Blinding

It’s hard to know where to begin with Mircea Cărtărescu brilliant memoir, Blinding. I don’t really think calling it a memoir is really accurate as more often than not it reads like anything but a memoir. Before I bought the book I saw one of the captions from Kirkus review that compares the book to a Dali dreamscape; now after having finished the book that description rings true. The book bombards the reader with so many fantastic descriptions and dream images that I felt like I was being assaulted by Mircea Cărtărescu’s subconscious. Make no mistake, this is a serious, and incredibly talented writer that we in the U.S have been deprived of until now. With that said this book won’t appeal to everyone. If you are looking for any kind of straightforward narrative you should steer clear of this. There are points where he attempts to tell us bits and pieces, really just fragments of what we imagine were Mircea’s so called real world. There are descriptions of his mother and father and how they met and a really long beautiful piece about his mother and her sister leaving their village and coming to the city to work and their adventures they had there until the war. There is also quite a lot about him being sick as a child and being hospitalized and the effect that may have had on him. But more often than not these fragments from his ordinary life quickly crumble and turn into surreal dreamscapes where giant organic butterflies give birth to gods who give birth to worlds and time and space where this talented Romanian writer sits marveling over it all. There are at least two other volumes to this wonderful memoir-or anti-memoir and I will be eagerly waiting for their U.S release!

Mircea Cartarescu is a genius at wordsmithing. His vocabulary exceeds the most inclusive dictionary. I had to use the dictionary feature on my kindle almost on every page. Luckily I am a biologist and familiar with all the physiological and biological words that he used in unique ways. I think he is a master at that and it’s the reason I was able to finish the book as it was more personal fantasy then reality. The memoir follows Mircea and Mother Maria with dizzyingl flashbacks and flash forwards. Where am I? Still I was mesmerised by the prose.

Beautifully written, a book like no other in the world, mesmerizing images will follow you for a long time.

The book came in excellent conditionsI find the author difficult to understandThe selection of words is extensiveAnd the theme macabreNevertheless interesting

This book is an example as a good writer can introduce in a world of dreams, where the great quantity of images loses the lector in a labyrinth of impressions. Particularly if the writer is good as Cartarescu, this effect allows to us to receive this conception by him. Colours and images give sense from an idea of religio, but next they become a war between devils and angels. This world of dream gives origin from the fact that a boy is in hospital for a problem of healt. So this situation gives the possibility of this singular happening.

I honestly don't like writing reviews very much (probably because I'm lazy), but when I saw that this book had such a mediocre Amazon rating, I wanted to do something to correct it. I know next to nothing about Romania/Romanian literature, so there were probably some things that went over my head. I'll admit that. The person who gave this book a one-star review insists that it lacks a plot, and that's also more-or-less true, but besides the point. This isn't a book you read for plot. This is a book you read because it contains strange insights on every page and some of the best prose ever rendered into English.Why read a book that doesn't have something that will blow you away on every page? If I had to use one word to describe this book, it would be "generous." It's an embarrassment of riches. The book essentially contains the meditations and meandering of the narrator, along with a brief history of his mother and a few other side adventures. In summarized form these stories don't look like much, but the quality of these episodes is astounding. Cartarescu might be the most manically baroque, obsessively descriptive writer alive. His prose is dense, beautiful, and startling.You'll find long digressions about a seemingly infinite tattoo and Biblical scenes etched into a woman's nails. He doesn't shy away from beautiful details or gross ones. Some passages are pretty, more are disgusting, but all of them are beautiful in the way that Beethoven and Bach are, that sublime, a-little-larger-than-the-entire-universe, heavier-than-a-death-in-the-family kind of way.I don't want to overstate my case here. I loved this book. I don't know if everyone will feel the same way I did, but if you like adventurous novels or you have an obsession with strangely gorgeous prose, I can't think of many books that would serve you better. My immense thanks to the author and to the translator, Sean Cotter, both of whom did a wonderful job here. This is the kind of book that puts others to shame.

I will start by saying that I didn't read the translated first book of the Blinding trilogy. I read the original one, in Romanian. Not once but three times. And time to time I'll take my time to indulge in various passages of the book. For one who use to live in Romania and liked to read in his spare time this is The Book. I can identify myself with the main character. There is nothing similar written in Romania. The only book I can compare with is maybe Proust's A la recherche du temps perdu.The passage from reality to imaginary and back to reality is a simple passage from one room to another. Actually imaginary is just another reality seen through the inocent eyes of the boyhood. Is really not a book for everyone, it was a pleasure and the burden for the author to lay it down on the white pages of his bloc-notes.Is the type of books you either love it or hate it. 5 stars all the way or nothing. I'll buy the translated edition too to be able to compare with the original.

Good book and good delivery