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Time, Death, and the Unspeakable Secret
278 pages, Paperback
Published May 30, 2025
20 people want to read
About the author
Mircea Eliade
558 books2,698 followersRomanian-born historian of religion, fiction writer, philosopher, professor at the University of Chicago, and one of the pre-eminent interpreters of world religion in the last century. Eliade was an intensely prolific author of fiction and non-fiction alike, publishing over 1,300 pieces over 60 years. He earned international fame with LE MYTHE DE L'ÉTERNAL RETOUR (1949, The Myth of the Eternal Return), an interpretation of religious symbols and imagery. Eliade was much interested in the world of the unconscious. The central theme in his novels was erotic love.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
July 19, 2025
“Mircea Eliade: The Philosopher as Storyteller”
‘A Fourteen Year-Old Photograph’, a short investigative mystery surrounding a photograph and a miracle that kept a greater mystery in the picture. What is non-typical in this short story is that it reverses the modern formula on the sacred. It is disenchantment, rather, that is questioned. It is the “load” the scam priest in the story has been forced to carry by possibility. The perennial quality of mankind that follows and provokes against ‘systems’ and philosophy is seen here in faith. The photograph very quickly takes a backseat.
‘At the Gypsies’, the atmospheric setting is both disorienting and oppressive (lots of mention of Arabian heat and sweating). Sorin Alexandrescu's comments are invaluable on the symbolic quality of a story that switches between the “Real” and “Unreal” as dialectical. It is representative of Eliade’s consistent attempts to fuse his fiction with his academic theories. Here we escape a little of the everyday, to learn to view the world in more fantastical ways.
With ‘The Bridge’, Eliade presents a discussion between characters on an officer described as beautiful beyond words and in terms of “negative theology.” His existence is used as a device to discuss mystery as camouflaged in banality and to provoke the reader to question what it takes to gain this reintegration with the real. The answer is given in the metaphor of the bridge—to experience a second death. This discussion is more theory-laden compared to the previous ones so far, however, and slightly more confusing.
‘The General’s Uniforms’, Eliade on art as ‘spectacle’: genius cannot be taught but only incarnated. This story begins with the hunt for an old general's uniform in pursuit of reviving theatre and rediscovering its meaning. Sorin Alexandrescu has linked Eliade’s attachment to Bucharest in this story to illustrate a point—that theatre is a mixing of the real and unreal, a way of gaining access, to a certain degree, to the spectacle:
‘Incognito in Buchenwald’, following the previous story on the spectacle, focuses more closely on its “existential” reflection in the human condition. It is reminiscent of Eliade’s foundational use of history in his other writings, primarily The Myth of the Eternal Return, and its presence in Buchenwald, where a Bodhisattva makes an appearance.
‘In the Shadow of a Lily’, a short story that follows the trend set in his previous stories, while containing somewhat of a biographical feel, as the characters—being Romanian émigrés in Paris—contend with yet another mystery surrounding the disappearance of trucks. In the end, the conclusion that truth can be ‘camouflaged’ in events is reiterated.
***
“I understand you,” Onofrei interrupted. “Sometimes, in the case of certain people, under the guise of the most grating banalities, profound structures of reality are revealed to you. Structures, I mean, which are inaccessible to us otherwise, rationally. As I told Blanduzia, if Western thought, from the pre-Socratics to the present, has made no progress, but on the contrary, we could even say that it has become stuck in a rut with no outlet, this is due above all to the arbitrary, monstrous importance accorded to language. It has been believed, wrongly, that reality can only be understood through concepts, and since concepts are formed through language, we can perfect them only by perfecting and purifying language. But ultimate reality cannot be captured in concepts nor expressed in language. For our minds, ultimate reality, being, is a mystery; and I define a mystery as that which we cannot recognize, that which is unrecognizable. This, however, could mean one of two things: either that we can never know ultimate reality, or else that we can know it at any time, provided that we learn to recognize it under its infinite camouflaged appearances, in what we call immediate reality, in what India calls māyā, a term I would translate as immediate unreality. You understand what I’m referring to: happenings, events, chance encounters, things that apparently couldn’t possibly have any significance. I say apparently, but what if this appearance is only a snare laid for us by māyā, the cosmic sorceress, matter in the state of continuous becoming? That’s why I spoke of coincidentia oppositorum, of that mystery in which being can coincide with nonbeing. I repeat, can coincide. But it doesn’t always coincide, because if it did, it wouldn’t be called a mystery anymore”
— ‘The Bridge’
“This is what each of us must do, we people of today in the second half of the twentieth century: we must reinvent everything, from language to Pascal’s wager, from love to institutions, from ethics to gymnastics.”
