What an absolute banquet this piece is. Thank you both for a brilliant discussion of what sounds like a brilliant book. It sounds as if Kate's persistence in tracking down a copy was entirely justified. Too much to say so I'll just highlight this:
“We live for a nanosecond on a speck of dust lost in the cosmos,” I said to myself, and I returned to the dentist’s office, where the four chairs glowed, pure and fulfilled, in the light of their own panels of bulbs. (p. 568)"
I love the fact that the four chairs have more confidence in the fact of their existence than the writer!
When writers mine their own despair they are connecting with their readers, all of whom have probably experienced it. By reading and writing about it we feel less alone, and existential despair, which can be overwhelming, is relegated to its context as just one of a huge range of emotions that every human must experience.
First off, I am on the way to the dentist right now, so I had to smile at that help! passage and indeed, what Kate describes if I were to encounter pages of one word repeated it would make me want to read faster.
All the passages you’ve chosen are great and entice me to start reading (or listening in my case).
The existentialism that seeps through all of the text again reminds me of Camus, albeit the prose is quite different.
Oh no! But, perhaps it is a sign, like the many signs I received about how "now" was when I was meant to be reading the book.
I do wonder how the narration will work compared to reading it. Curious to hear. Personally, hearing the translator (Sean Cotter) read out several passages in the linked interview made me feel weird, because to me he was reading them all wrong! "That's not how the cadence of that passage is spoken!" I found myself screaming, haha.
Wow, what a marvellous analysis, Kate and Nathan! I have a copy of the book here next to me on my desk (I ordered it as soon as I read that essay of yours, Nathan), and as I write this comment, I'm deciding to tackle it right away, putting it on top of my to-read pile. There's so much to unpack in this essay, and beyond the mere joy and awe one gets from Mircea's prose and aesthetics when reading those passages you selected, I feel blanketed by a veil of mystery, magic, and curiosity. I will, of course, return to this piece once I'm done with the book, which is not going to be very soon, I suspect. Not so much for its length, but for its intensity and profundity—those things command a slow read. I am a slow reader in general, so this is going to feel "regular" to me. For now, "We live for a nanosecond on a speck of dust lost in the cosmos" really punched me in the face and made me stare at the clear sky outside my window for minutes, with an open mouth. And Nathan, this eliminated any residual tiny amount of hesitation in starting the book right away: "I found the act of reading Solenoid—and continue to find it, even now, several months later when coming back to Mircea’s words—arresting. That is the only word I can place here." I also liked Kate's comment on literature's uselessness with the Dorian Gray parallel: "The 'useless' comment makes me think of the foreword to The Picture of Dorian Gray: 'All art is quite useless,' which shows its elevation beyond something of everyday use." Overall, a great piece. Thank you, both of you, for putting it together!
Thank you for this beautiful comment, Silvio, and how wonderful to imagine you with the book staring at you to be read. 👀
I do think you will find it immersive, intense. This is even better with a slow read as both you and Nathan have mentioned. There's just so much to think about after absorbing the rich scenes.
Hope you enjoy it! Thanks for reading this ahead of time and hope we didn't spoil too much for you.
Thanks so much for your wonderful thoughts, Silvio. I'm so excited to know you're embarking on this read. Take it as slow as you need. I am also a slow reader, and this was especially slow for me, but it was a slow savouring. Each page, each passage, so many times I found myself pausing and staring at the sky whilst letting Mircea's words sink in.
"so many times I found myself pausing and staring at the sky whilst letting Mircea's words sink in" -- that's exactly my way of slow reading, and I guess here these moments will be many.
Fascinating to learn more about Solenoid and Cartarescu. The situation in Romania under Communism was quite different from the others. Ceaucescu made the other regimes look tolerant when it came to dissident writers. Only a handful were able to stay in Romania, Dumitru Tsepeneag being one of them along with a few others. And like Cartarescu he had a style that, from the Western perspective, is very experimental. Putting aside Herta Muller who wrote in German, both Tsepeneag and Cartarescu convey an experience that, unlike with the Czech, Polish and Soviet dissidents, was far from straightforward and even further from sanity.
