Horia Gârbea
Encyclopedia
Horia-Răzvan Gârbea or Gîrbea (ˈhori.a rəzˈvan ˈɡɨrbe̯a; born August 10, 1962) is a Romania
n playwright, poet, essayist, novelist and critic, also known as an academic, engineer and journalist. Known for his work in experimental theater and his Postmodernist
contributions to Romanian literature
, he is a member of the Writers' Union of Romania
(USR), its public relations
executive and the head of its Bucharest
chapter. Also recognized for his contribution to Romanian humor and his essays, he has published regularly in journals such as Contemporanul
, Luceafărul, Ramuri and Săptămâna Financiară. His career in the media also covers screenwriting
for Romanian television stations
and the popularization of contract bridge
. The author of several scientific works on engineering, Gârbea is also a faculty member at the University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine.
The recipient of several national awards for literature, he received critical attention for plays, short stories and novels which merge intertextuality
and parody
with neorealistic
elements. In his work for the Romanian stage, Gârbea has primarily reworked motifs from Anton Chekhov
, Ion Luca Caragiale
, Gustave Flaubert
, Costache Negruzzi and various other of his predecessors, addressing contemporary realities. He is also the other of tragicomedies
with themes borrowed the 1989 Revolution
and his country's post-1989 history
. The latter focus is complimented by his works in novel and short prose, which often take the form of political fiction
or satire
aimed at his writer colleagues. Such contributions have consolidated Gârbea's success with the general public, but have divided critical opinion on the issue of their ultimate literary value.
, Horia Gârbea is the grandson of Titus Gârbea, a Land Forces
general and diplomat of the Romanian Kingdom
. He recalls that his grandfather's passion for literature was passed onto him from an early age, when he first heard him reciting poems by Dante Aligheri. The future writer attended the Mihai Viteazul High School, opting for a sciences-based curriculum, but envisioned becoming a writer. At around age 17, as one of the adolescent guests on a Romanian Television
talk show
hosted by author Mircea Sîntimbreanu, he stated his intention of having two books published by the year 2000 (he recalls: "[Sîntimbreanu], who was a witty but skeptical man, did not encourage me").
Gârbea made his debut in 1982, at age twenty, his poems being published by the student magazine Amfiteatru. He graduated from the Agronomical Science University's Department of Landscaping
and Environmental Engineering
(1986). A member of the teaching staff at his alma mater
since 1987, he received a Doctor of Science
diploma from the Politehnica University in 1999. A regular of Cenaclul de luni ("The Monday Literary Club"), founded by literary critic Nicolae Manolescu
and journalist Radu Călin Cristea, Gârbea later moved on to the Universitas circle, founded and led by critic Mircea Martin. His early poetry was awarded a 1986 prize by Spain
's University of Bilbao
(1986).
A turning point in Horia Gârbea's writing career was the Romanian Revolution of 1989
, which put an end to the communist regime
. In 1990, one of his first works in drama
, translated into English as The Serpent, was performed by the British
Royal Court Theatre
. A year later, Pescăruşul din livada cu vişini ("The Seagull in the Cherry Orchard") was first staged at the Victor Ion Popa
Theater, followed in 1992 by the premiere of Funcţionarul destinului ("The Clerk of Destiny") with the Bucharest experimental theater company Inoportun. He made his editorial debut in the genre with the 1993 volumes Doamna Bovary sînt ceilalţi ("Madame Bovary
Are the Others") and Mephisto (a Romanian-language variant of Klaus Mann
's 1936 novel
). Another one of his plays, Stăpânul tăcerii ("The Master of Silence"), was staged in 1994 by Piteşti
's Alexandru Davila
Theater.
Gârbea's first volume of lyric poetry
, ("Biographical Text"), saw print in 1996, earning him an award granted by the Sighet Poetry Festival. Also that year, the writer followed up with a second collection of poems, Proba cu martori ("The Confrontation of Witnesses"), which was awarded the yearly prize of the Bucharest Association of Writers (a section of the USR). In 1996, he wrote the script for Ils emménagement ("They Are Moving On"), a French-language street theater performance, which premiered in France
. Proba cu martori was followed in 1997 by the short story volume Misterele Bucureştilor ("The Mysteries of Bucharest") and the multiple award-winning novel Căderea Bastiliei (Romanian for "Fall of the Bastille").
Gârbea returned to drama with the 1999 book Decembrie, în direct ("December, Live Broadcast"). It received the Writers' Union Prize for Theater. The student theater company Calandrinon featured his Cărţile ("The Books") in its 2000 program, and the Toma Caragiu Theater in Ploieşti
did the same with Cafeaua domnului Ministru ("The Minister's Coffee"). In 2001, he published an anthology
of texts for the stage: titled Cine l-a ucis pe Marx? ("Who Killed Marx
?"), it was a recipient of the Romanian Academy
's Ion Luca Caragiale
Award with a three-year delay. Also in 2001, his short story collection ("Enigmas in Our City") saw print. These were followed the next year by Raţă cu portocale ("Duck à l'Orange
"), a volume of essays, and, in 2003, by two other books: Vacanţă în infern ("A Holiday in Hell"; literary criticism, 2 vols.) and Creşterea iguanelor de casă ("Raising Pet Iguana
s"; poetry). The former was shortlisted for the USR Award.
His career in the post-Revolution press began early in 1990, when he was among the writers published by Nouăzeci, a magazine founded by Laurenţiu Ulici, Cristian Popescu and Cătălin Ţârlea. Active as a theater critic and chronicler, as well as a contract bridge
popularizer, he later had permanent columns in Luceafărul (1990–1995, and again 1998-2001), ArtPanorama (1997–1998), Scena (1998–2001), Monitorul de Iaşi (1998–1999), Contemporanul
(1999–2001), Săptămâna Financiară (after 2005) and the Craiova
-based literary magazine Ramuri. His articles were also published by other venues, among them Convorbiri Literare, Cuvântul
, România Literară
and Ziarul Financiar
. In 2001, he joined the editorial staff of Okean, a specialized magazine co-founded by three Romanian theater companies: Bulandra
, Nottara, Odeon and the National Theater Cluj-Napoca. He was also among the first Romanian authors to publish fiction in the new wave of lifestyle magazine
s, being an early contributor to the local version of Playboy
(together with George Cuşnarencu, Răzvan Petrescu and Jean Lorin Sterian). Between 2002 and 2003, he published several works related to his field of expertise in engineering: Structuri şi construcţii cu izolatori dinamici ("Structures and Constructions with Dynamic Insulation", 2002), Structuri şi construcţii – noţiuni şi calcule de fiabilitate ("Structures and Constructions—Notions and Calculations in Reliability", 2002), Structuri şi construcţii – curs universitar ("Structures and Constructions—University Lecture", 2003; revised edition 2004).
branch two years later. As a representative of the Bucharest section, he worked closely with Editura Nouă publishing house in helping to popularize the writings of his fellow association members. Having joined the UNITER
association of theatrical professionals in 1993, he also works as a dramaturge
, and has first been employed as such by the Toma Caragiu Theater since 1998. His contributions in this field include translations and adaptations of plays by Anton Chekhov
(The Cherry Orchard
), Pierre Corneille
(L'Illusion comique
), Dario Fo
(We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!), Pierre de Marivaux
(Le Triomphe de l'amour), Molière
(The School for Wives
), Ayn Rand
(Night of January 16th
), Fernando Arrabal
, Jacques Copi, Eugène Ionesco
, John D. MacDonald
, Niccolò Machiavelli
, Gérald Sibleyras
, Tennessee Williams
and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. In 1998, Gârbea also began working in screenwriting
, collaborating with several national television stations. He was first employed by Pro TV
from 1998 to 2001, working on the variety show
Ministerul comediei and the sitcom La Bloc. He was then affiliated with Prima TV
, writing for Romică Ţociu and Cornel Palade's Alomania sketch comedy
show, and later Naţional TV
, where he contributed to a similar production, Naţionala de bere. In 2001, Gârbea was also involved in writing for Antena 1's sitcom Clanul Popeştilor. Between 2002 and 2003, he worked with the public broadcaster TVR Cultural
, where he hosted a talk show
on cultural issues.
During 2004, authors Horia Gârbea, Valeriu Butulescu, Mircea Ghiţulescu and Mircea Petean traveled to Vietnam
, on the invitation of the Vietnamese Writers Union. Their experience in the Far East
produced the collective travel account Drumul spre Nghe An ("The Road to Nghe An"), published the same year. Also in 2004, Gârbea premiered his Cleopatra a şaptea ("Cleopatra VII") with the Andrei Mureşanu company of Sfântu Gheorghe
, published a new work for the stage—Hotel Cervantes
, and oversaw the publishing of Editura Limes' Repetiţie fără orchestră ("Rehearsal without an Orchestra"), an anthology of prose pieces by young Romanian authors. His own work also included the 2005 essay collections Arte parţiale ("Partial Arts") and Bridge în 41 de povestiri vesele ("Contract Bridge in 41 Cheerful Stories"). Gârbea was made Knight of Meritul Cultural order through a 2004 presidential
decree. In March 2005, as head of the Bucharest Association of Writers, he set up the Romanian version of France's literary festival Le Printemps des Poètes ("Poets' Spring", known locally as Primăvara poeţilor). A month later, during the Romanian Comedy Festival, his play Leonida XXI was staged by the Comedy Theater.
Also in 2005, Gârbea and the Writers' Union were involved in a polemic with Paul Goma
, a novelist and former dissident
who lives in France. This came after Viaţa Românească
, a literary magazine managed by the Union, republished fragments from Goma's diary, which caused public outrage for its perceived antisemitism. Gârbea and USR president Nicolae Manolescu
both intervened to sanction the publication. In an early interview with Gardianul
daily, he spoke of the editorial staff as having displayed "negligence", and noted that replacing the panel of editors was one of the sanctions being considered, while also stating that he felt none of them were "100% responsible" for the incident. Gârbea however dismissed rumors that he and his colleagues were considering disestablishing Viaţa Românească, noting that the magazine was a historical institution.
The USR's public expression of regret over having tolerated "a text with antisemitic content" caused Goma to threaten with a lawsuit on libel grounds. In reaction, Gârbea stated: "What we are interested in is Viaţa Românească, a press organ edited by the USR. Paul Goma may believe whatever he likes. It is not him that we are discussing, but the magazine. I see no reason why he would sue me personally." According to an overview of the episode by journalist Ovidiu Şimonca, Horia Gârbea had unwittingly prompted Goma to state his intention of suing the Jewish-Romanian
community league, or Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania (FCER). This was because, during the scandal, Gârbea had explained that the FCER's reaction was an incentive in the USR's internal investigation. Goma's claim for reparations from FCER leaders, Şimonca noted, ignored the fact that Gârbea had not disclosed any names.
and Liviu Ioan Stoiciu in a children's literature
project initiated by Editura Paralela 45, which involved rewriting a series of fairy tales in Romanian folklore
and Christian mythology
. Titled Basme şi poveşti mistice româneşti repovestite ("Retold Romanian Fairy Tales and Mystical Stories"), it was illustrated with reproductions of children-made Romanian icons
. His son, Tudor, was born in the same year.
With the 2008 Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici ("Bygone Lives of Beaus and Aces"), he investigated the history of Romanian literature
by focusing on and inventorying literary types. In spring, he participated in the project Scriitori pe calea regală ("Writers on the Royal Road"), organized by the former King of Romania
Michael I
, the Royal House
, the USR and various other venues for the benefit of award-winning writers. He was also the USR's envoy to the Three Seas Writers and Translators Committee conference on Rhodes
, Greece
.
The same year, Gârbea voluntarily reduced his contributions to drama and theater criticism, citing his family obligations, alongside a general disappointment with the milieu: "I grew aware that writing for the theater is usually not followed by productions. Although plays I signed were constantly performed, I never had productions at a satisfactory level nor significant material gains, except for translations." Instead, he focused on writing a fantasy
novel for the youth, Făt Frumos din lună ("Făt Frumos
from the Moon") and a cycle of poems known as Cântecele lui Huppy ("Huppy's Songs"), as well as on reviewing for publishing the memoir
s of his grandfather Titus Gârbea. Working with Editura Tritonic publishing house, Gârbea also coordinated an anthology of political fiction
, in which he included his own novella
Detestarea naţiunii ("Detesting the Nation").
In 2010, Editura Limes published Fratele mai deştept al lui Kalaşnikov ("Kalashnikov
's Smarter Brother"), his new volume of short prose. The same year, Gârbea visited Azerbaijan
, invited by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation
, and published some of his impressions in Revista 22
. His larger travel writing
, published by the same foundation as Azerbaijan - The Living Flame (in English, Romanian
, German
), was officially launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair
(October 2010). In April 2011, Gârbea and fellow writer Ruxandra Cesereanu
were in Israel
, attending the Nisan Poetry Festival in Maghar.
, Gârbea debuted as a member of the Optzecişti group of writers, most of whom reached their creative peak after 1980: together with Mircea Cărtărescu
, Traian T. Coşovei, Florin Iaru, Doru Mareş, Radu G. Ţeposu and Ion Stratan, he was part of the Optzecişti nucleus inside Cenaclul de luni. Given his relatively late consecration, Gârbea is nevertheless identified with the 1990s generation of post-Optzecişti. This also reflects Gârbea's own positioning: according to his own statement, the move from one generation group to the other coincided with his leaving Cenaclul de luni and joining Universitas. In 2008, he expressed much criticism for Orbitor, a large-scale novelistic cycle by the Optzecişti group leader Cărtărescu. In her critical overview of Gârbea's contributions, Observator Cultural
chronicler Bianca Burţa-Cernat describes him as one among the lesser authors of the 1990s generation, alongside Dan-Silviu Boerescu and Mihail Gălăţanu. Writing for the 2007 Columbia University
Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Romanian-born Israel
i actor-director Moshe Yassur included Gârbea "among the best known" of post-1989 playwrights "experimenting with post-absurd
-surrealist
modes of expression." Others in this group are, according to his definition, Radu Macrinici, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
, Alina Nelega, Saviana Stănescu
, Matei Vişniec
and Vlad Zografi. In a 2001 overview of the generation's contribution, Nelega herself mentioned Gârbea and the others alongside Valentin Nicolau and Răzvan Petrescu.
A defining characteristic of Gârbea's main works is the reliance on intertextuality
, as compliments to his predecessors in drama, novel and poetry. Speaking in 2009, Gârbea himself recalled his stylistic discovery of the 1980s: "It still seemed to me that being a writer meant having visions and struggling to communicate them so that others may have them too. [...] I could not write prose, but I enjoyed writing drama because I had invented something very fun to do: old characters in new situations." Poet and critic Octavian Soviany noted: "Horia Gârbea is a dramatist who builds with a program in mind, placing his stake on the resources of parody
and the intertextual play. The parodic here is given birth by the disabused conscience of a postmodern spirit, who knows that all books have been written and therefore only their 'rewriting' [...] is still possible". Commenting on the texts grouped within Cine l-a ucis pe Marx?, literary critic Mircea A. Diaconu placed the intertextual references (which often make a point of transgressing historical reality) in connection with William Shakespeare
's phrase "All the world's a stage", since "everything is possible at the level of the text becoming reality". He praises the author for managing to preserve an "absence that imposes", by not making his own intervention felt in the text. Diaconu admits that such an approach could be read as "gratuitously bookish, [where] a line is more important than an event, a pun more important than a murder", but supports the notion that they all display an "existential
bearing", accounting for an "intrinsic value." He speaks of the technique as "a vengeance of the theater" on the traditional historical record: "In essence, Horia Gârbea's theater emerges from the textual inconsistency of the world when faced with the consistency of history, or, better yet, from the inconsistency of history and the textual consistency of the world."
