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My Tired Father
The first English-language publication of one of the major works of the great Romanian Surrealist poet and novelist, Gellu Naum.
74 pages, Paperback
First published February 28, 1987
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About the author
Gellu Naum
109 books111 followersGelu Naum was a prominent Romanian poet, dramatist, novelist, children's writer, and translator. He is remembered as the founder of the Romanian Surrealist group. The artist Lyggia Naum, his wife, was the inspiration and main character in his 1985 novel Zenobia.
Born in Bucharest, he was the son of the poet Andrei Naum (who had been drafted in World War I and died during the Battle of Mărăşeşti) and his wife Maria Naum née Rosa Gluck. In 1933, he began studying philosophy at the University of Bucharest. In 1938, he left for France, where he continued his studies at the University of Paris. He took his PhD diploma with a thesis on the scholastic philosopher Pierre Abelard.
In 1936 (the year when he published his first book), Naum met Victor Brauner, who became his close friend and who later introduced him to André Breton and his Surrealist circle in Paris.
In 1941, he helped create the Bucharest group of Surrealists (which also included Gherasim Luca, Paul Păun, Dolfi Trost, and Virgil Teodorescu). Naum was drafted into Romanian Army during World War II and served on the Eastern Front after the invasion of the Soviet Union (see Romania during World War II). Marked by his wartime experience, he was discharged in 1944, after he had fallen ill.
In December 1947, the Surrealist group succumbed to the vicissitudes of postwar Soviet occupation and successful Communist takeover of Romania's government. As Socialist realism had officially become Romania's cultural policy, he could only publish books for children (out of which the two books with Apolodor were reissued several times). Although he published several books in the line of Socialist realism, which he reneged on afterwards, he never stopped writing Surrealist poems, such as the 1958 poem composed of several parts Heraclitus (published in the 1968 volume Athanor) or the esoteric manuscript The Way of the Snake, written in 1948–1949 and published after his death, in 2002.
Between 1950 and 1953, he taught philosophy at the Agronomic Institute in Bucharest while working also as a translator. He translated works by Samuel Beckett, René Char, Denis Diderot, Alexandre Dumas, père, Julien Gracq, Victor Hugo, Franz Kafka, Gérard de Nerval, Jacques Prévert, Stendhal, and Jules Verne.
He resumed his literary career in 1968, in the wake of a relative cultural liberalization under Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime.
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he traveled abroad and gave public readings in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In 1995, the German Academic Exchange Service appointed him scholar at the University of Berlin. Naum spent much of his final years at his retreat in Comana.
Born in Bucharest, he was the son of the poet Andrei Naum (who had been drafted in World War I and died during the Battle of Mărăşeşti) and his wife Maria Naum née Rosa Gluck. In 1933, he began studying philosophy at the University of Bucharest. In 1938, he left for France, where he continued his studies at the University of Paris. He took his PhD diploma with a thesis on the scholastic philosopher Pierre Abelard.
In 1936 (the year when he published his first book), Naum met Victor Brauner, who became his close friend and who later introduced him to André Breton and his Surrealist circle in Paris.
In 1941, he helped create the Bucharest group of Surrealists (which also included Gherasim Luca, Paul Păun, Dolfi Trost, and Virgil Teodorescu). Naum was drafted into Romanian Army during World War II and served on the Eastern Front after the invasion of the Soviet Union (see Romania during World War II). Marked by his wartime experience, he was discharged in 1944, after he had fallen ill.
In December 1947, the Surrealist group succumbed to the vicissitudes of postwar Soviet occupation and successful Communist takeover of Romania's government. As Socialist realism had officially become Romania's cultural policy, he could only publish books for children (out of which the two books with Apolodor were reissued several times). Although he published several books in the line of Socialist realism, which he reneged on afterwards, he never stopped writing Surrealist poems, such as the 1958 poem composed of several parts Heraclitus (published in the 1968 volume Athanor) or the esoteric manuscript The Way of the Snake, written in 1948–1949 and published after his death, in 2002.
Between 1950 and 1953, he taught philosophy at the Agronomic Institute in Bucharest while working also as a translator. He translated works by Samuel Beckett, René Char, Denis Diderot, Alexandre Dumas, père, Julien Gracq, Victor Hugo, Franz Kafka, Gérard de Nerval, Jacques Prévert, Stendhal, and Jules Verne.
He resumed his literary career in 1968, in the wake of a relative cultural liberalization under Nicolae Ceauşescu's regime.
After the Romanian Revolution of 1989, he traveled abroad and gave public readings in France, Germany, Switzerland, and the Netherlands. In 1995, the German Academic Exchange Service appointed him scholar at the University of Berlin. Naum spent much of his final years at his retreat in Comana.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
October 8, 2014
An odd and elusive book - an autobiographical narrative collage poem - the kind of work that even in its strangeness is very easy to read quickly but on closer inspection is full of a quiet resonance that is only available through slow reading.
At the narrative level it is the story of a man, son of the “tired father”, who has a mysterious double named Abend who surfaces throughout the book. This man meets a woman, Catherine Mahoney, and marries her. They live in a world of art and music and experiences touched with the supernatural. Life is weird, engendering paranoia but also visions. The man and woman are as if one in their introspective intellectual exile. Life is difficult by manages to be fruitful and goes on for a while. The wife dies.
This narrative is put forth in little snippets like these:
A ball rolled on the floor thus transposing itself into a completely separate category
A yellow spot seemed to emerge from its own absence
I gnawed on a little crust of bread to annihilate the emotional force of reverie
When I explored the grottoes a blinding light overwhelmed me and I regrouped
The conversation remained fixed in the bones
When we meditated on this subject a light would strike us blind
She studied in beehive form
Inserted into pipes and put under pressure we became something else and there was no place for nostalgia
At night we would return with big fish
From here to the miracle there remained but one step
There is a blending of the coldly analytical with the warmly dreaming in most of the entries that generates multiple meanings while seeming to mean just one thing. The purpose here is to testify to and to evoke another realm, another order of the intelligence. The work abounds with an earthy mystical surrealism, and Gellu Naum is a welcome new addition to my bookshelves and my mind’s inner landscape.
At the narrative level it is the story of a man, son of the “tired father”, who has a mysterious double named Abend who surfaces throughout the book. This man meets a woman, Catherine Mahoney, and marries her. They live in a world of art and music and experiences touched with the supernatural. Life is weird, engendering paranoia but also visions. The man and woman are as if one in their introspective intellectual exile. Life is difficult by manages to be fruitful and goes on for a while. The wife dies.
This narrative is put forth in little snippets like these:
A ball rolled on the floor thus transposing itself into a completely separate category
A yellow spot seemed to emerge from its own absence
I gnawed on a little crust of bread to annihilate the emotional force of reverie
When I explored the grottoes a blinding light overwhelmed me and I regrouped
The conversation remained fixed in the bones
When we meditated on this subject a light would strike us blind
She studied in beehive form
Inserted into pipes and put under pressure we became something else and there was no place for nostalgia
At night we would return with big fish
From here to the miracle there remained but one step
There is a blending of the coldly analytical with the warmly dreaming in most of the entries that generates multiple meanings while seeming to mean just one thing. The purpose here is to testify to and to evoke another realm, another order of the intelligence. The work abounds with an earthy mystical surrealism, and Gellu Naum is a welcome new addition to my bookshelves and my mind’s inner landscape.
July 22, 2019
This is one of the most strangest of works I have come across. Read It twice, thrice to make something out of it and I must say, I am still just scratching the surface. If it was plain incomprehension there was no need to harp to it, but the poem's visual splendor leaves a strong imprint on one's mind, that makes one return to it - to unravel the mystery the text is.
Is it about war? People getting caught in the middle of it? An occult mystery involving a person from the past entering and exiting a life of a couple, to suggest reincarnation?, or a surrealistic exercise - conglomerating impressions of the past in a disorienting manner? A poetic license!
Isn't our memory as a whole, nothing but a random incomplete impression of events put together in a haphazard fashion - Randomly spaced out Holes in void?
Perhaps a singular quote from the work will suffice the - work and my response to it :
"What made understanding more difficult was the permanent solicitation of ambiguity"
And yet due to the very ambiguity lies its invisible and intoxicating hold on my curiosity.
Is it about war? People getting caught in the middle of it? An occult mystery involving a person from the past entering and exiting a life of a couple, to suggest reincarnation?, or a surrealistic exercise - conglomerating impressions of the past in a disorienting manner? A poetic license!
Isn't our memory as a whole, nothing but a random incomplete impression of events put together in a haphazard fashion - Randomly spaced out Holes in void?
Perhaps a singular quote from the work will suffice the - work and my response to it :
"What made understanding more difficult was the permanent solicitation of ambiguity"
And yet due to the very ambiguity lies its invisible and intoxicating hold on my curiosity.
March 16, 2025
"Dedesubtul fiecăruia existau multe relații
Din fericire tot de acolo se aduceau și ierburile reci
O ființă turtită se străduia mai ales să dea explicația funcționalității sale"
Din fericire tot de acolo se aduceau și ierburile reci
O ființă turtită se străduia mai ales să dea explicația funcționalității sale"
December 12, 2022
Ђелу Наумова херметична, надреалистична “похема” сложене версификације, записана у паратакси, без знакова интерпукције, која се чита се као колаж с детаљима из живота лирског субјекта повезаних песничком вештином, где се провлаче његова интересовања, разне научне референце, приватни живот, ратна искуства итд.
Gellu Naum's hermetic, surrealistic "pohem" with complex versification is written in parataxis, without any punctuation, and reads like a collage with various details from the life of the lyrical subject connected by poetic skill, such as his interests, scientific references, private life, war experiences etc.
Gellu Naum's hermetic, surrealistic "pohem" with complex versification is written in parataxis, without any punctuation, and reads like a collage with various details from the life of the lyrical subject connected by poetic skill, such as his interests, scientific references, private life, war experiences etc.
July 4, 2009
what can i say?! where can i begin?! When i first read this; it hit me like a ton of bricks. ive always been obsessed with surrealism and read evrything i could find. of course this led me to kind of worship everything breton (not literally of course). but when i found the OTHER in Bataille; i found new glasses to see through! and later when i was spending time in the czech republic i learned of a whole other world of surrealism coming from prague. i mean i always read up on surrealism and its off shoots coming from places like the carribean and south america. but a lot of these always seemed to be pandering to paris. but when i found how eastern europe was running with its own ideas of surrealism without any cares for breton, paris, or the french. i was blown away on every level: poetry, fiction, photography (of my god!!!), the plastic arts, even architecture!
But it was gellu naum who REALLY went there on his own. I wish i could go back to those initial days of first reading this book. i couldnt recommend it enough.
But it was gellu naum who REALLY went there on his own. I wish i could go back to those initial days of first reading this book. i couldnt recommend it enough.
February 17, 2013
Gellu Naum is the giant of Romanian surrealism. I came across this book doing research about Nathaniel Hawthorne (bizarre, I know), and I read it on a whim. It's sort-of prose poetry and aphorisms... great stuff.
July 26, 2017
When I was reading this book I didnt initially see the narrative but if you pay attention to the general flow of the nouns (girls, weddings,) then you will start to see a life revealed.
At first it felt almost tacky but by the end I loved the way it wove a tale from suggestions
At first it felt almost tacky but by the end I loved the way it wove a tale from suggestions
August 14, 2020
Am citit-o. Sunt destul de sigură că nu am înțeles nimic. Mi-a plăcut.
January 27, 2018
I had never heard of Gellu Naum before but I’m grateful for falling across this little book. I was blown away. The only thing I can compare it to is the Austrian writer Konrad Bayer, who I also love.
May 26, 2024
"I gnawed on a little crust of bread to annihilate the emotional force of reverie"
This was very worth a contemplative, slow reading.
This was very worth a contemplative, slow reading.
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews