I am part of a generation that no longer grabbed the “Universitas” cenacle, led by the critic Mircea Martin. But I was sure that Bogdan Teodorescu also writes literature from his first articles in Tinerama: the newspaper – who was already preparing, in the early 1990s, to take the step towards the political analysis in which today he was quite different than his confreres, younger or older. And I am not only referring to intelligence, language or general culture, all betraying a large intellectual. I am referring to the ability to make a prose of ideas from a newspaper article, which lives and after the moment that provoked.
Photo archive
I was glad that the intuition was confirmed to me by a series of novels and travel books signed by Bogdan Teodorescu, who also consecrated him as a writer, leading component of the new literary promotion. This, all the more so as he does not write a convenient literature, to tickle us his pride: on the contrary, Bogdan Teodorescu addresses the political fiction and even the political fantasy, attacks the Romanian reality and puts before our society an blank mirror. Whoever read the novel of Spada (2009) knows how much thoroughly the prose has taken the prose through the bolts of today's Romanian society and with how harding – of Italian neorealist cinema! – imagined a fiction meant to shake our consciousness. Also, in the novel Romania 2009, from the collective volume Mr. Mr. Deputy collapses (for a moment, I had a small dizziness …), coordinated by Horia Gârbea: the writer replaces the ancient manuscript found with that of the computer game, to send a character from Canada to our day. A fall from utopia to dystopia, unique in our prose today.
But there is another Bogdan Teodorescu, not only this, from the uncomfortable realistic prose. It is the one in the cha shery prose. 54/24 is one of the most beautiful travel books in contemporary Romanian literature because it manages to color nature or culture in the evanescent colors of nostalgia. Here is better the sentimental well -repressed that is Bogdan Teodorescu. Here we understand better that his novels are written, in fact, not with the satisfaction of highlighting how low I have fallen, but with the suffering of the one who loves Romania, about Cioran, with a heavy hatred … or, better said, with a sober love, too many times. “
This is the portrait I made, at the surprise request of Dan Sultănescu, in August 2013, when he was 50 years old and the boarding-pass was still vital.
I know he was often told about him that he had earned a few electoral battles, that he has always lost the campaigns he led. And probably so it is. Only, gathering the dust of those who have been earning lately, what remains really from the “power” after gaining power, it is no longer clear who has won and who actually lost. The most serious deficit that Romania is facing is not economic, it is the deficit of intelligence. Therefore, with the passage of time, you choose to lose with those who resemble you than to lose in the hands of some that a world separates you.
I wanted several times to invite him to talk about his travels. Because traveling is the metaphor of life. And I have postponed more times, because the postponement is among the limitations of life, the sign that the battle with time is lost, from naivety, comfort, from humanity, in fact. Bogdan traveled a lot, passionate, passionate, avant -garde, in places not beaten by Loisir and Instagram tourism. In his office there was a huge map of the world, not physical, but metaphysical, on which were signs of his presence in each of the destinations achieved, as the great discoverers of yesteryear were. This fool of the meridians, this bulimia of the roads hid, in fact, the fear of the last road. One of his last books, “and we will all die in torment”, with three characters who embark on a luxury pachebot, about it: about how you can postpone or sow death through the intensity of life. With imagination, passion, intelligence and style, believing that you cannot live anyway. I have spent my summers in the south of France. Peter Mayle's books and discussions with Bogdan approached me Saint Paul de Vence, Gorge de Verdon or Camargue before they really reach them. Personalities, places to eat and topos to dream.
We both believe that the most beautiful country in the world is South Africa. There, on Panorama Route, is a unique place, called God's Window. From there, when it is clear, over rocks, impressive mountains and waterfalls, you can see over Kruger, to Mozambique. The sky is divine and yet human, because it is a huge painting. Tomorrow, Bogdan Teodorescu will be led to his last earthly road. I hope, however, that through the window of God, Bogdan looks at the point where the Atlantic Ocean meets the Indian and Life is poured towards death and then vice versa, at the head of good hope.
Good road, Bogdan!
