Flying Against the Arrow: An Intellectual in Ceausescu's Romania (Central European Library of Ideas)

Rating:
Summary: paradox
Review: A beautiful book, written by a person with a deep sensitivity toward structures of life and feeling. In the book's narrative, the process of intellectual formation during communism steams out from a non-political, non-dissident, non-resistance positionality to the regime. The style and content is literary; only retrospectively can we consider such a book "political": it is basically a diary, a beautiful, lyrical one, although the philosophical references are somehow doubtful. Where there other subliminal political spaces of intellectual formation in communist Romania, spaces located at the periphery of the hegemonic discourses, such as pop and rock music, arts, mathematics, sports, and even alternative literature and poetry of the Mircea Cartarescu and Mircea Dinescu type? Finally, how can one reconcile this author's ideas with his other publishing, where, although dedicated to an anti-communist ethos, he basically supports the abolition of equal and universal suffrage and adheres to a "white supremacist" type of discourse, mocking the integrative, multicultural stance of North-American universities, as "American communism," "Nazism" and "Leninism" together, praising the culture of the "white man, ethnic Romanian, Christian-Orthodox, and heterosexual?" The publication of H.-R. Patapievici's diary in English is both a start (finally enabling regional voices to be heard in the mainstream North-American discourses) and an ambivalently bold act from the part of the Central European University, in the context of this author's aforementioned political proclivities.

Rating:
Summary: Patapievici: a star without a sky
Review: Mr. Patapievici is a hotly contested figure in Romania. Not the most representative or even known dissenter during the 80s, his fame is the product of an emergent market of power and prestige in Romanian culture. Supported and promoted by elitist groups, the social ethos he promotes is an elitist one, too. His more recent ideas harken back to a form of 19th century conservatism that might seem quaint if it weren't extravagant to the point of bigotry. ...

Rating:
Summary: There is no drawback in shining with intelligent emotions !
Review: This is a book about the making of a strong character. If it was possible at all, it's because mind matters.

Whoever thinks this unique story of a human being is a manifesto for elitism has not lived there, in those times. The spiritual "side" of intelligence should always be reason enough for surviving physically, wherever doing so comes at a premium price. We all paid such prices one way or another, at some point in our own flights.

We knew, for instance, even at that point in time, that Horia would be the last one to "turn off the light" back home. He never did. I think we all owe him some respect for that.

I happen to be the one to whom the book was dedicated and confess I am more than honored. For me, the arrow's path will always subtend a direction for that fire that noone can ever extinguish.