Norman Manea - The Fifth Impossibility - Essays on Exile and Language

Islam 188–9, 192; see also Muslim fundamentalism

Italy and “Roma” refugees 302–5

Jarry, Alfred 86

Jasenka, Milena 342

Jerusalem Cultural Project 244

Jesi, Furio 101, 104

Jews and Judaism: and Celan’s Conversation in the Mountains 202–6, 221–32; Kafka on 335–6, 338, 342, 343–4; and language 217–18, 220–1, 268–9, 335–6, 338, 348; “monopoly on suffering” accusations 299; and Sebastian’s identity 50, 51, 59; see also anti-Semitism

Joyce, James 348

Jünger, Ernst 78–9

Kaczynski, Theodore John 275

Kádár, Janos 37–8

Kafka, Franz 9, 204, 206, 257, 270, 271, 277, 280; The Castle 332–3; and exile 343–9; and German language 328, 335–6, 337–41, 348; “The Great Wall of China” 345–6; and impossibility 327–49; The Metamorphosis 333–4, 344; “The New Advocate” 333; The Trial 333; “The Wish to Be A Red Indian” 345

Keynes, John Maynard 317

Khomeini, Ayatollah 35, 132

Khrushchev, Nikita 293

Kierkegaard, Søren 248

Kiš, Danilo 348

Klemperer, Victor 45

Kundera, Milan 299–301

Lacoue-Labarthe, Philippe 105

Lafitte, Jacques 316

languages of exile 253–73, 346, 348; Kafka and German language 328, 335–6, 337–41

Laval, Pierre 26

Lawton, David 133

Le Pen, Jean-Marie 60

Lefebvre, Jean Pierre 203, 221

Legion of the Archangel Michael 99; see also Iron Guard

Lenin, Vladimir Ilyich 35, 94

Levi, Primo 8, 216, 348

Levinas, Emmanuel 208, 264

Levy, Bernard-Henry 145

Likhonosov, Viktor 125

Loeb, Rabbi Moshe 90

Lorca, Federico García 36

Los Angeles Times 127

Lovinescu, Eugen 100

Luceafárul (journal) 131

McMurty, Larry 95

Magris, Claudio: Blinding 308–10

Mailat, Nicolae Romulus 303–4

mailmen 14–16, 20–4

Man, Paul de 94, 110

Mandelstam, Osip 36, 205, 206, 348

Manea, Norman: Augustus the Fool’s Apprenticeship Years 64, 65–6, 83; The Black Envelope 40, 257; categorization as writer 271–2; Composite Biography (also A Robot Biography ) 77, 259–60; On the Contour 265; “Pressing Love” 40, 256–7; psychiatric refuge 81–3; Romanian response to “Happy Guilt” 126–33; “Weddings” 40–1

Manger, Itzik 253–4

Mann, Golo 203

Mann, Thomas 8, 25, 65, 197, 282, 306–7, 348

Mao Zedong 94

Margul-Sperber, Alfred 219

Margul-Sperber, Jessica 218

Marin, Vasile 112

Márquez, Gabriel García 296–9

Martin, Mircea 214–15

Marx, Karl 33, 295, 315, 316–18

Mauriac, François 150

Michnik, Adam 300

migration and European Union 302–5

Montaigne, Michel Eyquem de 292

Montale, Eugenio 76–7, 241

Morin, Edgar 145

Mo ta, Ion 112

Movement for Romania 126

Musil, Robert 17, 348

Muslim fundamentalism 188–9, 191–2; Rushdie fatwa 124, 131–3, 134, 293–5; see also September 11 attacks

Mussolini, Benito 94

Nabokov, Vladimir 261, 262–3, 348

Naipaul, V.S. 268

Nancy, Jean-Luc 105

“National Bolshevism” in Russia 306 national identity 7; Eliade’s Romanianism 97–8; Kafka and language 337–40; Romanian nationalism 97–8, 105–7, 115, 126, 127–8, 306

Nazism 5, 7, 35, 106; facing the past in Romania 44–62, 92–118; ideological critiques 102–3, 105; see also Hitler

Nemoianu, Virgil 98–9

Nepomnyashchy, Catherine T. 122–3

New York 319–23

Nietzsche, Friedrich Wilhelm 38, 204, 299

Noica, Constantin 45, 61, 106–7, 113, 119, 301; Cioran’s caustic comments on 143; correspondence with Cioran 150–4, 155–6; internal exile and trial 150–6

nostalgia for communist era 129, 305

Nouvelle Revue Française ( NRF ) in Bucharest 150–6

Obama, Barack 249

occupation and human nature 25–7

open society and effect of blasphemy 135–6, 138–9

oversimplification: of art and culture 307–10; and mass communications 312–13

Ozick, Cynthia 235, 343

Papu, Edgar 113

Paradise and forbidden fruit 27–8

Pârvan, Vasile 113

Pasternak, Boris 293

Paul, Jean 57

Pawel, Ernest 336

PEN: “The Word as Weapon” 260–1

Pessoa, Fernando 263–4, 272

Petrescu, Camil 117, 179

Petrescu, Dan 115

Petreu, Marta 147

Phylon of Alexandria 313

Picasso, Pablo 67

Poghirc, C. 104

Popovici, Vasile 60

postmen 14–16, 20–4

Proust, Marcel 9, 267

Pushkin, Alexander: Sinyavksy’s critique 121–5, 126, 130–1, 131, 132–3

Putin, Vladimir 288

Radulescu, Gogu 114

Ralian, Antoaneta 240

reading: appeal of banned books 313–14; in childhood under Stalinism 39; as escape 255, 256, 314; and identity 312, 313

reality television 136–7

Reggiani, Giovanna 302–5

Reich, Wilhelm 105

Renan, Ernst 135

“rhinocerization” 45–6

rich and future of capitalism 317–18

Ricketts, Mac Linscott 97–8, 99–100, 107–9

risk and freedom 27–8, 29–31

Roditi, Edouard 141

Rolle, Mme. Giles 143–4

“Roma” refugees 302–5

Romania: Ceau sescu’s regime 67, 68–91, 257, 283–4; Cioran’s disappointment with 141, 142–3, 146; Eliade’s Romanianism 97–8; facing the Nazi past 44–62, 101–5, 107–10, 114, 117; fall of communism and rise of anti-communism 299–300, 306; Greater Romania and growth of fascism 105–7, 110; lingering of totalitarian past 117, 287, 306; NATO membership 44; Noica’s internal exile and trial 150–6; post-Communist transition 117–18, 303, 305–6; postwar socialism 275–6; repression of intellectuals 150–6, 169–70; responses to Manea’s essay “Happy Guilt” 126–33; “Roma” minority 302–3; Russian entry into 58–9; withdrawal of Soviet troops from 154–5; see also Ceau sescu, Nicolae; Romanian language

România literará (journal) 61

România Mare (newspaper) 128–9

Romanian language 181–2, 253–73

Rosenberg, Harold 184

Roth, Philip 347; and Bellow 245–6; Nathan Zuckerman 247–52

Rushdie, Salman 124, 131–3, 134, 293–5

Ruskin, John 267

Russia: literature 256, 306, 314; “National Bolshevism” 306; response to Sinyavksy’s Pushkin critique 121–5, 130–1; see also Soviet Union

Russian Revolution (October 1917) 35, 315

Sadoveanu, Mihail 117

Safonov, Ernst 125

Sakharov, Andrei 104

Salazar, Antonio de Oliveira 99–100

Savater, Fernando 262

Schindler’s List (film) 195–7

Schmidt, Denis J. 207

Scholem, Gershom 204

Sebastian, Mihail (Joseph Hechter) 44–62, 149; De douá mii de ani (For Two Thousand Years) 47, 59; death 59; and Eugen Ionescu 45–6, 58, 171, 174; friendship with Eliade 54–8, 111; “How I Became a Hooligan” (essay) 49–50; Jurnal ( Journal ) 44–6, 47–62

sects as totalitarian groups 134–5

September 11 attacks 187–8, 189, 191, 289–90, 309–10, 321

Servier, Jean 101–2

Shafarevich, Igor 124

Shmueli, Ilana 206

Silberman, Edith 218

Silone, Ignazio 301

simplification of art and culture 307–10

Singer, Isaac Bashevis 268, 348

Sinyavksy, Andrei (Abram Tertz): critique of Pushkin myth 121–5, 126, 130–1, 131, 132–3