I certainly need to add Cartarescu to my library. I think a line about head lice would also draw me in. :D
Thank you, Felix. Based on your writing, I think you would love this book. Whenever you have time for it, I'd be very happy to hear what you think.
I haven't read Tsepeneag and am now likewise intrigued to do so. Muller's Land of Green Plums is a wonderful book, but I never realized it was written in German. Makes sense. When I spent several weeks in Transylvania it was very interesting to hear from locals who had left (mostly to Germany) and then returned more recently.
What you share about Ceaucescu just shows even more how powerful writing can be!
I also loved your discussion of the book and wish I had the time to read it. Reading the comments, I expected someone to mention Carl Sagan because the phrase “We live for a nanosecond on a speck of dust lost in the cosmos,” feels like him talking.
Fernanda, you’re adding a new layer to the text with Sagan - fantastic. I think especially with your background in high level mathematics as well as languages, you would find this quite interesting. One day! :) thanks for reading and commenting.
"We live for a nanosecond..." reminds me of Pozzo's line in Waiting for Godot, "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more,". It sounds like a fascinating read, though I think I am not wanting to immerse myself in existential despair right now. This style of discussion works very well I think, the way the two of you bounced off each other.
This has been thrilling to read; you take us into the life of the mind.
I have so many thoughts about what you say, and feel that I will come back to them as I reread your writing and watch the interview. But, I wanted to comment now, while they remain new…and, as per Cătărescu unedited. I’ll use your numbering.
Introduction: I knew this would grow into a piece which would resonate for me when I read ‘…the authors discuss Kafka and others who write authentically without the need to write for a reader. Paradoxically, the effect can become something that speaks more vividly and deeply to a reader’. You mention Woolf here, and the whole eschewing of definition of linear narration thing, and I agree with you very much. It is this type of reading that is demanding on us as readers, yet there is something profoundly rewarding both in rising to that demand - in believing in our own intellectual capacities to meet it - and in the emotional, vivid rewards it brings to our spirit.
When I first read the passage in 1) describing the flipped coin, I had the uncanny experience of misreading. I really thought it read that the coin had been flipped onto the ceiling, and landed there. Which would have been impossible physically, but could well have been possible narratively. It was only when I re read that I understood properly what Cătărescu had written. It was, perhaps, a coincidence to misread the wrong way just as the coin had landed on the wrong side.
Kate, in 2) your discussion of the quality of the writing about the ganglion of the brain was very intriguing. This made me think of the writerly task of trying to write consciousness. I mean, how do you do that? One way, is as it seems Cătărescu has chosen, to draw analogies to biology, to science, to the body and its feelings as a physical mass. It’s quite Foucault influenced. Or seems so to me.
Oh man, reading 3) felt so immediate. That whole thing about the terror of wasting time writing or reading when actually it feels such an elevated imperative. And linking it to Wilde and Dorian Gray was a fascinating way of taking it forward, and into the realm of the queer (or so I read it). It does feel terrifying to wonder whether one might be wasting that ganglion of one’s brain by reading art or attempting to write it. I mean one just can’t contemplate it for too long. For what it’s worth, I don’t go with Wilde on it being useless, and I don’t think he meant it to be quite so terrifying. Useless may be a wonderfully subversive take in the face of other, far more destructive and negative, forces than art. I think I quite like the deviance of useless (even though,Imfeel driven to be useful, to do useful things with my reading, to write usefully).
I think, Nathan, your point about the interior of reading is important. I, too, wonder about clear absolute paths in literature. I don’t think I have ever approached reading with the express purpose or desire to understand myself…reading feels of a different order, in a way far more mysterious, and is about other people as much as it might, almost as an unintended consequence sometimes, lead one to moments of insight that one might find relevant to one’s own self. I just don’t know whether writing is the same: sometimes I understand exactly where I stand in relation to something, a person, or an area of experience…sometimes I write myself…other times, it’s completely different: almost the opposite. What matters, or matters to me, is to remain as authentic and write for me…but, and here’s the extraordinary paradox of writing, for the story which is, by its very definition, not me.
And, yes in 5) I’m sure, Kate, many of us cry help. Perhaps more so when getting the story out…catching it…using one’s mind to be conscious of it, to make it…than in the actual word smithery of writing it. Or, that seems to be what happens for me.
I’m sure I’ll return, Kate and Nathan, to your exciting writing here, and that I will watch the video. I’m now going to follow Cătărescu and click post without a second look at what I’ve written.
Thanks for your fascinating reflection, Nicolas. I love the way you took on Cătărescu's idea of authenticity (in his way) to heart in the comments! A true convert. :)
Your answers have made me think about the text even more. Interesting about the ideas of immediacy and also the way the consciousness elements spoke to you especially. Thanks again!
This is such a wonderful and deep comment, Nicolas. Thank you for all the thought and expression here. I resonate with everything you say. "there is something profoundly rewarding both in rising to that demand - in believing in our own intellectual capacities to meet it - and in the emotional, vivid rewards it brings to our spirit." -- so much so this.
Your initial interpretation of the flipped coin is wonderful, because, in many ways, it also works just fine with that view. Towards the end of the book there is a fascinating description of the act of writing and a pen meeting another pen on the flipside/underside of the paper. It's beautiful and powerful.
Kate and Nathan, I admire this collaboration and am curious about the process. It must have taken discipline and restraint to choose just six passages in a long work like this. Was it difficult to decide which ones to highlight? What was your workflow like for the project? (Email, Zoom, etc.) Also, the design of the post is clean and beautiful. I like the numbers, particularly. What a perfect, simple container to hold these complexities. I feel like the two of you together have made a third and surprising thing--such a pleasure for your readers! Thank you very much for sharing it.
This was an easy collaboration and I really thank Kate for making it fun and carefree. We had a Google Doc, as Kate mentions, and we both went off to select quotes. I had photographed numerous passages during my original reading, so selecting specific sections was a case of me going back and looking through those, as well as returning to the book and leafing through to find certain themes I wanted to check over. We also utilised Substack's Chat quite a lot to check in on things, as well as using the Comments function on Google Doc.
I actually originally had some trepidation over this because I didn't know if I'd have anything suitable and coherent to add 😆 A podcast or Zoom with Kate would have been really amazing, but my worry was how to actually say what I felt needed to be said. I'm the kind of person that can struggle to vocalise specific thoughts out loud, so the written medium ended up being the best way here for me. So, thanks again Kate, and thanks so much for being here Ann and offering your thoughts!
Nathan, many thanks to you and Kate. I know you’ve encouraged others to try a similar collaboration in the spirit of generosity and curiosity—just letting it flow and see what happens. I know it was a lot of work, but your mutual joy in making it is obvious. Thank you always for your transparency and kindness.
Thanks so much, Ann! That’s wonderful feedback. Well, we worked between email and direct messages as well as a collaborative Google doc. Nathan is in Australia and I am in Switzerland, so timing to Zoom is a bit tricky! Also I think it was good for us to sit with the text a bit. We thought about an audio conversation at one point then reflected we may need to do too much digging in the book. Selecting passages was a meaningful way to go back to the novel. And yes, it was hard to choose! I had made some notes along the way.
I MUST read this book. The passages spoke to me like a dream I’d forgotten to remember.
And then when I read this…well, I can’t go into it now… but it’s mirroring a revelation/experience I just had this morning and wow, I feel like someone just made it real.
“I must use my brain like an eye, open and observant under the skull’s transparent shell, able to see with another kind of sight and to detect fissures and signs, hidden artifacts and obscure connections in this test of intelligence, patience, love, and faith that is this world. “
You're so welcome, Kimberly. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I noted back in my original post on Solenoid how the book created some strange moments of synchronicity and meaning for me. I have a feeling some of that is going on here, too.
Your fantastic essay entices me to pick this book up. Mind you, I'm Romanian and will read it in its original version.
The thing is, I struggled with Cartarescu on a previous book, which I found fascinating in its first volume, but when I saw that the second started the very same way, I literally dumped it in the bin. I used to follow him on Facebook, but then I got fed up and unfollowed.
I found him terribly overrated, sorry to say that, with (to me) unaccountable redundancies as if he were paid by the word... It must be also that he used to be a poet, and so I cursed him in my mind why the hell didn't you stick with poetry then? (I found his poetry very good!)
But, again, your essay here is making me curious, and open for a re-evaluation. So I guess I'll order Solenoid and hope to have a change-of-mind.
Such a wonderful comment, Zoe, thank you. There's another Romanian reader (and writer) in this community who had similar things to say about his earlier work, in general at least. I'm curious if she would articulate it in this way. Hopefully she will see this! :)
I really don't know if it's because a) I'm not Romanian and not reading in Romanian b) I haven't read his earlier work c) we just have different opinions. All of these would be fine. If in fact you end up enjoying this big work, I wonder if I could compare what you say to the work of Herman Melville (as an American). Moby Dick is a genius tome (some disagree, but I think it is). His short stories, also brilliant. I read all of his published novels as part of a postgrad course and can say that they taught me a lot about his style and experiences while also adding depth to Moby Dick, but they were not great novels. Perhaps they were simply MD as works in progress, I don't know. In any case, I wonder if Solenoid would be like that.
If you do read it, please let us know what you think, good or bad! Thanks so much for checking this out and your comment.
Thanks so much for these thoughts. You know, you're not the first to say this. I know Claudia Befu (also Romanian) made essentially the same comment to me when I spoke about Solenoid a while back. She found him massively overrated. Perhaps something has been gained in translation. Perhaps it is due to me never having been exposed to his work previously. Perhaps it's just he's a very divisive writer and his prose is for some but not others. All are, of course, absolutely OK. I think it's worth listening to a bit of the interview Kate linked because he talks about his inevitable transition from poetry to writing longer stories. It was quite fascinating for me to hear (especially as someone who has never really read much poetry). I hope that if you do order and read Solenoid that you find something worthwhile in it.
This is an incredibly insightful dialogue surrounding such an interesting text I had no idea about!! Really made me reconsider how I perceive writing and reading and my reasons for it, and overall afforded quite a bit of food for thought. Very nice work!
The only disappointing thing about seeing this post arrive just now is that I'd already read it yesterday 😉
Wonderful analysis. This book should be required reading for, well, everyone :D
I imagine a very good autofiction course culminating with this one.
I know what you mean...I'll probably read it again. :)
Thank you for all your insight and ideas!
100%
Now that's a course I'd attend!
What an absolute banquet this piece is. Thank you both for a brilliant discussion of what sounds like a brilliant book. It sounds as if Kate's persistence in tracking down a copy was entirely justified. Too much to say so I'll just highlight this:
“We live for a nanosecond on a speck of dust lost in the cosmos,” I said to myself, and I returned to the dentist’s office, where the four chairs glowed, pure and fulfilled, in the light of their own panels of bulbs. (p. 568)"
I love the fact that the four chairs have more confidence in the fact of their existence than the writer!
When writers mine their own despair they are connecting with their readers, all of whom have probably experienced it. By reading and writing about it we feel less alone, and existential despair, which can be overwhelming, is relegated to its context as just one of a huge range of emotions that every human must experience.
Thank you both. Brilliant.
Thanks so much for reading and sharing your thoughts Jules, and what a perfect observation about the chairs.
It was a privilege to read, Nathan. Totally absorbing. Thank you.
Your comment sounds like the start of an essay itself. What a wonderful way of expressing this aspect of writing and existential despair.
Thank you, Jules!
First off, I am on the way to the dentist right now, so I had to smile at that help! passage and indeed, what Kate describes if I were to encounter pages of one word repeated it would make me want to read faster.
All the passages you’ve chosen are great and entice me to start reading (or listening in my case).
The existentialism that seeps through all of the text again reminds me of Camus, albeit the prose is quite different.
Thanks for this exquisite essay!
I think you will enjoy the other passages about dentists and doctors in this book, although they are a bit freaky! Hope your teeth are doing well.
Thanks Alexander!
I’m sure I will! More than today’s visit for sure 😅
Oh no! But, perhaps it is a sign, like the many signs I received about how "now" was when I was meant to be reading the book.
I do wonder how the narration will work compared to reading it. Curious to hear. Personally, hearing the translator (Sean Cotter) read out several passages in the linked interview made me feel weird, because to me he was reading them all wrong! "That's not how the cadence of that passage is spoken!" I found myself screaming, haha.
Hope the dentist fixes everything up OK.
Wow, what a marvellous analysis, Kate and Nathan! I have a copy of the book here next to me on my desk (I ordered it as soon as I read that essay of yours, Nathan), and as I write this comment, I'm deciding to tackle it right away, putting it on top of my to-read pile. There's so much to unpack in this essay, and beyond the mere joy and awe one gets from Mircea's prose and aesthetics when reading those passages you selected, I feel blanketed by a veil of mystery, magic, and curiosity. I will, of course, return to this piece once I'm done with the book, which is not going to be very soon, I suspect. Not so much for its length, but for its intensity and profundity—those things command a slow read. I am a slow reader in general, so this is going to feel "regular" to me. For now, "We live for a nanosecond on a speck of dust lost in the cosmos" really punched me in the face and made me stare at the clear sky outside my window for minutes, with an open mouth. And Nathan, this eliminated any residual tiny amount of hesitation in starting the book right away: "I found the act of reading Solenoid—and continue to find it, even now, several months later when coming back to Mircea’s words—arresting. That is the only word I can place here." I also liked Kate's comment on literature's uselessness with the Dorian Gray parallel: "The 'useless' comment makes me think of the foreword to The Picture of Dorian Gray: 'All art is quite useless,' which shows its elevation beyond something of everyday use." Overall, a great piece. Thank you, both of you, for putting it together!
Thank you for this beautiful comment, Silvio, and how wonderful to imagine you with the book staring at you to be read. 👀
I do think you will find it immersive, intense. This is even better with a slow read as both you and Nathan have mentioned. There's just so much to think about after absorbing the rich scenes.
Hope you enjoy it! Thanks for reading this ahead of time and hope we didn't spoil too much for you.
No spoilers at all, Kate. If anything, the piece is enticing and leaves me wanting more. And "immersive, intense" is just what I look for. :)
Thanks so much for your wonderful thoughts, Silvio. I'm so excited to know you're embarking on this read. Take it as slow as you need. I am also a slow reader, and this was especially slow for me, but it was a slow savouring. Each page, each passage, so many times I found myself pausing and staring at the sky whilst letting Mircea's words sink in.
"so many times I found myself pausing and staring at the sky whilst letting Mircea's words sink in" -- that's exactly my way of slow reading, and I guess here these moments will be many.
It's worth it with this one!
The passages are all fantastic, really speaking to me in so many ways. I've got to thank you both so much - now I'll be on the hunt for a copy!
Thanks Harvey!
Based on our conversations about writing, I do think you would love it.
By the way, I'm enjoying reading your emails since you switched platforms. :)
Thank you so much! :)
If you liked these then you won't be disappointed, Harvey.
Thanks so much for reading.
Read this a week back. My copy of Solenoid just arrived today. Can't wait to dig in
Awesome that you ordered it! Let us know what you think.
Will do!
Fascinating to learn more about Solenoid and Cartarescu. The situation in Romania under Communism was quite different from the others. Ceaucescu made the other regimes look tolerant when it came to dissident writers. Only a handful were able to stay in Romania, Dumitru Tsepeneag being one of them along with a few others. And like Cartarescu he had a style that, from the Western perspective, is very experimental. Putting aside Herta Muller who wrote in German, both Tsepeneag and Cartarescu convey an experience that, unlike with the Czech, Polish and Soviet dissidents, was far from straightforward and even further from sanity.
I certainly need to add Cartarescu to my library. I think a line about head lice would also draw me in. :D
Thank you, Felix. Based on your writing, I think you would love this book. Whenever you have time for it, I'd be very happy to hear what you think.
I haven't read Tsepeneag and am now likewise intrigued to do so. Muller's Land of Green Plums is a wonderful book, but I never realized it was written in German. Makes sense. When I spent several weeks in Transylvania it was very interesting to hear from locals who had left (mostly to Germany) and then returned more recently.
What you share about Ceaucescu just shows even more how powerful writing can be!
I also loved your discussion of the book and wish I had the time to read it. Reading the comments, I expected someone to mention Carl Sagan because the phrase “We live for a nanosecond on a speck of dust lost in the cosmos,” feels like him talking.
Fernanda, you’re adding a new layer to the text with Sagan - fantastic. I think especially with your background in high level mathematics as well as languages, you would find this quite interesting. One day! :) thanks for reading and commenting.
"We live for a nanosecond..." reminds me of Pozzo's line in Waiting for Godot, "They give birth astride of a grave, the light gleams an instant, then it's night once more,". It sounds like a fascinating read, though I think I am not wanting to immerse myself in existential despair right now. This style of discussion works very well I think, the way the two of you bounced off each other.
Thanks, Terry. I'm really glad Kate and I had this discussion and it's lovely to read all the interest through the comments.
The book isn't entirely existential dispair throughout, just in case that sways you ;)
Hey Kate and Nathan,
This has been thrilling to read; you take us into the life of the mind.
I have so many thoughts about what you say, and feel that I will come back to them as I reread your writing and watch the interview. But, I wanted to comment now, while they remain new…and, as per Cătărescu unedited. I’ll use your numbering.
Introduction: I knew this would grow into a piece which would resonate for me when I read ‘…the authors discuss Kafka and others who write authentically without the need to write for a reader. Paradoxically, the effect can become something that speaks more vividly and deeply to a reader’. You mention Woolf here, and the whole eschewing of definition of linear narration thing, and I agree with you very much. It is this type of reading that is demanding on us as readers, yet there is something profoundly rewarding both in rising to that demand - in believing in our own intellectual capacities to meet it - and in the emotional, vivid rewards it brings to our spirit.
When I first read the passage in 1) describing the flipped coin, I had the uncanny experience of misreading. I really thought it read that the coin had been flipped onto the ceiling, and landed there. Which would have been impossible physically, but could well have been possible narratively. It was only when I re read that I understood properly what Cătărescu had written. It was, perhaps, a coincidence to misread the wrong way just as the coin had landed on the wrong side.
Kate, in 2) your discussion of the quality of the writing about the ganglion of the brain was very intriguing. This made me think of the writerly task of trying to write consciousness. I mean, how do you do that? One way, is as it seems Cătărescu has chosen, to draw analogies to biology, to science, to the body and its feelings as a physical mass. It’s quite Foucault influenced. Or seems so to me.
Oh man, reading 3) felt so immediate. That whole thing about the terror of wasting time writing or reading when actually it feels such an elevated imperative. And linking it to Wilde and Dorian Gray was a fascinating way of taking it forward, and into the realm of the queer (or so I read it). It does feel terrifying to wonder whether one might be wasting that ganglion of one’s brain by reading art or attempting to write it. I mean one just can’t contemplate it for too long. For what it’s worth, I don’t go with Wilde on it being useless, and I don’t think he meant it to be quite so terrifying. Useless may be a wonderfully subversive take in the face of other, far more destructive and negative, forces than art. I think I quite like the deviance of useless (even though,Imfeel driven to be useful, to do useful things with my reading, to write usefully).
I think, Nathan, your point about the interior of reading is important. I, too, wonder about clear absolute paths in literature. I don’t think I have ever approached reading with the express purpose or desire to understand myself…reading feels of a different order, in a way far more mysterious, and is about other people as much as it might, almost as an unintended consequence sometimes, lead one to moments of insight that one might find relevant to one’s own self. I just don’t know whether writing is the same: sometimes I understand exactly where I stand in relation to something, a person, or an area of experience…sometimes I write myself…other times, it’s completely different: almost the opposite. What matters, or matters to me, is to remain as authentic and write for me…but, and here’s the extraordinary paradox of writing, for the story which is, by its very definition, not me.
And, yes in 5) I’m sure, Kate, many of us cry help. Perhaps more so when getting the story out…catching it…using one’s mind to be conscious of it, to make it…than in the actual word smithery of writing it. Or, that seems to be what happens for me.
I’m sure I’ll return, Kate and Nathan, to your exciting writing here, and that I will watch the video. I’m now going to follow Cătărescu and click post without a second look at what I’ve written.
Thanks for your fascinating reflection, Nicolas. I love the way you took on Cătărescu's idea of authenticity (in his way) to heart in the comments! A true convert. :)
Your answers have made me think about the text even more. Interesting about the ideas of immediacy and also the way the consciousness elements spoke to you especially. Thanks again!
This is such a wonderful and deep comment, Nicolas. Thank you for all the thought and expression here. I resonate with everything you say. "there is something profoundly rewarding both in rising to that demand - in believing in our own intellectual capacities to meet it - and in the emotional, vivid rewards it brings to our spirit." -- so much so this.
Your initial interpretation of the flipped coin is wonderful, because, in many ways, it also works just fine with that view. Towards the end of the book there is a fascinating description of the act of writing and a pen meeting another pen on the flipside/underside of the paper. It's beautiful and powerful.
Kate and Nathan, I admire this collaboration and am curious about the process. It must have taken discipline and restraint to choose just six passages in a long work like this. Was it difficult to decide which ones to highlight? What was your workflow like for the project? (Email, Zoom, etc.) Also, the design of the post is clean and beautiful. I like the numbers, particularly. What a perfect, simple container to hold these complexities. I feel like the two of you together have made a third and surprising thing--such a pleasure for your readers! Thank you very much for sharing it.
The design and much of the writing is Kate :)
This was an easy collaboration and I really thank Kate for making it fun and carefree. We had a Google Doc, as Kate mentions, and we both went off to select quotes. I had photographed numerous passages during my original reading, so selecting specific sections was a case of me going back and looking through those, as well as returning to the book and leafing through to find certain themes I wanted to check over. We also utilised Substack's Chat quite a lot to check in on things, as well as using the Comments function on Google Doc.
I actually originally had some trepidation over this because I didn't know if I'd have anything suitable and coherent to add 😆 A podcast or Zoom with Kate would have been really amazing, but my worry was how to actually say what I felt needed to be said. I'm the kind of person that can struggle to vocalise specific thoughts out loud, so the written medium ended up being the best way here for me. So, thanks again Kate, and thanks so much for being here Ann and offering your thoughts!
Nathan, many thanks to you and Kate. I know you’ve encouraged others to try a similar collaboration in the spirit of generosity and curiosity—just letting it flow and see what happens. I know it was a lot of work, but your mutual joy in making it is obvious. Thank you always for your transparency and kindness.
🤗
Thanks so much, Ann! That’s wonderful feedback. Well, we worked between email and direct messages as well as a collaborative Google doc. Nathan is in Australia and I am in Switzerland, so timing to Zoom is a bit tricky! Also I think it was good for us to sit with the text a bit. We thought about an audio conversation at one point then reflected we may need to do too much digging in the book. Selecting passages was a meaningful way to go back to the novel. And yes, it was hard to choose! I had made some notes along the way.
Thanks again!
I MUST read this book. The passages spoke to me like a dream I’d forgotten to remember.
And then when I read this…well, I can’t go into it now… but it’s mirroring a revelation/experience I just had this morning and wow, I feel like someone just made it real.
“I must use my brain like an eye, open and observant under the skull’s transparent shell, able to see with another kind of sight and to detect fissures and signs, hidden artifacts and obscure connections in this test of intelligence, patience, love, and faith that is this world. “
Thanks you two for this transcendent duscusdion.
You're so welcome, Kimberly. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.
I noted back in my original post on Solenoid how the book created some strange moments of synchronicity and meaning for me. I have a feeling some of that is going on here, too.
Isn’t that cool when words speak to you like that? Thanks, Kimberly. Happy you enjoyed it and hope you and get your hands on it soon.
Fantastic exchange between you two, lots of food for thought. The tesseract also made me think of A Wrinkle In Time, a book I so adored as a teen.
Thanks, Nadia. I've never read A Wrinkle In Time, but that's good to hear. Long live the tesseract 😆
Haha! I think even as an adult it’s a good reading.
Thanks Nadia! Isn’t that book wonderful? I recently got a beautiful publication of it as a gift and read it again.
Oh, that’s so wonderful. Even as an adult, it’s a treat!
Your fantastic essay entices me to pick this book up. Mind you, I'm Romanian and will read it in its original version.
The thing is, I struggled with Cartarescu on a previous book, which I found fascinating in its first volume, but when I saw that the second started the very same way, I literally dumped it in the bin. I used to follow him on Facebook, but then I got fed up and unfollowed.
I found him terribly overrated, sorry to say that, with (to me) unaccountable redundancies as if he were paid by the word... It must be also that he used to be a poet, and so I cursed him in my mind why the hell didn't you stick with poetry then? (I found his poetry very good!)
But, again, your essay here is making me curious, and open for a re-evaluation. So I guess I'll order Solenoid and hope to have a change-of-mind.
Such a wonderful comment, Zoe, thank you. There's another Romanian reader (and writer) in this community who had similar things to say about his earlier work, in general at least. I'm curious if she would articulate it in this way. Hopefully she will see this! :)
I really don't know if it's because a) I'm not Romanian and not reading in Romanian b) I haven't read his earlier work c) we just have different opinions. All of these would be fine. If in fact you end up enjoying this big work, I wonder if I could compare what you say to the work of Herman Melville (as an American). Moby Dick is a genius tome (some disagree, but I think it is). His short stories, also brilliant. I read all of his published novels as part of a postgrad course and can say that they taught me a lot about his style and experiences while also adding depth to Moby Dick, but they were not great novels. Perhaps they were simply MD as works in progress, I don't know. In any case, I wonder if Solenoid would be like that.
If you do read it, please let us know what you think, good or bad! Thanks so much for checking this out and your comment.
Oh, hehe, we started off the same way in our reply :)
Oh I loved Moby Dick, every single chapter!
Hey Zoe,
Thanks so much for these thoughts. You know, you're not the first to say this. I know Claudia Befu (also Romanian) made essentially the same comment to me when I spoke about Solenoid a while back. She found him massively overrated. Perhaps something has been gained in translation. Perhaps it is due to me never having been exposed to his work previously. Perhaps it's just he's a very divisive writer and his prose is for some but not others. All are, of course, absolutely OK. I think it's worth listening to a bit of the interview Kate linked because he talks about his inevitable transition from poetry to writing longer stories. It was quite fascinating for me to hear (especially as someone who has never really read much poetry). I hope that if you do order and read Solenoid that you find something worthwhile in it.
Thanks again for being honest on your opinions.
"fear about wasting time writing (or reading" Those are two of the very few activities which are not a waste f time : )
ha, yes I agree, Richard!
This is an incredibly insightful dialogue surrounding such an interesting text I had no idea about!! Really made me reconsider how I perceive writing and reading and my reasons for it, and overall afforded quite a bit of food for thought. Very nice work!
Thanks so much, Bethel. Happy to share some pieces of Solenoid with you. Thanks for reading.
Thanks for the thoughts, Bethel. That's great to hear.