Are there any romanians here on Veeky Forums? I'm looking for the best your literature has to offer. I'm not too keen on poetry because my Romanian is basic, so recs for novels would be ideal.
I've read a short story anthology including likes such as Sadoveanu, Ion Creanga, Bratescu-Voinesti, Vlahutza, Caragiale etc. and appreciated it very much to not ask for more.
If you're not opposed to drama, try Ionesco.
Even though the guy was romanian, he wrote in French and most of the themes that Romanian lit deals with seems absent in his work, so I don't really consider him a part of its national literature, but thanks anyways.
Cioran
Is there any notable Vlach literature, especially from the Balkans?
Is any of Tristan Tzara's worth reading? Do people even read him?
user's previous post applies to him too, for the most part...
I think Cartarescu's Orbitor books were well-regarded in Romania in the last decade. I found them to be under-edited to a shocking degree, but if you like oniric passages and strong imagery, don't care about plot and are in no hurry, you'd find things for you in there. It's semi-autobiographical fantasy based on the author growing up during the Ceaucescu era.
If you like surrealism... Gherasim Luca too wrote mostly in French IIRC, but try Urmuz' Pagini Bizare, very short stories, should be available online.
Thanks, mate, I'll check them out. Do you have any recs for more classical/realist stuff?
No idea about realist novels. As for classical lit, I'm not romanian btw, but as far as I know most of it would be poetry.
Wiki romanian literature in Romanian and find names there.
Tzara is great but also wrote in french. Try Urmuz, he's rather amusing.
His works are considered Romanian literature as much as Gogol's are considered Russian.
>Sadoveanu, Ion Creanga, Bratescu-Voinesti, Vlahutza, Caragiale etc.
All of them suck except Caragiale.
Sadoveanu (filthy commie) and Creanga are respected, but only because they wrote good things about the life in the Romanian village. Most of the classical Romanian literature is centered around the life of peasants, because we are obsessed with being nationalistic and the guys in the cities were all copycats (hence Caragiale also being so famous for satirizing them)
I have only read what they made us read in high school, which was only that kind of nationalistic works, almost no universal or contemporary literature. The novelists that I liked were L.Rebreanu (Ion, Padurea Spanzuratilor; wrote a lot like Tolstoy), M.Preda (Morometii; very realistic, wrote about communist times), C.Petrescu (Ultima noapte de dragoste intaia noapte de razboi, Patul lui Procust; wrote in 1st person, kinda like Proust), M. Sorescu (Iona, a surrealist play, kinda like Waiting for Godot). You can also try I.Slavici, G.Calinescu and some others you can find on wikipedia.
They all kinda tackle social issues regarding our country during various times, so if you're not interested in that you'd be better off reading other authors. If we had a good novelist who wrote about humans in general you'd probably know about him.
We stand better on the poetry side, but you said you're not interested. If you ever learn Romanian or want to pick up a translation be sure to check out T.Arghezi, N.Stanescu, L.Blaga, M.Eminescu.
Glad to see someone interested in my country for once. If I can help you further you can leave me your skype or something.
Ana Blandiana
Search authors from Bukovina,for example
Hans Bergel
Gregor von Rezzori
C O D R E A N U
O
D
R
E
A
N
U
Romania is a fake country built by Italian Gypsy on land stolen from hungarian people
Mircea Eliade if you like phantastic literature
George Calinescu
Camil Petrescu
Liviu Rebreanu
Mircea Eliade
Marin Preda
Rodica Ojog-Brașoveanu
Garabet Ibrăileanu
Eugen Barbu
Gala Galaction
Some of them may come as hard to understand but it's worth looking into them.
Holy shit you're retarded
user isn't far off the mark, Ionesco to romanian literature is more of a prominent critic than author
This isn't a correct comparison.
I.L.Caragiale
sunt romanca.
Spune-mi mai multe
Ioan Slavici - Moara cu Noroc
>novella, fast paced
>protagonist rents an inn in the middle of nowhere and moves in with his familiy to make more money and not be a wage slave
> has beautiful wife and kids
> granny is there but nobody cares
> realizes that territory is dominated by a "samadau"
the "samadau" is a person who takes care of multiple pig herds and takes responsibility if some of the pigs go "missing" therefore he is somewhat wealthy and know the surrounding environment very well; a samadau can handle some extreme sitiuations (encounters with thiefs and bandits)
> protagonist realizes that this is no ordinary "samadau" and actually he is dealing with the most alpha samadau that has ever roamed that land
> protagonist can't leave because he wants money
> gets the upper hand at some point and makes a deal with him
> everything is good and protagonist makes more money
> protagonist and antagonist are partners in crime now but protagonist still beta
> protagonist wants to cross him so he allies with a cop
> plots and pressure
> protagonist gets cucked by alpha samadau
> alpha samadau has steamy sex with his wife
> protagonist loses his mind, kills his wife with a dagger because he gets cucked by evil sociopathic antagonist
> protagonist gets killed by antagonist
> antagonist kills himself because he is too based to get himself caught by cops
Moara cu Noroc is my favourite work of art written in prose from my country. The plot is a little more complex than that but still is comprehensible and the style in which it is written creates tension.. only the first 3 pages were boring to me.
pic relates
sorry for spelling mistakes
Ion Luca Caragiale - Pastrama trufanda
> short story, humorous, jew the jew mountain jew
> Iusuf goes to Jaffa with business and Aaron gives him a large sack
> he tells him that the sack is full of clothes and asks him to hand the sack over to his brother Sumen
> Iusuf takes ship to Jaffa
> Iusuf looks in sack and finds pastrama (home smoked meat - real tasty)
> Iusuf is on a ship and is hungry
> Iusuf can't resist
> Iusuf eats all the pastrama
> Iusuf gets there but doesn't visit Sumen
> Iusuf gets back from Jaffa and visits Aaron
> Iusuf wants to pay Aaron because he ate all the pastrama
> Aaron freaks the fuck out
> "What ? WHAT ?"
> "Calm down Aaron. I will pay for the pastrama"
> they get to the judge
> Aaron is super freaked out
> Aaron accuses Iusuf of cannibalism
> Iusuf thinks that Aaron lost his mind
> Aaron's father has died sometime ago and his last wish was to be buried in the Holy Land so Iusuf thought it was a good idea to make "pastrama" out of him and preserve the meat until he reaches the Holy Land
> Iusuf actually ate the best pastrama made of jew meat that has ever existed
iusufwhathaveyoudone.painting
> judge makes Iusuf pay for for 20 kg of pastrama
> judge makes Aaron pay for lying to Iusuf
> judge tells the to get the fuck out of his court room
This made me lose all the keks I had. Caragiale is most famous for his comedy plays (most of them include satires of social stereotypes) but some of his short stories are also quite enjoyable
>2016
>nu esti nationalist
ce labagiu esti
lol du-te frate si citeste despre tarani cum ara pamantul
oricum samanatorismul e pentru plebei :D
made a mistake there because I am tired
Aaron thought it was a good idea to make pastrama out of his father and send him oversears
sorry
there
tfw u lurk for so much time and you forget how the reply system works also tired
good thread
Romanian literature is almost entirely worthless -- yes, I said almost, but I can't be bothered right now to name the exceptions. I can't see any reason why you would be interested in it. If you need to learn Romanian, for some obscure reason, just read the news or Wikipedia in Romanian. If you're after some Romanian qt, chances are she already speaks your language; if not, make her learn it.
Hungarians seem to be getting desperate these days
gypsy lit
Hi, OP. Romanian here. I love Caragiale and Creangă - the others you listed, not so much.
For contemporary romanian literature you should try Mircea Cărtărescu. Haven't read "Orbitor" yet, but "Nostalgia" is one of my favorite books. Another recent book I enjoyed is "Cartea șoaptelor" (The book of whispers, not sure if it was translated in English), written by Varujan Vosganian. The guy is an asshole politician, but the book is pretty good, an interesting account of armenian refugees that fled to Romania during the genocide. Which reminds me of another romanian-armenian writer, Ștefan Agopian - try his novels if you're into surrealism.
Another book I enjoyed was "Mașa și extraterestrul" by Nichita Danilov, also quite surreal, with a strong Garcia Marquez vibe.
If you want something in the vein of Kafka or Bruno Schulz, you should read Max Blecher, an underrated romanian jew author ("Occurrence in the immediate unreality" is my favorite)
Observe the typical Romanian: he thinks that whoever declares their literature worthless must be a member of one of the marginally less shitty nearby nations that they love to hate in order to feel superior. Is a bit sad, really. Their literature is similar: close-minded, paranoid, of parochial interest, somewhat disconnected from the universal trends of a particular time period (that's not necessarily a bad thing, though).
By the way, I'm not saying it's all shit. I said it was worthless as in it's not worth learning the language just to read the literature because there's almost nothing written by a Romanian author that hasn't been done better somewhere else. It is obviously of interest and value to Romanians. The only exception -- in my not-very-humble opinion -- is the brat-pack-sort of generation of surrealists/constructivist/dadaists/magical realists even, active from the 20s to the 50s of last century.
user you're replying to here, I learned some romanian on the fly reading precisely what you've pointed out. It's no effort when you're familiar with a couple latin languages... which you'd know if you hadn't been subjected to an orphan tongue all your life
>close-minded, paranoid, of parochial interest
right up my alley desu
>Mircea Cărtărescu
I honestly thought the guy was dead until his recent success.
Am I the only one, senpai?
Romanian literature is worthless. I would recommend checking out Hungarians/Transylvanian writers .
As someone who went there to school, I couldn't stand the Romanian stuff...Sadoveanu's Ion made me puke...the others I don't even remember.
read "Trei dinti din fata" by marin sorescu, its one of the better romanian book but its very underrated and unknown of