The 41 year old Romanian writer Lucian Dan Teodorovici is the one whose book "The Other Love Stories" (2009) I managed to read in March and I can honestly say I was expecting more from these stories, but taking into account that this was the first book I had read penned by him, I guess so much expectation was a faux pas and it probably stemmed from the fact that after reading or rather being imbued by Cartarescu's writing, I want all other books to impress me as much...
Still, the book manages to leave me with some thoughts on how time flies, on how nothing is what it seems and, cliched as it may seem, still waters run deep. And if you expect a lot of romantic, syrupy-like love, you will be disappointed. Even though the writer himself states on his site that the stories have a common theme and that is of lost love, I did not actually felt them as such.
Out of the 11 short stories, the ones that I enjoyed the most were "Goose Chase" and "A Few Kilometers Back". Here are a few lines from "Goose Chase":
Grandfather swore in his turn when he saw that our geese with the Nike mark were nowhere to be found. And he began to go from house to house, looking for the geese. I followed him, more out of curiosity than anything else, although my grandfather let me tag along because he imagined that I, at the age of eight, had keener eyes and could spot things that he, at the age of sixty, was unable to. In the end, it turned out to be a good thing that he took me along. Because, while he was in a neighbour’s yard, I remained in the lane, bouncing up and down the rather deflated ball I’d brought from home so as not to grow bored during the search. And as my grandfather was talking to the neighbour in the yard, a gap-toothed, hare-lipped friend of mine came up. I told him our geese had been stolen and he said:
“I fink I know who shtole them. They were on the corner of the shtreet,” he said pointing to the place. “And that gypshy who nicked our ball that time when we were playing football on the pitch by the railway shtation turned up,” he added. “Honest. He was holding a shwitch and I shaw him driving the geesh up there to the water tower. I don’t know if they were yoursh, but they had marks and I even thought, what the devil, gypshies don’t mark their geesh.”
L. D. Teodorovici has published books in Italian, Spanish, French and German and has written novels, short stories, scripts and plays.
What have you read for the Romanian Writers Challenge? :)
2 comments:
Hm, sounds that you were not too impressed. A pity, but maybe your expectations were too high.
Btw, I changed my mind again (for monetary reasons, I might add, as the book was available on my book swap site). I am waiting for I'm a communist biddy! by Dan Lungu. I know virtually nothing about the communist era in Romania, so this might be interesting. It's out in German, which is a plus.
Dan Lungu is a great writer, I have read a few books of his, but not this one yet. I hope you will enjoy it, Rikki :)
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