Fragrance (novel) [60]
Pr. Dr. Dorin Octavian Picioruș
Fragrance
(novel)
*
And sometimes you must be approximate. To find an alternative for an expression or to translate it ad litteram. And most often I find that it’s best word with word, because I want it to sound like in romanian in any other language. The primacy of the romanian language in my translation into another language. Because I am romanian, I think romanian, and if you translate me, you must translate me so that I am understood as romanian and not as a citizen without a nation, which does not exist. I like that Iorga was self-taught. He says it in his autobiography[1]. And when he was assassinated near Strejnicu, he was shot nine times[2] instead of being admired. Which means that some people find it easier to kill than to admire. It’s easier for them to tarnish than to inoculate admiration for someone. And the child stood with her mouth open at the Cathedral, like a bird flying high in the air, because its greatness filled her. While Wood Tănase, with his rudimentary disgust between his teeth, could not bear to see the godliness in its pure state. For this, the godliness, was the most authentic expression of gratitude.
– He had no face!…
– They say: He had no cheek! That is, he was a stupid person, lacking character.
– That had no face!…
– And what did he have?!
– It had a question mark instead of a head.
– Above the head?
– No, like the one with the apple instead of a head[3]!
– You mean it’s a parable?
– No! Or rather a mafia boss. Someone who wanted to flatter me, telling me that only I could write a book about him…
– About the man with a ? instead of a head?
– Yes, with a ? instead of.
– And the mobsters read people like you?!
– I don’t know if they do, but they pay attention. And he thinks he has such an interesting life that he’ll finish me off.
– And?
– I let him talk about how he ended up in prison and what he did there.
– And how long did he do it?
– 10 years!
– For what?
– Trafficking in women! He took them to prostitute themselves in various parts of the world.
– And what did he catch him with?
– With Adela! With a young woman from the country, from Radomirești, whom he downplayed, but who contacted the italian police, gave details, caught him and others who were doing drugs with him, and then taking advantage of his women, and that’s it!
– And will you write about him?
– It depends! Because I can’t give him credit for everything he says. Some may be fantasies, everything may be a fantasy, which doesn’t mean he’s not a mobster. Because this guy smells like a mafia member, whether or not he did what he says. He looks a lot like someone I know like the back of my hand, a retired security officer, and who makes up all sorts of things to get your attention. Some are real, but glazed with multiple fantasies. Because the delirium of lies is a psychological state in mafias, a doubling acquired over time, through which they gain your goodwill. It transposes into who you want him to be. If you give him time, you won’t get rid of him. Because it doesn’t matter what he lies to you, but what he understands from you while he lies to you.
– And what do you think he understood?
– His business! I understood it too, enough to make me not want him. And, in the end, this is a closed case too. It turned out that the mobster had read me, but not from prison, but from psychiatry. And that his head was somewhere else, that’s why he was walking down the street with a ? instead of a head. Magritte, speaking of his 1964 painting, remembered about „the visible that is hidden”[4]. We see everything, but we don’t understand everything. It seems to us that we understand his face, that we can read it, and we end up realizing that we know nothing about him, that this is not his truth. The question mark is always in place of someone else. Whenever we are interested in a man, he is an unknown who begins to be understood. Literary studies must move from biographical understandings to those of the truth of the work. Because we are interested in the man, his real face, his abysses, and we find them in his work. But the writer often exceeds the expectations of the public, while the readers remain captive to how literature was made before him. And they think of him not in terms of himself, of his work, but of the works of others, which makes no sense. The autobiographism inserted throughout does not destroy the novel, but rather take it to another level. Just as those in the past pretended to be objective, that they let the characters speak and they didn’t intervene in their life, when they were directing everything, those who are both writers and personages in their own novels are not nonsense in the novel, but a change of strategy. Because, after all, if I film an existential situation and talk about it, I’m talking about what I wanted to film and not about reality itself. My personages can say dozens of pages or just one line, two, and they are personal realities. Just as, in supporting roles, various people appear for a few moments, but they are not to be ignored, but are part of the frame. The film is made with the main actors, but also with the prop actors, with those who appear as if they were not in this film. Likewise, now, in the present novel, anything said, any person, any theme, is a theme and it can be amplified or not. But it does not appear by chance, but was wanted there, in its place, because the novel is a novel, even if you, the reader, believe that the novel must have its classicism even in this year. But I want to teach you with the novel of today, which is different, which will be increasingly different, because you are also in a hurry, but I also understand an indescribable amount while you are reading.
[1] Cf. https://biblioteca-digitala.ro/reviste/carte/Iorga-Nicolae-O-viata-de-om-asa-cum-a-fost-autobiografie.pdf.
[2] Cf. https://adevarul.ro/stiri-locale/suceava/asasinarea-lui-nicolae-iorga-marele-istoric-roman-1760172.html.
[3] With reference to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Son_of_Man.
[4] Ibidem.