Mihail Sebastian (1907-1945) was one of the interwar European writers who were deeply influenced by Marcel Proust, in particular by the jealous ruminations of his protagonists, and the idea that we can never know the truth about another person, which was expressed by portraying a given character through various points of view that created a fluid and elusive “truth.”

The Accident has as a backdrop Bucharest’s (Romania’s capital) cosmopolitan life in the 1930s, when artists, lawyers, businessmen and bohemians rub elbows in bars until two am, go to the same receptions and parties, and spend their winter vacation at Predeal and other ski resorts in the area.

The main character, a dejected, melancholy young lawyer, suffering of some kind of mal de vivre, is trying to heal from a painful relationship. Like Proust’s objects of desire, the woman he is obsessed with is a mysterious puzzle made of many sides shown to the reader alternately, without nonetheless revealing her “secret.” The protagonist is offered a chance to free himself when he meets literally by accident (that is, as the result of an accident) another woman who will teach him how to ski.

The novel’s best pages are the descriptions of the mountains in winter, and the exhilarating sensation one experiences while skiing. A captivating novel and a good translation.