. According to Diaconu, Caragiale's influence constitutes the "depth" of Gârbea's work, going beyond the "surface level" of intertextual references and tributes. At the same core level, Diaconu identifies the author's debt to Eugène Ionesco
, while also judging his manner of "mixing eras, languages, writings, characters or historical figures, fiction and document" to echo the techniques of Argentinian
writer Jorge Luis Borges
. Another main influence on Gârbea's work is interwar author Mateiu Caragiale
, made famous by his cultivated style and eccentric outlook. Critic Dumitru Ungureanu sees this cultural echo as having been filtered by the style of Radu Albala, one of the authors to have been most inspired by the "matein" narratives, and concludes that the lineage places Gârbea on the same level as Cărtărescu and Florin Şlapac.
According to his generation colleague, essayist Dan-Silviu Boerescu, Gârbea "cannot part with the speculative charm of a brain given to bookish games", but closely follows a realistic tradition with his "sarcastic analysis of [...] all everyday weakness." For Boerescu, Gârbea's literature is supported by his sarcasm and his contribution to Romanian humor: "Thin and edgy like a razor, Gârbea's style forgives no one no thing." Soviany also argues that the "rewriting" of texts attempted by the Romanian author is carried by "absurd humor" and "the most unusual (as well as the most hilarious) arrangements of famous characters and quotes". Poet and critic Paul Aretzu writes: "The staple of [Horia Gârbea's] writing is inventive, farcical, the obvious attribute of intelligence and refinement, also displaying bookish support and being enhanced by zestful language. [...] The tendency of visualizing, of sketching portraits, of detailing/dissecting scenes, of verifying orality
, the expressive value of the language, reveal the author's dominant structure as a playwright." The alternation of such stylistic traits reflects in part the writer's own parting with the Optzecişti. The focus on everyday issues prompted Cătălin Ţârlea to view Gârbea's 1990s prose as a revival of neorealism
after the Optzecişti experimentalism
. Boerescu however believes this verdict to be "only half right", since the writer continued to employ experimental devices long after 1989, while avoiding the "referential ostentation" of other writers. Appreciation of Gârbea's work was also expressed among older critics and Gârbea's own mentors. Nicolae Manolescu
held Gârbea's contribution in high esteem, an, in his 2008 synthesis of Romanian literary history, spoke of him as having "indisputably, the fabric of a dramatist".
In Nelega's view, Gârbea, "one of the truly alive writers of his time", was among the few debuting local playwrights to have their works staged by prominent Romanian directors—Alexandru Darie, Alexandru Hausvater and Gavril Pinte. Gârbea's fellow România Literară
contributor, literary historian Alex. Ştefănescu, contrasted his writings with the "boring" works by some of his contemporaries, and claimed that "directors and actors take pleasure in staging [Gârbea's plays]." Gârbea's work stands out within its cultural and temporal context for its size and diversity. Aretzu sees him as "one of the most ubiquitous authors in present-day literature, [...] gifted with a great availability in processing reality", while critic and academic Nicolae Oprea believes him to be "the most prolific" among the Bucharest-based group formed in the 1990s. Literary reviewer Daniel Cristea-Enache also describes his colleague as "multilateral" who "can adapt himself with great ease to any particular genre's specificity". Writing in 2007, Ştefănescu defined him a "one-man orchestra [...] of the apathetic (and sometimes shy-brazen) Romanian literature of today." According to Moldova
n writer Emilian Galaicu-Păun: "As productive as an entire literary school [...], Horia Gârbea is a veritable Stakhanovite
of writing, who has dealt in all genres and species". Gârbea is also among the post-1990 Romanian authors to have received recognition abroad. In addition to the The Serpent and Il émmagement performances, Gârbea's Raţă cu portocale has been translated into German
by Veronika Dreichlinger (Ente mit Apfelsine, published in 2005). His work was also included into English-, French-, German-, Russian-
and Serbian-language
anthologies.
There are several controversial aspects to Gârbea's public notoriety, involving reactions against academic verdicts, and objecting to the close relationship between Gârbea and mainstream cultural forums such as the USR. The implications of positive appraisals by these venues were debated by literary critic Bogdan Creţu, who argued that Nicolae Manolescu tended to overrate authors in his proximity, while being dismissive of Vişniec's contribution to drama (which Manolescu had claimed lacked originality). Critic Dan C. Mihăilescu criticized in particular Manolescu's "caprices", suggesting that, in a 2008 synthesis of Romanian literary history, his older colleague had assigned Gârbea's entry undeserved space, more than to a better known novelist like Gib Mihăescu
. Also according to Mihăilescu, Cărtărescu may have had his rival Gârbea in mind when reproaching Manolescu that he had insisted on writers who were not at all worthy of recognition. Nicolae Oprea saw Gârbea as apparently "uninhibited" in matters of literary discourse, but critically noted that the poet was also preoccupied, "to the point of obsession", with his own cultural imprint (citing as proof the fact that, in its original version, Creşterea iguanelor de casă features the English-language versions of five poems, translated by Gârbea's own hand). A highly critical voice is that of Bianca Burţa-Cernat. She suggests that, in adopting all forms of writing, Gârbea displays "an implausible self-certainty". She polemically connects the critical appreciation with his status as a "good colleague" and "devoted shadow" of other writers, noting that Gârbea's notoriety is ensured by a promotional system with "all the stakes" and "all the pulleys", as well as by "the argument of prolificity", but that these attributes also surpass his actual value.
's Cherry Orchard
and Seagull
. According to the author's own assessment, the text fits in with a Chekhovian homage trend among Romanian dramatists, also including Iosif Naghiu's ("Chekhov the Armorer") and Vişiec's La machine Tchekhov ("The Chekhov Machine"). Soviany singles out the text as an answer to claims that parody is always inferior to its models, by identifying its original motifs in a new statement about theater itself: "[the play], which is without doubt ascribable to the formula of 'apocalyptic' theater, draws its substance from mixing intertextual parody with an eschatologic
vision, suggesting the regression (of world and literature) into the primordial mud. Putting to use [...] the deluge myth, the dramatist this time imagines an apocalypse of fiction (of the theater), during which the characters [...] are slowly being swallowed by the mud flows of subterranean waters, which could imply that literature (fiction) unavoidably secretes its own death, so that writing (being written) and dying end up being perfect synonyms." In this analogy between literature and death, Soviany argues, one finds "the most profound message of Horia Gârbea's theater". In Doamna Bovary sînt ceilalţi, the theme and protagonists are borrowed from Gustave Flaubert
's 1857 novel
, reused by the author to make a statement about drama itself and combined with elements from Jean-Paul Sartre
's No Exit
. In addition to such themes, Mircea A. Diaconu sees Gârbea's reflection on the conflict between history and fiction as personified by the lead character in Stăpânul tăcerii: the Egyptian god
Thoth
, who bestows the gift of language on man, is depicted as "the prototype of traitors."
Published ten years after the Romanian Revolution
, Decembrie, în direct recounts a changing of roles between torturer and victim, set to the background of political turmoil. In the first part, it introduces the two protagonists: a failed boxer turned interrogator for the main communist repressive structure, the Securitate
, who confronts his prisoner, a renegade nomenklatura
member who has become a dissident
. What is supposed to be an ordeal for the latter turns into a revelation for the former: the dissident is successful in assuring his interrogator that communism is doomed, and both flee the prison to partake in the victorious Revolution. The second part sees the dissident transformed into an agent for the reformed Intelligence Service
, who displays no qualms about capturing, tormenting and finally killing his former associate. Historiographer and critic Ruxandra Cesereanu
connects the outcome with a notoriously violent episode in Romania's communist history, the brainwashing experiment carried out by the Securitate in Piteşti prison
: "The paradox and moral
-antimoral of Horia Gârbea's play is that the victim [...] proves himself tougher, more of an executioner, than his torturer. This means that the lines between victim and executioner are blurred and that, ultimately, the reeducation experiment in Piteşti prison (1949-1952), when victims were forced into becoming torturers, has succeeded. The antimoral in Gârbea's play is, however, all the more tough as the victim here becomes a torturer without being made to do so." Cesereanu ranks it and Radu Macrinici's T/Ţara mea (approx. "My Dead Weight/Country") among the post-1989 dramatic texts to have "brought up [...] the Securitate issue, in a trenchant and even revelatory manner". Gârbea's fellow playwright Alina Nelega notes that Decembrie, în direct is his first entirely original text for the stage, and rates it over intertextual texts from the same period.
Published alongside Decembrie, în direct, Capul lui Moţoc ("Moţoc's Head") reinterprets Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, a novella
by the Romanian classic Costache Negruzzi, which romanticizes events in Moldavia
's medieval history
. Integrating further allusions to Romanian folklore
(the Meşterul Manole
myth), Shakespeare and various others, it is also seen by Alina Nelega as a close rendition of Ion Luca Caragiale's style. The protagonist, a treacherous Moldavian boyar
by the name of Moţoc, uses a discourse rich in political imagery, and towards the end of the play reveals himself as an alter ego
of communist
theorist Karl Marx
. Nelega is critical of the text, arguing that it "does not surpass the gratuitousness of petty pokes" and is "more burlesque
than absurd", concluding: "I fear that Gârbea did not know how to end his play and quickly fabricated, deus ex machina
, the similitude of a profound sense where there was nothing."
The three-character comedy
and satire
Cafeaua domnului Ministru, seen by poet and literary chronicler Emil Mladin as one "of morals", turns its attention to Romania's political scene
, showing the stormy encounter between a matron, a female secretary and a politician. The dialogues are seen by Mladin as "a parody of the discourses with which just about any television station assassinates us", and, Nelega writes, "the lampoon has precise targets". The story pokes fun at the Social Democratic Party
and Romanian Democratic Convention
governments of the post-1989 period
, and, according to dramatist and theater critic Mihaela Michailov, was "adequate" in the context of 2000 elections
. Michailov highlights the play's symbolism as illustrating "the stupidity of the political mechanism", whose sphere is turned into "a sort of no man's land
where everything is possible." According to Alex. Ştefănescu, productions of Cafeaua domnului Ministru receive as much applause as "a rock music
recital." With Leonida XXI, the author returned to intertextual reworkings, this time introducing his style to the works of Ion Luca Caragiale, Conu Leonida faţă cu reacţiunea and O scrisoare pierdută. The play was notably used as teaching material for student actors training at the Caragiale Academy
under Mircea Albulescu
, who called it "extremely interesting".
s or other word play
. Alex. Ştefănescu, who writes that such portrayals caused "great agitation in the literary world", cites the author's own mock-disclaimer
: "The identification of some characters with real person constitutes an abuse of interpretation which the author intends to fight off with any legal means." Ştefănescu however cautions against reading Căderea Bastiliei purely as a roman à clef
, since the inspiration from "writers' deeds" is "capricious" and the resemblance with real persons "partial". A similar opinion was voiced by poet and journalist Cornelia Maria Savu, who compared the narrator to a puppeteer and further assessed: "Horia Gârbea does not hate his characters, does not love them, he understands them. And by understanding them, he offers them a few moments to evolve with no strings." Reviewing the work from a stylistic point of view, Paul Aretzu analyzes the intrusion of "intertextual indulgences" throughout the work, identifying allusions to Ion Luca Caragiale, Franz Kafka
, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti and others, while also noting the presence of experimental methods echoing James Joyce
's Ulysses
. Ştefănescu attributes such presences to parody, noting in passing the introduction of situations and even entire passages from Kafka's Metamorphosis
and Albert Camus
' The Plague
.
The narrative delves into Bucharest's bohemian
environment, its heroes being vagrants, misfits or alcoholics
who lead tragicomic
lifestyles. The plot, deemed "to die for" by Galaicu-Păun, notably shows writer and former inmate Aldu Rădulescu seducing literary chronicler Alteea Fleciu, as revenge for a negative review of his work. In Paul Aretzu's view, the manner in which such developments are presented constitutes "a continuous demonstration of brilliant intelligence and spectacular linguistic imagination." He commends a chapter of the book, which discusses how groups of people differentiated by their respective drinking culture
s, for being "a sort of poem dedicated to the kinds of drink and drunks in a small alcoholic town", while noting that a similar section, dedicated to the attitudes of writers when faced with fatal diseases, "creates, with the means of the grotesque
, a sui generis
mythology of the writers' caste". The latter episode is praised by Ştefănescu for its "irresistible" black humor and its "devilish verve". The same commentator states: "The novelist has a joy of writing that transmits itself to the reader. After you finish reading this novel about the ugliness of (literary) life [...], you feel, paradoxically, the joy of living, of communicating, of partaking in the captivating spectacle of being." In Artezu's account, those parts of Căderea Bastiliei in which Gârbea discusses the annual competition for literary prizes offer evidence both a "captivating" humorous focus on everyday occurrences and an "innocent cynicism
, characteristic for the author". He argues: "With all the signs of his emotional involvement [...], the author also exercises, through correlations [and] quotes, the function of depersonalization
, of estrangement, of laughing at one's misfortunes, of projecting oneself into clichés, [...] of surrogate existence." Literary reviewer Cosmin Ciotloş issues a more reserved verdict on the text: in his view, the episodes of Căderea Bastiliei are primarily "charades", whose main quality is being "droll".
Overall, Horia Gârbea's contribution to short fiction is described by Alex. Ştefănescu as "ingenious" and "endearing". The political fiction
of is described by Boerescu as "a multitude of sub-worlds" structured around "framework situations", moving between the "petty politics of the day" (targeting the Social Democratic Party) and ironic parable
s or dystopia
s. Boerescu writes: "The author cannot refrain from endlessly staging acts and short plays or inserting lines with an obvious dramatic hue". The same commentator identifies in the stories several allusions, homages or intertextual borrowings, from the "semiotic
games" of Umberto Eco
to a "landscape of luxuriant vegetation" characteristic for the Latin American Boom
writers. This symbolism is coupled with allusions to Romanian literary life: the final story in the collection, Motanii din bibliotecă ("The Tomcats in the Study Hall"), speculates about the future of Gârbea's generation, and depicts bibliophiles keeping pets named after the leading literary critics of the 1980s and '90s.
Among his poetry collections, Creşterea iguanelor de casă drew attention for transferring the intertextual and parodic conventions into a lyrical format, mostly free verse
. According to Ştefănescu, it and his other poetry collections are "better than those by most contemporary authors who emphatically recommend themselves as poets." Nicolae Oprea noted in particular the reworking of a motif borrowed from Sibiu Circle
poet Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
and his Mistreţul cu colţi de argint: the "prince from the Levant
", whom Gârbea transfers into the destitute world of garbage collectors. Part of it reads:
Oprea also highlighted ironic and dismissive borrowings from Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu
, and from poets laureate
such as Octavian Goga
and Vasile Alecsandri
, as well as an actual lineage from the black humor of 1930s Surrealists. He sees a direct link between Gârbea and the Romanian Surrealist group's Gellu Naum
, and beyond, to the "existential" absurdism
of Ionesco and Kafka. Also according to Oprea, such texts "are raised as collages of everyday images and bookish suggestions, well tied to each other, to the point where their articulation into colloquial speech puts to use the technique of reabsorbing the dramatic element and the narrative nucleus of ballad
esque nature into the sphere of pure lyricism."
