Zadarnică e arta fugii

by Dumitru Țepeneag

Zadarnică e arta fugii, roman apărut prima dată în traducere franceză (cu titlul Arpièges) în 1973 - foarte bine primit la vremea respectivă de publicaţii precum Nouvelles Littéraires, Journal de Genève, La Quinzaine Littéraire, Études etc. şi comparat cu romanele lui Claude Simon sau Claude Ollier - este o reuşită extraordinară a scriitorului Dumitru Ţepeneag, unul dintre iniţiatorii curentului oniric.

Acest roman "de nepovestit" povesteşte o "fugă", de fapt, o "pseudofugă", pornind, cum mărturiseşte autorul, de la "câteva cuvinte-capcană şi câteva cuvinte-obsesie". Citind cartea, ne aflăm parcă în faţa unui film, în care elementele, scenele se intersectează, dând senzaţia că tot ce vedem am mai văzut. Însă elementele sunt totdeauna diferite, personajele, atât cât le putem identifica, se substituie în diferite scene, creând astfel un joc bulversant care atrage cititorul într-un păienjeniş textual.

Romanul Zadarnică e arta fugii a mai fost tradus în Statele Unite ale Americii, în Serbia şi Ungaria.



Seria de autor Dumitru Ţepeneag este ilustrată cu lucrări ale pictorului Marin Gherasim.

Genres: Fiction, Romania, Romanian Literature, Literature, Novels

174 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Dumitru Țepeneag is a contemporary Romanian novelist, essayist, short story writer and translator, who currently resides in France. He was one of the founding members of the Oniric group, and a theoretician of the Onirist trend in Romanian literature, while becoming noted for his activities as a dissident.

Ţepeneag is one of the most important Romanian translators of French literature, and has rendered into Romanian the works by New Left, avant-garde and Neo-Marxist authors such as Alain Robbe-Grillet, Robert Pinget, Albert Béguin, Jacques Derrida, and Alexandre Kojève.

Reviews

[Kalliope · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ceci n’est pas une Fugue.

I open the lid of my piano. Mahogany. And I open the score of the Praeludium of the Partita nº 5. in G Major. Such fun and tricky to play. But I hear the coffee is ready and get up, open the curtains, and go to the kitchen and serve myself a full mug with plenty of milk. As I am walking back towards the study, the phone rings. Just what I was expecting.

Jablanka suggested I scribble my notes and fingering directly on my score book, but I hate to do that. I am a purist and prefer to leave the book virgin. I feel free with the photocopies. Not completely free. Only with pencil. It was a surprise when I was given the linen curtains with my initials embroidered. Hand embroidered. Need the coffee to wake me up. I wonder what could I take to Sebastian to the hospital.

I put the tea far away from the Schimmel. I do not want a disaster. Just imagining the possibility makes me cringe. It is better that they want to operate now. Otherwise, for a man who travels a fair amount, living with the threat that his gallbladder could give him trouble any moment is not advisable. I have always wanted to play this Toccata.

The harmonics are not difficult. Like an example from a textbook. From G to its Dominant D, then the Subdominant and then the final cadence in the relative minor. Nice. Lovely E chord. But this is just for the first part, not the movement. Bach often finishes the opposite way, with the Tierce de Picardie. The sun filters through the linen and shines on the black lacquer. Nice. May be I could go on Thursday and visit him. Where did I put my coke?

Poor Joanna. She cannot come to the concert. I am dying to hear the Shostakovich concerto. It is a piece to be listened in a large hall. She will miss it. Should I tell Jablanka that I want to play one of his Preludes & Fugues? Completely unexpected this thing with Sebastian. I tell Joanna not to worry and when I hung up my tea has gone cold and I turn on the lights because it is already dark outside.

I have been lucky with my Yamaha. Sturdy like a horse and powerful sound. It has the three pedals of the Grands. No muffler. One of the sections calls for sustaining the sound and use the pedal. It is so melodic in spite of the light counterpoint. Is this a sacrilege with Bach? But it really calls to be played in an exaggerated Romantic mode. Definitely a sacrilege, but I like doing it. I will have more light when I change the doors of the balcony. It will be warmer too. I hope I do not have to change the Venetian blinds because they are damned expensive. May be I can keep the old ones. I always offer Jablanka something to drink but she never wants anything. David always wanted a glass of water.

I am scared of Bach. One can suddenly forget everything and fall into the void. All those interlacing voices seem like a safety net but that is a delusion. One can fall through its holes. It happens to many people with Bach. Why is that? My balcony feels so high up that I rarely stand there long but I get excellent light. In the afternoons before I go out I remember that I have to draw the curtains. I do not want the sun directly onto the piano. Oh, I left the mug here yesterday. Will call Joanna now.

Powerful entrance of the piano, picked up by the trumpet. What a joy. The rest of the orchestra is composed of only strings. I am more familiar with the second concerto, the one he composed for his son Max, with the orchestrated fragment from the Hanon exercises. Drilling the fingers. Strong as steel, nimble and light as feathers. There is too much light in this hall. We have agreed to meet afterwards for a glass of wine. Where should we go? Will then catch up with them.

The Prelude and Fugue in D. Number 5. The beginning sounds like a piece for children. So does the Fugue. Shostakovich is a master in twisting the simple tune. Jablanka usually plays with her boyfriend four hands. She liked the damask curtains and wants something similar but it will be difficult to find this kind of material. When the lesson is finished I am meeting Joanna and Sebastian. They want to go for dinner but Sebastian cannot drink alcohol.

May be Jeena will help me to get back to the Tonic. She is so fast in working out a modulation for I need to arrive at G again. Anyway, I can do it later. Time to bring down the black lacquered, sorry, the mahogany lid.

Ceci n’est pas une Fugue.

What is it then? Is it vain? Is there beauty? Where are the feelings? Where can the language take you?

[Fionnuala]

Imagine a book in the form of a dice. You’d throw the dicebook and then read what was written on its upturned face, making what you could of its vagueness. Then you’d throw the dice again and chances are it would fall differently so you’d get to read another side of the dice, and you’d find, as with a conventional dice, that the newly upturned face held the same element or elements you’d met already, perhaps accompanied by some new ones, but laid out differently which would affect the way you interpreted them, adding further layers of intriguing vagueness. The next throw would offer you another set of more or less the same elements. If a throw of the dice produced a side you’d already read, the second reading of it would now be influenced by the reading you’d done of the other sides so that each time you threw the dice, your reading would increase in vagueness as a result of the accumulated readings of basically the same story elements laid out differently, understood differently, interpreted differently until your successive throws of the dice would have propelled you entertainingly to the end of the very original storyboard that is the Fun Art of the Vague.

[Ema · Rating 4 out of 5]

În limba română, cuvântul fugă are un dublu înţeles: cel de alergare, goană, dar şi cel de compoziţie muzicală polifonică, în care tema este reluată de mai multe voci şi dezvoltată după legile contrapunctului*. Termenul de fugă funcţionează aici în ambele sensuri, pentru că personajul central este într-o continuă şi zadarnică goană, iar romanul este structurat asemănător unei fugi de Bach, cu diverse voci care reiau şi dezvoltă tema principală, dar şi cu adăugiri care sporesc complexitatea poveştii.

*CONTRAPÚNCT s.n. Tehnică în compoziția muzicală, constând în suprapunerea a două sau mai multe linii melodice de sine stătătoare, având fiecare un înțeles propriu, dar formând laolaltă un tot organic; polifonie, contratemă.

După cum spune Nicolae Bârna în introducere, acest roman care nu poate fi povestit are, poate tocmai din acest motiv, un suflu proaspăt chiar şi astăzi, la peste 40 de ani de la scrierea lui. Iniţiator al onirismului estetic, Dumitru Ţepeneag şi-a construit acest prim roman după logica visului, deosebindu-se astfel de suprarealism, care foloseşte visul ca sursă de imagini şi motive.

Mi-ar fi imposibil să fac un rezumat al romanului, pentru că în el nu se regăseşte, de fapt, o poveste coerentă. Nu există început, nici sfârşit, există doar un mijloc supus unei continue transformări, privit din mai multe unghiuri şi examinat, parcă, prin intermediul unei lupe. Iar acest mijloc este despărţit în mai multe fire narative aproape paralele - nu putem vedea dacă ele izvorăsc dintr-o sursă comună sau dacă se vor întâlni la un moment dat. Mai mult, acestor fire le cresc ramificaţii sau se modifică întru totul, făcând imposibilă existenţa unei poveşti întregi, coerente.

Există, însă, câteva nuclee tematice care pot fi povestite: un bărbat cu un buchet de flori (personajul principal) aleargă după autobuzul care pleacă din staţie, încercând să îl prindă. Acelaşi personaj este prins în scene recurente cu Maria sau cu Magda, două femei între care oscilează continuu. Un bătrân ieşit din închisoare se îndreaptă spre gară, sub un soare năucitor, cărând după el o valiză soldăţească. Un bărbat se pregăteşte să taie un porc în curtea blocului, asistat de trei femei cu ligheane în braţe. Şoferul autobuzului se lansează într-o cursă încăpăţânată cu un pieton transformat în alergător, ignorând staţiile şi semafoarele.

Sunt, parcă, tablouri dintr-un muzeu al memoriei, la care curatorul se întoarce iar şi iar, analizându-le pe îndelete, mărind detaliile, modificându-le, descoperind sau inventând noi poveşti. Identitatea personajelor poate suferi transformări: bărbatul alergând spre gară devine un copil jucându-se cu un tren în miniatură, cele două femei îşi pierd, treptat, identitatea (oricum neclară) şi se contopesc într-o singură persoană cu aceeaşi iniţială, M.

Personajele par să rămână blocate în aceleaşi secvenţe, pe care le reiau iar şi iar, în ciuda încercării lor de a înainta, de a le depăşi. O situaţie, o mişcare, un cuvânt le aruncă, brusc, într-un alt loc şi într-un alt timp; trecutul şi prezentul coabitează în aceeaşi naraţiune, instaurând o imposibilitate de mişcare.

Laitmotivul naraţiunii, transformat aproape în obsesie, este ajungerea la gară, unde personajul principal trebuie să aştepte pe cineva. Fie că este dat jos din autobuz, fie că şoferul nu mai opreşte în staţii, fie că se urcă în maşina greşită, gara râmane o destinaţie parcă imposibil de atins.

Universul cărţii este unul straniu şi, totodată, domestic, populat de biciclişti şi peşti, de buchete de flori şi găini, de fugi dintre cele mai variate - după autobuz, după tren, dar şi o fugă de realitate, de concret, de finalul prea dureros pentru a fi cunoscut sau acceptat. Evenimentele par a se învârti în cerc, apropiindu-se de un miez dureros, pe care îl circumscriu tentativ, dar într-un mod obsesiv. Prin iureşul fugilor, putem întrezări imaginea unui copil al cărui tată este arestat - un tată transformat în deţinut politic, închis şi torturat sub regimul comunist. O dureroasă metamorfoză de identitate.

Lumea acestui roman pare inundată de peşti: în plasa din spatele unei biciclete sau pe o masă de bucătărie, în braţele unei femei sau în coşul unui ţăran, plutind pe cer sau ieşind din pântecul unei femei. Peştii, pasivi şi inerţi la început, prind viaţă mai apoi, ca printr-un miracol. În plasa unei femei, ei muşcă cu poftă din franzele. Odată scăpaţi de sub observaţie, se târăsc pe asfalt sau pe duşumea, încercând să se ascundă, să fugă din faţa unei morţi sigure.

Deşi este o carte scurtă, nu am putut-o citi dintr-o răsuflare; am resimţit o stranie ameţeală, o ciudată oboseală. Aceleaşi secvenţe se repetă parcă la infinit, sunt reluate iar şi iar, într-un iureş ameţitor. Şi totuşi, cartea este departe de a fi plictisitoare: naraţiunea, aparent aceeaşi, se schimbă continuu, cu variaţiuni care amplifică şi lărgesc povestea, cu detalii noi adăugate treptat, cu miniaturale tablouri suprarealiste, având un umor negru, delicios. Este frumuseţea detaliului mărit, în care un ochi atent poate descoperi o lume ireală, desprinsă, parcă, dintr-un vis.


*Câteva note, nu neapărat spoilere*

Romanul este presărat cu referinţe la paradoxurile mişcării formulate de filozoful grec Zenon în secolul al V-lea î.Hr. Este vorba de Ahile şi broasca ţestoasă (dacă alergătorul mai lent are un avans, alergătorul mai rapid nu-l poate depăși niciodată, pentru ca cel lent va fi mereu în față), paradoxul săgeţii (prin care arată că mişcarea dintr-un punct în altul este imposibilă) şi paradoxul Dihotomiei (distanţa parcursă între două puncte poate fi divizată la infinit, ceea ce face mişcarea iluzorie).

Peştii pot avea, în roman, simboluri religioase (miracolul prin care Iisus a înmulţit hrana, potolind foamea mulţimilor), la fel ca şi numele celor două femei, Maria şi Magda(lena). De asemenea, tabloul real şi imaginar cu femeia ţinând un copil în braţe, copil care devine, într-o altă secvenţă, un căpitan de securitate, asemenea unei vipere care muşcă din sânul care a încălzit-o.

Romanul este împânzit de multe alte simboluri: sângele şi actul uciderii (peştele spintecat, porcul înjunghiat), hainele negre, de doliu, tancurile de pe străzi care, aparent, participă la o filmare. Sunt simboluri ale suferinţei, ale violenţei, care trimit către poveşti sugerate, nespuse.

Ţepeneag scrie în jurnalul său că a construit acest roman ca pe o cursă cu capcane, asemenea jocurilor din copilărie. Există atât cuvinte-capcană (precum grădină, mare sau plajă), cât şi cuvinte-obsesie (găina, uliu, câine). Cuvintele-capcană, odată formulate în mintea personajelor, le propulsează către o altă secvenţă, ceea ce determină pivotarea acţiunii către un alt plan. Este greu de spus dacă noile tablouri au existat în trecut sau sunt simpe exerciţii de imaginaţie...


Merged review:

In Romanian, the word fugă has a double meaning: that of run/flight and that of fugue, the polyphonic musical composition in which the theme is repeated by several voices and developed through the counterpoint technique. The word is used in this novel both ways: the main character is caught in a perpetual and futile run, while the novel is structured similarly to a Bach fugue, with different voices that replay and develop the main theme, but also with additions that extend the complexity of the story.

As a critic states in the foreword, this novel which cannot be retold has, precisely for that reason, a fresh quality, even after 40 years from its conception. Founder of the oneiric aestheticism, Dumitru Ţepeneag conceived his first novel after the logic (or non-logic) of dreams, as opposed to the surrealism, which uses dreams as a source of images and motifs.

It would be impossible for me to make a summary of the plot in Vain Art of the Fugue because, in effect, there is no plot in this novel. There is neither a beginning nor an ending, there is only a middle, subjected to a continuous transformation, a middle seen from different viewpoints and observed as if through a magnifying glass. This middle is composed from several threads which run almost in parallel - we cannot discern if they spring from a common source or if they will reunite at a later point. Moreover, these threads sprout ramifications or they metamorphose completely, making it impossible to grasp at a whole, coherent story.

There are, on the other hand, a couple of thematic cores which can be retold: a man carrying a bouquet (the main character) runs after the bus which is about to leave the station. The same man is caught up in recurrent scenes with two women, Maria and Magda, between whom he oscillates constantly. An old man released from prison heads to the train station under an overpowering sun. A man gets ready to slay a pig in a courtyard, watched by three women carrying washing bowls. The bus driver launches into a stubborn race with a pedestrian turned runner; the latter is determined to outrun the bus, while the former ignores the bus stops and traffic lights.

These scenes function like paintings in a museum of memory, which the curator revisits every so often, inspecting them closely, observing the details, uncovering or inventing new stories. It is no wonder, then, that the characters' identity can undergo transformations: the man hurrying to the station becomes a child playing with a toy train; the two women, Maria and Magda, gradually lose their individuality (which is uncertain from the beginning) and merge into a single being, bearing the same initial, M.

The characters seem to be stuck in the same sequences, which are replayed over and over again, despite their efforts to advance, to surpass them. A situation, a movement, a word suddenly projects them into another place and time. The past and present seem to cohabitate, instituting an impossibility of movement.

The narrative's leit-motif, almost turned into an obsession, is to reach the train station, where the main character has to meet someone. Whether he is forced to get out of the bus, or the driver no longer stops, or he takes the wrong bus, the train station remains a destination which seems impossible to reach.

The universe of the novel is, at the same time, a strange yet domestic one, inhabited by cyclists and fish, knives and hens, by flights in different shapes and forms - after the bus, tram or train, but also a flight from reality, from a closure which appears too painful to be known or accepted. The events seem to run in circles, closing in on a distressing core which they circumscribe tentatively, yet obsessively. In the rush of flights, we can glimpse at the image of a child whose father was incarcerated - a father turned political prisoner, locked up and tortured under the communist regime. A most painful shift of identity.

The recurrent world of the novel seems flooded with fish: in a net at the back of a bicycle or on a kitchen table; in a woman's arms or in a peasant's basket; floating in the sky or emerging from a pregnant woman's belly. The fish, passive and inert in the beginning, are infused with life later on, as if through a miracle. In a shopping bag they bite, hungrily, from loaves. Once left out of sight, they crawl on the pavement or on the floor, in an attempt to hide and escape from a certain death.

Although this is a short novel, I couldn't read it in one sitting; I felt a strange dizziness, a bizarre fatigue, inflicted by the almost maddening repetition of the same sequences. And yet, the novel is far from being boring: the events, although having a similar pattern, change continually, with variations that enlarge and amplify the story, with new details added progressively, with surrealist, scaled-down vignettes imbued with a dark, delicious humor. It is the beauty of the augmented detail, in which the observant eye can discover a fabulous world, descended as if from a dream.

[Jonathan · Rating 5 out of 5]

The traumas of the 20thc century have, of course, had many effects on the development of the literature of Central and Eastern Europe. One of these is the emergence of what could be termed "code words" or "code images" which have condensed a great mass of suffering to singularities of text, whose weight is so great they bend and warp the pages laid around them.

If, for example, we read a Romanian novel which, on one level may bear some comparisons with the play of Queneau, and find references to Tanks on the streets, to prisons, to blood and to the eruption of violence in the everyday, it must be clear that we are in dark and disturbing territory. Brief though these references may be, buried in humour and in the almost-surreal, they have the power to shift the meaning and the purpose of the entire novel.

Why, then, is this so often missed in the reviews of this extraordinary book? Look even at the (usually great) Complete Review - http://www.complete-review.com/review...

This is not "playful", this is not a "game". It is the logic of metaphor and of language, the logic of the nightmare – sentences follow paths proposed by their own words and images, not by the need for a tale to be told.

The Fugues of Bach are one of the highpoints of the artistic output of our species because they are much more than simple contrapuntal calisthenics. Not to understand this is not to hear them at all.

This is not to suggest this novel is perfect, or has a place at such pinnacles of art, but there is great sorrow here, and great power. To read it as an exercise in style is not to read it at all.

Interesting interview here: http://therumpus.net/2010/02/the-rump...

[Declan · Rating 5 out of 5]

He looked at the title of the book 'Vain Art of The Fugue'. What might that mean? Was art a vanity and a fugue a pointless piece of showing-off, a meaningless display? Or was a fugue so magnificently intricate that, to fully elaborate on all the possibilities would take so long as to be impossible, as Bach had found in his unfinished 'Art of The Fugue'.

He noticed that the edition of the book he had - a translation from Romanian by Patrick Camiller - was published by Dalkey Archive Press. He had read other books from this publishing house and so he had certain expectations. It would probably be structured in an inventive and unconventional way and be, if he was lucky, playful and mischievous. There would be a complete absence of 'realistic' narrative, like all those very popular American books in which characters have several affairs and are unhappy with their jobs.

As he read he noticed that descriptions of certain objects and images began to recur. Several cyclists appeared with fish and bread in a string bag hanging behind their saddles. The sky was uninterrupted blue. A pig was being slit. Women in silk dresses waited for the blood. A man with flowers ran for a bus. Every time these events were described the context was different. A range of characters had to endure trials that never had a resolution. The repetition of familiar routines, endured rather than enjoyed, began to seem like the daily life he himself led. He too found himself in situations in which the meaning of events eluded him or passed beyond his ability to influence them, even when they specifically concerned him.

His vanity was pointless. Why was he showing off? After all Bach, a Romanian, had liked the book, but left it unfinished. He would have to elaborate when he met Patrick Camiller, who was unhappy with his job. He noticed a man with a Dalkey Archive Press book running for a bus in an unconventional way. He was lucky, he never had to endure trials and had affairs with several playful women, all of whom wore silk dresses.

The inventive repetition of popular fugues, endured rather than enjoyed, took too long and never had a resolution. He had read an American edition of a book in which a pig cycled on a magnificent saddle. It had seemed like daily life, as he too had found himself in 'realistic'situations in which a range of mischievous characters displayed flowers in a string bag.

The sky was probably blue. In vain he tried to influence meaningless events that specifically concerned him, and every time he read descriptions of art, the playful context was different. He looked at the title of the book 'Vain Art of The Fugue'. What might that mean?

[Nemanja · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fuga predstavlja oblik poremećaja svesti za koji su karakteristična besciljna lutanja i potpuna amnezija. Uspostavljanje normalnog stanja dešava se naglo, a fuge se često javljaju kao posledica depresije. Za fugu je karakteristično to što uvek postoji neki razumljiv razlog takvog ponašanja, a to je najčešće podsvesno izbegavanje neke odgovornosti, situacije ili ličnosti.
U Cepeneagovom delu jedna radnja se ponavlja na više različitih načina. Glavni junak ima nameru da ode ka železničkoj stanici i sačeka izvesnu M. Taj njegov put ka stanici prikazan je iz mnogo različitih uglova, lica koja na tom istom putu sreće kao i događaji koji se odvijaju stalno se menjaju i skreću mu pažnju sa cilja. Jedna stvar ostaje ista, a to je iluzija o kretanju, pri čemu je referenca na Zenonov paradoks jasno uočljiva.
"Spazio je i jedno nepomično dete, ukrštenih nogu, kao što sede turski krojači, samo što je ono umesto makaza imalo flautu. Zenon! Pozvala ga je neka žena. Ali se dete nije pomerilo."

[Brian · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. I have come to truly enjoy the novel that you can read out of sequence, because what matters most is the writing. Plot is a tool, and a complicated or forced one is unnecessary if the author can actually write. This one stays on the shelf, to be read whenever the mood for quality strikes.

[Eric · Rating 4 out of 5]

A set of demonstrations of Zeno's Paradox -- which for all its repetition does not feel monotonous -- 24 variations on stasis and the impossibility of motion. We learn that even the fugue -- for all its resonant power of accumulation, for all its measured, sometimes desperate trying of angles -- is helpless, vain, in the face of Zeno's thunderous logic.

[J.I.]

Some events happen. Then they happen again, but in a different order, or with different people doing different things, or from a different point of view. It takes about two pages to describe the events and they are simply repeated for 140 pages.

It is a cute experimentation, perhaps it could have worked as a ten page short story, but in the end it is about how language is arbitrary and therefore if you arbitrarily rearrange things what have you changed? Nothing has changed, only the signifier. This is the type of book which is written so that people can reference it as an example in Saussurean essays.

But wait, you may say, the clue is in the title, it is like a fugue, that succession of repeating the subject in different voices, it is a successions of counterpoints. Good for Mr. Tsepeneag, I will tell you, but so what? Are these counterpoints the refutation of a single perception? No, because it is not an inaccurate retelling because of different perspectives, but rather it is an authorial game. Is it about the worthlessness of language? No, because even though words are simply agreed upon utterings and have no inherent meaning, they do have a connotative meaning and value. I will go back to the fugue here. A fugue is enjoyable not because of its complicated point and counterpoint structure, but rather its complicated point and counterpoint structure works towards a melody that, while complicated and sometimes confusing, is enjoyable. This book is not enjoyable, it is simply point and counterpoint that, in the end, amount to a simple game, an exercise or performance art piece that is bloated on its own self-importance.

[Nathanimal · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some fun games here. When you travel by association and not linearly (despite being surrounded by buses and trains) you really have to watch out. One wrong thought and you're back in your apartment where you started. The music of thought is kind of a hell full of traps and endless loops.

I enjoyed the two POV narration more once I finally caught on to all the tortoise and hare references. The strategies were inventive, the images were surreal and often amusing. Perhaps it's because I've been reading a number of "experimental" novels lately, but the experiment wasn't quite enough for me this time. I wanted more texture. Some heart. But maybe next time. There will definitely be a next time for this writer.

Also, any idea how to say this guy's last name? Where's the accent go? And what do you do with the "ea" at the end?

[Philip Shaw · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book of Dumitru Tsepeneag, is a gas. It explores and explodes the idea of perspectives ��� those of multiple individuals AND multiple perspectives from the single individual.

Immersing yourself in it is like landing at the controls in a darkened editing booth to make a film that is comprised of your memories and those of someone who lived through the same moments but whom you do not know: you have rolls of footage from every imaginable angle and ones you didn't know were being captured. What do you do with them? Or is the incohesive overlay the power of the piece where without the collapsed perspectives you would only have the banal: your memory.

Tsepeneag's prose is aggressive in it's layering, a true puzzle ��� with a comfortable stream of consciousness that harkens to Kerouac at his best but is something else entirely.

I hope that the Dalkey Archive will continue to translate this incredible Romanians works.

Philip Swanstrom Shaw
editions p.s.
www.editions-ps.com

[Erma Odrach · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story by Romanian author Dumitru Tsepeneag about a man carrying a bouquet of roses on his way to catch a bus to meet a woman. But the story is not so simple because the author goes on to retell it in many different ways, with different details, and in different orders. The concept is interesting and inventive. Tsepeneag is a leading author in Romania and this is his first book in translation.
Vain Art of the Fugue is my second book for the Eastern European Reading Challenge, by The Black Sheep Dances.

http://www.theblacksheepdances.com/20...

[Robert Wechsler]

An interesting experiment in storytelling, a nouveau roman with twists, in that the main “story” is told again and again, and changes. And there are other stories that intrude into the book, as well. But I found none of it engaging beyond the idea and eventually moved on to another book. It is hard to apply musical ideas to fiction.

[Becky Merilatt · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am more than in love with this book.

[Scott · Rating 3 out of 5]

There are certain works where the title unlocks a greater understanding of the intended effect & such is the case with Tepeneag's novel. A (musical) fugue is defined as "a contrapuntal composition in which a short melody or phrase (the subject) is introduced by one part and successively taken up by others and developed by interweaving the parts." In this work, Tepeneag approaches a handful of characters & incidents from multiple angles. Switching between realist narrative & what feels like a dream narrative, first person & third person; the overall effect is at times disorienting as Tepeneag decenters the traditional narrative center. An interesting & experimental take on the time loop narrative.

[Steven Felicelli · Rating 3 out of 5]

interesting experiment which has been retrod to death since its publication in the 1970s - unfair to judge retroactively - evocative, but ultimately insubstantial

[Rob Lloyd · Rating 4 out of 5]

This series of variations of a sequence of events clearly draws inspiration from Raymond Queneau's 'Exercises in Style'. As a result of this, probably unfairly, I have compared the two books, with the book in question lacking the sheer ingenuity of Queneau's works. Despite having a slightly more elaborate plot than 'Exercises in Style', 'Vain Art of the Fugue' tends to get a bit stale and repetitive in some passages, where it would have benefited from reworking certain recounts of events previously mentioned in prior variations. Regardless, 'Vain Art of the Fugue' is a quality work that is quite enjoyable and deserves a wide readership.

[Thurston Hunger · Rating 2 out of 5]

Almost want to bump this to 2.5 or 3 stars, as it was originally written in 1991. (1961 for sure would make it 3 stars somehow). I don't know maybe I've been too long aware of recursion, from films with varying viewpoints or all kinds of musical forms. Yes the author cops to that as "Fugue" is in the title, but I'm thinking of vaguely popular/weird stuff from King Crimson on down to more esoteric guys like Erik Belgum and Alessandro Bosetti.

Anyways, this felt like a Choose Your Own Adventure with memory corruption on the pages, and also with no choice for the reader. In fact, is this more experimental in writing than reading? Or how it would be if a writer often included so many visits and revisits to a scene and then handed the intentionally overly long initial version to an editor to sculpt?

It did make me think about memory and its oddly shifting nature. As if the narrator was remembering and thereby recreating these few moments.

Short book, shorter moments. One of the other reviews (which are in general more lavish in praise than myself) here has me interested perhaps in more from the publisher.

[will · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent book that revisits (many times) the mundane events of one afternoon. Tsepeneag uses the fugue as his narrative form and while the repetitions are at first simple and almost irritating, the minor (and sometimes major) changes that occur in the theme begin to startle and amaze, making the text experiential in that it seems to be changing as it progresses.

[Matt · Rating 3 out of 5]

Strangely similar to Queneau's Exercises in Style, but quite good.

[Holly Raymond · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very, very, very Eastern European take on 'Exercises in Style,' sort of. SORT OF. Sort of.

[Vincent · Rating 3 out of 5]

I should have liked this more than I did.