Opere

by Mihai Eminescu

Paperback

First published January 1, 1939

About the author

Mihai Eminescu (Romanian pronunciation: [miˈhaj emiˈnesku]; born Mihail Eminovici) was a Romantic poet, novelist and journalist, often regarded as the most famous and influential Romanian poet.

Eminescu was an active member of the Junimea literary society and he worked as an editor for the newspaper Timpul ("The Time"), the official newspaper of the Conservative Party (1880–1918).

His first poems volume was published when he was 16 and he went to Vienna to study when he was 19. The poet's manuscripts, containing 46 volumes and approximately 14,000 pages, were offered by Titu Maiorescu as a gift to the Romanian Academy during the meeting that was held on January 25, 1902.

Notable works include Luceafărul (Evening Star), Odă în metru antic (Ode in Ancient Meter), and the five Letters (Epistles/Satires). In his poems he frequently used metaphysical, mythological and historical subjects. In general his work was influenced by the German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer.

Reviews

[Eduard Gafton · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'll be using this as a substitute for Mhai Eminescu's volume entitled "Proză" published by Adevărul as part of the collection "Biblioteca Pentru Toţi."

Contents: Prose published during the author's lifetime, excerpt
from various manuscripts and Romanian folklore fairy tales.

If you're ready to read this through its entireity, here's a fair warning:

You're going to see a lot of the same thing:

- I believe Eminescu has a favourite adjective that he uses to describe absolutely everything which is: straşnic. I'm not even kidding. You'll see it used multiple times on the same page.

-Also, he just loves saying: "cavisul unei nopţi de vară.... And I get it, it's a nice reference to one of Shakespeare's play, specifically A Midsummer Night's Dream. But he has an obession!

-And, similar to what he does to adjectives, he describes a lot of his female characters in the same exact way: "...s-aşa era de frumoasă, de la soare te puteai uita, da la dânsa ba". And I get it, it's a nice comparison. But please! Don't overdo it!

And now for a proper review.

It's important to say that Eminescu never intended for this volume to be published at all. This is just a collection of his entire prosaic work. Unfortunately, pieces of manuscripts are lost and most are incomplete, missing words, pages or even endings.

And because the contents is split into three different parts, I'll do so myself in my review.

Part 1 - Prose published in his lifetime (Sărmanul Dionis, Cezara,...)

Of course, this is the prose that really matters and which is deemed as being finished. Of all of them, two stand out: Sărmanul Dionis and Cezara.

The first one illustrates the bohemic nature of the author and is mostly centered around themes that are reoccuring in the author's entire work, be it prose or poetry. However, prose is significantly different from poetry. And this is the main problem from which it suffers. It's inconsistent, lacks a logical succession of events and the characters aren't fleshed-out to be personages, elements that a novel needs desperately.

The latter manages to do what its "predecessor" failed in doing and becomes Eminescu's best work of prose.

An overall rating of part 1 of contents: 3 stars. I was fond of it.

Part 2 - Excerpt from his manuscripts (Avatarii faraonului Tla,Geniu Pustiu...)

This part is significantly harder to review, as the worked is in an easily noticeable early phase.

Avatarii faraonului Tla is a convoluted mess. It's main theme is metempsihosis, as you can easily figure that out from the title. However, from that extremely intricate piece of work, there is a strike of genius. The rest just seems to be pretentous non-sense as Eminescu never intended to publish it.

Geniu Pustiu is the longest of his prosaic works and features a plot that I was fond of and which was surprising to me, as Eminescu, for the first time in his prosaic work, used history and war as a theme(alongside the romance, of course.)

However, the rest are rough sketches and fragments of his work that barely have any substance and which fail to stand up on their own.

Part 2 gets a final rating of two stars. Geniu Pustiu is a good work which is not backed up by the following.

Part 3 - Romanian folklore fairy tales (Călin Nebunul,Finul lui Dumnezeu...)

The third and the final part is an atrocious one.

Călin Nebunul stands out for being the best out of the worst, in my opinion.

The rest just give you the impression that you're reading the same thing, over and over and over. I could not wait to get it done with. Luckily, it was about 40 pages long so I managed to get through it with ease.

Part 3, a final rating of 1.

Conclusion - Mihai Eminescu's "Proză"

Mihai Eminescu wasn't as great of a prose writer and he was a poet. The only works worth reading are the ones that have been published during his life time. The others are dispensable and you won't miss much if you choose to skip them.

In the end, Mihai Eminescu's entire volume of prose gets a rating of 2 stars from me.