, deriving its name from the Getic
ruler Dromichaetes
, and the protagonists, Cosmin Ciotloş notes, are composite portrayals rather than the "masked" characters of Căderea Bastiliei. He argues: "Whichever way you look at it, set free from the contextual interpretations exercised in reading tabloids, the novel stands only to gain." The narrative focus is on the kitsch
y ambition of a failed theater manager, Cosma, who proceeds to conflate all the violent moments of Shakespearean tragedy
into a single show of regular proportions. The project is increasingly confused, and the text used by Cosma mixes Shakespeare's lines with quotes from Pierre Beaumarchais
, Euripides
and Molière
, while adopting the format of a detective novel.
Ciotloş reproached Crime la Elsinore for lack of subtlety, in the presence of a "not exactly indispensable" glossary
of terms which was published with the book. Although he acknowledges that the writing is "amusing", he also contends that it is "impossible to extend sociologically
or connect to some reality", being isolated "in its own world", and displaying "compositional precariousness." He concludes: "A book perfect in its own way, but far from perfection in ours." A similar overview is provided by Burţa-Cernat, who contends that, in taking sides and explaining his intentions, the author adopts "the manner of an untalented journalist", with "see-through" results. She also believes that Gârbea's chief comedic resource is "the cheap anecdote
with a trite climax", which she compares with those published by the communist-era magazine Urzica. Additionally, Burţa-Cernat comments on the irony of Cosma's reliance on intertextuality, which she finds similar to Gârbea's own work for the stage. Critic Andrei Terian noted that he disliked almost all the book, because of its author's tendency to humiliate his characters "before us readers are in the least familiarized with them."
In Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici, Gârbea revisits the main themes of Romanian literature, looking into the biographies of various fictional characters, their lifestyles, personal preferences and social positioning. He himself defined the overview as "a sort of collection of essays on the edge of literary history." One of its chapters compares the tabletop game
s entertaining such figures, from the contract bridge
parties in Camil Petrescu
's books and the antiquated card game
s in Mateiu Caragiale's Craii de Curtea-Veche
to the cruder craps
and gambling
preferred by thieves in Eugen Barbu
's novels. Other sections discuss the attitudes toward love in such diverse places as Marin Sorescu
's neorealist prose and the fantasy
short stories of Mircea Eliade
. Likewise, the avatars of violence are depicted between Ion Luca Caragiale's satire D-ale carnavalului, where people threaten to poison each other with sulfuric acid
, Anton Bacalbaşa's depictions of officers disciplining their subordinates with the use of belts, and Marin Preda
's Moromeţii
, where peasants beat each other with clubs. Another part of the book deals with the incidence of failure among intellectual protagonists, and leads Gârbea to conclude that, with the exception of Mihail Sebastian
's Accidentul, Romanian narratives generally show their intellectual protagonists incapable of finding their way in life. According to Daniel Cristea-Enache, Gârbea generally and willingly limited the scope of his investigation to canonical and urbane literary realism
, avoiding allegorical
styles such as Onirism
: "the author is not interested in symbolic codification, in the refraction
of the characters and their fictional world; but, quite the contrary, in the points and lines at which literature intersects with social life."
In his review of the volume, Emil Mladin deemed it "wonderful" and "an extremely welcome project", noting: "Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici represents a link which the reader needed in his relationship with the characters of stories relevant both at the time of their writing and today." According to literary critic Silvia Dumitrache, the book creates "new paths in interpretation [...] even when starting from literary locations that are often threatened with turning into clichés." She concludes "Through the playful note he impresses on the book, Horia Gârbea proves that his main intention does not reside in the willingness to impose a new hermeneutic grid on Romanian literature, but in the attempt to demonstrate that the resources of literature can never, ever, be entirely exhausted." Cristea-Enache sees in Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici "a book as interesting as it is enjoyable [...]. A holiday read, one could say, had this sytagm not been bastardized, in our country, by so many printed works (volumes and journals alike) that offend the reader's intellect."
Outside the critical reevaluation of local literature, Gârbea's work includes short humorous essays about various topics in post-1989 society and modern Romanian culture
. One such chapter is built around the polemic between Gârbea and writer Gheorghe Grigurcu, over the issue of what it means for a working artist to be treated unjustly or be privileged. Another fragment documents and ridicules the impact of instant messaging
on the Romanian lexis
, with the rapid spread of abbreviations such as sal (for salut, "hello"), vb (vorbim, "we'll talk") and ms (mersi, "thanks"). Gârbea also pokes fun at the babytalk-based jargon
of parenting magazines, and contrasts its apparent artificiality with the awe he records having personally experienced after the birth of his son Tudor. It reads: "[He] does not inspire in me the image of fragility and fondness, but the force of an entity which benefits from the advantage of The Unknown. When I call him using his human name, he smiles down on me, with devastating irony, so that I may grasp my complete lack of fantasizing ability. No matter what will happen in the future, these winter days [...] shall always remain for me under the sign of having met, for the first time in life, an inexplicable creature."
model, has the same defects as Crime.... In contrast, Terian notes, Gârbea shows his "sure hand" in other pieces, where he parodies Povestea unui om leneş ("The Story of a Lazy Man") by 19th century Romanian classic Ion Creangă
, or where he pokes fun at the 14th century Battle of Rovine
, as well as the absurdist
Întoarcerea tatei din război. Subiecte ("Father's Return from War. Subjects"), where the same narrative cliché is explored from several conflicting perspectives. According to Terian, the volume as a whole displays influences from poet and satirist Tudor Arghezi
, as well as borrowings from fellow parodist Ioan Groşan.
Azerbaijan - The Living Flame details Gârbea's trip and offers additional insight into the Nagorno-Karabakh War
and other conflicts between Azerbaijani people
and Armenians
. It features his poems about Shusha
city, the Khojaly Massacre
and the Guba mass grave
. The texts received criticism from the Armenian Romanian
community's Ararat journal: it specifically called "disinformation" the fragments which refer to Azerbaijan's Christian past
, and expressed concern over Gârbea's claim that Heydar Aliyev
was "a civilizing providential hero".
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
n playwright, poet, essayist, novelist and critic, also known as an academic, engineer and journalist. Known for his work in experimental theater and his Postmodernist
Postmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
contributions to Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
, he is a member of the Writers' Union of Romania
Writers' Union of Romania
The Writers' Union of Romania , founded in March 1949, is a professional association of writers in Romania. It also has a subsidiary in Chişinău, Republic of Moldova...
(USR), its public relations
Public relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
executive and the head of its Bucharest
Bucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
chapter. Also recognized for his contribution to Romanian humor and his essays, he has published regularly in journals such as Contemporanul
Contemporanul
Contemporanul is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891 being sponsored by the socialist circle of the city....
, Luceafărul, Ramuri and Săptămâna Financiară. His career in the media also covers screenwriting
Screenwriting
Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is a freelance profession....
for Romanian television stations
Television in Romania
Television in Romania was introduced on August 1955. State television started to broadcast in 1956, on December, 31st.Accorting to an article on the Romanian newspaper Adevărul, the top TV broadcasters were : Pro TV , TVR1 , Antena 1 , OTV , Acasă TV , Prima TV...
and the popularization of contract bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
. The author of several scientific works on engineering, Gârbea is also a faculty member at the University of Agronomical Sciences and Veterinary Medicine.
The recipient of several national awards for literature, he received critical attention for plays, short stories and novels which merge intertextuality
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined...
and parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
with neorealistic
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
elements. In his work for the Romanian stage, Gârbea has primarily reworked motifs from Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
, Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
, Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
, Costache Negruzzi and various other of his predecessors, addressing contemporary realities. He is also the other of tragicomedies
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
with themes borrowed the 1989 Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
and his country's post-1989 history
History of Romania since 1989
- 1989 revolution :1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timişoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceauşescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power....
. The latter focus is complimented by his works in novel and short prose, which often take the form of political fiction
Political fiction
Political fiction is a subgenre of fiction that deals with political affairs. Political fiction has often used narrative to provide commentary on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction often "directly criticize an existing society or.....
or satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
aimed at his writer colleagues. Such contributions have consolidated Gârbea's success with the general public, but have divided critical opinion on the issue of their ultimate literary value.
Early life and career
Born in BucharestBucharest
Bucharest is the capital municipality, cultural, industrial, and financial centre of Romania. It is the largest city in Romania, located in the southeast of the country, at , and lies on the banks of the Dâmbovița River....
, Horia Gârbea is the grandson of Titus Gârbea, a Land Forces
Romanian Land Forces
The Romanian Land Forces is the army of Romania, and the main component of the Romanian Armed Forces. In recent years, full professionalisation and a major equipment overhaul have transformed the nature of the force.The Romanian Land Forces were founded on...
general and diplomat of the Romanian Kingdom
Kingdom of Romania
The Kingdom of Romania was the Romanian state based on a form of parliamentary monarchy between 13 March 1881 and 30 December 1947, specified by the first three Constitutions of Romania...
. He recalls that his grandfather's passion for literature was passed onto him from an early age, when he first heard him reciting poems by Dante Aligheri. The future writer attended the Mihai Viteazul High School, opting for a sciences-based curriculum, but envisioned becoming a writer. At around age 17, as one of the adolescent guests on a Romanian Television
Romanian television
Romanian television may refer to:* Communications media in Romania* Televiziunea Română, TVR, the national television network* List of Romanian language television channels...
talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
hosted by author Mircea Sîntimbreanu, he stated his intention of having two books published by the year 2000 (he recalls: "[Sîntimbreanu], who was a witty but skeptical man, did not encourage me").
Gârbea made his debut in 1982, at age twenty, his poems being published by the student magazine Amfiteatru. He graduated from the Agronomical Science University's Department of Landscaping
Landscape engineering
Landscape engineering or landscaping is the application of mathematics and science to shape land and waterscapes. It can also be described as green engineering, but the design professionals best known for landscape engineering are landscape architects...
and Environmental Engineering
Environmental engineering
Environmental engineering is the application of science and engineering principles to improve the natural environment , to provide healthy water, air, and land for human habitation and for other organisms, and to remediate polluted sites...
(1986). A member of the teaching staff at his alma mater
Alma mater
Alma mater , pronounced ), was used in ancient Rome as a title for various mother goddesses, especially Ceres or Cybele, and in Christianity for the Virgin Mary.-General term:...
since 1987, he received a Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science
Doctor of Science , usually abbreviated Sc.D., D.Sc., S.D. or Dr.Sc., is an academic research degree awarded in a number of countries throughout the world. In some countries Doctor of Science is the name used for the standard doctorate in the sciences, elsewhere the Sc.D...
diploma from the Politehnica University in 1999. A regular of Cenaclul de luni ("The Monday Literary Club"), founded by literary critic Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu is a Romanian literary critic. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he has reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years...
and journalist Radu Călin Cristea, Gârbea later moved on to the Universitas circle, founded and led by critic Mircea Martin. His early poetry was awarded a 1986 prize by Spain
Spain
Spain , officially the Kingdom of Spain languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Spain's official name is as follows:;;;;;;), is a country and member state of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula...
's University of Bilbao
University of the Basque Country
The University of the Basque Country is the only public university in the Basque Country, in Northern Spain...
(1986).
A turning point in Horia Gârbea's writing career was the Romanian Revolution of 1989
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, which put an end to the communist regime
Communist Romania
Communist Romania was the period in Romanian history when that country was a Soviet-aligned communist state in the Eastern Bloc, with the dominant role of Romanian Communist Party enshrined in its successive constitutions...
. In 1990, one of his first works in drama
Drama
Drama is the specific mode of fiction represented in performance. The term comes from a Greek word meaning "action" , which is derived from "to do","to act" . The enactment of drama in theatre, performed by actors on a stage before an audience, presupposes collaborative modes of production and a...
, translated into English as The Serpent, was performed by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
Royal Court Theatre
Royal Court Theatre
The Royal Court Theatre is a non-commercial theatre on Sloane Square, in the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. It is noted for its contributions to modern theatre...
. A year later, Pescăruşul din livada cu vişini ("The Seagull in the Cherry Orchard") was first staged at the Victor Ion Popa
Victor Ion Popa
Victor Ion Popa , in Moldavia, Romania – March 30, 1946 in Bucharest) was a Romanian dramatist.He went to primary school in the village of Călmăţui where his father was a teacher. At Iaşi he finished his first five years of junior high/high school and his last two years of high school at the...
Theater, followed in 1992 by the premiere of Funcţionarul destinului ("The Clerk of Destiny") with the Bucharest experimental theater company Inoportun. He made his editorial debut in the genre with the 1993 volumes Doamna Bovary sînt ceilalţi ("Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
Are the Others") and Mephisto (a Romanian-language variant of Klaus Mann
Klaus Mann
- Life and work :Born in Munich, Klaus Mann was the son of German writer Thomas Mann and his wife, Katia Pringsheim. His father was baptized as a Lutheran, while his mother was from a family of secular Jews. He began writing short stories in 1924 and the following year became drama critic for a...
's 1936 novel
Mephisto (novel)
Mephisto – Novel of a Career is the sixth novel by Klaus Mann, which was published in 1936 whilst he was in exile in Amsterdam. It was published for the first time in Germany in the East Berlin Aufbau-Verlag in 1956...
). Another one of his plays, Stăpânul tăcerii ("The Master of Silence"), was staged in 1994 by Piteşti
Pitesti
Pitești is a city in Romania, located on the Argeș River. The capital and largest city of Argeș County, it is an important commercial and industrial center, as well as the home of two universities. Pitești is situated on the A1 freeway connecting it directly to the national capital Bucharest,...
's Alexandru Davila
Alexandru Davila
Alexandru Davila was a Romanian dramatist, diplomat, public administrator, and memoirist.-Biography:The son of Carol Davila, a distinguished military physician of French origin, and Ana Racoviţă , he studied in his native Goleşti and at V. A...
Theater.
Gârbea's first volume of lyric poetry
Lyric poetry
Lyric poetry is a genre of poetry that expresses personal and emotional feelings. In the ancient world, lyric poems were those which were sung to the lyre. Lyric poems do not have to rhyme, and today do not need to be set to music or a beat...
, ("Biographical Text"), saw print in 1996, earning him an award granted by the Sighet Poetry Festival. Also that year, the writer followed up with a second collection of poems, Proba cu martori ("The Confrontation of Witnesses"), which was awarded the yearly prize of the Bucharest Association of Writers (a section of the USR). In 1996, he wrote the script for Ils emménagement ("They Are Moving On"), a French-language street theater performance, which premiered in France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
. Proba cu martori was followed in 1997 by the short story volume Misterele Bucureştilor ("The Mysteries of Bucharest") and the multiple award-winning novel Căderea Bastiliei (Romanian for "Fall of the Bastille").
Gârbea returned to drama with the 1999 book Decembrie, în direct ("December, Live Broadcast"). It received the Writers' Union Prize for Theater. The student theater company Calandrinon featured his Cărţile ("The Books") in its 2000 program, and the Toma Caragiu Theater in Ploieşti
Ploiesti
Ploiești is the county seat of Prahova County and lies in the historical region of Wallachia in Romania. The city is located north of Bucharest....
did the same with Cafeaua domnului Ministru ("The Minister's Coffee"). In 2001, he published an anthology
Anthology
An anthology is a collection of literary works chosen by the compiler. It may be a collection of poems, short stories, plays, songs, or excerpts...
of texts for the stage: titled Cine l-a ucis pe Marx? ("Who Killed Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
?"), it was a recipient of the Romanian Academy
Romanian Academy
The Romanian Academy is a cultural forum founded in Bucharest, Romania, in 1866. It covers the scientific, artistic and literary domains. The academy has 181 acting members who are elected for life....
's Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
Award with a three-year delay. Also in 2001, his short story collection ("Enigmas in Our City") saw print. These were followed the next year by Raţă cu portocale ("Duck à l'Orange
Duck à l'orange
Canard à l'Orange is a classic French dish in which the duck is roasted and served with an orange sauce.Duck à l'Orange is an English interpretation of the French dish, made popular in the 1960s ....
"), a volume of essays, and, in 2003, by two other books: Vacanţă în infern ("A Holiday in Hell"; literary criticism, 2 vols.) and Creşterea iguanelor de casă ("Raising Pet Iguana
Iguana
Iguana is a herbivorous genus of lizard native to tropical areas of Central America and the Caribbean. The genus was first described in 1768 by Austrian naturalist Josephus Nicolaus Laurenti in his book Specimen Medicum, Exhibens Synopsin Reptilium Emendatam cum Experimentis circa Venena...
s"; poetry). The former was shortlisted for the USR Award.
His career in the post-Revolution press began early in 1990, when he was among the writers published by Nouăzeci, a magazine founded by Laurenţiu Ulici, Cristian Popescu and Cătălin Ţârlea. Active as a theater critic and chronicler, as well as a contract bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
popularizer, he later had permanent columns in Luceafărul (1990–1995, and again 1998-2001), ArtPanorama (1997–1998), Scena (1998–2001), Monitorul de Iaşi (1998–1999), Contemporanul
Contemporanul
Contemporanul is a Romanian literary magazine published in Iaşi, Romania from 1881 to 1891 being sponsored by the socialist circle of the city....
(1999–2001), Săptămâna Financiară (after 2005) and the Craiova
Craiova
Craiova , Romania's 6th largest city and capital of Dolj County, is situated near the east bank of the river Jiu in central Oltenia. It is a longstanding political center, and is located at approximately equal distances from the Southern Carpathians and the River Danube . Craiova is the chief...
-based literary magazine Ramuri. His articles were also published by other venues, among them Convorbiri Literare, Cuvântul
Cuvântul (literary magazine)
Cuvântul is a literary and political monthly, published in Bucharest, Romania. Tracing its origins back to 1990, it was successively edited by various figures in contemporary Romanian literature, among them Ioan T. Morar, Ioan Buduca, Radu G. Ţeposu and Mircea Martin...
, România Literară
România Literară
România literară is a cultural and literary magazine from România founded in 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași between January 1, 1855 until December 3, 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared in October 10, 1855 as a continuation of Gazeta literară...
and Ziarul Financiar
Ziarul Financiar
Ziarul Financiar is a daily financial newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania. Aside from business information, it features sections focusing on careers and properties, as well as a special Sunday newspaper...
. In 2001, he joined the editorial staff of Okean, a specialized magazine co-founded by three Romanian theater companies: Bulandra
Bulandra Theatre
The Bulandra Theatre in Bucharest, Romania was founded in 1947 as Teatrul Municipal; its first director was Lucia Sturdza Bulandra, one of the leading Romanian stage actresses of her generation...
, Nottara, Odeon and the National Theater Cluj-Napoca. He was also among the first Romanian authors to publish fiction in the new wave of lifestyle magazine
Lifestyle magazine
Lifestyle magazine is an umbrella term for popular magazines concerned with lifestyle. There is no universally accepted definition of what constitutes a lifestyle magazine: it is often used to encompass a number of men's magazines, women's magazines and magazines about health and fitness, tourism,...
s, being an early contributor to the local version of Playboy
Playboy
Playboy is an American men's magazine that features photographs of nude women as well as journalism and fiction. It was founded in Chicago in 1953 by Hugh Hefner and his associates, and funded in part by a $1,000 loan from Hefner's mother. The magazine has grown into Playboy Enterprises, Inc., with...
(together with George Cuşnarencu, Răzvan Petrescu and Jean Lorin Sterian). Between 2002 and 2003, he published several works related to his field of expertise in engineering: Structuri şi construcţii cu izolatori dinamici ("Structures and Constructions with Dynamic Insulation", 2002), Structuri şi construcţii – noţiuni şi calcule de fiabilitate ("Structures and Constructions—Notions and Calculations in Reliability", 2002), Structuri şi construcţii – curs universitar ("Structures and Constructions—University Lecture", 2003; revised edition 2004).
Literary consecration and Writers' Union activities
An active member of the Writers' Union since 1994, Horia Gârbea was elected president of its Bucharest chapter in 2003, and appointed head of the Union's public relationsPublic relations
Public relations is the actions of a corporation, store, government, individual, etc., in promoting goodwill between itself and the public, the community, employees, customers, etc....
branch two years later. As a representative of the Bucharest section, he worked closely with Editura Nouă publishing house in helping to popularize the writings of his fellow association members. Having joined the UNITER
UNITER
UNITER or Uniter is a Romanian organization, created as a professional association of theater employees...
association of theatrical professionals in 1993, he also works as a dramaturge
Dramaturge
A dramaturge or dramaturg is a professional position within a theatre or opera company that deals mainly with research and development of plays or operas...
, and has first been employed as such by the Toma Caragiu Theater since 1998. His contributions in this field include translations and adaptations of plays by Anton Chekhov
Anton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
(The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
), Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille
Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian who was one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Racine...
(L'Illusion comique
L'Illusion Comique
L'Illusion Comique is a comedic play by Pierre Corneille, written in 1636. In its use of meta-theatricality , it is far ahead of its time. It was first performed at the Hôtel de Bourgogne in 1636 and published in 1639....
), Dario Fo
Dario Fo
Dario Fo is an Italian satirist, playwright, theater director, actor and composer. His dramatic work employs comedic methods of the ancient Italian commedia dell'arte, a theatrical style popular with the working classes. He currently owns and operates a theatre company with his wife, actress...
(We Won't Pay! We Won't Pay!), Pierre de Marivaux
Pierre de Marivaux
Pierre Carlet de Chamblain de Marivaux , commonly referred to as Marivaux, was a French novelist and dramatist....
(Le Triomphe de l'amour), Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
(The School for Wives
The School for Wives
The School for Wives is a theatrical comedy written by the seventeenth century French playwright Molière and considered by some critics to be one of his finest achievements. It was first staged at the Palais Royal theatre on 26 December 1662 for the brother of the King...
), Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand
Ayn Rand was a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screenwriter. She is known for her two best-selling novels The Fountainhead and Atlas Shrugged and for developing a philosophical system she called Objectivism....
(Night of January 16th
Night of January 16th
Night of January 16th is a play written by Ayn Rand, inspired by the death of the "Match King", Ivar Kreuger. First produced under a different name in 1934, it takes place entirely in a court room and is centered on a murder trial. It was a hit of the 1935-36 Broadway season...
), Fernando Arrabal
Fernando Arrabal
Fernando Arrabal Terán is a Spanish playwright, screenwriter, film director, novelist and poet. He settled in France in 1955, he describes himself as “desterrado,” or “half-expatriate, half-exiled.”...
, Jacques Copi, Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
, John D. MacDonald
John D. MacDonald
John Dann MacDonald was an American crime and suspense novelist and short story writer.MacDonald was a prolific author of crime and suspense novels, many of them set in his adopted home of Florida...
, Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò Machiavelli
Niccolò di Bernardo dei Machiavelli was an Italian historian, philosopher, humanist, and writer based in Florence during the Renaissance. He is one of the main founders of modern political science. He was a diplomat, political philosopher, playwright, and a civil servant of the Florentine Republic...
, Gérald Sibleyras
Gérald Sibleyras
Gérald Sibleyras is a French dramatist, and actor, most noted for his 2003 play, Le vent des peupliers that received the Laurence Olivier Award for Best New Comedy in 2006.-Work:* On a très peu d'amis * Le vent des peupliers...
, Tennessee Williams
Tennessee Williams
Thomas Lanier "Tennessee" Williams III was an American writer who worked principally as a playwright in the American theater. He also wrote short stories, novels, poetry, essays, screenplays and a volume of memoirs...
and Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz. In 1998, Gârbea also began working in screenwriting
Screenwriting
Screenwriting is the art and craft of writing scripts for mass media such as feature films, television productions or video games. It is a freelance profession....
, collaborating with several national television stations. He was first employed by Pro TV
Pro TV
Launched in December 1995, Pro TV reaches almost 99% of Romania’s 21.5 million people and has 48% of its broadcast schedule comprising locally-produced programs...
from 1998 to 2001, working on the variety show
Variety show
A variety show, also known as variety arts or variety entertainment, is an entertainment made up of a variety of acts, especially musical performances and sketch comedy, and normally introduced by a compère or host. Other types of acts include magic, animal and circus acts, acrobatics, juggling...
Ministerul comediei and the sitcom La Bloc. He was then affiliated with Prima TV
Prima TV
Prima TV is a Romanian commercial TV channel, famous mainly for the Cronica Cârcotaşilor show and various reality shows.-Start:Prima TV was launched as one of the first commercial television stations in Romania in December 1997...
, writing for Romică Ţociu and Cornel Palade's Alomania sketch comedy
Sketch comedy
A sketch comedy consists of a series of short comedy scenes or vignettes, called "sketches," commonly between one and ten minutes long. Such sketches are performed by a group of comic actors or comedians, either on stage or through an audio and/or visual medium such as broadcasting...
show, and later Naţional TV
National TV
Naţional TV is the first TV channel of the Centrul Naţional Media, owned by the Micula brothers....
, where he contributed to a similar production, Naţionala de bere. In 2001, Gârbea was also involved in writing for Antena 1's sitcom Clanul Popeştilor. Between 2002 and 2003, he worked with the public broadcaster TVR Cultural
TVR Cultural
TVR Cultural is the cultural channel of Romania's government-funded television network Televiziunea Română. It provides cultural news, documentaries about the arts, as well as various shows, musicals and theatrical pieces.-References:*...
, where he hosted a talk show
Talk show
A talk show or chat show is a television program or radio program where one person discuss various topics put forth by a talk show host....
on cultural issues.
During 2004, authors Horia Gârbea, Valeriu Butulescu, Mircea Ghiţulescu and Mircea Petean traveled to Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, on the invitation of the Vietnamese Writers Union. Their experience in the Far East
Far East
The Far East is an English term mostly describing East Asia and Southeast Asia, with South Asia sometimes also included for economic and cultural reasons.The term came into use in European geopolitical discourse in the 19th century,...
produced the collective travel account Drumul spre Nghe An ("The Road to Nghe An"), published the same year. Also in 2004, Gârbea premiered his Cleopatra a şaptea ("Cleopatra VII") with the Andrei Mureşanu company of Sfântu Gheorghe
Sfântu Gheorghe
Sfântu Gheorghe is the capital city of Covasna County, Romania. Located in the central part of the country and in the historical region of Transylvania, it lies on the Olt River in a valley between the Baraolt Mountains and Bodoc Mountains...
, published a new work for the stage—Hotel Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, and oversaw the publishing of Editura Limes' Repetiţie fără orchestră ("Rehearsal without an Orchestra"), an anthology of prose pieces by young Romanian authors. His own work also included the 2005 essay collections Arte parţiale ("Partial Arts") and Bridge în 41 de povestiri vesele ("Contract Bridge in 41 Cheerful Stories"). Gârbea was made Knight of Meritul Cultural order through a 2004 presidential
President of Romania
The President of Romania is the head of state of Romania. The President is directly elected by a two-round system for a five-year term . An individual may serve two terms...
decree. In March 2005, as head of the Bucharest Association of Writers, he set up the Romanian version of France's literary festival Le Printemps des Poètes ("Poets' Spring", known locally as Primăvara poeţilor). A month later, during the Romanian Comedy Festival, his play Leonida XXI was staged by the Comedy Theater.
Also in 2005, Gârbea and the Writers' Union were involved in a polemic with Paul Goma
Paul Goma
Paul Goma is a Romanian writer, also known for his activities as a dissident and leading opponent of the communist regime before 1989. Forced into exile by the communist authorities, he became a political refugee and currently resides in France as a stateless person...
, a novelist and former dissident
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
who lives in France. This came after Viaţa Românească
Viata Româneasca
Viaţa Românească, originally Viaţa Romînească , is a monthly literary magazine published in Romania...
, a literary magazine managed by the Union, republished fragments from Goma's diary, which caused public outrage for its perceived antisemitism. Gârbea and USR president Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu is a Romanian literary critic. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he has reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years...
both intervened to sanction the publication. In an early interview with Gardianul
Gardianul
Gardianul was a Romanian daily newspaper published in Bucharest. It claimed to have had an anti-corruption stance, investigating organized crime and high-level corruption....
daily, he spoke of the editorial staff as having displayed "negligence", and noted that replacing the panel of editors was one of the sanctions being considered, while also stating that he felt none of them were "100% responsible" for the incident. Gârbea however dismissed rumors that he and his colleagues were considering disestablishing Viaţa Românească, noting that the magazine was a historical institution.
The USR's public expression of regret over having tolerated "a text with antisemitic content" caused Goma to threaten with a lawsuit on libel grounds. In reaction, Gârbea stated: "What we are interested in is Viaţa Românească, a press organ edited by the USR. Paul Goma may believe whatever he likes. It is not him that we are discussing, but the magazine. I see no reason why he would sue me personally." According to an overview of the episode by journalist Ovidiu Şimonca, Horia Gârbea had unwittingly prompted Goma to state his intention of suing the Jewish-Romanian
History of the Jews in Romania
The history of Jews in Romania concerns the Jews of Romania and of Romanian origins, from their first mention on what is nowadays Romanian territory....
community league, or Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania (FCER). This was because, during the scandal, Gârbea had explained that the FCER's reaction was an incentive in the USR's internal investigation. Goma's claim for reparations from FCER leaders, Şimonca noted, ignored the fact that Gârbea had not disclosed any names.
Since 2006
Gârbea published his second novel, Crime la Elsinore ("Murders at Helsingør"), in 2006. Printed the same year, his new drama volume, Divorţ în direct ("Live Divorce"), was nominated for another USR award. In late 2007, he participated with fellow writers Doina RuştiDoina Rusti
Doina Ruşti is a contemporary Romanian novelist. All her works were published after the Romanian Revolution of 1989....
and Liviu Ioan Stoiciu in a children's literature
Children's literature
Children's literature is for readers and listeners up to about age twelve; it is often defined in four different ways: books written by children, books written for children, books chosen by children, or books chosen for children. It is often illustrated. The term is used in senses which sometimes...
project initiated by Editura Paralela 45, which involved rewriting a series of fairy tales in Romanian folklore
Folklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
and Christian mythology
Christian mythology
Christian mythology is the body of myths associated with Christianity. In the study of mythology, the term "myth" refers to a traditional story, often one which is regarded as sacred and which explains how the world and its inhabitants came to have their present form.Classicist G.S. Kirk defines a...
. Titled Basme şi poveşti mistice româneşti repovestite ("Retold Romanian Fairy Tales and Mystical Stories"), it was illustrated with reproductions of children-made Romanian icons
Romanian icons
In the Romanian Orthodox Church, icons serve much the same purpose as they do in other Eastern Orthodox traditions. The art of painting them has survived communism and today there are many active icon painters in Romania....
. His son, Tudor, was born in the same year.
With the 2008 Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici ("Bygone Lives of Beaus and Aces"), he investigated the history of Romanian literature
Literature of Romania
Romanian literature is literature written by Romanian authors, although the term may also be used to refer to all literature written in the Romanian language.Eugène Ionesco is one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd....
by focusing on and inventorying literary types. In spring, he participated in the project Scriitori pe calea regală ("Writers on the Royal Road"), organized by the former King of Romania
King of Romania
King of the Romanians , rather than King of Romania , was the official title of the ruler of the Kingdom of Romania from 1881 until 1947, when Romania was proclaimed a republic....
Michael I
Michael I of Romania
Michael was the last King of Romania. He reigned from 20 July 1927 to 8 June 1930, and again from 6 September 1940 until 30 December 1947 when he was forced, by the Communist Party of Romania , to abdicate to the Soviet armies of occupation...
, the Royal House
Romanian Royal Family
The current Romanian royal family , an integral part of the larger royal house of Romania, consists of the family of King Michael I of Romania who bear a royal title...
, the USR and various other venues for the benefit of award-winning writers. He was also the USR's envoy to the Three Seas Writers and Translators Committee conference on Rhodes
Rhodes
Rhodes is an island in Greece, located in the eastern Aegean Sea. It is the largest of the Dodecanese islands in terms of both land area and population, with a population of 117,007, and also the island group's historical capital. Administratively the island forms a separate municipality within...
, Greece
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
.
The same year, Gârbea voluntarily reduced his contributions to drama and theater criticism, citing his family obligations, alongside a general disappointment with the milieu: "I grew aware that writing for the theater is usually not followed by productions. Although plays I signed were constantly performed, I never had productions at a satisfactory level nor significant material gains, except for translations." Instead, he focused on writing a fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
novel for the youth, Făt Frumos din lună ("Făt Frumos
Fat Frumos
Făt Frumos was a semimonthly literary magazine published in Bârlad, Romania. Covering political, economic and literary topics, was first printed on March 15, 1904, at the C. D. Lupaşcu printing shop. The chief editors were George Tutoveanu and D. Nanu, and, at a later date Corneliu Moldoveanu and...
from the Moon") and a cycle of poems known as Cântecele lui Huppy ("Huppy's Songs"), as well as on reviewing for publishing the memoir
Memoir
A memoir , is a literary genre, forming a subclass of autobiography – although the terms 'memoir' and 'autobiography' are almost interchangeable. Memoir is autobiographical writing, but not all autobiographical writing follows the criteria for memoir set out below...
s of his grandfather Titus Gârbea. Working with Editura Tritonic publishing house, Gârbea also coordinated an anthology of political fiction
Political fiction
Political fiction is a subgenre of fiction that deals with political affairs. Political fiction has often used narrative to provide commentary on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction often "directly criticize an existing society or.....
, in which he included his own novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
Detestarea naţiunii ("Detesting the Nation").
In 2010, Editura Limes published Fratele mai deştept al lui Kalaşnikov ("Kalashnikov
Mikhail Kalashnikov
Lieutenant General Mikhail Timofeyevich Kalashnikov is a Russian small arms designer, most famous for designing the AK-47 assault rifle, the AKM and the AK-74.-Early life:...
's Smarter Brother"), his new volume of short prose. The same year, Gârbea visited Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan
Azerbaijan , officially the Republic of Azerbaijan is the largest country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia. Located at the crossroads of Western Asia and Eastern Europe, it is bounded by the Caspian Sea to the east, Russia to the north, Georgia to the northwest, Armenia to the west, and Iran to...
, invited by the Heydar Aliyev Foundation
Heydar Aliyev Foundation
The Heydar Aliyev Foundation is a charitable foundation headed by Azerbaijan's First Lady Mehriban Aliyeva. The foundation is named in honor of Azerbaijan's former leader, the late Heydar Aliyev, who was the father of Aliyeva's husband, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev.- History :Heydar...
, and published some of his impressions in Revista 22
Revista 22
Revista 22 is a Romanian weekly magazine, issued by the Group for Social Dialogue and focused mainly on politics and culture....
. His larger travel writing
Travel writing
Travel writing is a genre that has, as its focus, accounts of real or imaginary places. The genre encompasses a number of styles that may range from the documentary to the evocative, from literary to journalistic, and from the humorous to the serious....
, published by the same foundation as Azerbaijan - The Living Flame (in English, Romanian
Romanian language
Romanian Romanian Romanian (or Daco-Romanian; obsolete spellings Rumanian, Roumanian; self-designation: română, limba română ("the Romanian language") or românește (lit. "in Romanian") is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova...
, German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
), was officially launched at the Frankfurt Book Fair
Frankfurt Book Fair
The Frankfurt Book Fair is the world's largest trade fair for books, based on the number of publishing companies represented. As to the number of visitors, the Turin Book Fair attracts about as many visitors, viz. some 300,000....
(October 2010). In April 2011, Gârbea and fellow writer Ruxandra Cesereanu
Ruxandra Cesereanu
Ruxandra-Mihaela Cesereanu or Ruxandra-Mihaela Braga is a Romanian poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist and literary critic...
were in Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
, attending the Nisan Poetry Festival in Maghar.
Cultural context and Postmodernist reinterpretations
Committed to PostmodernismPostmodern literature
The term Postmodern literature is used to describe certain characteristics of post–World War II literature and a reaction against Enlightenment ideas implicit in Modernist literature.Postmodern literature, like postmodernism as a whole, is hard to define and there is little agreement on the exact...
, Gârbea debuted as a member of the Optzecişti group of writers, most of whom reached their creative peak after 1980: together with Mircea Cărtărescu
Mircea Cartarescu
Mircea Cărtărescu is a Romanian poet, novelist and essayist.Born in Bucharest, he graduated from the University of Bucharest's Faculty of Letters, Department of Romanian Language And Literature, in 1980. Between 1980 and 1989 he worked as a Romanian language teacher, then he worked at the Writers'...
, Traian T. Coşovei, Florin Iaru, Doru Mareş, Radu G. Ţeposu and Ion Stratan, he was part of the Optzecişti nucleus inside Cenaclul de luni. Given his relatively late consecration, Gârbea is nevertheless identified with the 1990s generation of post-Optzecişti. This also reflects Gârbea's own positioning: according to his own statement, the move from one generation group to the other coincided with his leaving Cenaclul de luni and joining Universitas. In 2008, he expressed much criticism for Orbitor, a large-scale novelistic cycle by the Optzecişti group leader Cărtărescu. In her critical overview of Gârbea's contributions, Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural
Observator Cultural is a literary magazine based in Bucharest, Romania. It covers Romania's cultural and arts scene.-External links:*...
chronicler Bianca Burţa-Cernat describes him as one among the lesser authors of the 1990s generation, alongside Dan-Silviu Boerescu and Mihail Gălăţanu. Writing for the 2007 Columbia University
Columbia University
Columbia University in the City of New York is a private, Ivy League university in Manhattan, New York City. Columbia is the oldest institution of higher learning in the state of New York, the fifth oldest in the United States, and one of the country's nine Colonial Colleges founded before the...
Encyclopedia of Modern Drama, Romanian-born Israel
Israel
The State of Israel is a parliamentary republic located in the Middle East, along the eastern shore of the Mediterranean Sea...
i actor-director Moshe Yassur included Gârbea "among the best known" of post-1989 playwrights "experimenting with post-absurd
Theatre of the Absurd
The Theatre of the Absurd is a designation for particular plays of absurdist fiction, written by a number of primarily European playwrights in the late 1940s, 1950s, and 1960s, as well as to the style of theatre which has evolved from their work...
-surrealist
Surrealism
Surrealism is a cultural movement that began in the early 1920s, and is best known for the visual artworks and writings of the group members....
modes of expression." Others in this group are, according to his definition, Radu Macrinici, Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi
Alina Mungiu-Pippidi is a Romanian political scientist, academic, journalist and writer. A commentator on national politics, she is one of the most prominent civil society activists in post-1989 Romania, and, since 1990, an active contributor to 22...
, Alina Nelega, Saviana Stănescu
Saviana Stanescu
Saviana Stănescu is an award-winning Romanian-American poet, playwright and journalist. She is currently the NYSCA playwright-in-residence for Women's Project, writer-in-residence of East Coast Artists, and Director of New Drama Program for the Romanian Cultural Institute in New York...
, Matei Vişniec
Matei Visniec
Matei Vişniec is a playwright, poet and journalist born in Romania and now settled in Paris, working as a journalist at Radio France Internationale.He is known especially for his writings in the French language....
and Vlad Zografi. In a 2001 overview of the generation's contribution, Nelega herself mentioned Gârbea and the others alongside Valentin Nicolau and Răzvan Petrescu.
A defining characteristic of Gârbea's main works is the reliance on intertextuality
Intertextuality
Intertextuality is the shaping of texts' meanings by other texts. It can include an author’s borrowing and transformation of a prior text or to a reader’s referencing of one text in reading another. The term “intertextuality” has, itself, been borrowed and transformed many times since it was coined...
, as compliments to his predecessors in drama, novel and poetry. Speaking in 2009, Gârbea himself recalled his stylistic discovery of the 1980s: "It still seemed to me that being a writer meant having visions and struggling to communicate them so that others may have them too. [...] I could not write prose, but I enjoyed writing drama because I had invented something very fun to do: old characters in new situations." Poet and critic Octavian Soviany noted: "Horia Gârbea is a dramatist who builds with a program in mind, placing his stake on the resources of parody
Parody
A parody , in current usage, is an imitative work created to mock, comment on, or trivialise an original work, its subject, author, style, or some other target, by means of humorous, satiric or ironic imitation...
and the intertextual play. The parodic here is given birth by the disabused conscience of a postmodern spirit, who knows that all books have been written and therefore only their 'rewriting' [...] is still possible". Commenting on the texts grouped within Cine l-a ucis pe Marx?, literary critic Mircea A. Diaconu placed the intertextual references (which often make a point of transgressing historical reality) in connection with William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare
William Shakespeare was an English poet and playwright, widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's national poet and the "Bard of Avon"...
's phrase "All the world's a stage", since "everything is possible at the level of the text becoming reality". He praises the author for managing to preserve an "absence that imposes", by not making his own intervention felt in the text. Diaconu admits that such an approach could be read as "gratuitously bookish, [where] a line is more important than an event, a pun more important than a murder", but supports the notion that they all display an "existential
Existentialism
Existentialism is a term applied to a school of 19th- and 20th-century philosophers who, despite profound doctrinal differences, shared the belief that philosophical thinking begins with the human subject—not merely the thinking subject, but the acting, feeling, living human individual...
bearing", accounting for an "intrinsic value." He speaks of the technique as "a vengeance of the theater" on the traditional historical record: "In essence, Horia Gârbea's theater emerges from the textual inconsistency of the world when faced with the consistency of history, or, better yet, from the inconsistency of history and the textual consistency of the world."
Generic traits and related polemics
Beyond its immediate context, critics see Horia Gârbea's contribution as greatly indebted to the work of 19th century dramatist and humorist Ion Luca CaragialeIon Luca Caragiale
Ion Luca Caragiale was a Wallachian-born Romanian playwright, short story writer, poet, theater manager, political commentator and journalist...
. According to Diaconu, Caragiale's influence constitutes the "depth" of Gârbea's work, going beyond the "surface level" of intertextual references and tributes. At the same core level, Diaconu identifies the author's debt to Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco
Eugène Ionesco was a Romanian and French playwright and dramatist, and one of the foremost playwrights of the Theatre of the Absurd...
, while also judging his manner of "mixing eras, languages, writings, characters or historical figures, fiction and document" to echo the techniques of Argentinian
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
writer Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Luis Borges
Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...
. Another main influence on Gârbea's work is interwar author Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Caragiale
Mateiu Ion Caragiale was a Romanian poet and prose writer, best known for his novel Craii de Curtea-Veche, which portrays the milieu of boyar descendants before and after World War I. Caragiale's style, associated with Symbolism, the Decadent movement of the fin de siècle, and early modernism, was...
, made famous by his cultivated style and eccentric outlook. Critic Dumitru Ungureanu sees this cultural echo as having been filtered by the style of Radu Albala, one of the authors to have been most inspired by the "matein" narratives, and concludes that the lineage places Gârbea on the same level as Cărtărescu and Florin Şlapac.
According to his generation colleague, essayist Dan-Silviu Boerescu, Gârbea "cannot part with the speculative charm of a brain given to bookish games", but closely follows a realistic tradition with his "sarcastic analysis of [...] all everyday weakness." For Boerescu, Gârbea's literature is supported by his sarcasm and his contribution to Romanian humor: "Thin and edgy like a razor, Gârbea's style forgives no one no thing." Soviany also argues that the "rewriting" of texts attempted by the Romanian author is carried by "absurd humor" and "the most unusual (as well as the most hilarious) arrangements of famous characters and quotes". Poet and critic Paul Aretzu writes: "The staple of [Horia Gârbea's] writing is inventive, farcical, the obvious attribute of intelligence and refinement, also displaying bookish support and being enhanced by zestful language. [...] The tendency of visualizing, of sketching portraits, of detailing/dissecting scenes, of verifying orality
Orality
Orality is thought and verbal expression in societies where the technologies of literacy are unfamiliar to most of the population. The study of orality is closely allied to the study of oral tradition...
, the expressive value of the language, reveal the author's dominant structure as a playwright." The alternation of such stylistic traits reflects in part the writer's own parting with the Optzecişti. The focus on everyday issues prompted Cătălin Ţârlea to view Gârbea's 1990s prose as a revival of neorealism
Neorealism (art)
In art, neorealism was established by the ex-Camden Town Group painters Charles Ginner and Harold Gilman at the beginning of World War I. They set out to explore the spirit of their age through the shapes and colours of daily life...
after the Optzecişti experimentalism
Experimental literature
Experimental literature refers to written works - often novels or magazines - that place great emphasis on innovations regarding technique and style.-Early history:...
. Boerescu however believes this verdict to be "only half right", since the writer continued to employ experimental devices long after 1989, while avoiding the "referential ostentation" of other writers. Appreciation of Gârbea's work was also expressed among older critics and Gârbea's own mentors. Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu
Nicolae Manolescu is a Romanian literary critic. As an editor of România Literară literary magazine, he has reached a record in reviewing books for almost 30 years...
held Gârbea's contribution in high esteem, an, in his 2008 synthesis of Romanian literary history, spoke of him as having "indisputably, the fabric of a dramatist".
In Nelega's view, Gârbea, "one of the truly alive writers of his time", was among the few debuting local playwrights to have their works staged by prominent Romanian directors—Alexandru Darie, Alexandru Hausvater and Gavril Pinte. Gârbea's fellow România Literară
România Literară
România literară is a cultural and literary magazine from România founded in 1855 by Vasile Alecsandri and published in Iași between January 1, 1855 until December 3, 1855, when it was suppressed. The new series appeared in October 10, 1855 as a continuation of Gazeta literară...
contributor, literary historian Alex. Ştefănescu, contrasted his writings with the "boring" works by some of his contemporaries, and claimed that "directors and actors take pleasure in staging [Gârbea's plays]." Gârbea's work stands out within its cultural and temporal context for its size and diversity. Aretzu sees him as "one of the most ubiquitous authors in present-day literature, [...] gifted with a great availability in processing reality", while critic and academic Nicolae Oprea believes him to be "the most prolific" among the Bucharest-based group formed in the 1990s. Literary reviewer Daniel Cristea-Enache also describes his colleague as "multilateral" who "can adapt himself with great ease to any particular genre's specificity". Writing in 2007, Ştefănescu defined him a "one-man orchestra [...] of the apathetic (and sometimes shy-brazen) Romanian literature of today." According to Moldova
Moldova
Moldova , officially the Republic of Moldova is a landlocked state in Eastern Europe, located between Romania to the West and Ukraine to the North, East and South. It declared itself an independent state with the same boundaries as the preceding Moldavian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1991, as part...
n writer Emilian Galaicu-Păun: "As productive as an entire literary school [...], Horia Gârbea is a veritable Stakhanovite
Stakhanovite
In Soviet history and iconography, a Stakhanovite follows the example of Aleksei Grigorievich Stakhanov, employing hard work or Taylorist efficiencies to over-achieve on the job.- History :...
of writing, who has dealt in all genres and species". Gârbea is also among the post-1990 Romanian authors to have received recognition abroad. In addition to the The Serpent and Il émmagement performances, Gârbea's Raţă cu portocale has been translated into German
German language
German is a West Germanic language, related to and classified alongside English and Dutch. With an estimated 90 – 98 million native speakers, German is one of the world's major languages and is the most widely-spoken first language in the European Union....
by Veronika Dreichlinger (Ente mit Apfelsine, published in 2005). His work was also included into English-, French-, German-, Russian-
Russian language
Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...
and Serbian-language
Serbian language
Serbian is a form of Serbo-Croatian, a South Slavic language, spoken by Serbs in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia and neighbouring countries....
anthologies.
There are several controversial aspects to Gârbea's public notoriety, involving reactions against academic verdicts, and objecting to the close relationship between Gârbea and mainstream cultural forums such as the USR. The implications of positive appraisals by these venues were debated by literary critic Bogdan Creţu, who argued that Nicolae Manolescu tended to overrate authors in his proximity, while being dismissive of Vişniec's contribution to drama (which Manolescu had claimed lacked originality). Critic Dan C. Mihăilescu criticized in particular Manolescu's "caprices", suggesting that, in a 2008 synthesis of Romanian literary history, his older colleague had assigned Gârbea's entry undeserved space, more than to a better known novelist like Gib Mihăescu
Gib Mihaescu
Gib I. Mihăescu was a Romanian novelist and dramatist.Born in Drăgăşani, Mihăescu wrote short stories such as Grandiflora, and novels. His work depicts obsessive, often erotic, feelings. His works include Rusoaica , Femeia de ciocolată , and his masterpiece, Donna Alba...
. Also according to Mihăilescu, Cărtărescu may have had his rival Gârbea in mind when reproaching Manolescu that he had insisted on writers who were not at all worthy of recognition. Nicolae Oprea saw Gârbea as apparently "uninhibited" in matters of literary discourse, but critically noted that the poet was also preoccupied, "to the point of obsession", with his own cultural imprint (citing as proof the fact that, in its original version, Creşterea iguanelor de casă features the English-language versions of five poems, translated by Gârbea's own hand). A highly critical voice is that of Bianca Burţa-Cernat. She suggests that, in adopting all forms of writing, Gârbea displays "an implausible self-certainty". She polemically connects the critical appreciation with his status as a "good colleague" and "devoted shadow" of other writers, noting that Gârbea's notoriety is ensured by a promotional system with "all the stakes" and "all the pulleys", as well as by "the argument of prolificity", but that these attributes also surpass his actual value.
Plays
Usually assigned by their author the name of "texts", in preference over "plays", several among Gârbea's earliest works for the stage are Postmodern reworkings of classical motifs, fashioned into new statements about the limits of literature. His Pescăruşul din livada cu vişini is a personal take on Anton ChekhovAnton Chekhov
Anton Pavlovich Chekhov was a Russian physician, dramatist and author who is considered to be among the greatest writers of short stories in history. His career as a dramatist produced four classics and his best short stories are held in high esteem by writers and critics...
's Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard
The Cherry Orchard is Russian playwright Anton Chekhov's last play. It premiered at the Moscow Art Theatre 17 January 1904 in a production directed by Constantin Stanislavski. Chekhov intended this play as a comedy and it does contain some elements of farce; however, Stanislavski insisted on...
and Seagull
The Seagull
The Seagull is the first of what are generally considered to be the four major plays by the Russian dramatist Anton Chekhov. The Seagull was written in 1895 and first produced in 1896...
. According to the author's own assessment, the text fits in with a Chekhovian homage trend among Romanian dramatists, also including Iosif Naghiu's ("Chekhov the Armorer") and Vişiec's La machine Tchekhov ("The Chekhov Machine"). Soviany singles out the text as an answer to claims that parody is always inferior to its models, by identifying its original motifs in a new statement about theater itself: "[the play], which is without doubt ascribable to the formula of 'apocalyptic' theater, draws its substance from mixing intertextual parody with an eschatologic
Eschatology
Eschatology is a part of theology, philosophy, and futurology concerned with what are believed to be the final events in history, or the ultimate destiny of humanity, commonly referred to as the end of the world or the World to Come...
vision, suggesting the regression (of world and literature) into the primordial mud. Putting to use [...] the deluge myth, the dramatist this time imagines an apocalypse of fiction (of the theater), during which the characters [...] are slowly being swallowed by the mud flows of subterranean waters, which could imply that literature (fiction) unavoidably secretes its own death, so that writing (being written) and dying end up being perfect synonyms." In this analogy between literature and death, Soviany argues, one finds "the most profound message of Horia Gârbea's theater". In Doamna Bovary sînt ceilalţi, the theme and protagonists are borrowed from Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert
Gustave Flaubert was a French writer who is counted among the greatest Western novelists. He is known especially for his first published novel, Madame Bovary , and for his scrupulous devotion to his art and style.-Early life and education:Flaubert was born on December 12, 1821, in Rouen,...
's 1857 novel
Madame Bovary
Madame Bovary is Gustave Flaubert's first published novel and is considered his masterpiece. The story focuses on a doctor's wife, Emma Bovary, who has adulterous affairs and lives beyond her means in order to escape the banalities and emptiness of provincial life...
, reused by the author to make a statement about drama itself and combined with elements from Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Sartre
Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre was a French existentialist philosopher, playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and literary critic. He was one of the leading figures in 20th century French philosophy, particularly Marxism, and was one of the key figures in literary...
's No Exit
No Exit
No Exit is a 1944 existentialist French play by Jean-Paul Sartre. The original French title is Huis Clos, the French equivalent of the legal term in camera, referring to a private discussion behind closed doors; English translations have also been performed under the titles In Camera, No Way Out...
. In addition to such themes, Mircea A. Diaconu sees Gârbea's reflection on the conflict between history and fiction as personified by the lead character in Stăpânul tăcerii: the Egyptian god
Egyptian pantheon
The Egyptian pantheon consisted of the many gods worshipped by the Ancient Egyptians. A number of major deities are addressed as the creator of the cosmos. These include Atum, Ra, Amun and Ptah amongst others, as well as composite forms of these gods such as Amun-Ra. This was not seen as...
Thoth
Thoth
Thoth was considered one of the more important deities of the Egyptian pantheon. In art, he was often depicted as a man with the head of an ibis or a baboon, animals sacred to him. His feminine counterpart was Seshat...
, who bestows the gift of language on man, is depicted as "the prototype of traitors."
Published ten years after the Romanian Revolution
Romanian Revolution of 1989
The Romanian Revolution of 1989 was a series of riots and clashes in December 1989. These were part of the Revolutions of 1989 that occurred in several Warsaw Pact countries...
, Decembrie, în direct recounts a changing of roles between torturer and victim, set to the background of political turmoil. In the first part, it introduces the two protagonists: a failed boxer turned interrogator for the main communist repressive structure, the Securitate
Securitate
The Securitate was the secret police agency of Communist Romania. Previously, the Romanian secret police was called Siguranţa Statului. Founded on August 30, 1948, with help from the Soviet NKVD, the Securitate was abolished in December 1989, shortly after President Nicolae Ceaușescu was...
, who confronts his prisoner, a renegade nomenklatura
Nomenklatura
The nomenklatura were a category of people within the Soviet Union and other Eastern Bloc countries who held various key administrative positions in all spheres of those countries' activity: government, industry, agriculture, education, etc., whose positions were granted only with approval by the...
member who has become a dissident
Dissident
A dissident, broadly defined, is a person who actively challenges an established doctrine, policy, or institution. When dissidents unite for a common cause they often effect a dissident movement....
. What is supposed to be an ordeal for the latter turns into a revelation for the former: the dissident is successful in assuring his interrogator that communism is doomed, and both flee the prison to partake in the victorious Revolution. The second part sees the dissident transformed into an agent for the reformed Intelligence Service
Serviciul Român de Informatii
The Romanian Intelligence Service is the Romanian domestic intelligence service. It is considered the descendant of the former Departamentul Securităţii Statului , of the Socialist Republic of Romania. The official decree The Romanian Intelligence Service (', SRI) is the Romanian domestic...
, who displays no qualms about capturing, tormenting and finally killing his former associate. Historiographer and critic Ruxandra Cesereanu
Ruxandra Cesereanu
Ruxandra-Mihaela Cesereanu or Ruxandra-Mihaela Braga is a Romanian poet, essayist, short story writer, novelist and literary critic...
connects the outcome with a notoriously violent episode in Romania's communist history, the brainwashing experiment carried out by the Securitate in Piteşti prison
Pitesti prison
The Pitești prison was a penal facility in Pitești, Romania, best remembered for the brainwashing experiment carried out by Communist authorities in 1949-1952...
: "The paradox and moral
Moral
A moral is a message conveyed or a lesson to be learned from a story or event. The moral may be left to the hearer, reader or viewer to determine for themselves, or may be explicitly encapsulated in a maxim...
-antimoral of Horia Gârbea's play is that the victim [...] proves himself tougher, more of an executioner, than his torturer. This means that the lines between victim and executioner are blurred and that, ultimately, the reeducation experiment in Piteşti prison (1949-1952), when victims were forced into becoming torturers, has succeeded. The antimoral in Gârbea's play is, however, all the more tough as the victim here becomes a torturer without being made to do so." Cesereanu ranks it and Radu Macrinici's T/Ţara mea (approx. "My Dead Weight/Country") among the post-1989 dramatic texts to have "brought up [...] the Securitate issue, in a trenchant and even revelatory manner". Gârbea's fellow playwright Alina Nelega notes that Decembrie, în direct is his first entirely original text for the stage, and rates it over intertextual texts from the same period.
Published alongside Decembrie, în direct, Capul lui Moţoc ("Moţoc's Head") reinterprets Alexandru Lăpuşneanu, a novella
Novella
A novella is a written, fictional, prose narrative usually longer than a novelette but shorter than a novel. The Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America Nebula Awards for science fiction define the novella as having a word count between 17,500 and 40,000...
by the Romanian classic Costache Negruzzi, which romanticizes events in Moldavia
Moldavia
Moldavia is a geographic and historical region and former principality in Eastern Europe, corresponding to the territory between the Eastern Carpathians and the Dniester river...
's medieval history
Romania in the Middle Ages
The Middle Ages in Romania began with the withdrawal of the Mongols, the last of the migrating populations to invade the territory of modern Romania, after their attack of 1241–1242...
. Integrating further allusions to Romanian folklore
Folklore of Romania
A feature of Romanian culture is the special relationship between folklore and the learned culture, determined by two factors. First, the rural character of the Romanian communities resulted in an exceptionally vital and creative traditional culture. Folk creations were the main literary genre...
(the Meşterul Manole
Mesterul Manole
In Romanian mythology, Meșterul Manole was the chief architect of the Curtea de Argeș Monastery in Wallachia...
myth), Shakespeare and various others, it is also seen by Alina Nelega as a close rendition of Ion Luca Caragiale's style. The protagonist, a treacherous Moldavian boyar
Boyar
A boyar, or bolyar , was a member of the highest rank of the feudal Moscovian, Kievan Rus'ian, Bulgarian, Wallachian, and Moldavian aristocracies, second only to the ruling princes , from the 10th century through the 17th century....
by the name of Moţoc, uses a discourse rich in political imagery, and towards the end of the play reveals himself as an alter ego
Alter ego
An alter ego is a second self, which is believe to be distinct from a person's normal or original personality. The term was coined in the early nineteenth century when dissociative identity disorder was first described by psychologists...
of communist
Communism
Communism is a social, political and economic ideology that aims at the establishment of a classless, moneyless, revolutionary and stateless socialist society structured upon common ownership of the means of production...
theorist Karl Marx
Karl Marx
Karl Heinrich Marx was a German philosopher, economist, sociologist, historian, journalist, and revolutionary socialist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of social science and the socialist political movement...
. Nelega is critical of the text, arguing that it "does not surpass the gratuitousness of petty pokes" and is "more burlesque
Burlesque
Burlesque is a literary, dramatic or musical work intended to cause laughter by caricaturing the manner or spirit of serious works, or by ludicrous treatment of their subjects...
than absurd", concluding: "I fear that Gârbea did not know how to end his play and quickly fabricated, deus ex machina
Deus ex machina
A deus ex machina is a plot device whereby a seemingly inextricable problem is suddenly and abruptly solved with the contrived and unexpected intervention of some new event, character, ability, or object.-Linguistic considerations:...
, the similitude of a profound sense where there was nothing."
The three-character comedy
Comedy
Comedy , as a popular meaning, is any humorous discourse or work generally intended to amuse by creating laughter, especially in television, film, and stand-up comedy. This must be carefully distinguished from its academic definition, namely the comic theatre, whose Western origins are found in...
and satire
Satire
Satire is primarily a literary genre or form, although in practice it can also be found in the graphic and performing arts. In satire, vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, ideally with the intent of shaming individuals, and society itself, into improvement...
Cafeaua domnului Ministru, seen by poet and literary chronicler Emil Mladin as one "of morals", turns its attention to Romania's political scene
Politics of Romania
Politics of Romania take place in a framework of a semi-presidential parliamentary representative democratic republic, whereby the Prime Minister of Romania is the head of government and the President of Romania exercises the functions of head of state. Romania has a multi-party system. Executive...
, showing the stormy encounter between a matron, a female secretary and a politician. The dialogues are seen by Mladin as "a parody of the discourses with which just about any television station assassinates us", and, Nelega writes, "the lampoon has precise targets". The story pokes fun at the Social Democratic Party
Social Democratic Party (Romania)
The Social Democratic Party is the major social-democratic political party in Romania. It was formed in 1992, after the post-communist National Salvation Front broke apart. It adopted its present name after a merger with a minor social-democratic party in 2001. Since its formation, it has always...
and Romanian Democratic Convention
Romanian Democratic Convention
The Romanian Democratic Convention was an electoral alliance of several political parties of Romania, active from early 1992 until 2000....
governments of the post-1989 period
History of Romania since 1989
- 1989 revolution :1989 marked the fall of Communism in Eastern Europe. A mid-December protest in Timişoara against the eviction of a Hungarian minister grew into a country-wide protest against the Ceauşescu régime, sweeping the dictator from power....
, and, according to dramatist and theater critic Mihaela Michailov, was "adequate" in the context of 2000 elections
Romanian legislative election, 2000
Legislative elections where be held in Romania on November 26, 2000, together with the Presidential election. The Greater Romania Party made big gains, as did the PDSR, which became the ruling party. The formerly governing Romanian Democratic Convention lost all its seats and was shortly...
. Michailov highlights the play's symbolism as illustrating "the stupidity of the political mechanism", whose sphere is turned into "a sort of no man's land
No man's land
No man's land is a term for land that is unoccupied or is under dispute between parties that leave it unoccupied due to fear or uncertainty. The term was originally used to define a contested territory or a dumping ground for refuse between fiefdoms...
where everything is possible." According to Alex. Ştefănescu, productions of Cafeaua domnului Ministru receive as much applause as "a rock music
Rock music
Rock music is a genre of popular music that developed during and after the 1960s, particularly in the United Kingdom and the United States. It has its roots in 1940s and 1950s rock and roll, itself heavily influenced by rhythm and blues and country music...
recital." With Leonida XXI, the author returned to intertextual reworkings, this time introducing his style to the works of Ion Luca Caragiale, Conu Leonida faţă cu reacţiunea and O scrisoare pierdută. The play was notably used as teaching material for student actors training at the Caragiale Academy
Caragiale Academy of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography
The Caragiale University of Theatrical Arts and Cinematography is a public university in Bucharest, Romania, founded in 1954....
under Mircea Albulescu
Mircea Albulescu
Mircea Albulescu is a Romanian actor, university professor , journalist, poet, writer of prose, member of the Writers' Union of Romania . He was born as Iorgu Constantin V. Albulescu, in Bucharest, on October 4, 1934...
, who called it "extremely interesting".
From Căderea Bastiliei to Creşterea iguanelor de casă
With his debut novel Căderea Bastiliei, Gârbea produces a satirical portrayal of his fellow Romanian writers, disguising their real names with anagramAnagram
An anagram is a type of word play, the result of rearranging the letters of a word or phrase to produce a new word or phrase, using all the original letters exactly once; e.g., orchestra = carthorse, A decimal point = I'm a dot in place, Tom Marvolo Riddle = I am Lord Voldemort. Someone who...
s or other word play
Word play
Word play or wordplay is a literary technique in which the words that are used become the main subject of the work, primarily for the purpose of intended effect or amusement...
. Alex. Ştefănescu, who writes that such portrayals caused "great agitation in the literary world", cites the author's own mock-disclaimer
Disclaimer
A disclaimer is generally any statement intended to specify or delimit the scope of rights and obligations that may be exercised and enforced by parties in a legally recognized relationship...
: "The identification of some characters with real person constitutes an abuse of interpretation which the author intends to fight off with any legal means." Ştefănescu however cautions against reading Căderea Bastiliei purely as a roman à clef
Roman à clef
Roman à clef or roman à clé , French for "novel with a key", is a phrase used to describe a novel about real life, overlaid with a façade of fiction. The fictitious names in the novel represent real people, and the "key" is the relationship between the nonfiction and the fiction...
, since the inspiration from "writers' deeds" is "capricious" and the resemblance with real persons "partial". A similar opinion was voiced by poet and journalist Cornelia Maria Savu, who compared the narrator to a puppeteer and further assessed: "Horia Gârbea does not hate his characters, does not love them, he understands them. And by understanding them, he offers them a few moments to evolve with no strings." Reviewing the work from a stylistic point of view, Paul Aretzu analyzes the intrusion of "intertextual indulgences" throughout the work, identifying allusions to Ion Luca Caragiale, Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka
Franz Kafka was a culturally influential German-language author of short stories and novels. Contemporary critics and academics, including Vladimir Nabokov, regard Kafka as one of the best writers of the 20th century...
, Ioan Alexandru Brătescu-Voineşti and others, while also noting the presence of experimental methods echoing James Joyce
James Joyce
James Augustine Aloysius Joyce was an Irish novelist and poet, considered to be one of the most influential writers in the modernist avant-garde of the early 20th century...
's Ulysses
Ulysses (novel)
Ulysses is a novel by the Irish author James Joyce. It was first serialised in parts in the American journal The Little Review from March 1918 to December 1920, and then published in its entirety by Sylvia Beach on 2 February 1922, in Paris. One of the most important works of Modernist literature,...
. Ştefănescu attributes such presences to parody, noting in passing the introduction of situations and even entire passages from Kafka's Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis
The Metamorphosis is a novella by Franz Kafka, first published in 1915. It is often cited as one of the seminal works of short fiction of the 20th century and is widely studied in colleges and universities across the western world...
and Albert Camus
Albert Camus
Albert Camus was a French author, journalist, and key philosopher of the 20th century. In 1949, Camus founded the Group for International Liaisons within the Revolutionary Union Movement, which was opposed to some tendencies of the Surrealist movement of André Breton.Camus was awarded the 1957...
' The Plague
The Plague
The Plague is a novel by Albert Camus, published in 1947, that tells the story of medical workers finding solidarity in their labour as the Algerian city of Oran is swept by a plague. It asks a number of questions relating to the nature of destiny and the human condition...
.
The narrative delves into Bucharest's bohemian
Bohemianism
Bohemianism is the practice of an unconventional lifestyle, often in the company of like-minded people, with few permanent ties, involving musical, artistic or literary pursuits...
environment, its heroes being vagrants, misfits or alcoholics
Alcoholism
Alcoholism is a broad term for problems with alcohol, and is generally used to mean compulsive and uncontrolled consumption of alcoholic beverages, usually to the detriment of the drinker's health, personal relationships, and social standing...
who lead tragicomic
Tragicomedy
Tragicomedy is fictional work that blends aspects of the genres of tragedy and comedy. In English literature, from Shakespeare's time to the nineteenth century, tragicomedy referred to a serious play with either a happy ending or enough jokes throughout the play to lighten the mood.-Classical...
lifestyles. The plot, deemed "to die for" by Galaicu-Păun, notably shows writer and former inmate Aldu Rădulescu seducing literary chronicler Alteea Fleciu, as revenge for a negative review of his work. In Paul Aretzu's view, the manner in which such developments are presented constitutes "a continuous demonstration of brilliant intelligence and spectacular linguistic imagination." He commends a chapter of the book, which discusses how groups of people differentiated by their respective drinking culture
Drinking culture
Drinking culture refers to the customs and practices associated with the consumption of alcoholic beverages. Although alcoholic beverages and social attitudes toward drinking vary around the world, nearly every civilization has independently discovered the processes of brewing beer, fermenting...
s, for being "a sort of poem dedicated to the kinds of drink and drunks in a small alcoholic town", while noting that a similar section, dedicated to the attitudes of writers when faced with fatal diseases, "creates, with the means of the grotesque
Grotesque
The word grotesque comes from the same Latin root as "Grotto", meaning a small cave or hollow. The original meaning was restricted to an extravagant style of Ancient Roman decorative art rediscovered and then copied in Rome at the end of the 15th century...
, a sui generis
Sui generis
Sui generis is a Latin expression, literally meaning of its own kind/genus or unique in its characteristics. The expression is often used in analytic philosophy to indicate an idea, an entity, or a reality which cannot be included in a wider concept....
mythology of the writers' caste". The latter episode is praised by Ştefănescu for its "irresistible" black humor and its "devilish verve". The same commentator states: "The novelist has a joy of writing that transmits itself to the reader. After you finish reading this novel about the ugliness of (literary) life [...], you feel, paradoxically, the joy of living, of communicating, of partaking in the captivating spectacle of being." In Artezu's account, those parts of Căderea Bastiliei in which Gârbea discusses the annual competition for literary prizes offer evidence both a "captivating" humorous focus on everyday occurrences and an "innocent cynicism
Cynicism
Cynicism , in its original form, refers to the beliefs of an ancient school of Greek philosophers known as the Cynics . Their philosophy was that the purpose of life was to live a life of Virtue in agreement with Nature. This meant rejecting all conventional desires for wealth, power, health, and...
, characteristic for the author". He argues: "With all the signs of his emotional involvement [...], the author also exercises, through correlations [and] quotes, the function of depersonalization
Depersonalization
Depersonalization is an anomaly of the mechanism by which an individual has self-awareness. It is a feeling of watching oneself act, while having no control over a situation. Sufferers feel they have changed, and the world has become less real, vague, dreamlike, or lacking in significance...
, of estrangement, of laughing at one's misfortunes, of projecting oneself into clichés, [...] of surrogate existence." Literary reviewer Cosmin Ciotloş issues a more reserved verdict on the text: in his view, the episodes of Căderea Bastiliei are primarily "charades", whose main quality is being "droll".
Overall, Horia Gârbea's contribution to short fiction is described by Alex. Ştefănescu as "ingenious" and "endearing". The political fiction
Political fiction
Political fiction is a subgenre of fiction that deals with political affairs. Political fiction has often used narrative to provide commentary on political events, systems and theories. Works of political fiction often "directly criticize an existing society or.....
of is described by Boerescu as "a multitude of sub-worlds" structured around "framework situations", moving between the "petty politics of the day" (targeting the Social Democratic Party) and ironic parable
Parable
A parable is a succinct story, in prose or verse, which illustrates one or more instructive principles, or lessons, or a normative principle. It differs from a fable in that fables use animals, plants, inanimate objects, and forces of nature as characters, while parables generally feature human...
s or dystopia
Dystopia
A dystopia is the idea of a society in a repressive and controlled state, often under the guise of being utopian, as characterized in books like Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four...
s. Boerescu writes: "The author cannot refrain from endlessly staging acts and short plays or inserting lines with an obvious dramatic hue". The same commentator identifies in the stories several allusions, homages or intertextual borrowings, from the "semiotic
Semiotics
Semiotics, also called semiotic studies or semiology, is the study of signs and sign processes , indication, designation, likeness, analogy, metaphor, symbolism, signification, and communication...
games" of Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco
Umberto Eco Knight Grand Cross is an Italian semiotician, essayist, philosopher, literary critic, and novelist, best known for his novel The Name of the Rose , an intellectual mystery combining semiotics in fiction, biblical analysis, medieval studies and literary theory...
to a "landscape of luxuriant vegetation" characteristic for the Latin American Boom
Latin American Boom
The Latin American Boom was a literary movement of the 1960s and 1970s when the work of a group of relatively young Latin American novelists became widely circulated in Europe and throughout the world...
writers. This symbolism is coupled with allusions to Romanian literary life: the final story in the collection, Motanii din bibliotecă ("The Tomcats in the Study Hall"), speculates about the future of Gârbea's generation, and depicts bibliophiles keeping pets named after the leading literary critics of the 1980s and '90s.
Among his poetry collections, Creşterea iguanelor de casă drew attention for transferring the intertextual and parodic conventions into a lyrical format, mostly free verse
Free verse
Free verse is a form of poetry that refrains from consistent meter patterns, rhyme, or any other musical pattern.Poets have explained that free verse, despite its freedom, is not free. Free Verse displays some elements of form...
. According to Ştefănescu, it and his other poetry collections are "better than those by most contemporary authors who emphatically recommend themselves as poets." Nicolae Oprea noted in particular the reworking of a motif borrowed from Sibiu Circle
Sibiu Literary Circle
The Sibiu Literary Circle was a literary group created during World War II in Sibiu to promote the modernist liberal ideas of Eugen Lovinescu....
poet Ştefan Augustin Doinaş
Stefan Augustin Doinas
Ştefan Augustin Doinaş was a Romanian Neoclassical poet of the Communist era....
and his Mistreţul cu colţi de argint: the "prince from the Levant
Levant
The Levant or ) is the geographic region and culture zone of the "eastern Mediterranean littoral between Anatolia and Egypt" . The Levant includes most of modern Lebanon, Syria, Jordan, Israel, the Palestinian territories, and sometimes parts of Turkey and Iraq, and corresponds roughly to the...
", whom Gârbea transfers into the destitute world of garbage collectors. Part of it reads:
dimineaţa pe la ora patru pe nemâncate îi aduna prinţul-poet pe gunoieri nu mai făcea apelul erau toţi şi îi întreba bă voi ziceţi că omu-i o lumină da moşule ziceau aia este bine scrâşnea prinţul-poet mai mult prinţ vai de poezia lui bine marş la treabă şi plecau să măture ce să facă |
morning round four on an empty stomach the prince-poet would gather the garbage men he wouldn't call them out they were all there and would ask them you people say that man is a light yes dude they said that's what man is fine gnashed the prince-poet or rather just prince his sorry poetry fine shoo back to work and they started sweeping what else could they do |
Oprea also highlighted ironic and dismissive borrowings from Romania's national poet Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu
Mihai Eminescu was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet. Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul , the official newspaper of the Conservative Party...
, and from poets laureate
Poet Laureate
A poet laureate is a poet officially appointed by a government and is often expected to compose poems for state occasions and other government events...
such as Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga
Octavian Goga was a Romanian politician, poet, playwright, journalist, and translator.-Life:Born in Răşinari, nearby Sibiu, he was an active member in the Romanian nationalistic movement in Transylvania and of its leading group, the Romanian National Party in Austria-Hungary. Before World War I,...
and Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri
Vasile Alecsandri was a Romanian poet, playwright, politician, and diplomat. He collected Romanian folk songs and was one of the principal animators of the 19th century movement for Romanian cultural identity and union of Moldavia and Wallachia....
, as well as an actual lineage from the black humor of 1930s Surrealists. He sees a direct link between Gârbea and the Romanian Surrealist group's Gellu Naum
Gellu Naum
Gellu Naum was a prominent Romanian poet, dramatist, novelist, children's writer, and translator. He is remembered as the founder of the Romanian Surrealist group...
, and beyond, to the "existential" absurdism
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
of Ionesco and Kafka. Also according to Oprea, such texts "are raised as collages of everyday images and bookish suggestions, well tied to each other, to the point where their articulation into colloquial speech puts to use the technique of reabsorbing the dramatic element and the narrative nucleus of ballad
Ballad
A ballad is a form of verse, often a narrative set to music. Ballads were particularly characteristic of British and Irish popular poetry and song from the later medieval period until the 19th century and used extensively across Europe and later the Americas, Australia and North Africa. Many...
esque nature into the sphere of pure lyricism."
Crime la Elsinore and Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici
Crime la Elsinore is a return to prose satire, in this case directed at the theatrical environment. The setting is a fictional theater in provincial CălăraşiCalarasi
Călăraşi , the capital of Călăraşi County and Sud-Muntenia Region in the Wallachia region, is situated in south-east Romania, on the bank of Danube's Borcea branch, at about 12 kilometers from the Bulgarian border and 125 kilometers from Bucharest....
, deriving its name from the Getic
Getae
The Getae was the name given by the Greeks to several Thracian tribes that occupied the regions south of the Lower Danube, in what is today northern Bulgaria, and north of the Lower Danube, in Romania...
ruler Dromichaetes
Dromichaetes
Dromichaetes was king of the Getae on both sides of the lower Danube around 300 BC.- Background :The Getae had been federated in the Odrysian kingdom in the 5th century BC. It is not known how the relations between Getae and Odrysians developed...
, and the protagonists, Cosmin Ciotloş notes, are composite portrayals rather than the "masked" characters of Căderea Bastiliei. He argues: "Whichever way you look at it, set free from the contextual interpretations exercised in reading tabloids, the novel stands only to gain." The narrative focus is on the kitsch
Kitsch
Kitsch is a form of art that is considered an inferior, tasteless copy of an extant style of art or a worthless imitation of art of recognized value. The concept is associated with the deliberate use of elements that may be thought of as cultural icons while making cheap mass-produced objects that...
y ambition of a failed theater manager, Cosma, who proceeds to conflate all the violent moments of Shakespearean tragedy
Shakespearean tragedy
Shakespeare wrote tragedies from the beginning of his career. One of his earliest plays was the Roman tragedy Titus Andronicus, which he followed a few years later with Romeo and Juliet. However, his most admired tragedies were written in a seven-year period between 1601 and 1608...
into a single show of regular proportions. The project is increasingly confused, and the text used by Cosma mixes Shakespeare's lines with quotes from Pierre Beaumarchais
Pierre Beaumarchais
Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French playwright, watchmaker, inventor, musician, diplomat, fugitive, spy, publisher, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary ....
, Euripides
Euripides
Euripides was one of the three great tragedians of classical Athens, the other two being Aeschylus and Sophocles. Some ancient scholars attributed ninety-five plays to him but according to the Suda it was ninety-two at most...
and Molière
Molière
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin, known by his stage name Molière, was a French playwright and actor who is considered to be one of the greatest masters of comedy in Western literature...
, while adopting the format of a detective novel.
Ciotloş reproached Crime la Elsinore for lack of subtlety, in the presence of a "not exactly indispensable" glossary
Glossary
A glossary, also known as an idioticon, vocabulary, or clavis, is an alphabetical list of terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms...
of terms which was published with the book. Although he acknowledges that the writing is "amusing", he also contends that it is "impossible to extend sociologically
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
or connect to some reality", being isolated "in its own world", and displaying "compositional precariousness." He concludes: "A book perfect in its own way, but far from perfection in ours." A similar overview is provided by Burţa-Cernat, who contends that, in taking sides and explaining his intentions, the author adopts "the manner of an untalented journalist", with "see-through" results. She also believes that Gârbea's chief comedic resource is "the cheap anecdote
Anecdote
An anecdote is a short and amusing or interesting story about a real incident or person. It may be as brief as the setting and provocation of a bon mot. An anecdote is always presented as based on a real incident involving actual persons, whether famous or not, usually in an identifiable place...
with a trite climax", which she compares with those published by the communist-era magazine Urzica. Additionally, Burţa-Cernat comments on the irony of Cosma's reliance on intertextuality, which she finds similar to Gârbea's own work for the stage. Critic Andrei Terian noted that he disliked almost all the book, because of its author's tendency to humiliate his characters "before us readers are in the least familiarized with them."
In Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici, Gârbea revisits the main themes of Romanian literature, looking into the biographies of various fictional characters, their lifestyles, personal preferences and social positioning. He himself defined the overview as "a sort of collection of essays on the edge of literary history." One of its chapters compares the tabletop game
Tabletop game
Tabletop game is a general term used to refer to board games, card games, dice games, miniatures wargames, tile-based games and other games that are normally played on a table or other flat surface...
s entertaining such figures, from the contract bridge
Contract bridge
Contract bridge, usually known simply as bridge, is a trick-taking card game using a standard deck of 52 playing cards played by four players in two competing partnerships with partners sitting opposite each other around a small table...
parties in Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu
Camil Petrescu was a Romanian playwright, novelist, philosopher and poet. He marked the end of the traditional novel era and laid the foundation of the modern novel era.- Life :...
's books and the antiquated card game
Card game
A card game is any game using playing cards as the primary device with which the game is played, be they traditional or game-specific. Countless card games exist, including families of related games...
s in Mateiu Caragiale's Craii de Curtea-Veche
Craii de Curtea-Veche
Craii de Curtea-Veche is a novel by the inter-war Romanian author Mateiu Caragiale...
to the cruder craps
Craps
Craps is a dice game in which players place wagers on the outcome of the roll, or a series of rolls, of a pair of dice. Players may wager money against each other or a bank...
and gambling
Gambling
Gambling is the wagering of money or something of material value on an event with an uncertain outcome with the primary intent of winning additional money and/or material goods...
preferred by thieves in Eugen Barbu
Eugen Barbu
Eugen Barbu was a Romanian modern novelist, short story writer, journalist, and correspondent member of the Romanian Academy. The latter position was vehemently criticized by those who contended that he plagiarized in his novel Incognito and for the anti-Semitic campaigns he initiated in the...
's novels. Other sections discuss the attitudes toward love in such diverse places as Marin Sorescu
Marin Sorescu
- Biography :Born to a family of farmworkers in Bulzeşti, Dolj County, Sorescu graduated from the primary school in his home village. After that he went to the Buzesti Brothers High School in Craiova, after which he was transferred to the Predeal Military School. His final education was at the...
's neorealist prose and the fantasy
Fantasy literature
Fantasy literature is fantasy in written form. Historically speaking, literature has composed the majority of fantasy works. Since the 1950s however, a growing segment of the fantasy genre has taken the form of films, television programs, graphic novels, video games, music, painting, and other...
short stories of Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade
Mircea Eliade was a Romanian historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, and professor at the University of Chicago. He was a leading interpreter of religious experience, who established paradigms in religious studies that persist to this day...
. Likewise, the avatars of violence are depicted between Ion Luca Caragiale's satire D-ale carnavalului, where people threaten to poison each other with sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid
Sulfuric acid is a strong mineral acid with the molecular formula . Its historical name is oil of vitriol. Pure sulfuric acid is a highly corrosive, colorless, viscous liquid. The salts of sulfuric acid are called sulfates...
, Anton Bacalbaşa's depictions of officers disciplining their subordinates with the use of belts, and Marin Preda
Marin Preda
Marin Preda was a Romanian novelist, one of the best-known post-WWII Romanian writers.Preda was born in Teleorman county, in a village called Siliştea-Gumeşti, into a family of peasants. He first studied at school in his home village, then schools in Abrud and Cristur-Odorhei...
's Moromeţii
Morometii
Moromeţii is a novel by the Romanian author Marin Preda, one which consecrated him as the most important novelist in the post-World War II Romanian literature....
, where peasants beat each other with clubs. Another part of the book deals with the incidence of failure among intellectual protagonists, and leads Gârbea to conclude that, with the exception of Mihail Sebastian
Mihail Sebastian
-Life:Sebastian was born to a Jewish family in Brăila. After finishing his secondary studies, Sebastian went on to study law in Bucharest, but was soon attracted to the literary life and the exciting ideas of the new generation of Romanian intellectuals, as epitomized by the literary group...
's Accidentul, Romanian narratives generally show their intellectual protagonists incapable of finding their way in life. According to Daniel Cristea-Enache, Gârbea generally and willingly limited the scope of his investigation to canonical and urbane literary realism
Literary realism
Literary realism most often refers to the trend, beginning with certain works of nineteenth-century French literature and extending to late-nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century authors in various countries, towards depictions of contemporary life and society "as they were." In the spirit of...
, avoiding allegorical
Allegory
Allegory is a demonstrative form of representation explaining meaning other than the words that are spoken. Allegory communicates its message by means of symbolic figures, actions or symbolic representation...
styles such as Onirism
Onirism
Onirism was a surrealist Romanian literary school most popular during the 1960s, in the wake of popular uprisings in Eastern Europe. One of the techniques it employed was automatic writing....
: "the author is not interested in symbolic codification, in the refraction
Refraction
Refraction is the change in direction of a wave due to a change in its speed. It is essentially a surface phenomenon . The phenomenon is mainly in governance to the law of conservation of energy. The proper explanation would be that due to change of medium, the phase velocity of the wave is changed...
of the characters and their fictional world; but, quite the contrary, in the points and lines at which literature intersects with social life."
In his review of the volume, Emil Mladin deemed it "wonderful" and "an extremely welcome project", noting: "Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici represents a link which the reader needed in his relationship with the characters of stories relevant both at the time of their writing and today." According to literary critic Silvia Dumitrache, the book creates "new paths in interpretation [...] even when starting from literary locations that are often threatened with turning into clichés." She concludes "Through the playful note he impresses on the book, Horia Gârbea proves that his main intention does not reside in the willingness to impose a new hermeneutic grid on Romanian literature, but in the attempt to demonstrate that the resources of literature can never, ever, be entirely exhausted." Cristea-Enache sees in Trecute vieţi de fanţi şi de birlici "a book as interesting as it is enjoyable [...]. A holiday read, one could say, had this sytagm not been bastardized, in our country, by so many printed works (volumes and journals alike) that offend the reader's intellect."
Outside the critical reevaluation of local literature, Gârbea's work includes short humorous essays about various topics in post-1989 society and modern Romanian culture
Culture of Romania
Romania has a unique culture, which is the product of its geography and of its distinct historical evolution. Like Romanians themselves, it is defined as the meeting point of three regions: Central Europe, Eastern Europe, and the Balkans, but cannot be truly included in any of them...
. One such chapter is built around the polemic between Gârbea and writer Gheorghe Grigurcu, over the issue of what it means for a working artist to be treated unjustly or be privileged. Another fragment documents and ridicules the impact of instant messaging
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
on the Romanian lexis
Romanian lexis
The lexis of the Romanian language , a Romance language, has changed over the centuries as the language evolved from Vulgar Latin, to Proto-Romanian, to medieval, modern and contemporary Romanian.-Medieval Romanian:...
, with the rapid spread of abbreviations such as sal (for salut, "hello"), vb (vorbim, "we'll talk") and ms (mersi, "thanks"). Gârbea also pokes fun at the babytalk-based jargon
Jargon
Jargon is terminology which is especially defined in relationship to a specific activity, profession, group, or event. The philosophe Condillac observed in 1782 that "Every science requires a special language because every science has its own ideas." As a rationalist member of the Enlightenment he...
of parenting magazines, and contrasts its apparent artificiality with the awe he records having personally experienced after the birth of his son Tudor. It reads: "[He] does not inspire in me the image of fragility and fondness, but the force of an entity which benefits from the advantage of The Unknown. When I call him using his human name, he smiles down on me, with devastating irony, so that I may grasp my complete lack of fantasizing ability. No matter what will happen in the future, these winter days [...] shall always remain for me under the sign of having met, for the first time in life, an inexplicable creature."
Other works
Fratele mai deştept al lui Kalaşnikov, which comprises several stories, received mixed reviews. According to Andrei Terian, the main one, Articolul 96 ("Article 96"), which is about a lecherous politician dating an anorexicAnorexia nervosa
Anorexia nervosa is an eating disorder characterized by refusal to maintain a healthy body weight and an obsessive fear of gaining weight. Although commonly called "anorexia", that term on its own denotes any symptomatic loss of appetite and is not strictly accurate...
model, has the same defects as Crime.... In contrast, Terian notes, Gârbea shows his "sure hand" in other pieces, where he parodies Povestea unui om leneş ("The Story of a Lazy Man") by 19th century Romanian classic Ion Creangă
Ion Creanga
Ion Creangă was a Moldavian-born Romanian writer, raconteur and schoolteacher. A main figure in 19th century Romanian literature, he is best known for his Childhood Memories volume, his novellas and short stories, and his many anecdotes...
, or where he pokes fun at the 14th century Battle of Rovine
Battle of Rovine
The Battle of Rovine took place on 17 May 1395 between the Wallachian army led by Voivod Mircea cel Bătrân against the Ottoman invasion led by sultan Bayezid I. The Ottoman army, numbering approximately 40,000 men, faced the much smaller Wallachian army, which was about 10,000 men...
, as well as the absurdist
Absurdism
In philosophy, "The Absurd" refers to the conflict between the human tendency to seek value and meaning in life and the human inability to find any...
Întoarcerea tatei din război. Subiecte ("Father's Return from War. Subjects"), where the same narrative cliché is explored from several conflicting perspectives. According to Terian, the volume as a whole displays influences from poet and satirist Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi
Tudor Arghezi was a Romanian writer, best known for his contribution to poetry and children's literature. Born Ion N. Theodorescu in Bucharest , he explained that his pen name was related to Argesis, the Latin name for the Argeş River.-Early life:Along with Mihai Eminescu, Mateiu Caragiale, and...
, as well as borrowings from fellow parodist Ioan Groşan.
Azerbaijan - The Living Flame details Gârbea's trip and offers additional insight into the Nagorno-Karabakh War
Nagorno-Karabakh War
The Nagorno-Karabakh War was an armed conflict that took place from February 1988 to May 1994, in the small enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh in southwestern Azerbaijan, between the majority ethnic Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh backed by the Republic of Armenia, and the Republic of Azerbaijan...
and other conflicts between Azerbaijani people
Azerbaijani people
The Azerbaijanis are a Turkic-speaking people living mainly in northwestern Iran and the Republic of Azerbaijan, as well as in the neighbourhood states, Georgia, Russia and formerly Armenia. Commonly referred to as Azeris or Azerbaijani Turks , they also live in a wider area from the Caucasus to...
and Armenians
Armenians
Armenian people or Armenians are a nation and ethnic group native to the Armenian Highland.The largest concentration is in Armenia having a nearly-homogeneous population with 97.9% or 3,145,354 being ethnic Armenian....
. It features his poems about Shusha
Shusha
Shusha , also known as Shushi is a town in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh in the South Caucasus. It has been under the control of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic since its capture in 1992 during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
city, the Khojaly Massacre
Khojaly Massacre
The Khojaly Massacre was the killing of hundreds of ethnic Azerbaijani civilians from the town of Khojaly on 25–26 February 1992 by the Armenian and Russian armed forces during the Nagorno-Karabakh War...
and the Guba mass grave
Guba mass grave
Guba mass grave is an alleged mass grave of victims of mass killings of Azerbaijani, Jewish, Lezgi civilians by Armenian Dashnaks and Bolsheviks during the March days of 1918 in Guba, Azerbaijan.-Discovery:...
. The texts received criticism from the Armenian Romanian
Armenians in Romania
Armenians have been present in what is now Romania and Moldova for over a millennium, and have been an important presence as traders since the 14th century...
community's Ararat journal: it specifically called "disinformation" the fragments which refer to Azerbaijan's Christian past
Christianity in Azerbaijan
Christianity in Azerbaijan is a minority religion.-Denominations:There are eleven Molokan communities. The Molokans are a Christian minority which, much like Protestants in Western Europe, is centered on the Bible and who reject church hierarchy. 3.8% of the population belong to the Russian...
, and expressed concern over Gârbea's claim that Heydar Aliyev
Heydar Aliyev
Heydar Alirza oglu Aliyev , also spelled as Heidar Aliev, Geidar Aliev, Haydar Aliyev, Geydar Aliyev was the third President of Azerbaijan for the New Azerbaijan Party from June 1993 to October 2003, when his son Ilham Aliyev succeeded him.From 1969 till 1982, Aliyev was also the leader of Soviet...
was "a civilizing providential hero".
External links
Personal blog- translations from Horia Gârbea, in the Romanian Cultural InstituteRomanian Cultural InstituteThe Romanian Cultural Institute is a state-funded institution that promotes Romanian culture and civilization in Romania and abroad. The ICR was formerly set up through reorganization of the Romanian Cultural Foundation and Romanian Cultural Publishing Foundation...
's Plural Magazine: Own Goal with Actor and Accountant (Nr. 10/2001), Who Needs No Theater (Nr. 10/2001), The Pleasures of Life (Nr. 23/2004) Raţă cu portocale (e-bookE-bookAn electronic book is a book-length publication in digital form, consisting of text, images, or both, and produced on, published through, and readable on computers or other electronic devices. Sometimes the equivalent of a conventional printed book, e-books can also be born digital...
version) and Crime la Elsinore (fragments), at Editura LiterNet Funghi al pomodoro (translated by Gabriela Lungu), at Griseldaonline.it Horia Gârbea's articles in Cultura Horia Gârbea's articles in Ramuri Horia Gârbea's articles in Săptămâna Financiară Horia Gârbea's articles in Ziarul FinanciarZiarul FinanciarZiarul Financiar is a daily financial newspaper published in Bucharest, Romania. Aside from business information, it features sections focusing on careers and properties, as well as a special Sunday newspaper...