supposedly at war with the novel. A book of two sides, in constant conversation. It’s certain to be a classic and will stand the test of time.
Currently reading and loving this. Also had to question for a bit if I liked it or if it was worth it. But am absolutely irretrievably hooked. It is one of the best things I’ve ever come across. Hard to recommend it though. But if you know, you know. Excellent review.
Bonsoir Ann ! Waouh ! What an interesting review ! I didn't know this author but now I want to read it. I love strange stories and surrealism. Thank you for discovering 🙏Have a sweet week-end with great reads !⛄️📚🍁🌲
Romanian subscriber here. You mentioned this upcoming review in your interview with Steve and I was looking forward to it. I am glad you enjoyed it, though. However, I found myself groaning every other page and couldn’t get more than halfway through with my Romanian edition… It might be something new for Western readers, but for me, it depicts a (sur)reality that is all too familiar. It’s nothing the author hasn’t done in his Orbitor trilogy, both thematically and style-wise. To listen to you talk about how the narrator didn’t like being a teacher amuses me… I may or may not have had him as a professor and been disappointed 😊
I was talking with a couple of Romanian readers today and they said exactly the same thing. That he is very pushed while there are many other authors that are even better. If you can give me names, esp translated authors, don’t hold back!
@Ann Novella The ones I like haven’t been translated. They are barely read outside academia, let alone get international attention. Yes, Cartarescu is pushed by his publisher and cultural institutions, but for anyone who’s read more than their fair share of recent across-borders literature, he’s nothing to write home about. I imagine you’ve read/heard of Max Blecher and Mihail Sebastian. Censor's Notebook by Liliana Corobca was recently translated for Seven Stories Press (although she’s originally from Moldavia, she lives in Bucharest and writes in Romanian), The Baiut Alley Lads by Filip Florian is easily available, How I Spent My Summer Holiday by T.O. Bobe (an odd one, with child narrator). I don’t know if Razvan Radulescu has been translated into any of the languages you read, there’s an Italian edition called Teodosio il piccolo. It’s one of my favourites!
I don’t know if they are better, but they are not as autobiographical/self-observed/obsessed with the communist era. As you’d imagine, I am quite tired of reading about it from Romanian authors, as traumatic as it might have been for that generation.
@@AnaMariaGavrilaMcrezi ca liiceanu si humanitas au atita influienta sa-l impuna in constiinta cititorilor internationali? n-ar fi publicat daca n-ar fi vandabil!
This has to be the most over-rated book I've ever been duped into purchasing. I stopped three quarters of the way through. Yes, some nice lines, but the sum of the parts, and there are many of them, is a random hodgepodge of moaning and poorly realised surrealist dreams, seemingly written down at breakfast time. I had no sympathy, no connection and no interest in his life. Maybe all is revealed in the last third of the book, I will never know. Perhaps one of the most amateur efforts I've ever thrown on the floor in boredom.
