The Romaniuc Files

Romania In Translation #45

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 19:16:00 +0000

photo from Mallone Radu's facebook

An old woman pretends she has been raped by The Eye of Sauron

It all started when she noticed a strange eye peering at her when she went to the loo.

"For a while it was only sort of glancing. I pretended I didn't see it.
"But after madam Enache, who's a councilwoman at the mayor office too so she knows precisely what she's talking about, told me it's the Eye of Sauron, I started thinking it was doing voyeurism with me.
"Since then I'm going out carrying a stick. But what can a stick do when that's a huge beast, while I'm an old woman with my asthma, my heart, my diabetes.
"And then I think it raped me too.
"I went to the police immediately, didn't think twice about it. No use, it wasn't apprehended to this day."

#occupy Romania

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 23:12:00 +0000

Another day of protests. There was fighting today.

Here's where we're at:

"Is anyone still using Internet Explorer 6?" (from Radu Velcea's facebook)

"Chuck Norris, Help!!!" (from Oana Nicolau's facebook)

Unirii Square - The PvP Area (from Sensations White's facebook)

Occupy Baia De Arieș

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:05:00 +0000

Romania is caught these days in the #occupy movement. People are out in the streets. There's little violence, and everything looks so very Romanian. Everyone seems to be protesting on their own.

But of all the #occupy videos I find this to be the most endearing of all. It reminded me of Cloud Atlas, David Mitchell's novel: it's just a drop in the ocean, but what else is the ocean if not a multitude of drops?

Book Note: Harbor

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Fri, 02 Dec 2011 08:49:00 +0000

Harbor by John Ajvide Lindqvist (2011, translated by Marlaine Delargy, pub. Thomas Dunne Books)

The Swedes have a long and troubled relationship with the sea. They depend on the sea, and the sea is cold, and black, and unforgiving.

The Ales Stenar, an ancient formation of rocks arranged in the shape of a giant ship, is believed to be a shrine dedicated to the people lost at sea. It is thousands of years old.

In JAL's latest novel, Harbor, in the cemetery of Domoro, an island archipelago, there is a huge anchor with a plaque that reads "IN MEMORY OF THOSE LOST AT SEA." Its chain is buried in the ground. Where does it go, Anders the protagonist of the novel wonders:
"...burrowing down into the slime on the seabed, down into the mud and the blue clay, down to the point where nothing can live, where there is complete silence..."

Andres has lost a lot to the sea: his small daughter vanished without a trace on the ice during a picnic trip to the old lighthouse, and in the aftermath his marriage dissolved. A couple of years and he returns to Domoro a drunk, trying to find something to cling to, something to drag him out of the hollowed state he is in. As the story unfolds, Anders learns that more people had vanished at the same spot, and that the sea is not a simple body of water but rather a lovecraftian incomprehensible and evil being.

JAL seems to be on a dare with the Horror genre. His first novel was about vampires, the next zombies, the two most known and popular Horror topics. Harbor, his third book, goes for the Eldritch Horror, complete with ancient rituals, human sacrifices and indescribable forces. Also, there is a conjurer bound to a water elemental, who provides the deus ex machina device which solves the plot. But let's not reduce this story to its fantastical elements. There is a wealth of characters here which are used to draw us in, and make us participate, reminding me of Stephen King. Actually I'd recommend the book to any King fan, they won't be disappointed.

The writing is clear and pleasant, again bringing to mind the easiness with which Kings' novels are read. I liked how skillfully JAL uses objects to highlight a particular situation or effect - the dead fern in Anders apartment for example, which provides the pivot for his escape from depression. But it's when he writes about the menace of the sea that he gives us the most convincing, chilling passages.

Oana met the writer - a poem

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Fri, 25 Nov 2011 23:41:00 +0000

Oana met a writer today. A real writer.
Here's how it happened.

She had to go to the doctor to get something for the ankle she had injured while running.
The doctor was a University professor, old.
Really old.
After every visit at that clinic you're supposed to get a piece of paper
Where stuff like what's wrong with you and what medicine you need
Is written in boxes. The paper is written by the doctor and printed at the desk.
But this old doctor didn't care about learning how to use the clinic's computer
Or its software.
Instead he called the desk and said
"Send the writer over."

So Oana met the writer.

Here we are

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 14:11:00 +0000

This is a "I know I've been neglecting this blog BUT" post. Right? There has to be at least one of these on the blog of every person who doesn't have blogging as a job. So here we go.

I know I've been neglecting this blog but I'm going through a phase where I'm not very interested in writing short notes in English about various subjects and posting them here. I'm lazy, lazy, lazy, and there's so much stuff I should be doing and fail doing (on time or at all) that having this blog to keep updated regularly is less and less fun.

But soon enough changes will happen and I'll have a regular online presence again. Hopefully before the end of this year.

The 99% are useless, says our mastermind

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sat, 05 Nov 2011 08:46:00 +0000

Andrei Plesu is an important Romanian intellectual: a philosopher and politician, he is one of the few in the elite group of people who thrived in the old Communist regime and are still thriving now. He is, in my country, the 1%.

This is an excerpt from an interview published in the online edition of Adevarul (The Truth, Pravda, etc etc). The period mentioned by Andrei Plesu is his mandate at the External Affairs Ministry.

"I have said it before: having to deal, for two years, with almost all the important leaders of the world, I came to the conclusion that I am handed the proof for the existence of God. Because too rarely these leaders had the capacity to undertake such wide scopes. So I came to believe that, since with its "managers" now, the world is still working, the merit is that of the Grace of God..."

Right. So the world is working because of the 1%?
What exactly is Andrei Plesu saying? He explains how without the rich people and the church people this world cannot function. The 99% ? Irrelevant.

Sins live on people not on trees

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Tue, 18 Oct 2011 20:32:00 +0000

My friend Gary Cuba wrote a story about a man who can see other people's sins: For the Love of Sin. It's published in the Grantville Gazette, and can be read online for free right now.

Also, Dave Steffen's new story in Daily Science Fiction called The Quest Unusual is going to be available for reading in a day or two.

Book note: The Ritual

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Mon, 17 Oct 2011 06:09:00 +0000

The Ritual by Adam Nevill (2011)

A group of friends gets lost in the woods, a monster hunts them one by one. Classic story from too many horror films already. This book doesn't bring anything new to it. Clear, clean, correct prose. Clear explanations for everything that happens, at the end.

An easy to read book.

Book Note: Gods Without Men

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 06:38:00 +0000

Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru (2011)

This book really wants to push a lot of buttons.

There's the Native Indians and the American guilt over their slaughter, and the Iraqi war, and 9/11, and Arab immigrants in America, and the financial crisis, and the Englishman in America, and the Internet, and unhappy marriages, and religion, and dysfunctional families, and hippies.

This is also a science-fiction novel, and in this regard is just as generous: we have alien encounters and abductions, we have an AI influencing the world economy, we have wormhole travel, and we even have the Body Snatchers type of horror.

There's also lots of very good writing.

Book Note: Sleight of Hand

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 06:54:00 +0000

Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle (2011)

A collection of nice stories, well written but lacking the playful poetry of The Last Unicorn, or its remarkable insight. These stories are straightforward (The Rock in the Park is a story that tells us art is magic by presenting us with a piece of art that is magic) and very feel-good-y (there are at least three stories in which the monster befriends the people it is supposed to hurt, death is circumvented, etc).

All in all, amazing read for children - I really am sorry I don't have a Romanian translation for Octavia - but less satisfying for adults.

Bragă

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sun, 25 Sep 2011 17:06:00 +0000

We went to a small country fair today and I bought a bottle of bragă. Braga is the Romanian version of boza, a really bizarre refreshing drink. It's made by fermenting a dough made out of wheat bran and corn flour. The peculiar aroma is created by a cocktail of Bacillum Coli and Sacharomyces.

I never drank bragă before, but I knew about it - it's first mentioned by Xenophon of Athens (of the The Tousand fame) but it's history goes back way before Ancient Greece, to the Mesopotamians of 9000 years ago.

Now, the drink.

It is thick, with a smooth texture. It smells of fermentation, a little like a mild cheese, a little like flour. Not a very appealing smell, but not repulsing.

As for the taste, I was afraid it was going to be like one of those malt beverages (which I can't stand) but I was lucky. The taste is like that aroma of flour that lingers in the kitchen when you're baking bread is transformed in a cold smoothie. And a little sweet and a little sour. It goes down really easy.

A Romanian Poem

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 11:41:00 +0000

We Have Time by Octavian Paler

We have time for everything.
To sleep, to run right or left,
to be sorry we made mistakes and to make mistakes again,
to judge others and absolve ourselves
we have time to read and write,
to correct what we have written, to be sorry for what we wrote,
we have time to build projects and miss their deadlines,
we have time to build illusions and rake over their ashes.
We have time for ambitions and sickness,
time to blame destiny and details,
we have time to watch the clouds, the advertisements or a certain accident,

we have time to chase away the questions, delay the answers,

we have time to crush a dream and reinvent it,

we have time to make friends, and lose them,

we have time to receive lessons and forget them afterwards,

we have time to receive gifts and never understand them.

We have time for all that.

We don't have time for a little tenderness.

When we're about to get there - we die.

I have learned some things in life and I am sharing them with you!!
I have learned that you can not make someone love you
All you can do is to be a loved one.
The rest... is up to the others.
I have learned that no matter how much I care
Others might not care at all.
I have learned that it takes years to build up your confidence
And only a couple of seconds to lose it
I have learned it doesn't matter WHAT your life earnedBut WHO.
I have learned that your charm helps you for about 15 minutes
But then, you'd better know something too.
I have learned you don't have to compare yourself to what one does best
But to what you yourself can do.
I have learned what happened to people doesn't matter
But it matters what you can do about it.
I have learned that no matter the cut
There are two faces to everything.
I have learned that you have to say warm goodbyes to your loved ones
This could be the last time you see them.
I have learned you can still go on for a long time
After you said you're finished.
I have learned that heroes are those people who do what must be done, when it must be done
No matter the consequences.
I have learned there are people who love you
But don't know how to show it.
I have learned that when I am upset I have THE RIGHT to be upset
But I don't have the right to be mean too.
I have learned that true friendship survives long distances
And this applies to true love also.
I have learned that, when someone doesn't love you as you want them to
It doesn't mean they don't love you with their entire soul.
I have learned that no matter how good a friend one is to you
They will still hurt you from time to time
And you have to forgive them for it.
I have learned it isn't always enough to be forgiven by others
Sometimes you will have to learn to forgive yourself.
I have learned that no matter how deep your suffering is,
The world won't stop in place because of it.
I have learned that your past and circumstances could influence
your personality
But YOU are the one responsible for what you become.
I have learned that, when two people are fighting, it doesn't mean they don't love each other
And the fact that they're not fighting is not a proof of love either.
I have learned that sometimes you have to first look at the person
And not at their deeds.
I have learned that two humans can look at the same thing
And they can see something else entirely.
I have learned that no matter the consequences
Those who are honest with themselves will get further in life.
I have learned that your life can be changed in a few hours
By people who don't even know you.
I have learned that even when you think you have nothing to give anymore
A friend calls you and you find the power to help them.
I have learned that the people you care most deeply about
Are taken from you too soon.
I have learned that it's too hard to discern
Where to draw the line between being amiable, not hurting people and standing for your opinion.
I have learned to love
So that I can be loved.

Romanians and God

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 16:05:00 +0000

President Basescu and Jesus' Mom.

I found the photo on dollo.ro. I think it sums up perfectly the relation between us Romanians and Divinity. Whatever divinity that may be.

Stefan Sagmeister's list of how to be happy

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Wed, 07 Sep 2011 07:41:00 +0000

Complaining is silly. Either act or forget.
Thinking life will be better in the future is stupid.
I have to live now.
Being not truthful works against me.
Helping other people helps me.
Organizing a charity group is surprisingly easy.
Everything I do always comes back to me.
Drugs feel great in the beginning and become a drag later on.
Over time I get used to everything and start taking it for granted.
Money does not make me happy.
Traveling alone is helpful for a new perspective on life.
Assuming is stifling.
Keeping a diary supports my personal development.
Trying to look good limits my life.
Worrying solves nothing.
Material luxuries are best enjoyed in small doses.
Having guts always works out for me.

I found it on Jonathan Carrol's blog, but Stefan Sagmeister (who is an important graphic artist) has also a book out: Things I have learned in my life so far. Not all of his remarks would work for me, but it's still has a sense of "feel good without messing other people's lives" that I wholly endorse.

Romania In Translation #44

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 21:26:00 +0000

OTV Headline for tonight:

Secret Files: A death threat comes toward Earth! Is it a comet or is it... The Antichrist?

MSG 1333: Will we defend against the fire in the sky with the Bible or with... military techniques?

Infinity past six

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sun, 04 Sep 2011 07:53:00 +0000

The Romanian miniature playboy Irinel Columbeanu visited the Column of The Infinite, one of the most important sculptures of Constantin Brancusi.

Irinel said:

"In life one must keep hope and not stop at the sixth rhombus."

source: wikipedia.com

source: 7est.ro

Book Note: The Silent Land

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Mon, 29 Aug 2011 14:05:00 +0000

The Silent Land by Graham Joyce (2010)

Everybody has seen or read at least one Groundhog Day story. You know, where somebody is trapped in a day that keeps repeating or in a place they can't leave, until some moral wrong is repaired or the trapped protagonist undergoes a spiritual transformation of sorts.
Fortunately for me, The Silent Land doesn't really care about morals, but about marriage and love. It doesn't have two heroes, Zoe and Jake, but one: their couple. The empty resort they can't leave, the strange visions and apparitions, the alteration of time, everything that happens happens to them as a couple, which makes the ending, albeit predictable, very effective.
What are the forces that drive a couple apart, what keeps two people together... and how much time do we still have with each-other? How do we stay together forever? Can we? Should we?

"She sat on the bed watching the gentle rise and fall of his chest as he slept on. She reached out and held his hand, half-hoping that he would wake, half-hoping that he would not. She decided to leave it to the Fates. If he woke she would tell him about the horse outside. If not, she wouldn't. She had to ask herself why she wasn't allowing herself to tell him about some of the events that were happening around them. why she was staying quiet about these things was also a mystery to her. It was as if some primal part of her was terrified that no event in this place could be good for them. She felt - irrationally but with a conviction that came from deep in her bones - that with each new development, something was trying to insert itself between them. Only absolute stasis would live them alone."

Romania In Translation #43

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Sun, 28 Aug 2011 00:22:00 +0000

OTV Headline for tonight:

New informations about the house in Iasi haunted by ghosts and Strigoi.

Book Note: The Stone Gods

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Wed, 24 Aug 2011 06:26:00 +0000

The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson (2007)

A new planet to colonize, but this is not your Avatar-style science-fiction adventure:

"Spike, you're a robot, but why are you such a drop-dead gorgeous robot? I mean, is it necessary to be the most sophisticated machine ever built and to look like a movie star?"
She answers simply: "They thought it would be good for the boys in the mission."
[...]
"But you were also the most advanced member of the crew."
"I'm still a woman."
[...]
"So you had sex with spacemen for three years?"
"Yes. I used up three silicon-lined vaginas."

The book deals less with the war of sexes and more with the incessant war of humanity versus humanity. Touching, sad, and ultimately hopeful, it brings to mind Mitchell's Cloud Atlas. The Stone Gods is less accomplished, I think, but it touched me deeply. The theme doesn't shine quite as clearly,maybe, and the style has a pathos that sometimes is effective (the scene near the end where the mutant survivors are described) and sometimes falls flat (the ending didn't work for me at all), but despite a few flaws The Stone Gods is one of those books that talks to you.

"A small boy and a small dog, the dog hairless and pink, tongue lolling, body worn thin like hope, the boy with a bad stomach wound sewn up at his home or his hole, subcutaneous fat pushed on the outside like a roll of tripe. He had the dog on a lead and he was still managing to be a boy with a dog and the dog was still managing to be a dog with a boy because not even a bomb gets to wipe out everything, and this little bit was missed in the blow-up, the fall-out, the death-toll, the regrettable acts of war."

New Books

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Fri, 19 Aug 2011 09:07:00 +0000

Books for this Fall:

The Emperor's New Drugs by Irving Kirsch
Super Sad True Love Story by Gary Shteyngart
The Third Bear by Jeff Vandermeer
The Stone Gods by Jeanette Winterson
Sleight of Hand by Peter S. Beagle
The Silent Land by Graham Joyce
Gods Without Men by Hari Kunzru
The Ritual by Adam Nevill
The Flight Anthology #8

So, two short-story collections, five novels. The non-fiction book is for Oana and the Flight #8 is Octavia's.

I'm already two thirds into the Winterson book, and it's absolutely delightful.

Book Note: Timequake&Antes del fin

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Tue, 16 Aug 2011 06:33:00 +0000

Timequake by Kurt Vonnegut (1997), translated by Viorica Boitor, Humanitas 2009
Antes del fin by Ernesto Sabato (1998), translated by Gabriela Lozneanu, Rao 2000

These two books, written in the same period, both hunted by the coming of Death. Coincidentally, next to each other in my to-read pile.

Vonnegut's is a failed novel, as per his own confession. Timequake is a fix-up book made from the notes and scattered fragments of a failed novel-project, strewn together with thoughts and memories. I confess Vonnegut's style didn't work for me here. Everything was too unconnected, too scattered - every time I put the book aside for more than a day I had to read entire pages before finding where I was previously.
The book has an odd premise, the titular Time Quake throws humanity ten years back in the past, and everybody has to do everything all over again for a decade. But Vonnegut seems to have lost his bite, and he just sounds bitter and a little disappointed.

In the beginning of Antes del fin:
"I was told: 'You have a duty to finish it, the youngsters are desperate, restless and believe in you; you can't let them down."
Maybe because he wrote with the thought of not letting down the young ones, Sabato's book is warm and careful. It is a difficult book, with bloody political coups, with betrayals, and war. Also, ideals, passion, and responsibility.

"Maybe, through my anarchist formation, I was always the lone wolf, belonging to that group of writers who, as Camus also said it, 'can't put themselves next to those that make history, but rather in the service of those that endure it.'"

Also, this: "That is why, if failure in itself is a sad thing, failure in Art is always tragic." And how Artaud died.

Book Note: Home Fires

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Wed, 27 Jul 2011 09:44:00 +0000

Home Fires by Gene Wolfe (2010)

I can't say this book charmed me, but it sure was interesting. Gene Wolfe's take on a future seen through the deformed lens of a well-do Westerner. Aliens called the Os are fighting with the humans for control over colonies, but Gene Wolfe's hero goes on a cruise.

Skip Grison, the hero, is not an easy to like view-point character, he is in fact just as unpleasant as his name. Gene Wolfe dosen't waste any time establishing the fact, and Skip begins by making a despicable moral choice just for the sake of making a gift.

Skip is sexist to the point of caricature. He is the kind of boss that sleeps with his secretary. While his wife is away. Then, after he dumps the secretary and she has a breakdown, he muses: "[...] but without me what did she have? No daughter and no son, because I never gave her any."

But then again, Skip is a sexist man in a worse-than-sexist future, where even a beggar says: "I don' wash clothes. Need woman for wash."

And it's not only sexism that Wolfe satirizes here, but also the skewed and stereotypical way Americand perceive other people. When they first meet the afore-mentioned beggar, who is missing both hands, they immediately assume his hands were cut by Sharia Law practitioners. And when our protagonist has a little more time for reflection, he thinks: "How much help is the third world giving the human race against the Os? [...]"

Unfortunately, the pointed satire and the occasional comical contrast (like the title one, the home fires are what Skip tells us he kept burning at home while his wife was away, just as we readers see how disastrous the consequences of his affair with another woman are) don't suffice. The book feels too long. The pulp-ish plot is uninteresting. The book is heavy on dialogue, but all major characters (with one exception) sound the same. So maybe I would have liked this better served as a short story. Still, interesting Wolfe.

The Death of A Tango Dancer

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 13:40:00 +0000

"I believe Bucharest is a miraculous city, magic. Things happen in it that have nothing to do with the cause-effect relation and defy logic."

Stelian Tanase wrote a novel about the Bucharest of the 1940's, when the Red Army occupied it. The novel is called The Death of A Tango Dancer.

"I believe Bucharest is a miraculous city, magic. Things happen in it that have nothing to do with the cause-effect relation and defy logic."

Here are a few excerpts from an interview with him. Full interview, in Romanian, on bookblog:

"[...] some things although they seem fantastical, author's inventions, are real. For example, the bricolage that Gogu makes out of the bodies of the victims of the 4th of April bombing. He makes a body out of many and sells it to some families so that they have someone to bury. The same with Sache the Skeleton, the hand-organ player, a character who dies aged 247, crushed by the blast of an explosion at the North Waystation. That's a story I found in the papers. The busker was the oldest in Bucharest, all the city singers accompanied him to the cemetery, and that wonderful bird that stood perched on his hand-organ was snuck in his casket to go with him to the Heaven."

"It's a magic novel. Gogu Vrabete has the gift. There's a tram cab in the novel sort of like the ship of the Flying Dutchman - it is and it isn't, appears and disappears. Angels appear pretty frequently, fantastical animals. These are signs that there's another reality beyond what we each know and sometimes it signals us... There is a certain descriptive precision and suddenly breaches appear, openings, like you're seeing an abyss. I wouldn't say it's a writer's trick, but it's the need to talk about a world as a whole, not about parts of it."

Simple enough

noreply@blogger.com (rreugen) — Thu, 21 Jul 2011 12:12:00 +0000

Ideology. Random find on the web.