Death is the strong point of Bohdan Kretsu’s novel (The Unicorn’s Horn, Polirom publishing house, 2021), the character who comes out the best, the most rounded. Apparently, the action of the novel is dominated by Dina Zernescu, a writer and teacher, but this is a trap for lovers. For those who can read, Kretsu’s book is woven as simply as on a loom: the horizontal threads are Dean’s love (Love is therefore the basis), and the weaving thread is Death, our obsession, each, therefore, also has his Hence. All 17 chapters have female names, or rather women from the professor’s life (longer or shorter loves, more beautiful or uglier, more successful or less successful, some dreamy, some banal, some grotesque), so it would be easy for the reader to fall into the sin of simplification (“Ah , an erotic novel!”). But the author gives us a wink in chapter 11 (“Iridenta”), where poor Dinu and his pack of women take a step back and Death comes to the fore – for the only time in the entire book – solo. In this single chapter, she is not accompanied by her faithful shadow, Love, who promises us humans that we will never die. no She is alone and has come to take away her secret. This time he was bothering you not because of Dinah, but because of another scary person, even scarier than him, if that’s possible. From my point of view, this chapter is the most successful of all, but I also have my little “birds” in the literary world who have whispered to me that the author was strongly advised (rather pressured) to remove chapter 11 from the manuscript, on the grounds that that would not be good. Those of you who someday start writing, remember this stage. It will benefit you more than you think.

buffoon is a weak point in “The Horn of the Unicorn”. I mean, of course, Dina Zernescu, but not as a teacher, but as a writer. I laughed a homeric laugh when I read how Deanu is making money in spades from his novels, translated into all European languages ​​and sold everywhere like hot cakes, so the professor is financially independent, he doesn’t even care about college fees, no, he digs to get ahead , he doesn’t need to clear bosses – why should he bother living like a royal prince? The humor of the situation was already quite thick, but the author felt the need to intensify it even more, so that Dean is also a genetic accident: he can drink a huge amount of alcohol without getting drunk. The body of this demigod not only fascinates women, but he also knows how to pour vodka into him with a bucket, because still nothing happens. I was looking forward to Dinu developing in other directions as well (riding bears on the tundra, fighting in a cage according to the MMA system, jumping from a plane without a parachute, etc.), but, unfortunately, Bohdan Kretsu liked his character and left it that way. He was probably right; There was once an author in Romanian literature – now forgotten – named Ovidiu Riureanu, who destroyed all his characters by this method of “pumping” them in the style of James Bond… until they burst at the seams. Once again: for the information of future colleagues! Great, great foxtail care!

They hung represents, in my opinion, a part of this novel “Possibilities”. For those unfamiliar with the 21 Major Arcana figures of the Tarot deck, I hasten to explain that figure 12 – The Hanged Man – depicts a man tied upside down on a vertical board, but with only one leg tied (apparently it was one of the very cruel sentences to slow death in which the Middle Ages proved so inventive). Well, in the third chapter (“Diana”) our dear Dinah meets – fatality – Diana, who offers him this Faustian bargain: to love only her in the soul of her lustful little man, but to sleep with all the women who come his way – and with those who do not – on his way. As long as he wants, she will wait for him. Obviously, a real woman would never propose to a man she says she loves, but Diana isn’t real, she’s Death. Not generally, but Dean’s death, a long, slow, agonizing death: let’s not forget that the medieval procedure was to give the condemned man water and food as often as he asked – while he was still alive, that is. Poor Dean has no idea, but we do know that if he signs the deal with Diana, he can’t escape. And in fact it is not so. If I had to write a sequel, I would start with this one, with Diana and her deadly and therefore irresistible offer.

Chariot (which I don’t know how to say in Romanian; the seventh figure of the Major Arcana) represents Threats. Why: Dinu committed suicide in a Porsche. It accelerates to 230 km/h and emits a loud “boo!”. What I mean: It’s trivial. Having chosen a car accident as a method of suicide (like Dan Condrea and other crooks), Dean doesn’t even have the decency NOT to choose a Porsche as the vehicle of death. Please, the author does not have one, because Dean is a character, he has no right to choose anything. From my point of view, with all his downfalls in the book, Dino Zernescu deserved more. For a real man, how he lives is more important than how he dies, but for a literary hero, I’m afraid, it’s fixed after all.

Hermit it has no relevance here because there are only four points in SWOT, but since this is just a parody of SWOT, I’ll take the liberty of introducing this (ninth) figure of the Major Arcana as well. Why: Zernescu is first and foremost a teacher. And teaching is a tragic work, the work of lonely people, recluses, hermits: there, in the department, the teacher is always alone. There is no teamwork, there is no way to share responsibility or blame, let alone failures. It is terribly difficult to be a teacher and not lose your mind: people run away from this job. They somehow escape, either through alcohol, or through closure, or through resignation. This is in real life. Of course, one can imagine something else in literature (Zernescu breaks out of the swamp of the professorship due to literary success – beautiful, nothing to say, but hard to believe; JK Rowling – a unique case), but literature is literature, and reality is reality. While I was a journalist, I stole the work of three great masters of writing (Ioan T. Morar, Cristian Teodorescu, Florin Jaru), people who suffered the same fate as Carterescu and many others: they fled the pulpit. Eats the ground! If this article wants to say something, this is what it wants to say (sorry for the repetition): he is running away from this job. If that’s all, then I didn’t bother, because I knew the comments (“Yes in Romania, boy, but in civilized countries… hehe… different flours are ground in a mill! In Finland, teachers…” etc.) I don’t know how it is in Finland. But I can bring my little testimony from Belgium: I started a French course (almost free, provided by the state) in 2019 with Carol (28 years old, blonde, blue eyes, single). Quit (ESCAPE) and became a secretary in the corporation. I continued with Laura in 2021 (26 years old, blonde, green eyes, single). Resigned (ESCAPE) and became a volunteer in Rwanda. In 2020, I had no other teacher than covid, and since 2022 I have been studying with Louis (25 years old, blond, glasses, single). Today I plucked up the courage to ask him, “Louis, what are your plans for the future? Will you be a teacher all your life? Is that what you want?”. To my great relief, he immediately replied, as if he had been thinking about the question for a long time, “Oh, yes! I’m not even thinking about another career! I’m very good at what I do, I just need experience, something to add to my resume. In a few years I will be a senior teacher. In Taiwan. I have senior colleagues there who are well paid and have high social status. Not like in this country.” Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro