Somewhere around 1928, Jean Cocteau wrote a play called Human voice.Human voice. A monodrama composed in the form of a long telephone conversation in which only the voice of the caller is heard. About a woman who scolds a man with whom she is going to divorce.

The work in which the French playwright discovered the magic of the telephone (in the 1950s Samuel Beckett would explore the magic of the tape recorder) came after novelists had made the same discovery. Somewhere in a section of his book The reality is also Romanian (Editura Tineretului, Bucharest, 1969) the late professor Liviu Petrescu from Cluj analyzed how often the telephone appeared in novels of the first half of the 20th century, especially in the interwar period. As part of the new mythologies that Roland Barthes dealt with. The white phone, which so often appears in the so-called movies New wave allies in time Last year in Marienbad with cars of the same color that caught Bart’s attention.

Mobile phone (mythology, which is now called gadgetsof our days) serves communication, in isolation imposed COVID, between Alexandra (Anda) Dragomyr and Leticia Arkan, nee Branea. The main characters of the novel Distant voices by Gabriela Adameshtianu, published at the end of 2022 in the publishing house of Iasi Polisher Two relatively recent friends, both in their sixties, talk for hours on the phone, taking advantage of the fact that Leticia’s husband, one Petru Arcan, is a former employee of the Romanian department Free Europe, who became his casual employee again after the station’s move to Prague and the timid resumption of its work in Romania, does not care about the costs. They fall under the responsibility of the American leadership. I do this by reliving the past. Their past, as well as that of communist Romania, of which the retired doctor and writer was a part during her late literary debut, and the past of reclaiming former family property, were willy-nilly a part. This is despite a certain indifference to everyday life that Anda displays. Who wants to assure us that he did not listen Free Europethat he had not even heard about the attack on the station. from February 1981 (the victim of which was supposed to be Pavlo Arkan), nor about the tragic case of the engineer Gheorghe Ursu. Everything is mentioned in passing in the novel. And with all this, the daily newspaper breaks out from almost every page written by Gabriela Adameshtianu. With or without musical accompaniment ABBA.

The huge weight in the economy of the book of telephone conversations, the exchange of lines between Anda and Leticia (a character we met earlier in Smooth road every day, Temporary and Trevi Fountain), their characteristic effect of reality, credibility gives the impression that the first part of the novel, the named part Bear country, as if it was specifically written to dramatize it. How it used to be A lost morning. In the second part under the title Anda folder, the mobile phone gives way to the computer. On which Anda Dragomir writes his confessions in order to make them available to Letizia. Who would write a new novel using them. That is, if he escapes well after the disease of Kovid and does not repeat the fate of Korina. Letizia is no longer a voice in this second part of the novel, we only have elliptical news about her, as much as is reported on the phone to Andi de Petro.

In this second part a series of episodes mentioned in the first are repeated in detail, and others are connected with them. A special place is occupied by the story of a certain Gigi Trif, Ceausescu’s waiter, an opportunity for the narrator to recall a number of episodes from the history/legend of the Ceausescu family. And here, but as if more than in Bear countrythe past, where the dictatorship and its tools (especially Security) reigns, is mixed with the present, the 70s and 80s are combined with romantic yearswith the history of extraction, the new struggle for power, with the stories of the named nouveau riche typed – how else? – from those who created the law in the past. Or remained in the shadow of those who did it.

Sanda Cordosh is certainly correct when, in a few lines of recommendation published on the fourth cover of the volume, she states that Distant voices means strong family romance. Anda, a refugee in the mountains due to fear of a killer virus, in a villa built with European money, a villa always under threat of bear attack (hence the title of the first part of the book), tells the story of her family in lavish detail. About her parents, about her lost twin brother, whose name was Alexandra, and about whom she lives by believing that he is alive. However, not agreeing with him when he learns the details of what until yesterday was the secret of Polishinelle, or the story of the failed marriage with Andu or with Sandi. Ended with his death. About daughter Delia and son Liviu, who left for other countries after failing to enter university. Accompanied by Letizia’s voice, Arcan Anda also recreates the history of the Branea family. Thus completing what we already knew, e.g. Trevi Fountain. The Morar family, the Trif family, and the family of doctor Tatarkan also appear in the book. With many amazing details about them.

Distant voices it is the story of the brothers. Divorce for various reasons. Especially because of family mistakes. About Alexander’s father, who could know his secret. The father (another one) is too strict to Liviu’s failure.

But first of all Distant voices this is a political novel. It tells about the last ten to fifteen years of the communist dictatorship. With cold, hunger, related fear, with the system files, knowledge, relationships, with a mess in hospitals, with encouraging rumors. Chronicle of December 22, 1989, with the defense of television, Theodore Brothers’ fake screams of despair, and the stolen revolution. A chronicle of the cascading disappointments that followed.

There are many stories, many personal stories, all steeped in politics, countless narrative threads in Distant voices. All focused copy in just 300 pages. Not enough for what the writer’s habits mean. This concentration, being a performance, a bet with itself, won and enjoyed as such a novelist. Read the whole article and comment on Contributors.ro