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Despre clovni: Dictatorul şi Artistul
The overthrow of Nicolae Ceausescu revealed to the world a regime whose grim despotism was so powerful and pervasive that it almost defies comprehension. For Norman Manea, who left Romania in 1986, the terror the regime imposed on its citizens was matched, on another level, by the irrevocable choices it forced upon its artists. In On Clowns: The Dictator and the Artist, Manea explores the realm of pain, anger and fear that confronts the creative mind in a tyranny. Patiently, carefully, and precisely, with a sense of humor and humanity made all the more powerful for the seething anger that lies just beneath, he catalogs the techniques with which a malevolent power binds the artist to itself: the subtle torture of censorship, the politics of substitution, the opiates of nationalism and ideology. With equal passion, Manea catalogs what the artist must rely on to survive under such circumstances: the masterful disguise of the buffoon, an aesthetic inseparable from ethics, a hatred of mediocrity, and, whenever the opportunity arises, a healthy raspberry to the dictator. Like Kundera, Milosz, and Kis, Manea is Central European not only because of where he was born but because of his spiritual outlook and his cultural horizons. In the formulation of Danilo Kis that Manea cites, "Consciousness of belonging to Central Europe is itself in the end a kind of dissidence!" In On Clowns, as in his fiction, Manea shows how artistic creativity and intellectual freedom go far beyond dissidence: they are a morality, anathema to the "captive mind" of the Communist dictatorship, that enable artists to survive and resist oppression.
344 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
3 people are currently reading
241 people want to read
About the author
Norman Manea
66 books76 followersNorman Manea is a Jewish Romanian writer and author of short fiction, novels, and essays about the Holocaust, daily life in a communist state, and exile. He lives in the United States, where he is the Francis Flournoy Professor of European Culture and writer in residence at Bard College.
He left Romania in 1986 with a DAAD-Berlin Grant and in 1988 went to the US with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Catholic University in Washington DC.
Manea's most acclaimed book, The Hooligan’s Return (2003), is an original novelistic memoir, encompassing a period of almost 80 years, from the pre-war period, through the Second World War, the communist and post-communist years to the present.
Manea has been known and praised as an international important writer since early 1990s, and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages. He has received more than 20 awards and honors.
Born in Suceava (Bukovina, Romania), Manea was deported as a child, in 1941, by the Romanian fascist authorities, allied with Nazi Germany, to the concentration camp of Transnistria in the Ukraine with his family and the entire Jewish population of the region. He returned to Romania in 1945 with the surviving members of his family and graduated with high honors from the high school in his home town, Suceava. He studied engineering at the Construction Institute in Bucharest and graduated with master’s degree in hydro-technique in 1959, working afterwards in planning, fieldwork and research. He has devoted himself to writing since 1974.
Manea’s literary debut took place in Povestea Vorbii (The Tale of Word, 1966), an avant-garde and influential magazine that appeared in the early years of cultural liberalization in communist Romania and was suppressed after six issues. Until he was forced into exile (1986) he published ten volumes of short fiction essays and novels. His work was an irritant to the authorities because of the implied and overt social-political criticism and he faced a lot of trouble with the censors and the official press. At the same time that sustained efforts were made by the cultural authorities to suppress his work, it had the support and praise of the country’s most important literary critics.
After the collapse of the Ceaușescu dictatorship, several of his books started to be published in Romania. The publication in a Romanian translation of his essay Happy Guilt, which first appeared in The New Republic, led to a nationalist outcry in Romania, which he in turn has analysed in depth in his essay Blasphemy and Carnival. Echoes of this scandal can still be found in some articles of the current Romanian cultural press.
Meantime, in the United States and in European countries, Manea’s writing was received with great acclaim. Over the past two decades he has been proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature by literary and academic personalities and institutions in the United States, Sweden, Romania, Italy and France. Important contemporary writers expressed admiration of the author’s literary work and his moral stand before and after the collapse of communism: the Nobel laureates Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Octavio Paz, Orhan Pamuk, as well as Philip Roth, Claudio Magris, Antonio Tabucchi, E. M. Cioran, Antonio Munoz Molina, Cynthia Ozick, Louis Begley and others.
He left Romania in 1986 with a DAAD-Berlin Grant and in 1988 went to the US with a Fulbright Scholarship at the Catholic University in Washington DC.
Manea's most acclaimed book, The Hooligan’s Return (2003), is an original novelistic memoir, encompassing a period of almost 80 years, from the pre-war period, through the Second World War, the communist and post-communist years to the present.
Manea has been known and praised as an international important writer since early 1990s, and his works have been translated into more than 20 languages. He has received more than 20 awards and honors.
Born in Suceava (Bukovina, Romania), Manea was deported as a child, in 1941, by the Romanian fascist authorities, allied with Nazi Germany, to the concentration camp of Transnistria in the Ukraine with his family and the entire Jewish population of the region. He returned to Romania in 1945 with the surviving members of his family and graduated with high honors from the high school in his home town, Suceava. He studied engineering at the Construction Institute in Bucharest and graduated with master’s degree in hydro-technique in 1959, working afterwards in planning, fieldwork and research. He has devoted himself to writing since 1974.
Manea’s literary debut took place in Povestea Vorbii (The Tale of Word, 1966), an avant-garde and influential magazine that appeared in the early years of cultural liberalization in communist Romania and was suppressed after six issues. Until he was forced into exile (1986) he published ten volumes of short fiction essays and novels. His work was an irritant to the authorities because of the implied and overt social-political criticism and he faced a lot of trouble with the censors and the official press. At the same time that sustained efforts were made by the cultural authorities to suppress his work, it had the support and praise of the country’s most important literary critics.
After the collapse of the Ceaușescu dictatorship, several of his books started to be published in Romania. The publication in a Romanian translation of his essay Happy Guilt, which first appeared in The New Republic, led to a nationalist outcry in Romania, which he in turn has analysed in depth in his essay Blasphemy and Carnival. Echoes of this scandal can still be found in some articles of the current Romanian cultural press.
Meantime, in the United States and in European countries, Manea’s writing was received with great acclaim. Over the past two decades he has been proposed as a candidate for the Nobel Prize for Literature by literary and academic personalities and institutions in the United States, Sweden, Romania, Italy and France. Important contemporary writers expressed admiration of the author’s literary work and his moral stand before and after the collapse of communism: the Nobel laureates Heinrich Böll, Günter Grass, Octavio Paz, Orhan Pamuk, as well as Philip Roth, Claudio Magris, Antonio Tabucchi, E. M. Cioran, Antonio Munoz Molina, Cynthia Ozick, Louis Begley and others.
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
March 26, 2012
This is Norman Manea as his best at least as non-fiction goes, with a collection of essays that are lucid, brutal and to the point; no quarter is given to the Romanian society and culture - both in the kneeling under communism posture but also in the more nationalistic stage that prospered so well after 1989 too.
Except for the Eliade bashing essay - discussing that is a matter on its own and I think that overall Mr. Manea did very well in bringing the past to life, while noting also that more about the topic came soon after so the topic would have come to light anyway and the hate addressed to N. Manea for this essay is misplaced, while as a matter of principle, shining light on darker corners of revered public personalities is always a good thing because it reminds us that everyone is fallible and however great an author's work is (eg M. Eliade's novel Forbidden Forest aka Noaptea de Sanzien leads my all time favorite book list) this does not make the author a saint, an oracle, a person of worship etc - the rest of the essays deal with the communist regime and the author's life and work under it. A book like this needs to be read when nostalgia for Ceausescu's "years of light" surfaces...
One niggle I had was the translation of the slogan "anii lumina" in "years of enlightenment" rather than the more appropriate imho "years of light" which give the sense in which the slogan was used to encompass all aspects of Romanian society which (in the vision of the slogan of course) under Ceausescu got so close to paradise , while years of enlightenment just remind one of bookish stuff
Anyway this book is highly recommended if you lived through those hell years or if you are interested in the pathology of a regime that started as force-fed Moscow communism, but then, when Stalin was dead and the Russian troops left, it transformed itself into a mixture of "national communism" (oxymoron but national socialism is inappropriate too) with Byzantine overtones that with a few changes here and there (eg substituting the working class worship for Orthodox Christianity and with selling the Jews to Israel for hard cash rather than killing them) would not have seemed out of place if the Legion would have led the country for a few decades...
The white horse was missing as Ceausescu, short and not that impressive physically, would have looked utterly silly on, but the scepter, the pseudo crown, the cape, the Pantheon of Romanian Heroes etc were all there; reading the essays in this book will give you a better sense of how these things worked in a nominal communist and Eastern block country
Except for the Eliade bashing essay - discussing that is a matter on its own and I think that overall Mr. Manea did very well in bringing the past to life, while noting also that more about the topic came soon after so the topic would have come to light anyway and the hate addressed to N. Manea for this essay is misplaced, while as a matter of principle, shining light on darker corners of revered public personalities is always a good thing because it reminds us that everyone is fallible and however great an author's work is (eg M. Eliade's novel Forbidden Forest aka Noaptea de Sanzien leads my all time favorite book list) this does not make the author a saint, an oracle, a person of worship etc - the rest of the essays deal with the communist regime and the author's life and work under it. A book like this needs to be read when nostalgia for Ceausescu's "years of light" surfaces...
One niggle I had was the translation of the slogan "anii lumina" in "years of enlightenment" rather than the more appropriate imho "years of light" which give the sense in which the slogan was used to encompass all aspects of Romanian society which (in the vision of the slogan of course) under Ceausescu got so close to paradise , while years of enlightenment just remind one of bookish stuff
Anyway this book is highly recommended if you lived through those hell years or if you are interested in the pathology of a regime that started as force-fed Moscow communism, but then, when Stalin was dead and the Russian troops left, it transformed itself into a mixture of "national communism" (oxymoron but national socialism is inappropriate too) with Byzantine overtones that with a few changes here and there (eg substituting the working class worship for Orthodox Christianity and with selling the Jews to Israel for hard cash rather than killing them) would not have seemed out of place if the Legion would have led the country for a few decades...
The white horse was missing as Ceausescu, short and not that impressive physically, would have looked utterly silly on, but the scepter, the pseudo crown, the cape, the Pantheon of Romanian Heroes etc were all there; reading the essays in this book will give you a better sense of how these things worked in a nominal communist and Eastern block country
December 6, 2019
Esszék a ’80-as évek Romániájából egy nagyszerű író tollából, kitekintéssel a romániai rendszerváltás utánra – közép-európai szöveg, és mint minden közép-európai szöveg, kicsit rólunk is szól. Fussunk át rajtuk.
1.) Románia – nagy szándékú írás arról, hogyan passzol a diktatúra a román hagyományokhoz. (Majdnem azt mondtam, „néplélekhez”, de hát abban ugye nem hiszek. Meg hát milyen szó már az.) Itt máris felbukkan Manea fixa ideája, miszerint Ceaușescu rezsimje nem tekinthető kommunistának, inkább valamiféle sztálinista-fasiszta öszvérnek, ami a nacionalizmus és antiszemitizmus eszköztárát sokkal határozottabban (és eredményesebben) használta fel, mint a többi „baráti ország”*. Ettől függetlenül ennél a szövegnél még azt éreztem, hogy Maneában a prózaíró győzedelmeskedett az esszéíró felett – lendületes, és tanulmánytól némileg szokatlan módon érzelmileg elkötelezett írás ugyan, amit jó olvasni, de túl széttartó ahhoz, hogy egy ekkora témával megbirkózzon.
2.) Bohócokról – alakul, alakul… egy Fellini-interjúból kiindulva, Chaplin és Hitler figuráját összehasonlítva beszél Manea a diktátorokról és a bohócokról, közülük is legfőképpen arról a bohóc-diktátorról, akit volt alkalma személyesen megtapasztalni: Ceaușescuról. Bár itt is hektikus a szöveg szövete, de erőteljessége elnyomja kétségeimet.
3.) A cenzor jelentése – igazi csemege azoknak, akik működés közben szeretik vizsgálni a diktatúrákat, de nem szeretnek napi sajtót olvasgatni: egy igazi cenzori jelentést olvashatunk Manea egyik regényéről a szerző kommentárjaival. Micsoda kacskaringókat tesz meg (kénytelen megtenni) egy regény egy autoriter államban, amíg (és ha egyáltalán) megmutathatja magát!
4.) Felix culpa – az egyik legjobb szöveg Eliadéról, a vallástörténészek gyöngyéről, aki mellesleg ifjú titán korában teljes mellszélességgel volt fasiszta, és nagyon úgy tűnik, ezt nem is bánta meg. Nem puszta életrajz, hanem egy igazán érdekfeszítő mélázás arról, hogy a szerzővel kapcsolatos etikai problémákból mennyi háramlik át a műre, illetve magára a személy időskori énjére.
5.) Egy interjú története – Manea egy interjúban kritizálni merészeli a kormányzat kisebbségi politikáját, mire beindul ellene a gépezet: gyalázkodó cikkek jelennek meg róla a rezsim csókos íróitól, sőt, megjelenik egy Mephisto-szerű titkosszolga is, hogy teljes legyen a kép. Elképesztően tanulságos szöveg, esszénél ritkán mond ilyet az ember, de: megfilmesítésért kiált.
6.) Száműzetés – röpke eszmefuttatás a száműzött-lelkiállapotról. Rövid és velős. Kis kandírozott cseresznye egy remekbe szabott esszékötet fagylaltkelyhének tetején.
* Amíg a Kádár-korszak deklaráltan nacionalizmus-ellenesként határozta meg magát, és elnyomta a szélsőséges megnyilvánulásokat (részben azzal, hogy Trianonról például nem lehetett beszélni), addig a román berendezkedés felhasználta az ország sokfajta kisebbségéből és ellenséges szomszédaiból szükségszerűen kialakuló negatív energiákat, és egy agresszív soviniszta retorikával igyekezett befolyásolni a többséget. Ennek sajátos következménye, hogy amíg itthon a kommunistaellenesség egyes markáns csoportokban összeforrott a nagymagyarkodással, addig Romániában ez az összefüggés jóval kevésbé kitapintható.
1.) Románia – nagy szándékú írás arról, hogyan passzol a diktatúra a román hagyományokhoz. (Majdnem azt mondtam, „néplélekhez”, de hát abban ugye nem hiszek. Meg hát milyen szó már az.) Itt máris felbukkan Manea fixa ideája, miszerint Ceaușescu rezsimje nem tekinthető kommunistának, inkább valamiféle sztálinista-fasiszta öszvérnek, ami a nacionalizmus és antiszemitizmus eszköztárát sokkal határozottabban (és eredményesebben) használta fel, mint a többi „baráti ország”*. Ettől függetlenül ennél a szövegnél még azt éreztem, hogy Maneában a prózaíró győzedelmeskedett az esszéíró felett – lendületes, és tanulmánytól némileg szokatlan módon érzelmileg elkötelezett írás ugyan, amit jó olvasni, de túl széttartó ahhoz, hogy egy ekkora témával megbirkózzon.
2.) Bohócokról – alakul, alakul… egy Fellini-interjúból kiindulva, Chaplin és Hitler figuráját összehasonlítva beszél Manea a diktátorokról és a bohócokról, közülük is legfőképpen arról a bohóc-diktátorról, akit volt alkalma személyesen megtapasztalni: Ceaușescuról. Bár itt is hektikus a szöveg szövete, de erőteljessége elnyomja kétségeimet.
3.) A cenzor jelentése – igazi csemege azoknak, akik működés közben szeretik vizsgálni a diktatúrákat, de nem szeretnek napi sajtót olvasgatni: egy igazi cenzori jelentést olvashatunk Manea egyik regényéről a szerző kommentárjaival. Micsoda kacskaringókat tesz meg (kénytelen megtenni) egy regény egy autoriter államban, amíg (és ha egyáltalán) megmutathatja magát!
4.) Felix culpa – az egyik legjobb szöveg Eliadéról, a vallástörténészek gyöngyéről, aki mellesleg ifjú titán korában teljes mellszélességgel volt fasiszta, és nagyon úgy tűnik, ezt nem is bánta meg. Nem puszta életrajz, hanem egy igazán érdekfeszítő mélázás arról, hogy a szerzővel kapcsolatos etikai problémákból mennyi háramlik át a műre, illetve magára a személy időskori énjére.
5.) Egy interjú története – Manea egy interjúban kritizálni merészeli a kormányzat kisebbségi politikáját, mire beindul ellene a gépezet: gyalázkodó cikkek jelennek meg róla a rezsim csókos íróitól, sőt, megjelenik egy Mephisto-szerű titkosszolga is, hogy teljes legyen a kép. Elképesztően tanulságos szöveg, esszénél ritkán mond ilyet az ember, de: megfilmesítésért kiált.
6.) Száműzetés – röpke eszmefuttatás a száműzött-lelkiállapotról. Rövid és velős. Kis kandírozott cseresznye egy remekbe szabott esszékötet fagylaltkelyhének tetején.
* Amíg a Kádár-korszak deklaráltan nacionalizmus-ellenesként határozta meg magát, és elnyomta a szélsőséges megnyilvánulásokat (részben azzal, hogy Trianonról például nem lehetett beszélni), addig a román berendezkedés felhasználta az ország sokfajta kisebbségéből és ellenséges szomszédaiból szükségszerűen kialakuló negatív energiákat, és egy agresszív soviniszta retorikával igyekezett befolyásolni a többséget. Ennek sajátos következménye, hogy amíg itthon a kommunistaellenesség egyes markáns csoportokban összeforrott a nagymagyarkodással, addig Romániában ez az összefüggés jóval kevésbé kitapintható.
May 16, 2015
O lectura necesara pentru confruntarea trecutului neplacut din istoria totalitara a Romaniei moderne si contemporana. Manea este controversat din cauza criticii unor persoane tabu din viata culturala romaneasca, cum ar fi Mircea Eliade.
Octavian Manea discuta in primul capitol despre cultura si dictatura, relatia conflictuala sau colaboranta dintre ele, prezentandu-si situatia concreta in acest timp.
Interesant contrast/comparatia dintre Charlie Chaplin si Hitler (Artistul si Dictatorul).
In unul din urmatoarele capitole (Felix Culpa) vorbeste despre Mircea Eliade, despre inclinatiile de extrema dreapta ale acestuia (Garda de Fier) si cum nici spre sfarsitul vietii nu s-a exprimat clar impotriva exceselor ideologiei legionare.
Sunt multe lucruri pe care nu le stiam despre Eliade. Oricum, acestea nu diminueaza calitatea scrierilor sale despre magie, mister, istorie a religiilor si beletristica. Insa aceste lucruri nu mi le-a spus nimeni; de fapt in perioada comunista (si nici acum, la 25 de ani de atunci) nu se vorbeste despre aceste opinii ale lui Eliade, chiar daca este necesar.
Octavian Manea discuta in primul capitol despre cultura si dictatura, relatia conflictuala sau colaboranta dintre ele, prezentandu-si situatia concreta in acest timp.
Interesant contrast/comparatia dintre Charlie Chaplin si Hitler (Artistul si Dictatorul).
In unul din urmatoarele capitole (Felix Culpa) vorbeste despre Mircea Eliade, despre inclinatiile de extrema dreapta ale acestuia (Garda de Fier) si cum nici spre sfarsitul vietii nu s-a exprimat clar impotriva exceselor ideologiei legionare.
Sunt multe lucruri pe care nu le stiam despre Eliade. Oricum, acestea nu diminueaza calitatea scrierilor sale despre magie, mister, istorie a religiilor si beletristica. Insa aceste lucruri nu mi le-a spus nimeni; de fapt in perioada comunista (si nici acum, la 25 de ani de atunci) nu se vorbeste despre aceste opinii ale lui Eliade, chiar daca este necesar.
September 11, 2020
Quizá podría parecer obvia la censura que afecta a un escritor que vive en un país dominado bajo un dictador comunista, pero las vivencias de Manea dan un buen pulso de la época. Los ensayos no sólo se quedan en su experiencia, sino que reflexiona mucho sobre la democracia y las sutilezas que utiliza el poder para expandirse en un sistema totalitario. Me gustó.
August 23, 2024
Supraviețuitor atât al Holocaustului, cât și al reprimărilor comuniste, Norman Manea se declară a fi de două ori străin; de două ori exilat.
Această antologie de eseuri cred eu că este o lectură necesară astăzi. De la a privi cu o luciditate fină abuzurile regimului Ceaușescu, la a da de pământ (pe bună dreptate) cu Eliade, la a face balanța dintre Hitler și Chaplin, Norman Manea se joacă cu gândurile și cu vorbele pe cât de elegant, pe atât de direct.
Această antologie de eseuri cred eu că este o lectură necesară astăzi. De la a privi cu o luciditate fină abuzurile regimului Ceaușescu, la a da de pământ (pe bună dreptate) cu Eliade, la a face balanța dintre Hitler și Chaplin, Norman Manea se joacă cu gândurile și cu vorbele pe cât de elegant, pe atât de direct.
October 7, 2017
"Per quanto possa sembrare paradossale, l'artista è un manovale segreto dell'amore. [...] Egli reinventa ogni giorno le premesse della sua difficile ricerca e onora il suo virtuale lettore, uno straniero simile e dissimile, del dono di un amore esigente. Solo così lo scrittore può continuare la sua inconclusa avventura e rendere umano il suo naufragio, dovunque sia." (p. 217, excipit)
August 12, 2019
Nu mi-au plăcut toate la fel de mult. Felix culpa, despre Mircea Eliade, este interesant. La fel eseul despre Mihail Sebastian, cel despre raportul cenzorului și cel în care povestește întâlnirea cu ofițerul de la Securitate. Eseul care dă chiar titlul volumului mi s-a părut destul de greu de citit, poate traducerea nu este cea mai grozavă.
December 13, 2016
Ühelt poolt oleme me juba palju lugenud võimu ja vaimu vahekordadest totalitaarsete režiimide tingimustes. Teiselt poolt kõlab see raamat tänases päevas jälle väga ajakohasena, sest on juba märke, et vanad kogemused hakkavad ununema ning totalitaarsus võib nüüd juba uues kuues jälle leida tee meie ellu. Tahaks ütelda, et kohustuslik lugemine kõigile, kellele kõva käsi ja must-valged ideed meeldivad ... aga ma kardan, et nende jaoks oleks raamat igav ja keeruline.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews