Delirium by Marin Preda

 Delirium by Marin Preda


 

 

Marin Preda was a controversial, yet appreciated and honored Romanian writer. There are some stories about his death, drinking habits and even womanizing.

I read about some of our writers in Catavencii, articles written by the excellent Christian Teodorescu.

When I started reading Marin Preda I was about fifteen or sixteen. Cel Mai Iubit Dintre Pamanteni was all the rage. It was difficult to find, but my father had a connection at the Scanteia House and managed to get some interesting books from there, in an underground, forbidden trade.

I do not really rediscover Romanian Literature now. For some time, I have been reading and it helps to make some order, think about the books one reads.

The Romanian books however, belong to long past days. With a few exceptions- Plesu, Liiceanu, Parvulescu, Stefanescu and Cartarescu, I do not read the literature of my own country.

One way to look at this is with condemnation: who will read these books if not the Romanians themselves? It is a kind of duty.

The other, my preferred point of view is – one needs to read the best possible books. I do not have to read the texts of my neighbors, just because we happen to park on the same street. In fact, knowing the people of my gated community, I would avoid whatever they produce, since I know them to be mean, selfish aggressive and rude.

I am limited to write about what I remember from thirty years ago. It could help from a psychological perspective: in one study at Harvard, they encouraged elderly people to think about a stage in their life which took place twenty years before and the result was that they grew…younger.

Other tests made by Sonja Lyubomirsky and other positive psychology greats showed that it is good to recollect past positive experiences.

Lyubomirsky and her colleagues argue over the writing:

While Sonja Lyubomirsky is sure that we should think of these experiences and write them down

The others encourage us to write positive and negative experiences.

 

The feelings I had and still have about Marin Preda are mixed.

He did not rise to the level of a Maugham, Proust or Mann. But for the son of a peasant, and an unsophisticated intellectual (in my view) himself it is quite a feat to become the best Romanian writer of a period of perhaps twenty years.

Some of his works did fascinate me…Cel Mai Iubit dintre Pamanteni in particular and this is how I came to read Delirium, which I did not enjoy all that much

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