“I once confessed to you that if I’m not afraid of anything it’s not because I’m a nephew of the Hero, but because I’ve rediscovered the meaning and function of drama. But I didn’t explain what this means for me. To be unafraid of anything means to regard everything that happens in the world as ‘spectacle’: This means that we can intervene at any time, by using imagination, and we can modify the ‘spectacle’ in any way we wish…For me, reality is total truth, that is, what we shall be given to know only after death. But art, and in particular theatre, spectacle, reveals this truth in all that happens around us, and especially in all that we can imagine to be happening. Actually, theatre, like philosophy, is a preparation for death—with this difference, which for me is all-important, that ‘spectacle’ anticipates death’s revelation because it shows all these things here, on earth, in everyday life.”
— ‘The General’s Uniforms’
“Because, doamna,” he continued, turning to Marina, “we, this little band, came to the conclusion long ago that only by means of the theatre, that is, ‘spectacle’—including, of course, mime, choreography, and the chorus—only by means of drama could we succeed in showing that, although conditioned and hemmed in on all sides, we as well as our contemporaries in other countries and continents are not like mice trapped in a cage…”
“You wanted to tell us something which, as far as I’m concerned, I knew long ago but yet I didn’t see its connection with the damp patches on the wall. You wanted to say to us that anywhere and at any time we can be happy, that is, free, spontaneous, and creative. There’s no need for a paradisal landscape, nor for noble and exalted presences, angelic music, and so on. Here, as well as in any other place, at any time, in any circumstance—if we know how to look, how to understand, then…”
— ‘Incognito in Buchenwald’
“No, no!” Eftimie interrupted. “Iliescu assured me that signs have been made to us for a long time, for centuries. Only the camouflage changes—according to the age in which we live. Today, in our era dominated by technology…”
— 'In the Shadow of a Lily'
‘A Fourteen Year-Old Photograph’, a short investigative mystery surrounding a photograph and a miracle that kept a greater mystery in the picture. What is non-typical in this short story is that it reverses the modern formula on the sacred. It is disenchantment, rather, that is questioned. It is the “load” the scam priest in the story has been forced to carry by possibility. The perennial quality of mankind that follows and provokes against ‘systems’ and philosophy is seen here in faith. The photograph very quickly takes a backseat.
‘At the Gypsies’, the atmospheric setting is both disorienting and oppressive (lots of mention of Arabian heat and sweating). Sorin Alexandrescu's comments are invaluable on the symbolic quality of a story that switches between the “Real” and “Unreal” as dialectical. It is representative of Eliade’s consistent attempts to fuse his fiction with his academic theories. Here we escape a little of the everyday, to learn to view the world in more fantastical ways.
With ‘The Bridge’, Eliade presents a discussion between characters on an officer described as beautiful beyond words and in terms of “negative theology.” His existence is used as a device to discuss mystery as camouflaged in banality and to provoke the reader to question what it takes to gain this reintegration with the real. The answer is given in the metaphor of the bridge—to experience a second death. This discussion is more theory-laden compared to the previous ones so far, however, and slightly more confusing.
‘The General’s Uniforms’, Eliade on art as ‘spectacle’: genius cannot be taught but only incarnated. This story begins with the hunt for an old general's uniform in pursuit of reviving theatre and rediscovering its meaning. Sorin Alexandrescu has linked Eliade’s attachment to Bucharest in this story to illustrate a point—that theatre is a mixing of the real and unreal, a way of gaining access, to a certain degree, to the spectacle:
“Bucharest is a positive presence here. The house where the story unfolds, on Strada Popa Nan, was then, and still is, close to Strada Mǎtǎsari, where the novella ‘The Cape’ begins. This area encapsulates the 'Bucharest of old' in the author’s memory—the old, pre-war Romania, which for him is 'eternal', and about which he will write in almost all his subsequent stories. This world is the unreal Bucharest, the Bucharest of Eliade’s youth, suspended in eternity outside the history that came after it: a Bucharest simultaneously theatrical and fantastical, sacred, eternal, impervious to history. His trilogy of stories about theatre and reality is set in this world: ‘The General’s Uniforms’ (1971), ‘Incognito in Buchenwald’ (1974) and ‘Nineteen Roses’ (1978–1979)”
‘Incognito in Buchenwald’, following the previous story on the spectacle, focuses more closely on its “existential” reflection in the human condition. It is reminiscent of Eliade’s foundational use of history in his other writings, primarily The Myth of the Eternal Return, and its presence in Buchenwald, where a Bodhisattva makes an appearance.
‘In the Shadow of a Lily’, a short story that follows the trend set in his previous stories, while containing somewhat of a biographical feel, as the characters—being Romanian émigrés in Paris—contend with yet another mystery surrounding the disappearance of trucks. In the end, the conclusion that truth can be ‘camouflaged’ in events is reiterated.
***
“I understand you,” Onofrei interrupted. “Sometimes, in the case of certain people, under the guise of the most grating banalities, profound structures of reality are revealed to you. Structures, I mean, which are inaccessible to us otherwise, rationally. As I told Blanduzia, if Western thought, from the pre-Socratics to the present, has made no progress, but on the contrary, we could even say that it has become stuck in a rut with no outlet, this is due above all to the arbitrary, monstrous importance accorded to language. It has been believed, wrongly, that reality can only be understood through concepts, and since concepts are formed through language, we can perfect them only by perfecting and purifying language. But ultimate reality cannot be captured in concepts nor expressed in language. For our minds, ultimate reality, being, is a mystery; and I define a mystery as that which we cannot recognize, that which is unrecognizable. This, however, could mean one of two things: either that we can never know ultimate reality, or else that we can know it at any time, provided that we learn to recognize it under its infinite camouflaged appearances, in what we call immediate reality, in what India calls māyā, a term I would translate as immediate unreality. You understand what I’m referring to: happenings, events, chance encounters, things that apparently couldn’t possibly have any significance. I say apparently, but what if this appearance is only a snare laid for us by māyā, the cosmic sorceress, matter in the state of continuous becoming? That’s why I spoke of coincidentia oppositorum, of that mystery in which being can coincide with nonbeing. I repeat, can coincide. But it doesn’t always coincide, because if it did, it wouldn’t be called a mystery anymore”
— ‘The Bridge’
“This is what each of us must do, we people of today in the second half of the twentieth century: we must reinvent everything, from language to Pascal’s wager, from love to institutions, from ethics to gymnastics.”
“I once confessed to you that if I’m not afraid of anything it’s not because I’m a nephew of the Hero, but because I’ve rediscovered the meaning and function of drama. But I didn’t explain what this means for me. To be unafraid of anything means to regard everything that happens in the world as ‘spectacle’: This means that we can intervene at any time, by using imagination, and we can modify the ‘spectacle’ in any way we wish…For me, reality is total truth, that is, what we shall be given to know only after death. But art, and in particular theatre, spectacle, reveals this truth in all that happens around us, and especially in all that we can imagine to be happening. Actually, theatre, like philosophy, is a preparation for death—with this difference, which for me is all-important, that ‘spectacle’ anticipates death’s revelation because it shows all these things here, on earth, in everyday life.”
— ‘The General’s Uniforms’
“Because, doamna,” he continued, turning to Marina, “we, this little band, came to the conclusion long ago that only by means of the theatre, that is, ‘spectacle’—including, of course, mime, choreography, and the chorus—only by means of drama could we succeed in showing that, although conditioned and hemmed in on all sides, we as well as our contemporaries in other countries and continents are not like mice trapped in a cage…”
“You wanted to tell us something which, as far as I’m concerned, I knew long ago but yet I didn’t see its connection with the damp patches on the wall. You wanted to say to us that anywhere and at any time we can be happy, that is, free, spontaneous, and creative. There’s no need for a paradisal landscape, nor for noble and exalted presences, angelic music, and so on. Here, as well as in any other place, at any time, in any circumstance—if we know how to look, how to understand, then…”
— ‘Incognito in Buchenwald’
“No, no!” Eftimie interrupted. “Iliescu assured me that signs have been made to us for a long time, for centuries. Only the camouflage changes—according to the age in which we live. Today, in our era dominated by technology…”
— 'In the Shadow of a Lily'
June 26, 2025
What a wonderful translation of Eliade’s short stories, such a delight to read La țigănci / At the gypsies in English
September 18, 2025
Not for me.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews