Memoirs of a Geisha

I don’t know of many authors who wouldn’t want to make their novels into a movie. There are probably three main reasons why writers would love to see their fiction turned into film: a) vanity,  b) money (a novel usually sells better if it gains more visibility as a movie) and c) the most important reason, I believe, is the fact that cinema is the most comprehensive art, which includes several branches of the arts. Great films have the narrative quality of fiction; the visual appeal of photography; a top-notch music score; a good script and quality, character-based acting that, ideally, competes with theater.  If you want it all, as a fiction writer, you somehow have to find a way of collaborating with an accomplished movie director. I’d like to describe below some of the options of collaboration available between fiction writers and movie directors.

Memoirs of a Geisha movie

1)  Sell movie rights to your novel to a top-notch film studio

The baseball player Lefty Gomez is famously quoted as saying “I’d rather be lucky than good”. If you’re a fiction writer or a movie director, however, you definitely need to be both lucky and good to succeed. If you’re good without being lucky you won’t go far in life, unfortunately. If you’re lucky but mediocre, your star will fade quickly, as any fad does. The most successful novels that have been made into mainstream movies, I believe, usually had a winning combination of good fortune and quality writing. If you succeed in publishing your novel with a good publisher–a rather challenging process which I already described in my earlier article “How the Publishing Process Works in the U.S.” (see  link below)–and if that publishing house decides to invest most of its annual promotion budget into your novel, then you have a decent chance of selling movie rights to your book.

Although there was some controversy related to the movie—a former geisha who offered Golden some background information sued him and his publisher, Alfred A. Knopf—overall, this novel is a rare and huge success story which, unfortunately, few writers can boast of. If your novel doesn’t sell tens of millions of copies worldwide and doesn’t get movie rights with a major Hollywood studio–yet you still want to see your novel made into a movie–then what do you do? Your best option is to try to find an appropriate independent film director on your own. If you choose to pursue this avenue, however, you have to exercise caution. Independent movies can be the incredibly powerful and artistic. They’re often more dramatic and character-driven than mainstream cinema. Unfortunately, the field of independent cinema is also a breeding ground for scam artists and frauds.

2)   Collaborating with an independent film director

There’s no shortage of talented independent film directors out there. The challenge consists of finding the right one for your fiction and especially getting the budget necessary to make your film. I’ll have to say upfront that I caution writers against collaborating with film directors that charge the author and/or actors to fund their film. Not only do you risk losing your life savings in this manner, but also your film, even if it is produced, will probably not have a decent distribution network. Likewise, be aware of the sad reality that not all film producers will be honest or upfront about charging authors money. The most dangerous, I believe, are those that string you along and mislead you by either a) asking for incremental “reasonable” sums of money for the project that eventually add up to a huge amount or b) getting you emotionally and creatively invested in the project first, then demanding money later (a classic bait and switch technique of conartists). I think if you’re an author who has large discretionary funds at your disposal, then it’s fine to pay a movie director to make your novel into a movie: as long as both sides are honest and open about what they expect and will get from each other. But I suspect that few authors have large discretionary funds at their disposal, which would be necessary, since making movies is a costly process. If you’re not independently wealthy, as most writers aren’t, then what do you do? This is what I’ll explore next.

Although creative compatibilities between the writer and the film director are most important, without sufficient funding they can’t make a movie. I have not discussed the issue of funding when addressing the rare case of bestselling fiction being made into a blockbuster movie because in such a situation lack of money is obviously not an issue. Insufficient funding is, however, one of the main hurdles in the business of independent film. Generally speaking, there’s an excess of talented writers, independent movie producers and actors and a relative scarcity of funds for them.  Fortunately, there are some funding options available to independent film producers. 

Cristian Mungiu

a)   Public art grants

Public art funding is especially common in Europe. I’ll use Romanian film directors as an example, not only because new Romanian cinema has gained international renown during the last decade, but also because  it relies primarily upon public art grants. The National Center for Cinematography (Centrul National al Cinematografiei) and the European Media Program give annual awards to talented Romanian directors. These grants are competitive (many more directors apply than are awarded grants) and the funding is usually far more modest than the budget of mainstream Hollywood cinema. An independent film usually gets about one million Euros, sometimes less, while Hollywood movies require tens of millions of dollars.

4 months 3 weeks and 2 days by Cristian Mungiu

Even with more modest funding, however, Romanian directors have produced award-winning films that are incredibly dramatic and character-driven. Earlier I reviewed on this blog several such movies, directed by Cristian Mungiu, Vali Hotea and Bogdan George Apetri. Their grants were often supplemented by Western European film grants.  In addition, universities often award film grants, as do cultural centers and institutes, such as ICR (the Romanian Cultural Institute). It is a great privilege for a fiction writer to collaborate with an independent film producer that has the capacity, talent and connections to receive such film grants and to make the most of them by producing great movies. In the best-case scenario, the talents of each complement and enhance the other and the final result is even better than the sum of the parts (fiction and film). 

Outbound (Periferic) directed by Bogdan George Apetri

But even this option is relatively rare, particularly in the United States. Art grants for independent films are far more common in Europe than in the U.S. So what are some viable options for American writers and film directors?

Sundance Film Festival

b)   Private non-profit funding for independent films, such as the Sundance Film grants and crowd funding, such as Kickstarter

Sundance Film Grants

In the U.S., public funding for independent films–aside from the modest grants awarded by universities mostly to their students—is meager and rare. There are, however, some private grant sources worth mentioning. The most notable among them are the Sundance Film grants offered by the Sundance Institute. The renowned actor and film director Robert Redford founded this non-profit organization in 1981. In 1985 the institute took over the United States Film Festival. Its Feature Film Program supports new independent screenwriters and directors (or “Lab Fellows”). The winners of these grants get to shoot their films under the tutelage of established film directors and cinematographers. The Sundance Institute also has similar grants for documentary films and film music.  Through its combination of funding, studio experience and guidance from seasoned professionals, the Sundance programs offer a wonderful opportunity to talented new film directors. Many independent movies make the film festival circuit in the U.S. and Europe, the most prestigious of which are the Cannes and Sundance film festivals.

Kickstarter crowd funding

Kickstarter crowd funding

Another avenue for funding, particularly in the U.S. where, as mentioned, public funds are relatively few, is crowd funding. Kickstarter has become a popular source of funding for independent films. As the article below states, its films won 12 awards at the Sundance Film Festival 2012:

http://www.kickstarter.com/blog/reporting-back-kickstarter-at-sundance-2012

Launched in 2009 by Perry Chen, Yancey Strickler and Charles Adler, Kickstarter is a collective yet private way of investing money in film projects that people believe will make a profit. Film directors present a project and stipulate a deadline for raising the funds. If they can’t raise the funds by that date, then they don’t collect any of the pledged donations. The donations are made via Amazon payments and the platform is international (anyone in the world can propose projects and pledge donations). Kickstarter takes 5 percent of the profits made. The main downsides of Kickstarter are lack of enforcement and minimal quality control. The projects are selected based on their stipulated ability to make a profit, not necessarily based on their artistic quality. Also, there’s no way, as of yet, to enforce that those who propose certain projects will deliver them or that they’ll meet the standards of the individuals who funded them.

Follow your dreams but stay grounded in reality

For fiction writers and film directors alike, huge mainstream success is usually not something that comes automatically, if at all. Success in general depends on maximizing options, making good choices and being adaptable to change. No author can bank on having their novel become an international bestseller. Similarly, no independent movie director can count on having their movie become a blockbuster and win prestigious awards. The odds of both are equivalent to winning the lottery. To go back to my modified quote by Lefty Gomez, you have to be both lucky and good to succeed, particularly on such a grand scale. Fortunately, in many respects, both writers and movie directors make their luck—or at least maximize their chances for success–by exploring the best and most realistic options for a fruitful collaboration that turns fiction into film. 

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

Sandy Chila

The music industry is (in)famous for hits that quickly become yesterday’s news. Most pop songs are played on the radio for about two to three months. During that short period of time, we hear them so often that we tire of them. Afterwards, we rarely run across those songs again: except, perhaps, years later on “oldies” stations. It’s rare and remarkable to come across hits that are so memorable, melodious and catchy that they have a staying power that renders them timeless classics. I’d count, for instance, many of the Beatles’ hits in this category, along with Frank Sinatra’s and Nat King Cole’s classic love songs, which are, indeed… unforgettable.

Sandy Chila’s songs, “Avec ton Amour” and “A Light that Dances Solo” have the quality and beauty of such timeless classics. It’s almost impossible to look away from the Tacori jewelers commercial, “Cupid’s arrow,” that features Chila’s song, “Avec ton Amour.” The song is both mesmerizing and memorable.

Bilingual and multicultural like its composer, “Avec ton Amour” features both French and English lyrics to a melody that harks back to the best songs of Salvatore Adamo or Frankie Valli. Making such a comparison takes nothing away from the song’s originality and uniqueness, of course. In fact, some of the most successful contemporary composers and singers—including Amy Winehouse, Norah Jones and Adele—incorporate elements from the best pop music of previous decades while also rendering them new. Timelessness in pop music, to my mind, implies a certain continuity, not only originality. The most talented new composers and musicians don’t fully reject the past or try to reinvent the wheel. Rather, they integrate previous popular musical traditions—be it swing, jazz, Latin music or French varitetes–into their original and quirky compositions and style. Sandy Chila represents the best of both worlds: he blends new and former musical styles as well as several cultural traditions that have inspired him.

http://factoryent.wordpress.com/category/press/

As Factory Entertainment (see above), the company that represents Chila states, “the musical journey of Sandy Chila (pronounced “key-la” has taken him around the world and back again.” Chila was born in Monaco, lived in Cairo and relocated to Southern California. Influenced by musical styles considered opposites—such as classical music and hard rock (he toured and recorded for Gilby Clarke of Guns N’ Roses)—Chila’s own talent shines in timeless love songs that have captured the attention of Tacori, one of the most prestigious jewelry companies in the world.  Although the signature Tacori “golden arrow” commercial—so elegant and simple, a flirtatious dance of diamond bands—includes only a tantalizing snippet of Chila’s romantic song, “Avec ton Amour”, it’s definitely worth listening to the entire song, which is available on amazon.com and other online music stores:

Avec ton amour:

http://www.amazon.com/Avec-Ton-Amour/dp/B003LUS80A/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1354231555&sr=8-1&keywords=Sandy+Chila

A light that dances solo:

Helena Paper House

Chila’s talents are as wide-ranging and versatile as his musical style. He’s a singer, composer and producer. He’s created the music score for the independent films “Open House” (2007) and “Overloaded” (2009). More recently, he has collaborated with the beautiful and talented young singer, Helena Lalita, producing her songs “Sunlight” and “Paper House,” signed by Warner Brothers Records. I’m certain that Chila’s talents will shine through more and more in hit songs that will reach—and seduce—a mainstream audience.

http://www.HelenaLalita.com/

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

Razvan Petrescu’s Rubato: The Coordinates of World-class Romanian Fiction

by Claudia Moscovici

Despite charting very unfamiliar territories in fiction, the writer Razvan Petrescu is quite familiar—and famous—in his native country, Romania. A versatile and award-winning author, Petrescu is an essayist, fiction writer and playwright. Among his numerous literary prizes, he won the award Book of the Year at the National Salon of Books in Cluj; a fiction award for The Farce (Farsa, Editura Unitext, 1994) from the Association of Writers in Bucharest (Asociatia Scriitorilor din Bucuresti); the award UNITER for the best play of the year, Spring at the Buffet (Primavara la buffet, Editura Expansion, 1995), and the Prose Prize given by Radio Romania Cultural. Some of his works have been translated into Hebrew, Spanish and will be soon translated into English as well.

Traddutore Traditore

I have to admit, however, that I don’t envy the translators’ job, which I’m sure is very challenging. They say that poetry is the most difficult genre to translate, but in my opinion fiction that is unique in content and employs stylistically many dialects—such as the writing of Ion Luca Caragiale, Romain Gary and Razvan Petrescu–is the most difficult kind of literature to translate. And yet, that is usually also the most noteworthy and ingenious fiction. My main goal in this review is to convey the fact that Razvan Petrescu is a world-class author to an international audience, which may not be familiar with the Romanian language or with Romanian literature. How will I go about doing that? In mathematics or geography, you pinpoint a location, however remote or difficult to find, in terms of known coordinates. There’s no equivalent precise guide in the arts and humanities, however. The best I can do to offer such coordinates is to explain the relatively unfamiliar in terms of the relatively familiar: canonized authors that everyone knows; psychological fiction; universal themes and philosophical currents. The book I’ll be discussing here is Rubato (Curtea Veche Publishing, 2011), which is a collection of several of Razvan Petrescu’s prize-winning short fiction, published from 1989 to 2003. Rubato is like an album of the author’s best hits, if you will, but it is also far more than that: it’s world-class fiction, comparable, I believe, to the works of legendary writers like Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges.

Unique, uncategorizable fiction

Most fiction writers can be integrated rather easily into a genre, a movement or a style: be it  realism, fantasy, horror, or magical realism. There are a few writers, however, who are so quirky in style and unique in content that they’re almost impossible to categorize in terms of any neat and familiar literary labels. Franz Kafka and Jorge Luis Borges are two of my favorite authors among those. How do you attach a label to Kafka’s psychological realism of the subconscious and dream; to what do you compare Borges’ mathematical paradoxes translated into a puzzling fiction? I think Razvan Petrescu’s Rubato fits into this uncategorizable category of fiction. Which is why I believe that the best way to describe it to those who haven’t read it yet is in terms of equally innovative and quirky authors, such as Kafka and Borges. What Rubato shares with, for instance, Kafka’s The Castle (1926) is a psychological realism that goes far beyond—and beneath—the layers of our conscious reality.

photo Herb Ritts

The psychological realism of the subconscious

If Kafka’s The Castle (1926) or The Trial (1925) feel so real to us it’s not because they are actually realist in either content or style. It’s because these works focus so well on our unconscious fears—of powerlessness and alienation in a modern, bureaucratic society—that they bring them to the surface of our awareness. In reading the works of Kafka, we face our  misgivings and fears, confront them and even laugh at them, since they appear absurd. Yet we no longer minimize them and are unable to shove them back  under the rug, into the unconscious, to dismiss them. That’s why the works of Kafka remain so eerie and unsettling to us. Despite their sense of the absurd and humor, they’re as far removed as possible from superficial farce. The same phenomenon is at work when you read Razvan Petrescu’s Rubato. This slice of life tale depicts a psychiatrist’s “normal” day at work, which is full of abnormalities. 

photo Vadim Stein

All sorts of patients come in and out of his office, including a security officer/spy, a prostitute suffering from venereal diseases and a woman with psychopathic tendencies, who likes to torture and kill birds. Though they are all quite severely disturbed, the readers can’t help but laugh when reading their plights. The security officer has stinky feet and a very shallow conscience; the prostitute takes her clothes off and asks the psychiatrist to cure her venereal diseases; while the sadistic woman that likes to torture birds is beat at her own game (cruelty), as the psychiatrist admits to being more weird than her (and better at “befriending” and then killing birds as well). The name of the game for each of the characters is a complete detachment from the elements that render us human (empathy, caring, emotion, deep and meaningful connections to others). Despite this serious psychological deficiency, the tone of the narrative is so realistic in its style—the dialect and mannerisms of speech of each character constitute in themselves masterpieces of modern fiction—that the reader too becomes somewhat detached and laughs at them. Yet in laughing at them we also laugh at ourselves. Razvan Petrescu captures the most disturbing elements of the human condition through a series of hallucinatory characters, dialogues and diatribes that simultaneously appear absurd and  implausible yet also seem more real than our daily, conscious reality. How does he do that? Through what may be called “laughter through tears,” that authors like Ion Luca Caragiale, Anton Chekhov and Shalom Aleichem are best known for. 

Laughter through tears: Neither satire nor irony

The kind of narrative that establishes layers of psychological distance among the narrator, characters and readers in literature is usually described as “satire” or “irony”. But like Anton Chekkov, Ion Luca Caragiale or Shalom Aleichem’s fiction, Rubato provides neither: or rather, it offers much more than that.  Irony and satire are rhetorical stances that assume a position of superiority towards the characters and their actions from the narrator and/or author and readers. Authors that rely heavily on irony often ridicule the characters’ weaknesses and follies. I see no evidence of any narrative sense of superiority or authorial arrogance in Rubato. When we laugh at its characters, we realize we’re also laughing at ourselves. Hence the sense of unease that accompanies Rubato’s keen and pervasive sense of humor, which brings to light our phobias, perverse desires, abnormality and insecurities.

Even more disturbingly, Rubato constantly reminds us of the fragility of human life and of our mortality. Scenes of death and decay pervade Razvan Petrescu’s fiction. No matter how theatrical and comical the depictions of illness and death may be, unlike the scenes we see on the daily news, they still touch and disturb us psychologically. With a sense of indulgence and even love for humanity—and placing himself on the same plane as his characters and readers–the author opens up, like a doctor, the worst of our human qualities and examines them closely, one by one. We greet this complex process with mixed emotions–laughter, horror, revulsion and indulgence–because in these narratives, like in a hallway of mirrors, we see reflections of our inner lives.

photo Herb Ritts

Love, misogyny and women

In a recent interview with Esquire Magazine (Romania), Razvan Petrescu described himself—tongue-in-cheek, of course–as a “misogynist womanizer.” I’ve never in my life met a misogynist who admits to hating yet needing women. Misogynists tend to hide their contempt for women under the pretext of loving them (a technique common for psychopathic seducers) or of respecting certain women (such as mothers or the “virtuous” few) and hating all the rest. There’s  no trace of such underlying misogyny in any of Petrescu’s works. What we find in Rubato, for instance, is a compelling depiction of fear of the object of desire. This fear is a far cry from Arthur Schopenhauer or Henry de Montherlant’s flagrant and self-righteous misogyny. Many gorgeous, sexy women populate Petrescu’s fiction. Their erotic power is attenuated by humor; their emotional appeal is neutralized by fear.

In the short story The Door (Usa), for instance, a mother and a daughter exchange worried whispers about their husband/father, who is dying on a hospital bed in an adjacent room. The doctor, about to go to a surgery and utterly indifferent to his patient’s plight, attempts to persuade the two women to take the moribund patient back home. There’s nothing he can do for him at the hospital anymore. Rather than worrying about the poor state of health of the patient, the two women debate in hushed voices the cost of transporting the ill man home. The patient overhears the whole conversation through a slightly cracked door. He expires, in a scene as vivid but more concise than Tolstoy’s The Death of Ivan Ilych (1886), knowing that he’s neither appreciated nor loved by his wife and his daughter.  Razvan Petrescu’s fictional world is filled with such uncaring women, indifferent doctors, loveless marriages and spoiled children. They show the following thought experiment in action: When cynicism is pushed as far as it can go, it becomes psychological realism.

Cynicism versus nihilism

There’s no doubt that Razvan Petrescu’s fiction is pervaded by an underlying sense of cynicism. Not nihilism, but cynicism. Nihilism, or the questioning and negation of human ideals and values, may be great for philosophy—think Nietzsche—but it can be awfully boring and preachy when we encounter it in fiction. Who needs a dissertation on the meaninglessness of life and human values from some uppity character delivering lectures from up high, on a pedestal? Cynicism, on the other hand, tends to be a very welcome perspective in fiction. It avoids both the unforgivable naiveté of idealism and the arrogance of nihilism. Of course, in modern usage, cynicism has little to do with the original Greek Cynics, who believed that the purpose of life was to live a virtuous and modest life, deprived of unnecessary luxuries: in other words, a life in accordance to Nature. Perhaps modern Cynicism uses as its frame of reference only the most comical and extreme of the Cynics—Diogenes of Sinope—who rejected his society, begged to survive, and lived in a stone jar in the marketplace. Either way you look at it, cynicism offers a critical perspective of the human condition and of our societies with enough humor and sense of the absurd that even humanists can take it.  Written in a dramatic, hallucinatory and utterly engaging polyphony of dialects (and characterizations); confronting our deepest fears and flaws with a disarming honesty and contagious cynicism; probing psychologically the limits of our humanity and moral values, Razvan Petrescu’s Rubato is a masterpiece of world (not just Romanian) literature.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

Urban Confrontations by Edward J. Ahearn

Edward J. Ahearn, Urban Confrontations in Literature and Social Science, 1848-2001: European Contexts, American Evolutions. Surrey, England: Ashgate, 2010. ISBN 978-0-7546-6882-4;

ISBN 978-0-7546-9538-7 (ebook), 236 pp.

Edward Ahearn has developed a truly comparative, interdisciplinary investigation of representations of the modern city in literature and sociology (which he also calls social science). This is an excellent model of committed scholarship, extending stretching from mid-nineteenth-century Europe to the present-day United States. The author draws us in by explaining that the book “reflects my personal and professional life. Born in Manhattan in 1937, I grew up in Brooklyn in the 1940s and1950s, stimulated by New York’s vast spectacle and the enormous energy and variety of crowds in streets and subways” (1).

Baudelaire

A specialist in nineteenth-century French literature and author of a book on Rimbaud, Ahearn opens with Baudelaire’s prose poem, “The Bad Glazier,” as a metaphor of his critique of ideologies, both political and academic, characterized as “a hegemonic battle between literature, psychology and social theorizing,” in Baudelaire’s terms, “breaking the glass” (loc. cit.).

The entire book is organized around two domains of research: academic or politically engaged urban sociology and literature, mostly American. Given the wide variety of examples, Ahearn assumes that most readers would not have read the majority of works he cites. So he structures each of three parts to highlight the continuity of his focus on Chicago, Paris, Los Angeles, and New York.

In each part he first examines the writings of social science and then he interprets literary exemplars. Part I, “The Heroism of Modern Life? Baudelaire, Brecht and the Founders of Urban Sociology” (9-64), provides a pedagogical model, highlighting Baudelaire’s Parisian modernism and Brecht’s theatrical radicalism through his Chicago drama, “Jungle of Cities.” Part II, “Chicago Black and White: Immigration and Race in Native Son and The Adventures of Augie March” (67-112), deals with American identity in major works by Richard Wright and Saul Bellow. Part III, “Power, Governance and the Struggle for Human Realization” (113-179), introduces woman authors who portray struggles with ethnic and immigrant identity, and gender roles, Jazz by Toni Morrison, Sandra Cisneros’s The House on Mango Street, and Fae Myenne Ng’s Bone.

A substantial Epilogue, “DeLillo’s Global City” (181-203), carefully examines Cosmopolis, “a novel of world quality” (181) published in 2003. Ahearn returns to Baudelaire’s “The Bad Glazier,” as he recalls his other literary examples to explain the “space-time” compression of Cosmopolis (183). Throughtout the book, the author accompanies his careful analysis of each work with a respectful, and often laudatory engagement with other critics, lending a generous dialogical dimension to his exposition.

Ahearn’s parallel (or complementary) theoretical analysis systematically studies the development of urban social science, lending a greater coherence to the otherwise scattered variety of literary interpretations, some of them quite detailed. I found the study of Robert Moses to be the most dramatic: chap. 6, “Bureaucracy and the Lone City Dweller: James Q. Wilson – and Michel Foucault – Meet Bartleby” (121-35), continuing in chap. 7, “Jazz and The Power Broker: Urban Tycoon versus Real Lives of Ordinary Black People” (138-60).

The reading experience is usually friendly but sometimes arduous. Ahearn provides deft plot summaries, and strategic reminders of his process, to clarify his interpretations and critiques.

This is an exemplary pedagogical work, the fruit of a life-time of award-winning teaching and co-teaching at Brown University. From the perspective of literary studies, it could be said that Baudelaire, and to a lesser degree Rimbaud and Balzac, comprise the foundation which justifies Edward Ahearn’s defense and criticism of urban sociology, a social science that illumines the sad, complex facts of big cities such as Paris and Chicago – the two prominent places of interest in this richly documented, militant but hopeful, and clearly argued book.

Edward K. Kaplan

Brandeis University

How writers write fiction: Marching to the beat of your own drum

by Claudia Moscovici

In an earlier article, entitled Why writers write, I explored some of the reasons why writers write fiction by looking into common misconceptions. I argued, for instance, that most writers don’t write in order to achieve fame or fortune, both of which are cosmically unlikely and therefore equally unlikely to last as primary motivations for writers past a very young (and naïve) age:

http://literaturesalon.wordpress.com/2012/09/12/why-writers-write-common-myths-about-being-a-writer/

Now I’d like to explore the process of writing (and misconceptions about it as well), by relying on my own experience as a novelist as well as by using as examples a few of my favorite fiction writers. Basically, I believe that there’s no rule, regimen or standard way of writing fiction: not only in terms of content and style (the diversity of fiction speaks for itself and renders this point quite obvious), but also in terms of the writing process itself.

The diversity in styles and approaches to fiction writing makes the job of those who teach Creative Writing un-enviably difficult. I’ve often read interviews with fiction writers and advice given writers offered by Creative Writing seminars, courses and websites that indicate certain standard procedures of writing fiction. Those usually include making a plot outline; writing a scheme for the structure of the short story or novel; disciplining and pacing yourself as a creative writer in specific ways. Some teachers, writers and courses even suggest that fiction writers need to isolate themselves from social media, email and other external “distractions” in order to concentrate better on writing fiction. Don’t get me wrong, I think such advice can be very helpful to many writers. Yet, at the same time, I still maintain that the creative writing process is as individual as writing styles. Each writer writes at his or her own pace and requires specific conditions.

There’s no doubt that all fiction writers need some uninterrupted periods of time to write fiction and a good place to do it, or A Room of One’s Own (1929), to allude to Virginia Woolf’s famous essay.  The reason for this is quite obvious: fiction writing requires stepping into imaginary situations and entering the minds of imagined characters. This delicate creative process would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to achieve in short spurts of time or with constant interruptions. Speaking from personal experience, this is part of the reason why my first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism (2009), which I wrote when I was an academic teaching philosophy and literature and a young mom of two small kids, took me ten years to write. Once my children became older and more independent and (especially) once I became a full-time writer and art critic, I had the right conditions to finish The Seducer (2011), my second novel, in only three years. But I wouldn’t take this common denominator of fiction writers—needing some uninterrupted chunks of time, a space to write and periods of peace and quiet—to an extreme, to suggest that fiction writers need to isolate themselves from social media or external input in order to write fiction. There’s a delicate balance between needing external input and isolating oneself to write fiction (or to create art, a similar creative process). Nobody can dictate to any writer or artist what that balance is because it’s as individual as the personality of each writer and his or her writing style.

In fact, probably many creative writers and artists find themselves in the position that Pablo Picasso describes to his  partner, Françoise Gilot: namely, that of needing external stimulation and contact with others as a rich source of inspiration for art, yet also, because of that, not having enough time to focus on each work of art. As Gilot recalls in her autobiography, Life with Picasso:

“Sometimes Pablo would begin a canvas in the morning and in the evening he would say, ‘Oh, well, it’s done, I suppose. What I had to say plastically is there, but it came almost too quickly. If I leave it like that, with only the appearance of having what I wanted to put into it, it doesn’t satisfy me. But I’m interrupted continually every day and I’m hardly ever in a position to push my thought right up to its last implication.’ […] I asked him why he didn’t shut out the world, and with it the interruptions. ‘But I can’t,’ he said. ‘What I create in painting is what comes from my interior world. But at the same time I need the contacts and exchanges I have with others.’” (Life with Picasso, Françoise Gilot, Anchor Books, New York, 1989, p. 123)

In our times, this balance between external contacts and inspiration and the solitude necessary to perfect any art form is probably even more difficult to reach because we live in an era of inundation from social media on a daily basis. Nowadays, fiction writers and artists rely upon the social media—Facebook, blogs, interviews with journalists–not only to speak about their art and share with readers (or viewers) what they’ve already produced, but also to find new sources of inspiration. For some fiction writers–particularly those who write historical fiction, true crime novels and psychological–  research and external input may be indispensable. Once again speaking from my own experience, when I wrote the historical novel Velvet Totalitarianism (Intre Doua Lumi), I had to read literally dozens of books on the history of Romania and about Romanian communism in order to be able to draw a historically accurate fictional depiction of that era. I couldn’t rely simply on inspiration or on fading childhood memories, since I had left the country at a relatively young age and wanted my novel to be partly based on actual facts, not only about invented characters and situations. When I wrote my second novel, The Seducer, on the subject of psychopathic seduction, I became even more dependent on external sources of information. I relied especially on blogs, since at the time there were relatively few books published on the subject of psychopaths and other social predators. Most of the information on the subject, particularly testimonials by victims which were extremely helpful, could be found on blogs such as lovefraud.com, which I read with great interest as background for writing fiction about a psychopathic seducer.

I believe that how you write—the process of fiction writing itself, starting from the space you right in; how fast or slow you pace yourself; the conditions and interruptions you choose or that are imposed upon you—does NOT determine the QUALITY of your fiction. But these conditions, and the balance you find as a fiction writer between isolation and external input—has a significant impact upon the QUANTITY and even the style of your fiction.  The best advice I can offer any fiction writer is to find his or her own balance that works for them rather than rely upon generic advice. I guess that’s a paradoxical way of saying the best advice I have is not to follow any general advice and choose instead what works for your situation, personality and style.  To support my case for the importance of marching to the beat of your own drum, I’d like to offer examples from some of my favorite writers.

1. Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850) and La Comédie humaine

As a scholar of Comparative Literature specializing in 19^th-century French fiction, it’s not surprising that my main examples will come mostly from the French classics. One of my favorite novelists, Honoré de Balzac (1799-1850), rivaled Napoleon in his ambition. In his wide-ranging work, La Comédie humaine, Balzac aimed to paint a literary portrait of “all aspects of society” during the period of the Restoration and the July Monarchy (1815-1848).  He wrote about 91 finished stories, novels and essays that capture almost every facet of French society and culture following the fall of Napoleon in 1815. Like many writers, his creative genius was spurred on by failure. After finishing school, Balzac apprenticed to become a lawyer, but decided pretty early on that he didn’t like the field. He then experimented with publishing, printing, becoming a critic and even a politician. All of these more traditional professions didn’t suit him, however.

Ultimately, Balzac decided to follow his dream of being a fiction writer. Given the scope of his literary ambition, he set for himself an extremely rigorous routine. He wrote at all hours of the day and night, staying awake by drinking many cups of strong coffee that ultimately damaged his health.  Throughout his life, Balzac’s difficult writing schedule—and lack of financial stability—strained his relationship with his family and even with friends. Despite writing dozens of novels and short stories, Balzac didn’t write quickly. He just worked long hours. Biographers document that he wrote approximately 15 hours a day. He took a nap after supper from 6 p.m to midnight, then woke up to write during the evening and night again. The author’s novels are greatly influenced by his life experiences, even though they’re not exactly autobiographical. Like Zola did after him, Balzac uses his observations of society to create fictional characters that offer a sweeping sketch of his era. His writing is a reflection of the balance he found between living and interacting with so many people from very diverse social backgrounds and the strenuous discipline he imposed on himself in order to fulfill his vast literary ambition.

2. Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880) and Madame Bovary (1856)

Of course, writing a little may take just as much discipline and time as writing a lot. At the other end of the spectrum (at least in terms of quantity of writing), my favorite French writer, Gustave Flaubert, was far less prolific than Balzac, even though he was equally ambitious. Flaubert achieved international fame for his unforgettable novel, Madame Bovary (1856), as well as for a beautiful, innovative yet starkly honest (and even cynical) mode of writing that the author polished to perfection. For Flaubert, style was everything.  Avoiding all clichés, he edited fastidiously his short stories and novels, pursuing what he called “le mot juste” (the right word). Perfecting style in a few works took as much work for Flaubert as sketching an entire era in nearly 100 works did for Balzac. In his correspondence, Flaubert states that this perfected style didn’t flow naturally out of him. He had to work hard, and edit constantly, to approximate it.

Like many writers, Flaubert encountered his share of challenges and setbacks. By the time of his death, however, he became known as the master of French realism (despite his lyrical style, which is also regarded by critics as the last echo of Romanticism). The publication of Madame Bovary (1856), the story of the disillusionment and eventual suicide of a provincial doctor’s wife who (fruitlessly) seeks love and meaning through a series of adulterous affairs, was greeted by the public with scandal rather than admiration. When chapters of the novel were published in La Revue de Paris (October 1956 to December 1956), Madame Bovary was attacked as “obscene” by the public prosecutor. Flaubert became acquitted, however, the following year. Afterwards, the novel quickly became a best seller, going far beyond a succès de scandale. By the time of his death, Flaubert was considered as one of the greatest French writers of the century (and he still is).

No rule, advice or measure could apply equally well to a writer like Balzac as to a writer like Flaubert, except perhaps the very general tenet that each found his own balance and discipline in the process of writing to suit his writing style, personality and literary ambition.

3. Snippets of the interview with Romanian writer Razvan Petrescu: Marching to the Beat of your own Drum

Perhaps no writer shows the relativity of the writing process—and even casts doubt upon the boundary conventionally drawn between fiction and nonfiction, or fact and imagination—as my friend, the Romanian writer Razvan Petrescu. I have already written about his latest collection of short stories in the following article:

http://literaturesalon.wordpress.com/2013/01/09/razvan-petrescus-rubato-the-coordinates-of-world-class-romanian-fiction/

This article has been translated and published in Romania on Editura Curtea Veche’s blog:

http://www.curteaveche.ro/blog/2013/01/15/rubato-de-razvan-petrescu-coordonatele-unei-proze-romanesti-de-clasa-mondiala/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=rubato-de-razvan-petrescu-coordonatele-unei-proze-romanesti-de-clasa-mondiala

To continue our discussion, I recently interviewed him about his books, his life and the writing process for a series of articles published in the Romanian magazine Scrisul Romanesc and the blog Agentia de Carte. To my mind,  Razvan Petrescu exemplifies the meaning of the English expression “marching to the beat of your own drum,” both as a person and as a writer (since the two aspects are, after all, intertwined). What struck me most about his interview, from which I’m translating only a few bits and pieces here, is the fact that his nonfiction (meaning his answers to my very traditional, journalistic questions) reads like some of the best fiction I have ever read. His first answer, to my very standard question “When did you begin writing fiction?” reminds me of lines from one of my favorite novels, Lolita (1955), by the man I consider the greatest American novelist, the Russian-born Vladimir Nabokov. In this beautiful and lyrical passage of the novel, the narrator, Humbert Humbert introduces Annabel, his first love and the precursor to Lolita: “All at once we were madly, clumsily, shamelessly, agonizingly in love with each other; hopelessly, I should add, because the frenzy of mutual possession might have been assuaged only by our actually imbibing and assimilating every particle of each others soul and flesh; but there we were, unable even to mate as slum children would have so easily found an opportunity to do” (Lolita, Vladimir Nabokov, New York: Vintage International, 1997, p. 12).

Although Petrescu has a style of his own, of course, like Nabokov, he’s a master of style, whether he writes fiction or nonfiction. Speaking of which, if you believe that any course, author or teacher can draw a sharp distinction between fiction and nonfiction or tell any creative writer how to write, you may change your mind after reading parts of this humorous, honest, chaotic and–above all—unique and original interview with the writer and editor Razvan Petrescu. Enjoy the (non)fiction!

Claudia Moscovici: When did you begin writing fiction?

Razvan Petrescu: Around the age of 15, when I fell in love for the third time. She had long, wavy red hair and well-formed breasts. My wonder knew no bounds when I was faced with this enigmatic pyramidal structure. I was fascinated by other zones and became absent-minded. Which didn’t provoke any particular happiness, given the fact that I was still expected to do various practical things, which included painting the walls, as I was dreaming with my hand shielding my forehead. I was thus overcome by a terrible love. It was autumn, the leaves were falling, the baby birds were hatching, while I was meandering in front of her house in my high school uniform with the number of my school inscribed on my left arm, my face turning melancholic-green with despair. She wasn’t in love with me yet. She would become swept in the feeling only at the moment when it left me and, because I had already read a whole slew of books (especially police thrillers and stories about submarines), I started writing her verses with an eye makeup pencil on a little notepad. I would read them alone at home and would cry seeing how much pain those words stolen from maximum suffering could provoke. When I read them again three years later, I couldn’t believe that I was able to write such idiocies and was overcome with a boundless sense of shame.

CM: What inspires you to write fiction?

RP: Almost anything. The blade of grass upon which climbs a little insect. The insect falls over, moves its little legs, I step on it with my shoe, a shoe meant for such events. The purplish clouds crossed by planes at sunset on the Paris-Slobozia route awaken in me aviatico-poetic catastrophes. I see the terrified passengers placing on their oxygen masks, screaming in them, waving their arms. The oxygen doesn’t work, the airplane changes course at the last moment exactly above IOR Park, over a little pond upon which floats a little ship with a hole in it. They all die of asphyxiation on the plane, while those on the ship drown in the greenish waters. … Usually I transform banal events with regular people into tragedies, or vice versa. I’m attracted to the dramatic, the grotesque, the painful. I describe what I observe, adding as many imagined things as possible to make the story more plausible, or conversely, more absurd.

CM: Who are the writers that inspire you most?

RP: Bach, Chekhov, Céline, Salinger, John Osborne, Raymond Carver, Mozart, Miles Davis, Donald Bartholomew,  Joyce, Faulkner, Schubert, Mahler, Lester Young, Cortazar, Buzzati, Garcia Marquez, Truman Capote, Coleman Hawkins, Chopin, Ben Webster, Oscar Peterson, Haneke, Pachelbel, Fellini, Tarkovsky, Beethoven.  The harmony of the piano. The king of the flies. Friday or the languages of the Pacific. … In order not to become mixed up, I’ve gotten into the habit of including my answer to this same question, which I’ve been asked by others and asked myself in other contexts, adding to it nonsensically titles, names, kinds, in order to leave an impression of culture pure and simple. But, above all, I do this in order to avoid boredom…

CM: No fiction is strictly autobiographical, but did you express any personal elements in your fiction. If so, which ones?

RP: I didn’t express anything, for the simple reason that everything I write and experience is fiction. In other words, if I included autobiographical elements in my fiction, they’re fictional. Example: the fact that I studied medicine. I didn’t. I wasn’t a doctor. I never lived in Bucharest. I didn’t go to high school number 43. I didn’t try to sleep with the high school beauty queen in ninth grade. I didn’t have a friend in kindergarten that died, and I didn’t go to her funeral. … I wasn’t a writer, I didn’t have a job, and thus I didn’t work at the magazines “The Word,” “Amphitheater,” the “Literature Museum,” the “Ministry of Culture,” All Publishing, Rosetti, Brukenthal and Curtea Veche Publishing….

CM: To follow-up my last question, what is the relation between your personal life and your life as a writer?

RP: It’s one of total harmony. They overlap. Any object or being that overlaps with another is happy. Given that I don’t need a job in order to make a living, I write all the time, especially at night. I’ve dedicated my life to literature for well over two decades. My personal life has been fulfilled in being a writer and vice versa. I had the good fortune of receiving good money by selling books and, also, through translations. Last month, when I signed a contract for the translation of my most recent book in Macedonia, they offered me almost 150 Euros. I had to renounce the retribution, since I know my value and it’s not quite so big. If I had accepted the payment for the author’s rights I’d have lost it completely, so I asked the editor to allow me to give him money.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

Corey Hart by Herb Ritts

Corey Hart: The Ultimate Teenage Heartthrob of the 80′s 

by Claudia Moscovici

(For my main references for this essay, I relied upon the Wikipedia article on Corey Hart (see link  below) as well as interviews given by the singer on various talk shows over the years): 

*This essay is written in fond memory of my best friend from middle school and high school, Allison L. Alberty, who passed away in February of 2008.  She’s the one who helped “Americanize” me in musical taste and so many other ways. I miss her very much and will always treasure our memories and friendship.

in loving memory of my best friend from high school, Allison Alberty

http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/dispatch/obituary.aspx?n=Allison-Alberty&pid=102824850#fbLoggedOut 

For over a year, my fifteen-year-old daughter, Sophie Troyka, has been obsessed with the boy band One Direction, the favorite teenage heartthrobs of her generation. She and her best friends, Emily Park and Emily Hunter (they all asked me to include their names in this essay:), go to their concerts, follow them on Twitter and Tumbler, enter radio contests (which included decking out my car with pictures of the band) and, of course, play their music loudly, often.

Exhibit A: My car decked out (destroyed?) for my daughter’s One Direction radio contest

After  destroying (I mean decking out) my car for the contest (which the girls didn’t win, despite working on the car for two months, since the radio station picked a winner randomly) and hearing the girls play What Makes You Beautiful at top volume a few too many times, I was starting to lose patience with their teenage heartthrobs. In fact, for the past year, I’ve been caught up in nostalgia for Sophie’s earlier childhood years, when she preferred activities with her family to loud pop music with her friends. At some point, when I asked Sophie, yet again, to turn the blasted music down, she asked me: “Didn’t you have a band you really loved when you were a teenager?” Oh yes, I did! I thought back to my favorite singers in the 80’s: Duran Duran, Bryan Adams, Rick Springfield, Laura Branigan, the Pointer Sisters, Irene Cara, U-2  and others. But one name definitely stood out: the hot and talented Corey Hart.

In a way, my daughter’s question killed two birds with one stone: it got me to empathize with her One Direction mania and also triggered memories of the best years of my own adolescence, rather than focusing nostalgically on her early childhood. Thinking about it more positively, there are so many reasons to celebrate rather than be sad about the fact our kids grow up, become more independent and establish their own social and, eventually, professional lives.

Rather than wallowing in “empty nest syndrome,” it’s more worthwhile to recover some of our own youthfulness, as our lives start to center, once again, on the couple and our own personal growth, as they did before having kids. As long as one doesn’t go overboard–spilling into a hopeless nostalgia for one’s high school “glory days” or, even worse, a farcical midlife crisis (complete with “trophy” much younger husband or wife; crazy spending sprees and sports cars one can’t afford), I think re-living aspects of our teenage years can help rejuvenate us psychologically, if not also physically.

At any rate, that was my train of thought when I decided to look up on the internet some of my favorite teenage heartthrobs. I did so with some trepidation, however, fearing that many of them would be either dead from a drug overdose or complete wrecks from all the excesses of the rock star lifestyle (I’ve watched enough episodes of VH1 Where Are They Now? to know that such fears were well-founded).

I won’t go into the details of which rock stars from the 80’s confirmed my worst suspicions. However, I was thrilled to see that my favorite teenage heartthrob, Corey Hart (Corey Mitchell Hart, born May 31, 1962), proved to be an exception to the rule. In fact, Corey managed to have it all: enduring success in music, a loving marriage and a happy family life. Blessed with incredible good looks which made him a favorite among teenage fans during the 80’s; self-confidence without cockiness; the social skill to network and establish good connections in the music industry (which, in an interview, he aptly called “hustling”); and particularly with great musical talent, Corey Hart established himself as the ultimate pop/rock heartthrob with the hits Sunglasses at Night (1983, part of his popular album First Offense) and Never Surrender (1985, part of his popular album Boy in the Box).

music video of Never Surrender:

During the mid-eighties, the young rock star reached the pinnacle of success, selling over 16 million records internationally and having 9 of his songs in the Top 40. In 1984, Hart was also nominated for Best New Artist. Of course, as the singer himself admits, there are highs and lows in any artist’s career (particularly, I should add, when the so-called lows are measured by such peaks of international success):

“I went through what every artist will go through in his career who’s worth his salt. Any artist from Elton John to Steve Winwood. There are peaks and valleys in a career. If you delude yourself into thinking that there are only peaks you’re a fool. I’m a sensitive individual. I would be dishonest to tell you that there were not moments of great pain. But I am an individual that has a lot of inner strength and believes very strongly, and l write about that in songs, to find your solace and your refuge in yourself.” (Sire press release, 1992)

Corey Hart by Herb Ritts

Having immigrated from communist Romania in the early 80’s, for obvious reasons, I was particularly drawn to Corey Hart’s 1983 music video Sunglasses at Night. Not only did the video feature the stunningly good-looking singer in a lead role, but also it was replete with visual allusions to one of my favorite novels about totalitarian oppression  (which, incidentally, my family had just escaped), George Orwell’s 1984.

Sunglasses at Night music video:

After watching his Corey Hart’s videos, I also watched several of his interviews, both from the eighties (with Ed Sullivan, Joan Rivers and the Today Show) as well as more recent ones (with George). Even now, decades later, I was very impressed with the modesty and intelligence with which he spoke, his facility with languages (a native Canadian from Montreal who spent part of his childhood in Mexico City, Hart is fluent in English, Spanish and French) and, above all, the manner in which he managed to balance such a spectacularly successful career as a rock star with a stable and rewarding family life. Although Corey was especially close to his mother, Mina, to whom he dedicated his first album, he was pained, throughout his life but especially during his childhood, by his lack of contact with his father. Perhaps this explains, in part, why he was all the more determined to be a good father to his own (four) children and a good partner to his wife, Julie Masse. Whenever the professional demands of his busy music career vied for his attention with the needs of his family, Corey prioritized his family life.

The foundation of that healthy family life is the deep love—and romance—that Corey and his partner, Julie Masse, have shared for nearly twenty years. Corey Hart met Julie Masse in 1993, when they both co-presented at the Juno Awards. Aside from being a beauty, Julie was a talented singer and rising star in the Canadian music scene, with two platinum albums of her own (Julie Masse and A Contre Jour). Upon the suggestion of Masse’s manager, Corey and Julie began collaborating on an English album. Hart co-produced and composed five songs sung by Julie Masse, for the album Circle of One. As the two singers fell in love, their professional collaboration eventually led to merging their personal lives as well. Corey and Julie began dating in 1994 and married in 2000. They have three daughters (India, born in 1995; Dante, born in 1997; River, born in 1999) and a son (Rain, born in 2004). Although both singers have continued to pursue their professional lives, they prioritize their family. They have created their own family sanctuary, for the most part sheltered from the public eye (though they periodically return to the media spotlight), in a superb villa by the beach in Nassau, Bahamas.

This only goes to show that, as  a rock star, you can have it all, but only if you nurture your personal life first and foremost. In a recent interview with George, Corey stated that he doesn’t know how celebrities like Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt manage to combine their acting careers in the limelight with having about 15 kids. He admits that he himself couldn’t focus on his four kids while also leading the rock star life, and constantly going on tour all over the world.

Of course, being a family man doesn’t prevent Corey Hart from continuing to pursue his professional goals. In 2002, Seymor Stein offered Hart a boutique label, Siena Records (part of Sire/Warner Music Canada). Corey Hart signed Marie-Christine Depestre–a talented Canadian singer born in Haiti, whose style reflects a perfect mélange of rhythm and blues, pop and rock–as Siena Records’ first star. Subsequently, the record company also released Hart’s own hit single in the spring of 2012, Truth Will Set You Free. This song alludes to the pain and fear of discrimination endured by those who feel like they have to hide being gay. As the title suggests, the song encourages honesty and, more specifically, coming out of the closet. However, as Corey states in an interview with George, Truth Will Set You Free is about human rights in general: the freedom of identity and expression that each individual should enjoy without fear of discrimination and hate.

In 2011, Corey Hart has also relaunched his Facebook website. Based on his recent posts, it looks like he will  publish a book in 2013 about his musical career and life. We look forward to it! Corey’s success story is a living testimony that a rock star can, indeed, have it all: but only by leading a life that balances “attitude and virtue”, to cite the name of his seventh album, released in 1992.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

photo credit Romani Celebri

I’ve translated below parts of my interview with Diana Robu, which was originally published in Romanian in Ziare.com (Newspapers.com).

1. Tell us a little bit about when and under what circumstances you left Romania.

1. I left Romania in 1981, at the age of 11. I haven’t returned until 2011, for the launch of my first novel Velvet Totalitarianism in Romanian translation, Intre Doua Lumi (Editura Curtea Veche). My father defected from the country two years before my mother and I legally immigrated to the U.S. He was a world-class mathematician and his boss was Zoia Ceausescu. She had let it be known that he wouldn’t be able to travel abroad to mathematical conferences anymore (because Nicolae Ceausescu was tightening the Iron Curtain). So he decided to take his chances, as several mathematicians had before him, and defect to the U.S. in the hopes that we would rejoin him soon. I filter aspects of our struggles to unite our family in my first novel, Intre Doua Lumi, as well as describing aspects of the adaptation to the U.S. (even though I fictionalize everything, of course, since I wrote a novel not a memoir).

2. What was your reaction when you returned to Romania, so many years later?

2. When I returned to Romania for my book launch decades later, in 2011, I was shocked and impressed to see how much the country has changed in its physical aspects, in its modernization, and in the standard of living. Of course, I only caught a privileged glimpse of Bucharest, from the perspective of an author on a book tour. So I didn’t get an inside glimpse, nor a global view of the country. It was a very brief and limited, but also very positive experience.

3. Tell us about your professional life and impression of the American academia.

3. In the academia, I taught in several departments–philosophy, art and comparative literature–since I love all of these fields. I tried to focus on the aspects of the profession that emphasize love of art, love of literature, and clarity of expression. I also found myself swimming against the currents of poststructuralism and deconstruction, at their peak in the U.S. when I was in grad. school, which I didn’t like for several reasons: 1. the writing was not clear and accessible to those who might want to understand it. 2. there was too much emphasis on the very technical “theories” and too little attention paid to the literature or art. 3. the whole field of cultural production became politicized–and I’m speaking of cultural politics–in “culture wars” that Harold Bloom and others address. Personally, I subscribe to Albert Einstein‘s wise saying: “If you can’t explain something clearly, then you don’t understand it well enough.” All in all, I’m glad to have had a solid formation in several branches of the arts and humanities in the American academia and even more glad to have left it behind and be able to write what I want, as I see fit.

4. What would you advise Romanians who might be interested in moving to the U.S.?

4. I’d advise any Romanian who is thinking about immigrating to the U.S. to visit the country for a considerable period first and find out about professional opportunities and day to day life. Just as it was easy for me to idealize Romania when I was a tourist there in 2011, it’s easy for anyone visiting the U.S. as a tourist to do the same. You never know how you’ll feel in a country until you actually live there, and find a place to work and a place to live. There are some professions, like medicine, where the degrees from one country don’t automatically get accepted in another. Many doctors from Romania have had to start from square one (medical school) or do something else related to medicine. It’s always more prudent to know exactly what you’re getting into before you make any drastic move.

5. Do you wish to visit Romania again?

5. Yes, I hope to return to Romania for the book launches of my art criticism book, Romanticism and Postromanticism, translated by the writer Dumitru Radu Popa, and for the launch of my second novel, The Seducer, which hasn’t been translated yet. During this period I hope to get to see more of the country outside of Bucharest, such as Drobeta Turnu Severin and Timisoara, where some of my family lives.

6. Is your first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism, autobiographical? If so, in what ways?

6. Velvet Totalitarianism, translated into Romanian by Mihnea Gafita under the title of Intre Doua Lumi, does incorporate some of our family’s struggles with the Romanian Securitate and the challenges of immigrating to the U.S. However, I fictionalized the entire plot, included a fictional spy thriller element (the Radu/Ioana plot line) and changed everything structurally to make the story work as a novel. Reality was only a point of departure (and research). But the novel is, after all, fiction.

7. You write books in several different domains. What leads you to do so? 

7. Since I was young, I loved several fields: art, literature and philosophy. The arts are, in fact, conceptually very closely related. They’re separated only by institutions and how they’re taught. But it’s natural to look at them, and appreciate them, together, which is exactly what I do. I write about the art I appreciate, internationally, on my art blog http://fineartebooks.wordpress.com. In 2002, I founded an international art movement, called postromanticism, devoted to celebrating verisimilitude, sensuality, and beauty in art. It was intended as an alternative, not a replacement, to more abstract traditions in art. I believe in pluralism, not dogmatism, in the art world, particularly since matters of taste and definitions of art are more or less subjective. I also spend part of each week working on my new novel, Fractals of a Murder. This will be my first murder mystery, but it’s not going to be genre fiction. I still prioritize strong and realistic characterizations. Finally, I write literary reviews from time to time about books I really like. I love writing about three fields rather than just one, or just a narrow specialization of one. Although in grad school I was encouraged to pursue a more focused specialization, I wholeheartedly resisted this idea. My own ideal is of the salonnieres and philosophes of the eighteenth century, who could write and converse about all aspects of the arts and humanities, often even science. I’ve lost any hope, however, in being able to know much about science or math. My parents, Henri and Elvira Moscovici, are both mathematicians, and I saw how different (and difficult) these fields are from the humanities. The best we can hope, in the arts and humanities, is to approximate the logic, simplicity and clarity that characterizes the field of mathematics.

8. How do you see Romania’s future?

8. I see Romania’s future as being increasingly open to international collaborations and the country as being more visible internationally. Of course, success stories like Herta Muller and Cristian Mungiu add to the country’s visibility. I predict that there will be more success stories like this. In the field of journalism and literature, Romania already has collaborations with Conde Nast Publishing, Forbes Magazine and others. I think such international collaborations in journalism will expand. Culturally, in every country groups and individuals create worthy art and literature and compete for limited consecration and power. The content of the art or literature are often inseparable from the institutions competing for influence. This is part of human nature and won’t change. The politics in Romania is the wild card. I don’t know enough about the ins and outs of politics in the country to make any predictions about it. It would be best for the country and its people, needless to say, if the infrastructure and laws of a democratic nation are taken seriously.

Claudia Moscovici, Literature Salon

The George Enescu Festival: Hitting A High Note in Romanian Culture

by Claudia Moscovici

The George Enescu Festival in Bucharest is not only a highlight in Romanian culture, but also one of the most exciting and biggest classical music festivals in Europe. Named after the prestigious Romanian composer and violinist George Enescu  (1881-1955), who is best known for his Romanian Rhapsodies, the festival focuses on Enescu’s work and offers the best in classical music, internationally.

Every two years, for several weeks during the month of September, Bucharest becomes the classical music capital of Europe. George Enescu and his friend and collaborator George Georgescu organized the first festival in 1958. Although the festival was banned for a period of time during Ceausescu’s dictatorship, it has been reestablished and grown since the Romanian revolution of 1989. It is organized by its Artistic Director Ioan Holender, Artexim, ArClub–The Center for Cultural Projects of the Municipality of Bucharest and the Foundation Art Production. 

In 2013, the festival will take place between September 1st and 28th, featuring concerts  of classical and contemporary music as well as opera and ballet. The festival’s motto, “Magic exists” (“Magia Exista”), emphasizes the beauty of classical music; its capacity to mesmerize all generations across cultural boundaries; its unifying force regardless of our political and ideological differences; its endurance throughout centuries, in a magic that still captivates us. Few products of the human mind, talent and creation have such a lasting power and positive effect on our cultures and psyches.

This year the festival will reach an even wider public through its publicity campaign on the American channel CNN (see ad below) that will air on May 19th, as well as the broadcast of some of its concerts live in cinemas across Romania, in cooperation with Grand Cinema Digiplex.

For more information about the highlights of the festival this year, please find below the George Enescu Festival program, found on their website,

DUMINICĂ, 01.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : DANIEL BARENBOIM
Solist : RADU LUPU – pian

Program :
G. Enescu – Rapsodia română nr. 2 în Re Major op. 11
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 4 pentru pian şi orchestra în Sol Major op. 58
Sir E. Elgar – Simfonia nr. 2 în Mi bemol Major op. 63

DUMINICĂ, 01.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CAMERON CARPENTER

Ateneul Român
Recital CAMERON CARPENTER – orgă

Program :
“The Theatre of the Organ”

DUMINICĂ, 01.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

TIMIŞOARA

FILARMONICA “BANATUL” DIN TIMIŞOARA
Dirijor : MARTIN YATES
Solist : MATEI VARGA – pian

Program :
Tiberiu Olah – Armonii IV, Omagiu lui Enescu, concert pentru 23 de instrumente
Michael Hersch – Concert pentru pian şi orchestră (primă audiţie europeană)
T. Huillet – “Ombres – tribute to Debussy”
Rolf Martinsson – Concert pentru orchestră, op. 81

LUNI, 02.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul “ARCHAEUS”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : LIVIU DĂNCEANU

Program :
George Balint – Muzică pentru Archaeus
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (nr. 1, Geträumtes – für Martella)
Ştefan Niculescu – Triplum II
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (nr. 11B, Geläut für Günter Bialas)
Dan Buciu – Schițe pentru un autoportret
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (nr. 43A-a, Trostgesang für Heidemarie Merkl-Baroski)
Horia Surianu – Reverie Byzantine en Canon
Michael Denhoff – Strophen op. 107 (49A – Saltarello)
Javier Darias – Ucanca
Aurel Stroe – Humoreske mit zwei durchblicken zum leeren

LUNI, 02.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului

STAATSKAPELLE BERLIN

Dirijor : DANIEL BARENBOIM

Program :
W.M. Mozart – Concertul pentru două piane în Mi bemol Major K365

Solişti :

DANIEL BARENBOIM
RADU LUPU

G. Verdi – “Quattro pezzi sacri” (Ave Maria; Stabat Mater; Laudi alla Vergine Maria; Te Deum)
Cu participarea CORULUI FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”
Dirijorul Corului : ION IOSIF PRUNNER

MARŢI, 03.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NEW GENERATION (I)

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti – Studioul de Operă şi Multimedia

NEW GENERATION (I) – Concert interactiv al tinerei generaţii de compozitori români

Interpretează : Ansamblul IconArts

Dirijor : GABRIEL BEBEŞELEA

MARŢI, 03.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

FILARMONICA “BANATUL” DIN TIMISOARA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : MARTIN YATES
Solist : MATEI VARGA – pian

Program :
Tiberiu Olah – Armonii IV, Omagiu lui Enescu, concert pentru 23 de instrumente
Michael Hersch – Concert pentru pian şi orchestră (primă audiţie europeană)
T. Huillet – “Ombres – tribute to Debussy”
Rolf Martinsson – Concert pentru orchestră, op. 81

MARŢI, 03.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

PITTSBURGH SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Dirijor : MANFRED HONECK
Solist : YUJA WANG – pian

Program :
P.I. Ceaikovski – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în si bemol minor op. 23
D. Şostakovici – Simfonia nr. 5 în re minor op. 47

MIERCURI, 04.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NEW GENERATION (II)

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti – Studioul de Operă şi Multimedia

NEW GENERATION (II) – Concert interactiv al tinerei generaţii de compozitori români

Interpretează : Ansamblul IconArts
Dirijor : GABRIEL BEBEŞELEA

MIERCURI, 04.09

17:00

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

NATIONAL PHILHARMONIC OF RUSSIA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : VLADIMIR SPIVAKOV

Solist :  SERGEY DOGADIN – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 3 pentru orchestră op. 27 ”Săteasca”
E. Chausson – Poemul pentru vioară şi orchestră op. 25
C. Saint-Saëns – Introducere şi Rondo Capriccioso op. 28
S. Rahmaninov – Simfonia nr. 1 în re minor op. 13

MIERCURI, 04.09

19:30

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

RADU LUPU

Ateneul Român
Recital RADU LUPU – pian

Program :
Fr. Schubert – Sonata pentru pian în La Major D 959
Fr. Schubert – Sonata pentru pian în Si bemol Major D 960

MIERCURI, 04.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

CLUJ

FILARMONICA DE STAT “TRANSILVANIA” CLUJ
Dirijor : JÖRG WIDMANN

Program :
Ulpiu Vlad – Simfonia I “Lumina drumurilor”
J. Widmann – Concertul pentru trompetă şi orchestră mică în Si bemol Major “Ad absurdum” (dedicată lui Sergei Nakariakov)
Solist : SERGEI NAKARIAKOV – trompetă
J. Widmann – Misa, pentru orchestră mare
Solişti : TEODORO ANZELLOTTI – acordeon cu claviatură
WILHELM BRUCK – chitară

JOI, 05.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NEW GENERATION (III)

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti – Studioul de Operă şi Multimedia

NEW GENERATION (III) – Concert interactiv al tinerei generaţii de compozitori români

Interpretează : Ansamblul IconArts
Dirijor : GABRIEL BEBEŞELEA

JOI, 05.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

FILARMONICA DE STAT “MOLDOVA” IAŞI

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : LEO HUSSAIN
Solist : MARINO FORMENTI – pian

Program :
Cornel Țăranu – Simfonia “Memorial”
Sir Peter Maxwell Davies – Concertul pentru pian şi orchestră op. 188
Harrison Birtwistle – Earth Dances

JOI, 05.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRE DE PARIS

Dirijor : PAAVO JÄRVI

Program :
H. Berlioz – Uvertura la “Le Corsaire” H 101
B. Britten – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în re minor op. 15
Solistă : VILDE FRANG – vioară
C. Saint-Saëns – Simfonia nr. 3 cu orgă în do minor op. 78
Solist : THIERRY ESCAICH – orgă

VINERI, 06.09

13:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

“ARCADIA” STRING QUARTET

Universitatea Naţională de Muzică Bucureşti

Program :
Adrian Pop – Opt bagatele pentru cvartet de coarde
Ulpiu Vlad – Pe acest pământ însorit II
Martin Torp – Cantico delle creature
Dan Variu – Cvartet de coarde (primă audiţie)
Sabin Păutza – Cvartetul de coarde nr. 4 “Ludus Modalis”

VINERI, 06.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

FILARMONICA DE STAT “TRANSILVANIA” CLUJ

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JÖRG WIDMANN
Program :
Ulpiu Vlad – Simfonia I “Lumina drumurilor”
J. Widmann – Concertul pentru trompetă şi orchestră mică în Si bemol Major “Ad absurdum” (dedicată lui Sergei Nakariakov)
Solist : SERGEI NAKARIAKOV – trompetă
J. Widmann – Misa, pentru orchestră mare
Solişti : TEODORO ANZELLOTTI – acordeon cu claviatură
                    WILHELM BRUCK – chitară

VINERI, 06.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA ŞI CORUL OPEREI NAŢIONALE BUCUREŞTI

Opera Națională Bucureşti
“OTELLO” de Giuseppe Verdi

Dirijor : KERI-LYNN WILSON

Regizor : VERA NEMIROVA

Scenograf : VIORICA PETROVICI

Maestru de cor : STELIAN OLARIU

Asistent regie : IRINA MACOVEI 

Distribuţia :
Otello – PETER SEIFFERT
Desdemona – NICOLETA ARDELEAN
Iago – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Cassio – CRISTIAN MOGOŞAN
Roderigo –ANDREI LAZĂR
Ludovico – MARIUS BOLOŞ
Montano – IUSTINIAN ZETEA
Un herald – IONUŢ GAVRILĂ
Emilia – MARIA JINGA

VINERI, 06.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRE DE PARIS

Dirijor : PAAVO JÄRVI

Program :
G. Enescu – Simfonia nr. 1 în Mi bemol Major op. 13
S. Prokofiev – Simfonia nr. 5 în Si bemol Major op. 100

VINERI, 06.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

EUROPA GALANTE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : FABIO BIONDI

Program :
A. Vivaldi – Simfonia pentru orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Sol Major “Il Coro delle Muse” RV149
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în la minor RV357
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în mi minor RV279
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Si bemol Major RV383a
A. Vivaldi – Uvertura la opera “Ercole su’l Termodonte” RV710
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Fa Major RV284
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Re Major RV204
A. Vivaldi – Concertul pentru vioară, orchestră de coarde şi b.c. în Fa Major RV291

VINERI, 06.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

CRAIOVA

FILARMONICA “OLTENIA” DIN CRAIOVA

Dirijor: THEO WOLTERS (OLANDA)

Solişti:

LIVIU PRUNARU - vioară
CECILIU OVIDIU IŞFAN - violă

Program:
Gioacchino Rossini: Uvertura operei „La Cenerentola” („Cenuşăreasa”)
Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart: Simfonia concertantă în Mi bemol major pentru vioară, violă şi orchestră, K. 364
Antonín Dvořák: Simfonia a VIII-a în Sol major, op. 88

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

EUROPEAN CONTEMPORARY ORCHESTRA

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
A. Iorgulescu – Kaleidoscope (p.a.)
M. Padding – Hop – Creation ECO 2012
T. Hearne – First World – Creation ECO 2012
Fr. Narboni – Embarquement pour l’outre-là – Creation ECO 2012
P-A Charpy – Brûlures – Creation ECO 2012 
Liviu Dănceanu – Hexaih op. 147 (p.a.)

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

“TAMMUZ” Quartet

Ateneul Român
Invitat : OLIVER TRIENDL – pian

Program :
R. Fuchs – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 2 în si minor op. 75
G. Enescu – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 2 în re minor op. 30
G. Fauré – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 2 în sol minor op. 45

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CORUL şi ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : BERTRAND DE BILLY
Dirijorul corului : IOSIF ION PRUNNER

Program :
A. Schönberg – Gurre-Lieder

Distribuţia :
Tove – VIOLETA URMANA
Waldemar – NIKOLAI SCHUKOFF
Klaus – JOHN DASZAK
Waldtaube – JANINA BAECHLE
Peasant – THOMAS JOHANNES MAYER
Narator – MARCEL IUREŞ

SÂMBATĂ, 07.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul “LA VENEXIANA”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : CLAUDIO CAVINA

Corul de cameră “PRELUDIU” al Centrului Naţional de Artă “Tinerimea Română”
Dirijorul corului : VOICU ENĂCHESCU

Program :
Claudio MONTEVERDI: L’ORFEO (1607)

Distribuţia :
La Musica/Euridice: Roberta MAMELI
Orfeo: Furio ZANASI
Messaggera: Josè Maria LO MONACO
Proserpina/Ninfa: Monica PICCININI
Plutone: Raffaele COSTANTINI
Speranza: Josè Maria LO MONACO 
Caronte: Salvo VITALE
Apollo/Pastore: Luca Cervoni 
Pastore II – Spirito I: Alessio TOSI
Pastore III: Raffaele PE’
Pastore IV – Spirito II: Mauro BORGIONI

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

“MINGUET” Quartet

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
Gabriel Iranyi – Cvartet de coarde nr. 4 (2012) “…Innenräume, Verwebungen…”
Peter Ruzicka – Cvartetul de coarde cu soprană solo nr. 6 “Erinnerung und vergessen” (2008)
Solistă : SARAH MARIA SUN – soprană
Wolfgang Rihm – Patru studii pentru cvartet cu clarinet (2003)
Solist : JÖRG WIDMANN – clarinet

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

14:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul TRAIECT

Dirijor : Sorin Lerescu

Solist : Pierre-Yves Artaud – flaut
Program :
Tiberiu Olah – “Invocaţii” pentru 5 executanţi
Ede Terényi – “Traiectorie albă” pentru ansamblu
Laura Ana Mânzat – “Rondo neconvenţional” pentru ansamblu (p.a.a.)
Anatol Vieru – “Feuerwerk”  pentru flaut, vibrafon şi vioară
Elena Apostol – “Fairytale” pentru ansamblu
Sorin Lerescu – “Proportions II” pentru flaut şi ansamblu instrumental

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul “PROFIL”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : TIBERIU SOARE

Program :
Adrian Enescu – Audio Games
Viorel Munteanu – lucrare în primă audiție
Mihai Măniceanu – lucrare în primă audiție
Adrian Iorgulescu – lucrare în primă audiție
Octavian Nemescu – lucrare în primă audiţie
Tristan Murail – L’Esprit des dunes

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA ROMÂNĂ DE TINERET

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : LAWRENCE FOSTER

Program :
D. Dediu – Frenesia pentru orchestră op. 84 (2000)
J. Brahms – Dublul concert pentru vioară, violoncel şi orchestră în la minor op. 102
Solişti : PINCHAS ZUKERMAN – vioară
AMANDA FORSYTH – violoncel
M. Ravel – Rapsodie espagnole
M. Ravel – Pavane pour une infante défunte
M. Ravel – Alborada del Gracioso
M. Ravel – Bolero

DUMINICĂ, 08.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Orchestra “ARMONIA ATENEA”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : GEORGE PETROU

Program :
G.F. Händel – Alessandro HWV21 (Dramă muzicală în trei acte)
Libret : Paolo Rolli

Distribuţia :
Alessandro – MAX EMANUEL CENČIĆ
Rosanne – JULIA LEZHNEVA
Lisaura – LAURA AIKIN
Clito – PAVEL KUDINOV
Tassile – XAVIER SABATA
Leonato – JUAN SANCHO
Cleone – VASILY KHOROSHEV

LUNI, 09.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

WIENER AKADEMIE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : MARTIN HASELBÖCK

Program :
“THE INFERNAL COMEDY” – O crimă melodramatică
Scenariul şi regia : Michael Sturminger
Muzica : A. Vivaldi, J. Haydn, W.A. Mozart, L. van Beethoven etc.

Narator : JOHN MALKOVICH

Solişti :
LAURA AIKIN – soprană
BERNARDA BOBRO – soprană
ALEKSANDRA ZAMOJSKA – soprană

LUNI, 09.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CORUL şi ORCHESTRA OPEREI NAŢIONALE BUCUREŞTI

Opera Naţională Bucureşti
“OTELLO” de Giuseppe Verdi

Dirijor : KERI-LYNN WILSON

Regizor : VERA NEMIROVA

Scenograf : VIORICA PETROVICI

Maestru de cor : STELIAN OLARIU

Asistent regie : IRINA MACOVEI 

Distribuţia :
Otello – PETER SEIFFERT
Desdemona – NICOLETA ARDELEAN
Iago – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Cassio – CRISTIAN MOGOŞAN
Roderigo –ANDREI LAZĂR
Ludovico – MARIUS BOLOŞ
Montano – IUSTINIAN ZETEA
Un herald – IONUŢ GAVRILĂ
Emilia – MARIA JINGA

LUNI, 09.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA SINFONICA NAZIONALE DELLA RAI

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : Juraj Valčuha
Solistă : ANNA TIFU – laureată a Concursului Internaţional “George Enescu” – ediţia 2007

Program :
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 1 în Do Major op. 9
Philip Glass – Concertul nr. 1 pentru vioară şi orchestră (1987)
I. Stravinski – Suita pentru orchestră “Ritualul primăverii”

LUNI, 09.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

BRAŞOV

TRIO PINCHAS ZUKERMAN, AMANDA FORSYTH, ANGELA CHENG

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Sonata pentru vioară şi pian în Sol Major K 301
R. Schumann – Adagio şi Allegro pentru violoncel şi pian în La bemol Major op. 70
Z. Kodály – Duo pentru vioară şi violoncel op. 7
F. Mendelssohn – Trio pentru pian în re minor op. 49

MARŢI, 10.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CVARTETUL VOCES

Ateneul Român

Program :
J. S. Bach - Arta Fugii BWV 1080

MARŢI, 10.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA SINFONICA NAZIONALE DELLA RAI

Dirijor : JURAJ VALCUHA

Program :
O. Respighi – Poemul simfonic “Fontane di Roma”
Cl. Debussy – “Marea”, trei schiţe simfonice pentru orchestră
M. Ravel – “Daphnis şi Chloe” – fragmente din baletul in trei părţi imaginat de M. Fokin

MIERCURI, 11.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : RUDOLF  BUCHBINDER

Program :
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în Do Major op. 15
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 2 pentru pian şi orchestră în Si bemol Major op. 19
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 3 pentru pian şi orchestră în do minor op. 37

MIERCURI, 11.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA şi CORUL DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : ANTONIO PAPPANO

Program :
M. Ravel – “Une barque sur l’océan” (partea a 3-a din suita “Miroirs”) op. 43a
G. Enescu – Poemul simfonic “Vox Maris” op. 31
Solist : MARIUS VLAD BUDOIU – tenor
A. Dvořák – Simfonia nr. 9 în mi minor op. 95 “Din lumea nouă”

JOI, 12.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : RUDOLF  BUCHBINDER

Program :
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 4 pentru pian şi orchestră în Sol Major op. 58
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 5 pentru pian şi orchestră în Mi bemol Major op. 73 ”Imperialul”

JOI, 12.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA şi CORUL DELL’ACCADEMIA NAZIONALE DI SANTA CECILIA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : ANTONIO PAPPANO

Program :
G. Verdi – Requiem

Solişti :
LIUDMYLA MONASTYRSKA – soprană
EKATERINA SEMENCHUK – mezzo-soprană
JOHAN BOTHA – tenor
RENÉ PAPE – bas

JOI, 12.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

TIMIŞOARA

ORCHESTRA FILARMONICII “BANATUL” TIMIŞOARA
Dirijor : GHEORGHE COSTIN 
Solişti : MANUELA IANA-MIHĂILESCU şi DRAGOŞ MIHĂILESCU 

Program:
G. Enescu – Suita a II-a în Do Major op. 20
Fr. Poulenc – Concertul în re minor pentru două piane şi orchestră FP 61
B. Bartók –  Suita “Mandarinul miraculos” op. 19

VINERI, 13.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALECUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL D’ÎLE-DE-FRANCE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : ENRIQUE MAZZOLA
Solist : CLAIRE-MARIE LE GUAY – pian

Program :
J. Ibert – Bacchanale
A. Honegger – Concertino pentru pian şi orchestră H 55
M. Ravel – Concertul pentru mâna stângă în Re Major op. 82
D. Milhaud – Le Bœuf sur le toit op. 58
M. Ravel – Suita nr. 2 pentru orchestră op. 57b “Daphnis et Chloé”

VINERI, 13.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : VLADIMIR JUROWSKI
Solist : ANIKA VAVIC – pian

Program :
N. Rimski-Korsakov – Uvertura Marele Paşte rusesc op. 36
S. Prokofiev – Concertul pentru pian şi orchestră nr. 3 în Do Major op. 26
A. Bruckner – Simfonia nr. 1 în do minor WAB 101

VINERI, 13.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRE de CHAMBRE de LAUSANNE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : CHRISTIAN ZACHARIAS

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia concertantă pentru vioară, violă şi orchestră în Mi bemol Major K 364
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 40 în sol minor K 550

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ALTENBERG TRIO WIEN

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
D. Şostakovici – Trio nr. 1 în do minor op. 8 (1923)
G. Enescu – Trio în la minor (1916)
M. Ravel – Trio în la minor (1914)

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRE NATIONAL D’ÎLE-DE-FRANCE

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : CRISTIAN LUPEŞ
Solist : ALISSA MARGULIS – vioară

Program :
A. Webern – Fuga (Ricercata) la 6 voci (după J.S. Bach – Ofranda Muzicală BWV 1079/5)
B. Bartók – Concertul nr. 2 pentru vioară şi orchestră SZ112, BB 117
G. Enescu – Simfonia nr. 2 în La Major op. 17

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

LONDON PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : VLADIMIR JUROWSKI
CORUL ACADMIC RADIO
Dirijor : DAN MIHAI GOIA
Solist : LEONIDAS KAVAKOS – vioară

Program :
J. Brahms – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major op. 77
G. Enescu – Simfonia nr. 3 cu cor în Do Major op. 21

SÂMBATĂ, 14.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

ORCHESTRE de CHAMBRE de LAUSANNE

Ateneul Român
Solist şi dirijor : CHRISTIAN ZACHARIAS

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Serenada nr. 9 în Re Major K 320 “Posthorn” (primele patru părţi)
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 23 pentru pian şi orchestră în La Major K 488
W.A. Mozart – Fantezia nr. 3 pentru pian în re minor K 397
W.A. Mozart – Rondo pentru pian în Re Major K 485
W.A. Mozart – Serenada nr. 9 în Re Major K 320 “Posthorn” (primele trei părţi)

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

Ansamblul HYPERION INTERNATIONAL

Sala “Mihail Jora” a Societăţii Române de Radiodifuziune

Dirijor : Ilan VOLKOV
Program :
Maya Dunietz –  crea.
Liviu Ralea – « Periastron » pentru ansamblu şi sunete asistate de computer ( p.a.a.)
Horaţiu Rădulescu – Small Infinities Togetherness (1983) pentru global sources şi ansamblu (p.a.r.) – versiune scrisă şi dedicată Ansamblului Hyperion
Costin Cazaban – Calam pentru ansamblu şi sunete asistate de computer (p.a.r.)
Ilan Volkov/ Iancu Dumitrescu/ Andrei Kivu / Maya Dunietz/ Eran Sachs/ Yoni Silver / Haggai Fershtman/ Adam Sheflan – Intuitive Music – « pianissimo new project
Ana-Maria Avram – Spacetime-simetry (p.a.a.)
Iancu Dumitrescu – Early, before all times (II) (p.a.a.)
Ilan Volkov/ Iancu Dumitrescu/ Andrei Kivu / Maya Dunietz/ Eran Sachs/ Yoni Silver / Haggai Fershtman/ Adam Sheflan/  –  Intuitive Music 10 – Fortissimo New Project

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

13:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂI

NUOVA MUSICA CONSONANTE

Sala “Mihail Jora” a Societăţii Române de Radiodifuziune

NUOVA MUSICA CONSONANTE-LIVING MUSIC FOUDATION (USA), VOX NOVUS (USA), CENTER OF COMPUTER RESEARCH IN MUSIC AND ACOUSTICS, STANFORD UNIVERSITY (USA), EUROPEAN CONFERENCE OF PROMOTERS OF NEW MUSIC (ECPNM)

Interpretează :

GEORGETA STOLERIU – soprană

VLAD DIMULESCU – pian

CORINA BOLOLOI – vioară

FAUSTA DIMULESCU – pian

ŞERBAN NICHIFOR – violoncel

DANIEL MIHAI  - violonist

Program :

“Pioneers Songs” de Ned Hill, interpretata cu concursul autorului, un prestigios reprezentant al Culturii Americane.

“REZONANŢE ENESCIENE”
G. Enescu – Sonata nr. 1 pentru pian în fa diez minor op. 24
C-tin Silvestri – Piesă de concert nr. 3 pentru pian op. 25
R. Voisey – “Lament and Sorrow” pentru violoncel şi mediu electroacustic (p.a.)
V. Petculescu – “Reverberaţii” pentru violoncel solo
D. DaSilva – “Stabat” pentru violoncel solo (p.a.)
C. Chafe (USA) – “Free Motion” pentru violoncel şi mediu electroacustic
P. Constantinescu – “Cântec de adormit Mitzura”, lied pe versuri de Tudor Arghezi
S. McClellan (USA)– “Acolo”, lied pe versuri de Iulia Deleanu (p.a.)
M. Jora – “Ghicitoarea”, lied pe versuri de Tudor Arghezi
G. Enescu – “Eu ma duc, codrul ramane”, lied pe versuri populare
M. Marbe – “Ecoul unui omagiu” pentru vioară şi pian
G. Enescu – Balada pentru vioară şi pian
L. Alexandra – “Quasi Cadenza” pentru vioară solo
V. Cosma – “Concerto de Berlin” pentru vioară şi pian (p.a.)
M. Ciobanu – “Jurnal 99” pentru vioară şi mediu electroacustic

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

17:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

HARMONIUS CHAMBER ORCHESTRA – OSAKA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : OTOMO NAOTO
Program :
A. Jolivet – Concertul pentru flaut şi orchestră de coarde (1950)
Solist : IONUŢ BOGDAN ŞTEFĂNESCU – flaut
Yasushi Akutagawa – Triptic pentru orchestră de coarde
G. Enescu – Octuor în Do Major op. 7

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

19:30

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Rheingold

Distribuţia :
Wotan – EGILS SILINS
Donner – VALENTIN VASILIU
Froh – MARIUS VLAD BUDOIU
Loge – CHRISTIAN ELSNER
Alberich – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Mime – ARNOLD BEZUYEN
Fasolt – GÜNTHER GROISSBÖCK
Fafner – SORIN COLIBAN
Fricka – ELISABETH KULMAN
Freia – ALEXANDRA REINPRECHT
Woglinde – JULIA BORCHERT

DUMINICĂ, 15.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

GHISLIERI CHOIR & CONSORT

Ateneul Român

“DEATH AND RESURRECTION” – între Baroc şi Clasicism
Un proiect al Fundației Royaumont (Franța) şi al Colegiului Ghislieri (Italia)
Dirijor : GIULIO PRANDI
Solişti : ROBERTA INVERNIZZI – soprană
SALVO VITALE – bas

Program :
W.A. Mozart – Regina Coeli în Do Major KV 108 (1771)
D. Perez – Mattutino de’ morti  (1774)

LUNI, 16.09

18:00

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Walküre

Distribuţia :
Sigmund – TORSTEN KERL
Hunding – GÜNTHER GROISSBÖCK
Wotan – EGILS SILINS
Sieglinde – MELANIE DIENER
Brünnhilde – PETRA  LANG
Fricka – ELISABETH KULMAN

LUNI, 16.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETSTOC EPUIZAT

VORTICE DANCE COMPANY

Opera Națională Bucureşti

Program :

“DRACULA”

Coproducţie : Vortice Dance Company, Opera din Macedonia
Regia şi coregrafia : Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço
Scenografia, videografia, sonoplastia : Rafael Carriço
Figurine : Jorge Liborio

Solişti : Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço, Maria Diogo, Rafaela Reis, Ângela Bacellar, Luz Bacellar,
Joana Puntel, Fábio Simões, Renato Vieira, Anna Kurlikova, Rita Pinheiro, Tiago Coelho

Regia tehnică : Nuno Martins
Designer de lumini, efecte audio-visuale : Luis Paz
Muzica : Wojciech Kilar, Philip Glass, S. Rahmaninov, Lou Reed

LUNI, 16.09

19:30

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Madrigal

CORUL NAȚIONAL DE CAMERĂ “MADRIGAL”
Ateneul Român

Program:
Hieronimus Tragoudistis din Cipru – Canonul cel Mare (Cântarea a noua) sec. XVI
Guillaume de Machault – Kyrie – La Messe de Notre Dame (1364)
Moment bizantin 1
Josquin des Prez – Gloria – Missa Pange lingua (cca. 1514)
Moment bizantin 2
Giovani Pierluigi da Palestrina – Credo – Missa Papae Marcelli (1567)
Moment bizantin 3
William Byrd – Sanctus – Missa a quatro voci (1592-1593)
Hans Leo Hassler (1564-1612) – Benedictus – Missa Dixit Maria
Moment bizantin 4
Tomas Luis de Victoria (1548-1611) – Agnus Dei – Missa “O magnum misterium” (1572)
Moment bizantin 5
Dan Dediu – Exultate – lucrare în stil neogregorian/bizantin (p.a.)

MARŢI, 17.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

LUCERNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JAMES GAFFIGAN 
Solist : TRULS  MØRK – violoncel

Program :
A. Dvořák – Concertul pentru violoncel şi orchestră în si minor op. 104 (B 191)
A. Dvořák – Simfonia nr. 6 în Re Major op. 60 (B 112)

MARŢI, 17.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

DIE MÜNCHENER PHILHARMONIKER

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SEMYON BYCHKOV
Solist : GAUTIER CAPUÇON – violoncel

Program :
G. Enescu – Simfonia concertantă pentru violoncel şi orchestră în la minor op. 8
G. Mahler – Simfonia nr. 1 în Re Major

MIERCURI, 18.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

LUCERNE SYMPHONY ORCHESTRA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JAMES GAFFIGAN
Solist : FAZIL SAY – pian

Program :
G. Enescu – Issis (orchestraţie de Pascal Bentoiu – după schițele compozitorului)
Cu participarea Corului de cameră “PRELUDIU” al Centrului Naţional de Artă “Tinerimea Română”
Dirijor : VOICU ENĂCHESCUW.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 21 pentru pian şi orchestră în Do Major K.467
J. Haydn – Simfonia nr. 104 în Re Major H.1/104 “Londra”

MIERCURI, 18.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

DIE MÜNCHENER PHILHARMONIKER

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SEMYON BYCHKOV
Solist : KATIA şi MARIELLE LABÈQUE – pian

Program :
M. Ravel – Suita pentru pian “Le Tombeau de Couperin” (1918)
F. Poulenc – Concertul pentru două piane în re minor FP 61
C. Franck – Simfonia în re minor

JOI, 19.09

17:00

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Siegfried

Distribuţia :
Siegfried – STEFAN VINKE
Mime – ARNOLD BEZUYEN
Wotan (Wanderer) – EGILS SILINS
Alberich – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Fafner – SORIN COLIBAN
Erda – MARIA RADNER
Brünnhilde – CATHERINE FOSTER

JOI, 19.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETSTOC EPUIZAT

VORTICE DANCE COMPANY

Opera Națională Bucureşti

“SOLILOQUY – ABOUT WONDERLAND”

Regia şi coregrafia : Cláudia Martins and Rafael Carriço
Scenografia, videografia şi sonoplastia : Rafael Carriço
Costume : Cláudia Martins
Regia tehnică : Nuno Martins
Designer de lumini şi efecte audio-visuale : Luis Paz

Muzica : Phillip Glass, Maurice Fulton, Kronos Quartet, Daft Punk,
Nino Rota, Eric Satie, Oswaldo Ferrés, Camille Saint-Saëns, Arvo Pärt,
Billie Holiday, Claude Debussy, Charlie Chaplin

Solişti : Cláudia Martins, Rafael Carriço, Maria Diogo, Rafaela Reis,
Joana Puntel, Fábio Simões, Renata Vieira, Anna Kurlikova, Rita Pereira,
Luz Bacellar, Angela Bacellar

JOI, 19.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

ORADEA

FILARMONICA DE STAT ORADEA
Dirijor : ROMEO RÎMBU
Solist : ANTAL ZALAI – vioară (laureat al Concursului Internaţional “G. Enescu” 2011)

Program :
G. Enescu – B. Bartók

VINERI, 20.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

HESPERION XXI – LA CAPELLA REIAL DE CATALUNYA

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : JORDI SAVALL

Program :
La Dinastia Borgia

Concept artistic al proiectului : Jordi Savall & Montserrat Figueras 
Dramaturgia şi surse istorice : Josep Piera & Manuel Forcano 
Colaboratori : Josep Piera, Joan F. Mira, Vicent Ros 

Solişti : Adriana Fernandez, Pascal Bertin, José Hernández-Pastor,
Lluís Vilamajó, Francesc Garrigosa, Furio Zanasi, Daniele Carnovich,
Josep Piera, Francisco Rojas, Daniele Carnovich

VINERI, 20.09

19:00

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Ploieşti – MAXIM Quartet – Turneu naţional CLASSIC REMIX

Horia Maxim - pian

Mihaela Anica - flaut

Fernando Mihalache - acordeon

Săndel Smărăndescu - contrabas

PLOIEŞTI
Sala Filarmonicii “Paul Constantinescu”

Program:
Transcripţii şi aranjamente după lucrări de  F. Schubert, P. I. Ceaikovski, A. Glazunov, I. Stravinski, F. Liszt, Dan Dediu

VINERI, 20.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ORCHESTRA NAŢIONALĂ RADIO

Sala Mare a Palatului

CORUL ACADEMIC RADIO
CORUL DE COPII RADIO
Dirijor : JAMES JUDD
Dirijorul Corului : DAN MIHAI GOIA
Dirijorul Corului de copii : VOICU POPESCU

Program :
B. Britten – War Requiem op. 66

Solişti :
MICHAELA KAUNE – soprană
KIM BEGLEY – tenor
ADRIAN ERÖD – bariton

VINERI, 20.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

SAINT MARTIN IN THE FIELDS

Dirijor : Sir. NEVILLE MARRINER

Solist : ANTONIO MENESES - violoncel
Program :
Sir E. Elgar - Introducere şi Allegro pentru orchestră de coarde op. 47

Sir E. Elgar - Concertul pentru violoncel şi orchestră în mi minor op. 85

Sir E. Elgar - Enigma Variation op. 36

VINERI, 20.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

SIBIU

HESPERION XXI
LA CAPELLA REIAL DE CATALUNYA 
Dirijor : JORDI SAVALL

Program :
La Dinastia Borgia

Concept artistic al proiectului : Jordi Savall & Montserrat Figueras 
Dramaturgia şi surse istorice : Josep Piera & Manuel Forcano
Colaboratori : Josep Piera, Joan F. Mira, Vicent Ros 

Solişti : Adriana Fernandez, Pascal Bertin, José Hernández-Pastor,
Lluís Vilamajó, Francesc Garrigosa, Furio Zanasi, Daniele Carnovich,
Josep Piera, Francisco Rojas, Daniele Carnovich

VINERI, 20.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

BACĂU – Sala “ATENEU”

FILARMONICA “M. JORA” BACĂU
Dirijor : OVIDIU BĂLAN
Solist : LEONEL MORALES – pian

Program :
S. Rachmaninov – Concertul nr. 3 pentru pian şi orchestră în re minor op. 30
I. Stravinski – Ritualul primăverii

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

LAURENT ALBRECHT BREUNINGER & THOMAS DUIS

Sala mică a Palatului

Recital :
LAURENT ALBRECHT BREUNINGER – vioară
THOMAS DUIS – pian

Program :
Cl. Debussy – Sonata pentru vioară şi pian în sol minor L 140
L. Vierne – Sonata pentru vioară şi pian în sol minor op. 23
G. Enescu – Sonata nr. 3 pentru vioară şi pian în la minor “în caracter popular românesc” op. 25
M. Ravel – Rapsodia pentru vioară şi pian op. 76 “Tzigane”

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

Recital JEAN-CLAUDE PENNETIER – pian

Recital JEAN-CLAUDE PENNETIER - pian
Ateneul Român

Program :
G. Fauré – Nocturna nr. 12 în mi minor op. 107
G. Fauré – Barcarola nr. 11 în sol minor op. 105
F. Busoni – Sonatina nr. 2 BV 259
G. Enescu – Sonata nr. 1 pentru pian în fa diez minor op. 24,1
Cl. Debussy – La cathédrale engloutie
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 3 pentru pian op. 18 “Carillon nocturne”
Cl. Debussy – 12 studii pentru pian (Caietul 2)
(7. Pour les degrés chromatiques; 8. Pour les agreements; 9. Pour les notes répétées; 10. Pour les arpèges composes; 11. Pour les sonorités opposées; 12. Pour les accords)

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

19:00

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Craiova – MAXIM Quartet – Turneu naţional CLASSIC REMIX

Horia Maxim - pian
Mihaela Anica - flaut
Fernando Mihalache - acordeon
Săndel Smărăndescu - contrabas

CRAIOVA

Sala Filarmonicii “Oltenia”

Program:
Transcripţii şi aranjamente după lucrări de  F. Schubert, P. I. Ceaikovski, A. Glazunov, I. Stravinski, F. Liszt, Dan Dediu

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

ROYAL CONCERTGEBOUW ORCHESTRA AMSTERDAM

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MARISS JANSONS
Solist : EMANUEL AX – pian

Program :
L. van Beethoven – Concertul nr. 3 pentru pian şi orchestră în do minor op. 37
R. Strauss – O viaţă de erou op. 40

SÂMBATĂ, 21.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

SAINT MARTIN IN THE FIELDS

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : Sir NEVILLE MARRINER
Solist : BORIS BROVTSYN – vioară

Program :
F. Mendelssohn – Uvertura “Ruy Blas”
F. Mendelssohn – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în mi minor op. 64
F. Mendelssohn – Visul unei nopți de vară (integral)

DUMINICĂ, 22.09

11:00

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

ROYAL CONCERTGEBOUW ORCHESTRA AMSTERDAM

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MARISS JANSONS
Solist : LISA BATIASHVILI – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Rapsodia nr. 1 în La Major op. 11,1
S. Prokofiev – Concertul nr. 1 pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major op. 19
S. Prokofiev – 3 selecţiuni din Suita “Romeo & Julieta”
I. Stravinsky – Suita “Pasărea de foc” (1919)

DUMINICĂ, 22.09

17:00

SERIA WAGNERCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

RUNDFUNK – SINFONIEORCHESTER BERLIN

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MAREK JANOWSKI

Program :
R. Wagner – Amurgul zeilor

Distribuţia :
Siegfried – STEFAN VINKE
Gunther – VALENTIN VASILIU
Alberich – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Hagen – ERIC HALFVARSON
Brünnhilde – PETRA LANG
Gutrune – ALEXANDRA REINPRECHT
Waltraute – ELISABETH KULMAN
Norn 2 – ELISABETH KULMAN

DUMINICĂ, 22.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

BRAŞOV

“VIRTUOZII” din BUCUREŞTI
Dirijor : MAXIM VENGEROV

Program :
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru două viori şi orchestră în re minor BWV 1043
Solişti : MAXIM VENGEROV – vioară
VLAD STĂNCULEASA – vioară
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 5 pentru vioară şi orchestră în La Major K 219 “Turkish”
Solist : MAXIM VENGEROV – vioară
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 40 în sol minor K 550

LUNI, 23.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

EVGENY KISSIN

Program:

Fr. Schubert – Sonata nr. 17 în Re Major D 850 op. 53

Al. Scriabin – Sonata nr. 2 în sol diez minor op. 19

Al. Scriabin – Studii op. 8, nr. 2 în fa diez minor, nr. 4 în Si Major, nr. 5 în Mi Major, nr. 8 în La bemol Major, nr. 9 în sol diez minor, nr. 11 în Si bemol minor, nr. 12 în re diez minor

LUNI, 23.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ROYAL STOCKHOLM PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SAKARI ORAMO
Solist : STEPHEN HOUGH – pian

Program :
A. Hillborg – Exquisite Corpse
J. Brahms – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în re minor op. 15
C. Nielsen – Simfonia nr. 2 op. 16 (FS 29) “The Four Temperaments”

MARŢI, 24.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

“VIRTUOZII” din BUCUREŞTI

Ateneul Român
Dirijor şi solist : MAXIM VENGEROV

Program :
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru două viori şi orchestră în re minor BWV 1043
Solişti : MAXIM VENGEROV – vioară
           VLAD STĂNCULEASA – vioară
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 3 pentru vioară şi orchestră în Sol Major K 216
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 5 pentru vioară şi orchestră în La Major K 219 “Turkish”
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 41 în Do Major K 551 “Jupiter”

MARŢI, 24.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALET

La Follia In William Shakespeare de Gigi Căciuleanu – PREMIERA

Spectacol de teatru coregrafic prezentat în cadrul “Întâlnirilor JTI”

Teatrul Bulandra – Sala “Liviu Ciulei”
Cu participarea extraordinară a actorilor Victor Rebengiuc, Coca Bloos
Decor, Costume, Imagine – Octavian Neculai
Muzica – Paul Ilea
Designer de lumini – Alexandru Darie
Asistent Coregraf – Lelia Marcu Vladu
Asistent Décor – Vladimir Iuganu
Asistent Costume – Sorina Iuganu
Actori : Cornel Scripcaru, Adrian Ciobanu, Ioana Macaria, Marius Chivu, Camelia Maxim, Daniela Nane, Anca Androne, Rodica Lazar, Antoaneta Cojocaru, Ioana Anton
DansActori : Ramona Barbulescu, Rasmina CalbAjos, Ioana Macarie, Diana Spiridon, Ioana Marchidan, Vanda Ştefănescu, Arcadie Rusu, Cristian Nanculescu, Adrian Nou, IstvAn TegLAs Alexandru Calin, Lari Giorgescu, Ştefan Lupu
Spectacol prezentat în cadrul Programului “Bulandra per Musica” şi produs de Teatrul Bulandra şiFundaţia Art Production

MARŢI, 24.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ROYAL STOCKHOLM PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : SAKARI ORAMO
Solist : JULIAN RACHLIN – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Suita nr. 2 pentru orchestră în Do Major op. 20
I. Stravinski – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major
J. Sibelius – Simfonia nr. 1 în mi minor op. 39

MIERCURI, 25.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

CAMERATA SALZBURG

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : LOUIS LANGRÉE
Solist : HILARY HAHN – vioară

Program :
G. Enescu – Intermezzi op. 12
W.A. Mozart – Concertul nr. 3 pentru vioară şi orchestră în Sol Major K 216
Vaughan Williams – The Lark Ascending (1920)
W.A. Mozart – Simfonia nr. 41 în Do Major K 551 “Jupiter”

MIERCURI, 25.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : MIHAIL PLETNEV
Solist : VADIM REPIN – vioară

Program :
S. Prokofiev – Concertul nr. 2 pentru vioară şi orchestră în sol minor op. 63
P.I. Ceiakovski – Vals-Scherzo în Do Major op. 34
A. Glazunov – Anotimpurile op. 67

JOI, 26.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

Trio EVGENY KISSIN, SILVIA MARCOVICI & ALEXANDER KNIAZEV

Ateneul Român

Program :
Fr. Schubert – 4 improptus: op. 142  nr. 1 în fa minor, op. 142 nr. 3 în Si bemol Major, op. 90 nr. 3 în Sol bemol Major, op. 90 nr. 4 în La bemol Major
Fr. Schubert – Trio în Mi bemol Major op. 100

JOI, 26.09

19:00

SPECTACOLE DE OPERA ŞI BALETCUMPĂRĂ BILET 

CORUL şi ORCHESTRA OPEREI NAŢIONALE BUCUREŞTI

Opera Națională Bucureşti
“OEDIPE” de George Enescu
Libretul : Edmond Fleg

Dirijor : ADRIAN MORAR
Regizor : ANDA TĂBĂCARU-HOGEA
Scenograf : VIORICA PETROVICI
Coregraf : RĂZVAN MAZILU 
Maestru de cor : STELIAN OLARIU

Distribuţia :
Oedipe – ŞTEFAN IGNAT
Tiresias – HORIA SANDU
Creon – VICENŢIU ŢĂRANU
Păstorul – LIVIU INDRICĂU 
Marele Preot – MARIUS BOLOŞ
Phorbas – SORIN DRĂNICEANU
Străjerul – MIHNEA LAMATIC
Teseu – ŞERBAN VASILE
Laios – HECTOR LOPEZ
Iocasta – OANA ANDRA
Sfinxul – ANDRADA IOANA ROŞU
Antigona – SIMONA NEAGU
Meropa – ANTONELA BÂRNAT

JOI, 26.09

19:00

ALTE EVENIMENTE

Piteşti – MAXIM Quartet – Turneu naţional CLASSIC REMIX

Horia Maxim - pian
Mihaela Anica - flaut
Fernando Mihalache - acordeon
Săndel Smărăndescu - contrabas

Casa de Cultură a Sindicatelor

Program:
Transcripţii şi aranjamente după lucrări de  F. Schubert, P. I. Ceaikovski, A. Glazunov, I. Stravinski, F. Liszt, Dan Dediu

JOI, 26.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

RUSSIAN NATIONAL ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
CORUL FILARMONICII “GEORGE ENESCU”
Dirijor : HORIA ANDREESCU
Dirijorul corului : ION IOSIF PRUNNER 

Program :
Fr. Liszt – Concertul nr. 1 pentru pian şi orchestră în Mi bemol Major S.124
Solist : BORIS BEREZOVSKY – pian
G. Mahler – Simfonia nr. 2 “Resurrection Symphony”
Solişti : ANITA HARTIG – soprană
BERNARDA FINK – mezzo-soprană

JOI, 26.09

CONCERTE ÎN ŢARĂ

ARAD

FILARMONICA DE STAT ARAD
Dirijor : BORJAN CANEV
Solist : ANTAL ZALAI – vioară (laureat al Concursului Internaţional “G. Enescu” 2011)

Program :
G. Enescu – B. Bartók

VINERI, 27.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

VIOLONCELLISSIMO

Ateneul Român
Dirijor : MARIN CAZACU
Solişti : MARIN CAZACU – violoncel
            SIMINA IVAN – soprană

T. Albinoni – Adagio
S. Mercadante – Parola prima din Oratoriul “Ultimele şapte cuvinte” pentru soprană şi orchestră de violoncele
H. Lobos – Bachianas Brasileiras nr. 1 pentru violoncele
H. Lobos – Bachianas Brasileiras nr. 5 pentru soprană şi violoncele
J. Schrammel – Marş
A. Dvořák – Doloroso
C-tin Dimitrescu – Dans ţărănesc
J. Offenbach – Barcarola
J. Offenbach – Can Can
A. Piazzolla – Oblivion
A.Viloldo  – Tango “El Choclo”
A. Piazzolla – Libertango
Mozart / Mifune – Alla Turca Jazz

VINERI, 27.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIISTOC EPUIZAT

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
Dirijor : ANDREW LITTON
Solist : ALEXANDRA DARIESCU – pian

Program :

J. Brahms – Uvertura Academică în do minor op. 80
E. Grieg – Concertul pentru pian şi orchestră în la minor op. 16
P.I. Ceaikovski – Simfonia nr. 6 în si minor op. 74 “Patetica”

VINERI, 27.09

22:30

CONCERTELE DE LA MIEZUL NOPŢIISTOC EPUIZAT

ACCADEMIA BIZANTINA

Ateneul Român

Dirijor şi clavecin : OTTAVIO DANTONE

Solistă: VIKTORIA MULLOVA - vioară

Program :
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în la minor BWV 1041
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară, clavecin şi orchestră (transcripţie BWV 1060)
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Re Major (transcripţie BWV 1053)
J.S. Bach – Concertul pentru vioară şi orchestră în Mi Major BWV 1042

SÂMBATĂ, 28.09

11:00

MUZICA SEC. XXI – WORKSHOP // ENESCU ŞI CONTEMPORANII SĂICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

THE SCHUBERT ENSEMBLE

Sala mică a Palatului

Program :
Frank Bridge – Fantezie pentru cvartet cu pian în fa diez minor H. 94
G. Fauré – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 1 în do minor op. 15
G. Enescu – Cvartetul cu pian nr. 1 în Re Major op. 16 (1909)

SÂMBATĂ, 28.09

17:00

RECITALURI ŞI CONCERTE CAMERALESTOC EPUIZAT

MURRAY PERAHIA

Ateneul Român
Recital MURRAY PERAHIA – pian

Program :
J. S. Bach  – Suita franceză nr. 4 în Mi bemol Major BWV 815
L. van Beethoven – Sonata nr. 23 în fa minor op. 57 “Appasionata”
R. Schumann – Faschingsschwank aus Wien op. 26
F. Chopin – TBA
F. Chopin – Scherzo nr. 2 în Si bemol Major op. 31

SÂMBATĂ, 28.09

19:30

MARI ORCHESTRE ALE LUMIICUMPĂRĂ BILET 

ROYAL PHILHARMONIC ORCHESTRA

Sala Mare a Palatului
CORUL ACADEMIC RADIO
CORUL DE COPII RADIO
Dirijor : CRISTIAN MANDEAL
Dirijorul Corului : DAN MIHAI GOIA
Dirijorul corului de copii : VOICU POPESCU 

Program :
G. Enescu – Capriccio pentru vioară şi orchestră (orchestraţie de Cornel Ţăranu după schiţele compozitorului)
Solist : DMITRY  SITKOVETSKY – vioară
G. Mahler – Simfonia nr. 3
Solist : JENNIFER JOHNSTON – mezzo-soprană

Velvet Love by Andy Platon

MUSIC VIDEO BOOK TRAILERS: Staying a Step Ahead of the Competition in Publishing

by Claudia Moscovici

Both publishers and authors are becoming increasingly concerned with the question of how to promote books effectively, capture the interest of readers and generate sales. Given the number of books out there, without an outstanding publicity campaign, each given book risks passing unnoticed. Currently, the competition for readers is tremendous. An  astronomical number of books are published each year. The United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) cites that roughly 2,200,000 books are published annually. Out of curiosity, I looked up the two countries I write about most which, not coincidentally, are also those where I’ve lived: the U.S. and Romania. In 2010, 328,259 were published in the U.S. and in 2008 14,984 books were published in Romania. Given this large number of books published in the U.S. alone, it’s difficult to believe how difficult and competitive the process of publishing can be (as I explain in an earlier article on the subject):

in English:

And yet publishing your manuscript is only the beginning of the gargantuan task of rising to the surface in an ocean of books. In fact, the UNESCO study probably doesn’t even count the number of self-published books via Amazon Kindle, Lulu and many other self-publishing options. On the one hand, the mass media makes sharing our cultural products easier in some ways, by facilitating access to an audience. For instance, anyone can self-publish and promote a novel nowadays, through blogs, twitter,  youtube and other popular venues on the internet. But this apparent democratization of culture also makes it a lot tougher to stand out from the crowd. Each cultural product–be it a novel, a collection of poems, a song, a film or a painting–competes with tens of millions of others. It’s hard to find or discern anymore what we value and what we don’t in this tidal wave of information that assails us from all directions on a daily basis.

To draw another analogy, it’s as if we heard talented classical musicians playing their instruments at the same time as others howl, scream, talk and yell in various languages. Or, if you prefer to avoid making any value judgments, as if we heard them playing at the same time as other talented musicians practice other songs. Either way you look at it, what reaches our ears will sound like a maddening cacophony, to the point that we can no longer discern the music we prefer from  the surrounding noise we’d like to ignore. In a world of information (and publication) overload, effective publicity and keeping up with the rapid changes in the mass media can make the difference between success and failure.

When I taught literature and aesthetics at the University of Michigan, I also helped organize a few  panels in the Ann Arbor Book Festival for several years. In this function, I witnessed up close and personal the struggles of one of the biggest book stores internationally, the Borders Group Inc., which was one of our main sponsors for the book festival. As is well-known, Borders faltered in the face of growing competition from Amazon.com as well as its direct competitor, Barnes & Noble. After downsizing for a few  years, the company eventually declared bankruptcy in February 2011. Barnes & Noble swallowed its former rival, taking over Borders’ trademarks and customers.

A similar phenomenon can be witnessed in the world of publishing. Two decades ago, when I first began creative writing, there were dozens of small presses in the U.S. Now there are hardly any left, both because they can’t compete with the major publishing houses and because self-publishing has taken a big bite out of their sales. Many of those that survive have been assimilated into larger publishing houses. And they are not alone. During the past decade, even the mainstream publishers often group together into larger conglomerates. For instance, one of my favorite publishers of literary fiction, Farrar Straus & Giroux, who have published internationally renowned authors such as Isaac Bashevis Singer, Tom Wolfe, Jonathan Franzen and  Jeffrey Eugenides, forms a conglomerate with the MacMillan Publishing group. On July 1st 2013, two of the biggest publishing houses, Penguin and Random House, joined forces to form Penguin Random House. This megapublisher is predicted to account for a quarter of book sales in the U.S., as  Julie Bosman explains in her July 1, 2013 article on the subject in The New York Times:

This merger may be partly in response to the fact that starting in 2009, Amazon.com, the biggest online book seller in the U.S., launched several (selective, as opposed to self-publishing) imprints of  foreign and genre fiction. These include AmazonEncore (out-of-pront or self-published books that sell well), AmazonCrossing (books in translation), Montlake Romance and Thomas & Mercer (mystery novels). In May 2011, Larry Kirshbaum, the former CEO of Time Warner Book Group, took over Amazon Publishing to create a new general-interest imprint.

To summarize the increasingly competitive and volatile environment of the publishing industry: many authors are choosing self-publishing rather than wallowing indefinitely in the “slush piles” of highly selective and largely inaccessible literary agents; small presses have been swallowed by bigger ones (or gone out of business); large book sellers have faced bankruptcy and even mainstream publishers have had to merge to continue to thrive in the industry. But even these changes may not be enough. More publishers will sink and more publicity is needed–for authors, book sellers and publishers alike–to survive in such a highly competitive environment, where mainstream success is almost as statistically rare as winning the lottery.

Effective book publicity has become a necessity. Unfortunately, even for authors publishing with the big mainstream publishers, a decent publicity budget is not easy to come by. Ebooks continue to grow in popularity, which may be great news for readers but not necessarily for writers and publishers. Even taking into account the fact they largely eliminate the distribution cost and entirely eliminate the shipping and handling cost, ebooks generate smaller revenues than print books, which means, overall, fewer profits. This, in turn, means a general decrease in publicity budgets. Also, please keep in mind that publicity budgets aren’t equally distributed among authors. The major publishing houses allocate most of their annual publicity budget on a handful of books they predict will sell that year, most of which are written by celebrities (like Paris Hilton or George Bush) or authors who already have proven sales. This leaves the vast majority of published authors to fend for themselves and generate their own publicity: through blogs, social networks, twitter, contacting libraries and bookstores, however they can.

This discussion brings us full-circle to the initial problem I broached in this article: the difficulty of standing out in this deluge of mass media communication, where pretty much every author does his or her best to be heard and read. So how can you stand out if you aren’t one of the lucky few who get a major publisher’s annual publicity budget? I’d like to propose a new method–music video book trailers–that is innovative, cutting-edge and appeals to potential readers’ senses and imagination, to awaken their interest books.

I came upon the idea of music video book trailers partly through good fortune (of working with a cutting-edge major publishing house in my native country, Romania, Curtea Veche Publishing)–and partly because I was actively seeking opportunities of getting involved in such a project. Ever since I’ve been a teenager I loved pop music and jazz and was intrigued by the power of music videos to capture viewers’ attention not only through catchy music, but also through spectacular filmic scenes that can rival the best movie trailers.

Once I found out from my publisher that  my first novel,Velvet Totalitarianism, would be launched in Romanian translation (under the title Intre Doua Lumi) in September of 2011, I began exploring the possibility of collaborating with talented Romanian composers and musicians for a music video/book trailer of my novel. Via LinkedIn, I met the Romanian singer, composer, director and producer Andy “Soundland” Platon, who ended up doing a wonderful music video based on my novel, called Velvet Love:

Finding (the elusive) Room of one’s own: Interview with Bookblog about being a writer

Claudia Moscovici

In 1929 Virginia Woolf published a series of lectures that she delivered in 1928 at Newnham and Girton colleges (the women’s colleges at Cambridge University), which we  know under the title “A Room of One’s Own”. She argued that women don’t have their own creative space, both figuratively, in the male-dominated tradition of male writing, and literally, meaning the time and space to write. I think that nowadays few writers, both male and female, have a room of one’s own. For the vast majority of creative writers, writing is a passion, a talent, even an identity, but it is no longer a profession. To put it bluntly, most writers can’t earn a consistent living from it. Even journalism is barely hanging on, as the major newspapers in the U.S. are bought at low prices and blogging has taken over what used to be professional journalism. Ever since I was in college, at Princeton University, I’ve dreamt of being a fiction writer. Knowing, however, that writing isn’t a full-fledged profession, I didn’t take the plunge until my family and I achieved some level of financial stability. I studied and got a doctorate in Comparative Literature at Brown University and became a literary critic and professor for nearly 15 years. Although I had some financial stability at that point, I wouldn’t say that I had a room of my own, either literally or figuratively. I was busy raising a young family, my lovely kids Sophie and Alex, so I didn’t have much time to write fiction.

Professionally, for many years I wrote in a technical jargon scholarly essays and books that didn’t really express my creative side. I tried to find some sense of balance or compromise between what I wanted to do and what I was obliged to write. To give voice to my creative side, in  2002 I founded an art movement called postromanticism (http://postromanticism.com), devoted to some of the aesthetic values that I thought were being neglected in contemporary art: verisimilitude, passion, sensuality and beauty.

The internet became, to some extent, a room of my own: a space where I could discover and interact with artists from all over the world (France, the U.S., Switzerland, Taiwan, Romania, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, Brazil, etc.) who shared my aesthetic vision. But I still didn’t have the time and space to fully express my own creativity as a writer until I became a full-time writer in 2008 and subsequently published my first novel, Velvet Totalitarianism, in 2009 (translated as Intre Doua Lumi, Editura Curtea Veche, 2011) and my second novel, The Seducer (2011). At that point in my life, my children were old enough that they no longer needed to be nurtured in the same way, or in the same space with me at all times, and we no longer needed my income as a university professor as much. My space as a writer changed again and I could finally have the time and place to write.

I write at my desk on a Mac computer, with my cat Jewel serving as a constant companion (and, I’d say, also muse). As all my Facebook friends know from the cat pictures I post, I’m a big cat lover. This is why I chose a picture of Jewel in my library as one of the photos included for this interview. This picture of my cat perched on my books also shows that even when I write fiction I still follow some of the research habits  that I acquired as a scholar. I research throughly every novel I write. To write Velvet Totalitarianism, for instance, I read dozens of books on communism, the Ceausescu dictatorship, the political history of Romania and the revolution of 1989. To write The Seducer, a novel about psychopathic seduction that follows the structure of my favorite novel, Anna Karenina, I researched psychopathy, narcissism and other personality disorders. The plots of my novels may be fiction, but to write about anything that has a basis in history, psychology or sociology I believe that one has to have some foundation in facts.

We are used to thinking of writers as being occupied mostly with writing. I believe this too has become a fiction. If the writer has a family, then a large part of his or her life revolves around that family’s needs. Second, a writer has to wear many hats, so to speak: researcher, writer, and publicity director all in one. As a literary critic, fiction writer and founder of an international art movement, the publicity hat is very large for me. I not only have to publicize my own books, but also the postromantic movement and the art of the dozens of artists I collaborate with (you can see some of my essays about them on my art blog, http://fineartebooks.wordpress.com).

This is why for this interview I’ve included a press photo of me during my visit to Romania, taken by Claudiu Ciprian Popa, for the launch of my novel Intre Doua Lumi, in 2011. Book publicity has become almost as important to me as the computer at which I write. And this isn’t just because nowadays publicity has become a necessity: without effective publicity most writers wouldn’t be read. It’s also because I’m trying to find a place in the publishing industry that isn’t that of simply being a writer. I’ve witnessed enormous changes in this industry in the U.S., as most of the small and medium publishing houses have died, or been swallowed by the large publishers. Even the large publishing houses have had to merge to survive. Most authors are left without a publicity budget, which means with less consecration and access to readers and reviewers. The final picture I’m including of this room of my own is a still shot from the movie video book trailer for my novel “Velvet Totalitarianism,” called “Velvet Love,” made by Andy Platon.

This photo indicates the direction I believe the publishing industry will take: namely, producing relatively inexpensive, creative and cutting-edge ways in which individual authors and publishers will publicize books in the future. In the past few years my writing space, or room of my own, has changed yet again, to encompass a network of collaborations among the various arts, including music, film and literature, which I believe will become increasingly important to authors and publishers alike.

If you’re intrigued by the history of totalitarianism, particularly as played out during the Stalinist period in the U.S.S.R., then you have probably read Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror, Arthur Koestler’s Darkness at Noon and Natalia Ginsburg’s Journey into the Whirlwind. Suffering on such a massive scale is difficult to imagine, much less describe for readers who have not lived through these horrific events. If anything, the graphic representation of violence in our daily lives-on T.V., the internet, video games, etc-have desensitized us to human suffering. While novels and memoirs written by those who experienced the Stalinist purges reveal the horrors they and their loved ones endured, more recent representations of life during communism seem to shy away from depicting overt violence. I’m thinking of the popular German movie The Lives of Others, which chose to focus on the periphery, in an incredibly effective representation of character transformation and political voyeurism.

“I have only one request: that I be allowed to complete my last work…” – Isaac Babel

Written in this tradition, Travis Holland’s impressive debut novel, The Archivist’s Story, attunes readers to the nuances of living under communist regimes: the constant fear; the ever-present threat of violence; the relentless surveillance; the pressure to succumb to the totalitarian machine. Instead of focusing on the key players (Stalin and his cronies) or on the violent horrors of the Gulags and prisons, Holland reveals the drama of the center stage by depicting the periphery. The story is told by Pavel Dubrov, a Lubyanka prison archivist whose job is to destroy “deviationist” literature. In a file, he discovers a story that he believes is written by Isaac Babel, who is himself imprisoned. Because he admires Babel and his work, the archivist performs an act that speaks to his courage: he saves one of Babel’s documents. It’s true that Pavel doesn’t have much to lose at this point: his wife was killed in a train accident; his mother is dying of brain cancer. The archivist’s life revolves around his sordid duties at the Lubyanka. Refusing to burn a document may not seem like much. But one must remember that, during the Stalinist period, even looking at someone the wrong way or not applauding loudly enough after a communist speech could mean a death sentence. Saving a document that not only went against the party line, but also countered the very spirit of dogma reigning over the U.S.S.R., constituted a heroic gesture. Through the elegance of his prose, the strength of his characterizations and the engaging pace of his narration, Holland allows readers to step into the nightmarish reality of Stalinist Russia and appreciate its impact upon ordinary lives.

Claudia Moscovici, Notablewriters.com

copyright image Humane Society International

“Man’s best friend”: Balancing public safety and animal rights to address the stray dog problem in Romania

By Claudia Moscovici

When I left Romania, as a child, in the early 1980’s, the country was at one of its lowest points in history. Conditions during the communist so-called “Epoch of Light” were notoriously miserable. People had to wait in long lines for meager supplies of food, clothing and household goods. There was limited heat and hot water. By the late 1970’s, the Secret Police (Securitate) had installed microphones in virtually every home and apartment. The whole population lived in fear. As a Romanian citizen said to a French journalist following the fall of the Ceausescu regime, “It was a system that didn’t destroy people physically—not many were actually killed; but it was a system that condemned us to a fight for the lowest possible level of physical and spiritual nourishment. Under Ceausescu, some people died violently, but an entire population was dying.”

Since the anti-communist revolution of 1989, Romania has flourished. Despite the periodic economic and political crises that have engulfed most of Europe, Romania has become a leader in culture. The country is internationally known for its celebrated film directors (Cristian Mungiu, Calin Peter Netzer, Stere Gulea, Vali Hotea, among many others); its award-winning literature (which includes a Nobel Prize in Literature won in 2009 by Herta Muller); its art; one of the largest and most acclaimed festivals of classical music in Europe (the spectacular George Enescu Music Festival); its breathtaking natural beauty and picturesque towns, not to mention the cosmopolitan nature of its capital city, Bucharest.

copyright Four-Paws.org

Although Bucharest is in many respects a very modernized European big city, it has a relatively large population of stray dogs: something that one also encounters in smaller villages throughout the country. These dogs, often abandoned or kicked out by their owners, wonder around the city streets, congregating in packs and trying to find some scraps of food by begging or searching through the trash.  Although they are usually innocuous, this month one of these dogs attacked two little boys in Bucharest: 4 year old Ionut Anghel and his six year old brother. Ionut died from the dog bites; his brother was seriously wounded.  This tragedy, which no doubt touches all of us and strikes fear in the hearts of parents, became the catalyst for a government-mandated solution of killing all stray dogs—euphemistically called “euthanasia”–which, in my opinion, only amplifies senseless suffering without solving the root of the problem.

copyright VierPfotenRomania, photo by George Nedelcu

The new law, approved by President Basescu, sanctions the killing of stray dogs in Romania

In response to Ionut’s tragic death, the Romanian government approved a law (signed by President Basescu) that sanctions the mass killing of stray dogs throughout the country. As the Humane Society International documents, “a few days later, on September 10, the local governments acted immediately, killing countless street dogs and starting a widespread campaign to reach hundreds of thousands more in the upcoming weeks… The Romanian government has killed over 100,000 stray dogs using public funds. Despite attempts and offers [by both national and international animal welfare groups] to assist the Romanian government on this issue, they proceed with the killing of any dog in sight as a means of street dog control.” (HIS, HumaneAlert, https://e-activist.com/ea action/action?ea.client.id=104&ea.campaign.id=22665) This cruel measure has also been adopted by most mayors of Romania’s towns and cities. In fact Ziarul Argesul states that the mayor of Pitesti, Tudor Pendiuc, is offering citizens a reward of 10 lei for the capture of each stray dog to be “euthanized”, thus transforming the local population in animal control workers, or “hinghieri” (http://ziarulargesul.ro/19402-recompensa-pentru-prinderea-maidanezilor-ne-facem-hingheri.html).

Although killing all stray dogs may seem like the most expedient solution, it is both ineffective and inhumane. Moreover, this action casts Romania in a very negative light internationally, as a country that is dealing in a barbaric manner with a problem that could be solved in a more humane fashion. The mass killing of tens of thousands of helpless dogs sparked protests from animal lovers and animal rights organizations, both in Romania and internationally. One of the most active groups in the country, which organized protests with hundreds of animal lovers against the killing of stray dogs, is Vier Pfoten Romania. The animal shelter (mostly for cats, but also for dogs) Pisici Pentru Adoptie and the group Spune NU eutanasierii câinilor (represented on Facebook by Mihai Pirvu) have also led the protests and adoption efforts in Romania. Furthermore, leading intellectuals have  joined the ranks of those protesting the extermination of stray dogs: most notably, Daniel Cristea-Enache, one of Romania’s best known literary critics.

Among the international organizations protesting the dog killings we can find the Humane Society International (HIS), the Humane Society U.S., Vier Pfoten, Viva (in Warsaw, Poland), the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) and the World Society for the Protection of Animals (WSPA). Within Romania, this ruthless law towards misfortunate stray dogs divides the country. I believe that some of the tension comes from misunderstandings. The two sides may not be as far apart in their views as they seem. In fact, there are many more points in common that unite us, both within Romania and internationally. After all, we all share the same common goals: namely, protecting the safety of the citizens and finding a solution to the problem of stray dogs in Romania. Currently, there is a big disagreement on how these goals should be achieved. However, I hope to show that much of this disagreement may be the result of misunderstandings, polemical arguments and inflammatory rhetoric on the part of individuals who claim that those who argue on behalf of the animal rights side don’t care about the safety of Romanian children (or of Romanian citizens  in general).

This is not a political or partisan issue

I’d like to address in this article, point by point, some of the arguments I’ve encountered in the Romanian media and from some of my own Facebook friends that are in favor of the mass killing of stray dogs. A few individuals simply denied that this law was passed or that the killings it mandates occur and will continue to occur, claiming it’s just a political propaganda campaign against the current government. Of course, the first part of the argument is absurd, reminiscent of an Orwellian denial of truth, or doublethink, that was common during the communist epoch.  Reputable animal rights agencies, both national and international, have offered proof that this law exists and that stray dogs in Romania are being killed en masse. Moreover, Romanian citizens have seen it with their own eyes. As for the second part of this argument, it is also false.  The international animal rights organizations protesting the dog killings have no stake whatsoever in Romania’s internal politics. In fact, from their perspective (as from mine, for that matter), any political party governing the country would face the same challenge: namely, that of reconciling public safety with animal rights. This is not a partisan or political issue at all.

Killing all stray dogs for the harmful acts of very few dogs is inhumane and unjust

The objection to the mass killing of stray dogs is primarily an ethical issue. Out of a very large population of stray dogs, most of which are at worst a nuisance, only very few attack human beings. Anyone who has ever owned a dog will tell you that dogs are, by nature, loving and loyal animals. They’ve been bred for centuries precisely for these positive traits. It’s no wonder that dogs have earned the reputation of being “man’s best friend.” All they need is food, shelter and care to become our loving companions for life. Mean dogs are very rare, and even in those situations, they’re often trained to be aggressive by humans, or reduced to that condition by lack of food and veterinary care. Yet all of these misfortunate and helpless animals—hundreds of thousands of stray dogs throughout the country—will now have to pay with their lives for the harm that only very few of them inflict.

photo by Anton Polyakov

Dogs are “man’s (and woman’s) best friend”

A second argument I’ve heard (or rather, read) from supporters of the law against stray dogs is the charge of the inconsistency–which some have even called “the hypocrisy”–of the animal rights activists who defend the lives of stray dogs. The argument goes something like this: how can we claim to care so much about the fate of stray dogs when we routinely eat other animals, or kill them for their skin, to make pretty leather purses and shoes? What about the lives of the chicken, pigs and cows we sacrifice without a thought? Why the double standards? First of all, many of the animal rights activists, including myself, are vegetarian and some even become vegan, precisely for this reason. But even in the case of those who are not, the argument of cultural habits comes into play: cats and dogs have been, for centuries, our loyal and beloved pets. There’s no tradition of eating dogs or using their skins for products in Romania, as there is in China.  In Romania, like in the U.S. and most countries in Europe, dogs are considered to be “man’s best friend”. Most families have a cat or a dog. If any double standards are involved, it’s on the side of those who sanction the mass killing of stray dogs while still doting on their beloved pets. Why construct a binary dichotomy between our pets–the privileged dogs we treat as members of our families–and the misfortunate dogs wondering the streets, to be exterminated like vermin? After all, both groups are part of the same species. Most of the dogs in the street have the potential, with the right care, nourishment and training, to become loving pets as well. In fact, many of these dogs were once beloved pets that were lost or abandoned by their owners. Shouldn’t we try instead to help the dogs that weren’t lucky enough to find a loving home? Moreover, if numerous animal welfare organizations, both national and international, are willing to help Romania create a more humane solution to the stray dog problem, why not take them up on their offer? Rather than exterminating the stray dogs, let’s come together and give these dogs a chance to live a better life while also securing public safety.

Supporting this ethical issue that affects animals doesn’t minimize the importance of other ethical issues, which affect human beings

Another objection I’ve heard raised by those who support the government measures against stray dogs is: Why pay so much attention to this issue of animal rights when there are so many more serious moral and political crises in the world, affecting human beings? No doubt, that’s true. Romania, for instance, still has a large population of orphans who can’t find foster parents to adopt them. So then why worry so much about the adoption of stray dogs? First of all, let me state the obvious: although many of the Romanian orphans live in terrible conditions, thank goodness, there’s no government law being passed to exterminate them. We haven’t heard of such laws since the Nazis. More generally, it’s true that the world is, unfortunately, filled with violations of human rights, suffering and poverty. In fact, if each of us tried to do something about these problems, the world would be a much better place. But the fact that there are worthwhile humanitarian causes pertaining to improving human lives is not a valid reason not to care about animal welfare as well. Nobody is arguing that anyone should abandon their humanitarian causes for the sake of improving animal welfare. There’s room for both on this Earth. In fact, arguably, the test of a civilization’s advancement is not just its culture or technology, but also its moral standards:  namely, how it treats fellow human beings and the animals who depend on us, particularly those that live in dire conditions. Gandhi’s saying still holds true today: ”The greatness of a nation and its moral progress can be judged by the way its animals are treated”.

Human safety is a priority

To address what is perhaps the most valid concern: some of those in favor of the mass killings of stray dogs indicate that those who defend the right to life of stray dogs place animal rights above human safety. Fortunately, that is not the case.  I don’t know of any reputable animal rights organization that makes such a claim. In fact, on this issue we can come together. We can all agree that public safety, and above all the safety of our children, are a top priority for any society. But killing all stray dogs is not the best way to go about securing public safety; the safety of our children. At this point, the ethical argument gives way to a more pragmatic perspective.  Killing stray dogs en masse is not only immoral, but it also won’t solve the problem.

The pragmatic perspective: Killing stray dogs does more harm than good

The negative consequences of killing tens of thousands of helpless stray dogs are so much worse than working together on a more humanitarian solution aimed to help stray dogs and ensure public safety. We’ve seen that the mandate of killing stray dogs has divided the country and caused protests and inner turmoil. It has also encouraged a few cruel individuals to maim, torture and kill stray dogs in the streets. Some, ProTV stiri documents, even put poison in dog food to kill stray dogs. As the government sanctions mass killing of dogs, malicious individuals follow suit by taking the law into their own hands. Moreover, this inhumane treatment of dogs has generated a lot of negative attention to Romania from the leading animal rights organizations in Europe and the United States. Of course, the Romanian government is autonomous. Every nation decides its own laws and actions. But international collaboration on this issue doesn’t contradict the fact that, ultimately, it’s the Romanian government and people who will decide their national policies towards stray dogs or any other internal matter. The international animal welfare organizations only wish to help and collaborate with the Romanian government to solve this problem in a more humane manner. They have a lot of experience with what methods work best, since Romania isn’t the only country with a large population of stray dogs. This problem also exists in parts of Mexico, Peru and many other countries in the world.

Working together to find humane ways to combine public safety with animal welfare

In her article on the subject called “Romanian tragedy: culling street dogs isn’t the solution,” Kate Atema, the president of the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW) states: “We have worked in hundreds of communities across six continents, and never have we seen killing dogs to be an effective solution to this problem. In fact, not only does culling fail to address the underlying causes of dogs being on the street in the first place (which may include lost, abandoned or loosely owned dogs, not to mention breeding), but the “solution” of killing dogs inevitably creates even more conflict within the community, preventing more effective, long-term solutions from taking root.” (http://www.ifaw.org/united-states/news/romanian-tragedy-culling-street-dogs-isn’t-solution).

Ms. Atema suggests that the most effective approaches to the problem of stray dogs take into account the needs of each local community and balance issues related to public safety with the protection of the lives of the animals. “Often,” she continues, “this includes a mix of approaches including education, sterilization, registration and/or short-term sheltering; each community’s resources and perspectives are unique, and so then are their solutions…”

[http://www.petitieonline.com/signatures/chiar_crezi_c_eutanasierea_ciinilor_este_soluia/start/90]

Generally speaking, animal welfare organizations suggest that the capture and sterilization of stray dogs, placing them in animal shelters, and eventually working towards the adoption of the dogs from the shelters, would be the most humane and most effective way of dealing with the stray dog problem. When I expressed this opinion as well, one of my Facebook friends objected: “Don’t sterilized dogs bite too?” First of all, according to Rebecca Basu from the Humane Society International, “research shows that sterilization eliminates breeding behavior, which is a big cause of bites and dog aggression. In other words, sterilized dogs are less likely to bite humans.” Second, as mentioned, the goal would be to place the sterilized dogs in shelters. If any remain in the streets a few of them may still bite, but at least they won’t multiply geometrically, as unsterilized animals tend to do. Even if each stray dog currently out there in the streets is captured and killed in accordance with the current law, there will still be stray dogs out there. Dogs are lost or abandoned by their owners every day. As attention to this problem diminishes once the press coverage decreases, unsterilized stray dogs will continue to reproduce before they’re caught by animal control. Their population can multiply geometrically even if this inhumane measure is in effect. Killing stray dogs on the street today doesn’t get to the root of the problem in the long term as effectively as a combination of sterilization and adoption (from dog shelters) would.

Working together to solve this problem

I don’t see the stray dog problem in Romania as something that should pit human beings against one another, nor as something that should be politicized. The inflammatory arguments can lead to hatred and hysteria. I’ve had one disordered individual write me stating that he wishes that my child would be hurt because of my defense of stray dogs.  Such hateful and irrational attitudes don’t even deserve a response. But their underlying cause, or fallacy, does: Seeing this problem as “man versus dog” can only lead to increasing the tension among individuals and to the polarization of their points of view. On a deeper level, we’re much more united on this issue than the current heated debates indicate. There is nothing “radical” about the animal welfare perspective.  It is a reasonable point of view, governed by compassion and common sense. Nobody is suggesting that a dog’s life is more important than a human life. Nobody wants to see their children—or anyone’s child—maimed or killed by a stray dog. Everyone is for public safety. Nobody wants to see large packs of hungry and misfortunate stray dogs haunting the streets. It’s not good for humans and it’s not good for the animals either.  If we come together on this issue, and actually listen to each other’s perspectives, city by city, town by town, working with, rather than against, the Romanian government alongside the most reputable animal welfare agencies in the world, together we can find a way to balance human safety with the welfare of stray dogs.

Hitler and Stalin by Alan Bullock

Alan Bullock’s Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives (Vintage Books, NY, 1993) offers a monumental social and psychological biography of two of the most evil dictators in human history as well as an epic sketch of an era. Although the author specializes in Hitler, his grasp of Stalin is equally impressive. It rivals, in fact, Robert Conquest’s The Great Terror: A Reassessment (Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2007) in its thoroughness and depth.

As the title suggests, Bullock alternates chapters on Hitler with those on Stalin.  He reveals how each dictator relied on his powers of manipulation, deception and opportunism to rise to power. They spread totalitarian regimes meant to wipe out the human spirit and large parts of humanity itself across the world.  The book also explains how Hitler and Stalin initially operated within the systems which they later (mis)used for their own selfish and nefarious goals. Whatever their rhetoric and ideology, both psychopathic tyrants ultimately craved power for its own sake, at the expense of everyone else, even the causes (and allies) they initially claimed to support.

Primo Levi famously advances the same thesis as Hannah Arendt expressed in Eichmann in Jerusalem: A Report on the Banality of Evil (Penguin Classics, New York, 2006): “Monsters exist, but they are too few in numbers to be truly dangerous. More dangerous are…the functionaries ready to believe and act without asking questions.” There is no doubt that the Holocaust throughout Europe or the terror in the Soviet Union weren’t brought about by Hitler and Stalin alone. Without coopting tens of thousands of soldiers, functionaries and “regular people” throughout the world, these two evil leaders wouldn’t have succeeded in their genocidal goals, nor could they have implemented totalitarian regimes. Yet the obverse clause is equally true. Without the leadership of psychopathic, power-driven and malicious individuals like Hitler and Stalin the genocides wouldn’t have happened either. The Holocaust wouldn’t have existed without someone like Hitler: namely a highly influential and charismatic psychopathic leader rising to power at a ripe moment in history.

Although Stalin claimed to have an allegiance to the communist party and Hitler to the Aryan race, history proved that their true allegiance was to their own empowerment. As Bullock demonstrates, Stalin only appeared to have a solid allegiance to the Bolshevik movement and to Lenin’s political legacy. In reality, however, he used communist rhetoric to gain control over Russia, then over the countries and territories that became the Soviet Union and eventually over the entire Eastern Europe. To him, the means—shifty allegiances, mass indoctrination, staged show trials, forced confessions as well as torture and murder of unprecedented proportions–always justified the ends, which was absolute control. This goal was only instrumentally related to communist ideology, as Stalin’s temporary alliance with Hitler, his former archenemy, would reveal.

Nor did Stalin exhibit any loyalty towards his supposed friends and allies. He switched political and personal alliances, turning first against the left wing of the communist party (Trotsky, Zinoviev and Kamenev), then against the right (Bukharin, Rykov and Tomsky). In his insatiable quest for power, Stalin forged alliances and later broke them. He imprisoned, tortured and murdered former allies. He shrewdly reversed his position and retreated when necessary, only to charge forward again at a more optimal moment. He took everyone by surprise with the extent of his duplicity and ruthlessness.

The human cost of psychopathic dictators, especially during the Hitler-Stalin era, is one of staggering proportions and unimaginable suffering. Bullock documents, “Not counting the millions who were wounded or permanently maimed, the estimated number of premature deaths between 1930 and 1953 reached a figure in the order of forty to fifty million men, women and children. Suffering on such a scale is beyond the imagination’s power to comprehend or respond to.” (Hitler and Stalin, 969)

What makes such human suffering particularly reprehensible, at least from a moral perspective, is that unlike natural disasters such as floods, earthquakes and epidemics, the harm was deliberately inflicted, unnecessary and man-made. Granted, the mass murder of tens of millions of innocent civilians can’t be attributed solely to the leaders in charge. The collusion and indifference of many individuals made it possible. As Hannah Arendt demonstrates in The Origins of Totalitarianism, totalitarian dictators are a necessary, but not sufficient, explanation of complex historical, economic and social phenomena. Yet without a Hitler, a Stalin, a Mao or a Ceausescu–which is to say, without evil leaders who attain total control of a country–this suffering would not have occurred, at least not on such a massive scale.

Bullock’s Hitler and Stalin: Parallel Lives gives us a detailed, compelling and extremely informative historical and psychological portrait of two of the most powerful faces of evil in human history. He describes in great detail their rise to power and deadly influence. Hitler and Stalin is an indispensable book for all those who want to understand how totalitarian regimes function and the role psychopathic dictators play in changing the course of history.

Claudia Moscovici, Literaturesalon

http://www.amazon.com/Velvet-Totalitarianism-Post-Stalinist-Claudia-Moscovici/dp/076184693X/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1323439558&sr=1-1

Selection in the Birkenau concentration camp (image from the Wikipedia Commons)

Judaic Studies and the Holocaust

by Claudia Moscovici 

As I begin my research and writing on the Holocaust, it’s only natural to reflect about the discipline such a project pertains to: namely, the field of Judaic Studies.  In what follows I’d like to describe what “Judaic Studies” means to me.

Diversity. In my estimation, Judaic Studies is more about intellectual and artistic affinities, a wide-ranging cultural curiosity, and the willingness to learn from one another than about having a common religious or ethnic identity. The Jewish people themselves come from every culture and civilization; speak almost every language on Earth; range widely in religious background (from deeply observant orthodoxy to secular), and have no agreed-upon political views. And yet, for thousands of years they have felt affinities with each other and been united in a strong yet mysterious “family resemblance,” or a series of overlapping connections and similarities, to use Wittgenstein’s term.  Personally, I feel a sense of subjective affinity with the Jewish people and traditions that are partly motivated by my upbringing and family history but that can’t be reduced to that.

Centripetal and centrifugal cultural forces. Judaic Studies therefore is not about manifesting or seeking an ethnic essence or unified cultural and religious identity. In such a program, there’s no competition of who is most “authentically Jewish.”  This makes sense, especially given the fact that, as history has shown, to be discriminated against on the basis of your “Judaism” you don’t have to have Jewish parents or religious beliefs. According to Hitler’s Nuremberg Laws, a “Jew” was a person who had three or four Jewish grandparents. This tenet cast a wide net of discrimination. One of my favorite painters, Marc Chagall, was obliged between the years 1941-1948 to escape from occupied (Vichy) France to the United States once the Nazi regime occupied France. But so was Vladimir Nabokov, the prize-winning Russian author. Nabokov was not Jewish himself, but he expressed affinities for the Jewish people.  That was enough to endanger his life. I am impressed by what I’d describe as a simultaneous push and pull, or the centrifugal and centripetal forces, that exist in a hybrid program like Judaic Studies. There’s a force away from any set identity or even agreed-upon religious core yet, at the same time, an attraction to Jewish culture, religion and achievements in all domains across the centuries.

Manifest curiosity about all fields without claiming to master them. To write a work pertaining to Judaic Studies, you don’t have to pretend to know everything about Jewish cultures and religion. Thank goodness, since that would be an impossible task. How can anyone know everything about thousands of years of such heterogeneous cultures and traditions? Nowadays, nobody can become Encyclopedic in the way the philosophes were during the Enlightenment. There’s no way anyone can be familiar with thousands of years of Jewish history; the vast transformations in Judaism and its religious and cultural practices; the multiplicity of languages spoken (aside from Hebrew and Yiddish); the immense contributions that both Jews and those who were interested in Judaism have made in every field of human knowledge.

 The Holocaust and Judaic Studies. Any study of the Holocaust is central to the field of Judaic Studies because it pertains to the darkest epoch in Jewish history, when the Jews were targeted for discrimination, deportation and eventually extermination precisely for being Jewish. In The Origins of Totalitarianism Hannah Arendt emphasizes repeatedly that although other groups were also targeted by the Nazi regime for extermination—for example, the Gypsies—it was not accidental that the extermination of Jews throughout Europe and, if possible, in the entire world was Hitler’s (and various Nazi regimes) number one social priority. And yet, in my book reviews, I also wish to emphasize that the Holocaust is not a subject that is relevant only to the Jews or that pertains only to the discipline of Judaic Studies. While having particular relevance for the Jewish people, it is at the same time a subject with universal, human significance. As Primo Levi states in The Drowned and The Saved, “It happened, therefore it can happen again.” Whatever complex historical conditions made it possible to dehumanize, ostracize and kill millions of people can occur again, in a similar manner, against the Jews or other groups of people.  The only way to address these atrocities is by acknowledging them, learning about them and doing our best to avoid them now and in the future.  This begins, on an existential level, with saying “No” to even the first step of dehumanizing groups of people in order to discriminate against them and do them harm.  The books I will be reviewing in Holocaust Memory offer vivid reminders about where the process of dehumanization can lead and how it impacts individuals, not statistics.  It’s unfortunately quite possible to depersonalize suffering when considering it on such a massive, almost unimaginable scale: the death of over six million people. The way they died– most often shot en masse or in gas chambers after being subjected to enormous cruelty and abuse–was in itself, quite deliberately, the most abject form of dehumanization. Each Holocaust narrative from a survivor pays homage to, and helps us remember, the importance and the value of each of the millions of human beings who suffered and perished in the Holocaust.

Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism (Part I): Why the Jews?

by Claudia Moscovici

Hailed as a classic by the Times Literary Supplement and ranked by Le Monde as one of the 100 best books of 20th century, Hannah Arendt’s monumental study, The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), sketches a political philosophy of the rise of Nazism and Stalinism. In her discussion of the rise of the Nazi movement in particular, Arendt refutes previous explanations of the dissemination of anti-Semitism and its vicious culmination in the Holocaust.

She dismisses explanations of anti-Semitism that she considers “ahistorical,” which do not take into account how prejudices and discrimination against the Jews, occurring throughout the centuries, turned into the center of racist ideology for the Nazi movements.  To understand the historical difference between previous anti-Semitic tendencies and actions—even ones as severe and deadly as pogroms—and the Nazi extermination camps, Arendt describes the unique nature of totalitarian power.

In the first part of the book, Arendt refutes common misconceptions of anti-Semitism. Her arguments focus upon a central question: Why the Jews? How and why did the Jewish people throughout Europe come to be targeted for discrimination, abuse, mass deportation and extermination?

1. The rise in nationalism did not cause a corresponding rise in anti-Semitism in Europe

One common answer to this question explains the radical rise of anti-Semitism in Europe in terms of the rise in nationalist sentiments and its “xenophobic outbursts”. Arendt contends that just the opposite is true: modern anti-Semitism grew as nationalism declined throughout Europe. Nazi ideology, while making use of nationalist sentiments in its rhetoric, actually emphasized the international character of “race”. Hitler never hid the fact that his aim was to ensure the supremacy of the “Aryan” race in Europe and, if possible, throughout the world by subjugating and even eliminating “inferior races”. He turned prevalent feelings of national fervor, anti-Semitism and xenophobia into a transnational racial war.

2. The Jews were not randomly selected as Nazism’s main target and victims

Arendt goes on to refute another common misconception: namely, that the Nazi movement could have selected any other group as the main target of its hatred and abuse. After all, it did include other groups in its categories of “undesirables,” including the mentally handicapped, Gypsies and even the Poles (or the Slavs in general, whom Hitler planned to enslave if he had won the war).  But nobody can deny that the isolation and extermination of the Jews was Hitler’s—and, consequently, the Nazi movement’s—primary obsession. The Nazis pursued the mass deportations and extermination of Jews even at the cost of an economic loss and even after the battle of Stalingrad, when they began to lose the war. This is not, however, because the Jews are perpetual scapegoats and victims. “The theory that the Jews are always the scapegoat implies that the scapegoat might have been anyone else as well,” Arendt points out. “It upholds the perfect innocence of the victim, an innocence which insinuates not only that no evil was done but that nothing at all was done that might possibly have a connection with the issue at stake.” (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 5) So then why were the Jews targeted as the Nazi regimes primary enemies and targets?

3. The Jews were targeted by the Nazis not because of their vast influence, as was claimed by fascist movements, but because of their statelessness and powerlessness

Nazi propaganda held the Jews responsible for everything that went wrong—economic crises, Germany’s humiliation after the Treaty of Versailles, unemployment, etc. This implied that the Jews were a unified people that had an incredible political power. Hitler described his war against the Jews as a self-defense against a “Jewish conspiracy” to take over the world. Yet, Arendt maintains, the opposite holds true. “Anti-Semitism reached its climax when Jews had similarly lost their public functions and their influence, and were left with nothing but their wealth.” (The Origins of Totalitarianism, 4) Arendt plausibly argues that Jewish wealth without political power and social influence began to be seen as parasitical in nature. It stirred envy rather than respect and contempt rather than compassion: at least in people already inclined to finding scapegoats for their troubles.

4. Totalitarianism subjugates perfectly obedient people

No doubt, there’s a personal, quirky and irrational component to Hitler’s obsessive hatred of the Jewish people, which became part and parcel of his insatiable drive for power. Hitler justified his desire for total control not only of the German people, but also of Europe and eventually the world, in terms of “saving” the Aryan race from imminent contamination and eventual destruction by the Jews. Yet he targeted Jewish victims who not only had no desire to take over the world, but also who didn’t have the means to do it. In general, Arendt argues, the victims of totalitarian terror are selected because of their helplessness and innocence, not because of their power and culpability. The assault upon the Jewish people, she goes on to illustrate, was only the first step in a reign of terror of unprecedented proportions that would aim at nothing short of the destruction of ethical values and of human identity itself.

Claudia Moscovici

Literature Salon

http://literaturesalon.wordpress.com