Nicolae Manolescu died. After George Calinescu, I studied literature with Nicolae Manolescu. If George was parabolic, a nationalist, then Nikolai surprised and raised your mind. I caught him in college as a myth. It was forbidden. He taught several courses where you wouldn’t expect to find them in a faculty building. Then he was my teacher, I was a student of 6. After the revolution, it seemed too much for me: he wanted to be the president of Romania. After 2000 he seemed to deny everything he taught me and was vindictive. This is my Nicolae Manolescu, critic, literary historian, public figure, president of the Union of Writers. Always in love.

I knew it as a myth. Look, it’s not like that.

Banned in the last years of Ceausescu, he taught courses where you wouldn’t expect. So I couldn’t find it. But I devoured his books. “Majorescu’s Contradiction” was a key book for me in becoming a reader and understanding books. It was the formation of the Junimist Titus Mayorescu, and I always thought it belonged to Mayorescu-Manolescu.

Through “Noah’s Ark” I understood Romanian literature. Calinescu made me grateful. From Manolescu I was rational. We argued for hours about which novel is Doric, Ionic, or Corinthian. I needed orientation in the patriotic disorientation I read in tons of stories, listened to in formal college courses.

When he was my teacher, after the revolution, my brain was too small, I was without help. I was stunned by his appearance. He gave me an eight, I was six. Mom, what a shame!

Nicolae Manolescu entered politics very quickly. I was crying

I never understood why he agreed to be a candidate for the presidency of Romania. But the matter was beyond me. Among so many dead and idiots, Manolescu was a light and I am sure he would show this world of ours differently if he was president.

Manolescu’s policy was extraordinary. He was not a man of the people, but he did not mix with the intelligentsia either. I don’t remember any compromises. He is no match for any politician today. Apparently, not so many fleas got into politics.

I was overjoyed when he returned to us mortals.

I was fascinated by him, I think I talked to this man several times. He was a good man. He was a soul. And I knew and understood him as a lover. And I really liked it, Mykola is always in love. He had a different voice. My myth has always had the voice of a lover. He was in love with life, he was in love with an idea. He was seductive.

And again he disappeared from my life. He hid again. He became the president of the Union of Writers.

From this penumbra, Nicolae Manolescu began to deny what he had advocated in his youth. His “critical history” is amazing. Read, reread. The teacher who was the sacred monster of the eighties now swallowed his good deeds like Kronos. Carterescu, Jaro, Teodorescu, the whole generation of the 1980s was under the wing of Manolescu at the Cenacl de Luni. His book “History” reviews the thoughts of life, debates with contemporaries.

But, you know, I and those who will remain alive will remember Nicky as a great lover. About life and books.