Writing and publishing Damn city (Publishing house HumanitasBucharest, 2022), Radu Paraskivescu registers a double premiere.

The first is that the novel is a policemanso it falls into a completely different category than Black Butterfly, Golden Needle, and Gloriana’s Eyes or With his heart torn from his chest. Which in no way means that Radu Paraskivescu decided to do frivolous things. Let’s remember that in Poetics of proseTsvetan Todorov devoted a wide space to the genre, which is considered as a reflex of mass culture.

second, Damn city that’s one thing policeman with a foreword, which does not happen very often. The preface is an opportunity for the novelist to reveal to us a number of things related to the genesis and intimacy of writing, which is the subject of my notes today. Like, for example, how the idea of ​​the novel was born, why its action takes place in France, and not anywhere in France, but in Périgord, which historical and geographical landmarks mentioned in the book have a correspondence in reality. Or whether or not there is a Valentre bridge, with the existence and nickname of which everything is connected, why the name of the surrealist Andre Breton appears in the whole story.

We are also learning this Damn city is illustrated in French which, of course, is sent to Rada Paraskivescu on behalf of all readers and, especially, to the address of Dan K. Mihailescu. In the latter case, we are talking about a beautiful tribute to the person who brought us the book for so long.

We are also told that the seemingly nondescript town of Saint-Cirque-Lapopy, where the Frenchwoman Anne and the Englishman Bertrand, who speaks Voltaire very well, come on vacation with a desire to learn more. Deep France is aievea and that it is situated very close to Cahors. In the pages of the novel, it is also revealed to us how one of the heroes named Narbo holds the noble title of baron. There is also a bookstore in Saint-Cirque-la-Pope called The impossible rose, his work is a quirk of another character named Laurent Doucet. Who knows the detail that Breton, after visiting the most beautiful village in France, had the misfortune and misfortune to discover a corpse. And it happened very close to Valentre Bridge.

A certain Agatha Lebeuf-Devillier lives in this village, who deals with the history of historical bridges in France. Agatha Lebeuf-DevilleLears has written a book in which she recreates the history of the aforementioned bridge, so she also gives us the data that explains its name, a book that was recently read by two people, one of whom is a murderer himself. I will, of course, not reveal his identity, I will be content only to note that here Radu Paraskivescu is completely contradicted by Willard Wontington Wright, an art critic and author of detective novels under the pseudonym SS Van Dyne. Who postulated, and his postulate is placed next to a quote from – how else? – Andre Breton in uniform motto, that “no author of detective novels is allowed to write books in which the murderer is a servant or a butler.” Our author breaks the rule so categorically formulated by Van Dyne for the simple reason that he is playing Agatha Christie. He does it with pleasure, talentedly, learning all the rules related to the gradation of suspense, and sending the independently conducted investigation of the said Anne and Bertrand on the wrong track.

Of course, Agatha Christie is mentioned with two of her most famous novels, the model of which is easily recognized in Rada Paraskivescu’s volume. There are other literary and cultural references in the book. We find, for example, quotations from Shakespeare, countless lines in English. I cannot but admit that, while reading the novel, I was saddened to discover that the name of Michel de Montaigne, whose castle is also in Périgord, is nowhere mentioned. Please, I have my preferences too. While reading I was also reminded of a 1969 TV movie called Agent Kahor based on an adaptation of the play by Marguerite Duras English Mint. Somehow I became infected with a quality book by the author of the book. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro