Frumoasele strǎine by Mircea Cǎrtǎrescu

Abstract

through the pregnancy. Dejected, she is sentto spas on themainland for a miraculous cure. There, she finds herselfcured in more ways thanone. Deprived of the "principal thing"and leftbelieving thatGod does notwanthertoknowlove,she accepts who she is and the beautifulmainland ,withitshanginggardens and lush, green terraces.Yet all her lifeshe has been told she is "like someone fromtheland of the moon." Considered abnormal and incapableofhavingthisfundamental thing - love- she hides all her thoughts ina little blacknotebook. When thegrandmother returns home from the mainland, she is healed.Ninemonthslater, shebirths a son, the narrator's father.The ensuingscenesare notonlysurprisingbutalso fascinating tothereader, who undoubtedly willwanttoknow moreaboutthistaleoflove and loss even after thenovelends. BlayzeHembree University ofOklahoma Mircea Cärtärescu. Frumoasele striine. Bucharest. Humanitas.2010. 299 pages. 32ron. isbn978-973-502692 -9 Described by the author himselfas "light"and funnystuffnot to be taken too seriously,Mircea Cärtärescu'slatestbook- "Beautiful Strangers" or, more accurately, "Beautiful Foreign Women"- features three narratives of varying length.The first is titled"Anthrax"; thesecond (in translation), "BeautifulForeignWomen ,or How I Was a Run-of-the-Mill Author";and the third, also in translation, "Bacovian [Story],"with a referenceto Romanianpoet GeorgeBacovia and the depressive, small-town world eartarescu fruitasele strame ""."■-■ •* v--:" ^c~ -> '-*■ evoked obsessivelyby thisbelated symbolist. I call the texts narrativesfor lackofa betterterm.Theyarebilled "road movies" by the back-cover blurb - the English phrase is actuallyused there, and aptlyso. Except that,of course,we are not dealing withscreenplays, oranything ofthat nature,but with a more complex genre,a hybridlodged at thecrossroads of fictionand nonfiction,a sort of slightlyfictionalizedtravel narrative where realistic observationand self-observation, on theone hand, and culturalcommentary, on theother,combineintobiting,wellaimed satire.But,because the protagonistof the storiesis Cärtärescu himself - or"Cärtärescu," rather, the author'sfictional alterego- thissatirehas a self-satiric or,moreexactly, self-deprecating component. The writerurges the reader not to take himtooseriouslybecause he himself declinestodo so inthefirst place. Rhetorically and otherwise, this is a smartmove. To clarify, let me just say thatnot only is Cärtärescu¡li CHRIS ABANI ^H^^HSB§H Marjorie Agosto HB^BI Romania's mostgifted and famous writer, buthisnameanda possible NobelPrizehaveoften beenmentionedinthesamebreath , athome andabroad. Thishasmadehiminto a celebrity in a society stillunprepared to handle stardomculture and where, accordingly, renowned peoplearesimultaneously admired and envied,if not hated,forthe wrongreasons.Thus, the stories in thebookpaintthepicture ofa "picaro" Cártárescu, of"Cärtärescuas -the-famous-author" traveling throughhis country's backwater towns(Bacovia'sdestitute eastern Romania)or throughcosmopolitanwesternEuropeand running, overandoveragain,intoquasisurrealsituations , whichhe narrates withcomicgusto.In theprocess, he makesfunof himself, too,of the"celebrity" hehasbecome, but onlytobe detested bypetty "competitors " at homeor tobe treated as a space alien by surprisingly illiterateaudiences in Southern France. Whatunifiesthetwoworlds, we discover,is the Kafkaesque absurd of the incidentsderived fromignorance and culturalmisunderstanding . Indeed, Kafka - a "soft" one,a "Kafka à laRoumaine isathomebothintheamusing -grotesque "Anthrax" episoderecounted in theopeningtextas muchas in the"French tour"story, where ten Romanianwriters are paraded before French audienceslikeso manyhungerartists. At once sad andhilarious, "light" anddeep,criticalandtouching , Frumoasele straine is thethree-part countersaga ofthe famous Romanian writer as twentyfirst -century worldschlemiel. Christian Moraru University ofNorth Carolina, Greensboro Maryse Condé. En attendant la mont ée des eaux. Paris.J.C. Lattes. 2010. 364 pages. €19. isbn 978-2-7096-3321-5 MaryseCondé's twentieth novel refersback to her earliestmajor work,Ségou(1984),thehistory of a family inMalifrom thelateeighteenth century tothetwentieth. The main character of the new novel is BabakarTraoré,whose father was froma royalfamily in Mali and whosemother cameto Africa fromGuadeloupeto escape from herconventional upbringing. Babakar 's storybegins in Mali some forty yearsago,and endswiththe coming ofthehurricane toHaitiin 2010. Babakar is portrayed as a basicallygood man in an evil world. He trained as a gynecologist-obstetricianbecause his grandmother, a midwife,taughthim thather workwas a combatwherelifetriumphed overdeath.He leavesMali tostudyinMontreal, worksin the Côted'Ivoire, butescapesfrom the tribalviolencetherebetweenthe north and thesouth.He comesto workin Guadeloupeand chooses topractice amongthepoor,notin luxurious clinics. After he is called to delivera baby whose Haitian mother diesinchildbirth, headopts thegirl,whose happinessis now thepurposeofhislife. He takesthe childtoHaititomeetherfamily. His experiences are paralleled by thoseof two friends he meets alongtheway,whohavealso traveled toescapetheviolenceofwar. Movar,a poorHaitianmilitiaman, escapes to Guadeloupewhen the presidenthe supportedis forced out. Fouad, of Palestinian origin, whosefamily is killedin theLebanese -Israeli conflict, leaves...