Nostalgia

Nostalgia, Mircea Cartarescu’s brilliant debut, tells of childhood and youth in Bucharest in the sixties and seventies. In the light of memory, which arises from the sensations of all the senses, the settings take on an overwhelming presence. There is the rugged, swampy terrain behind the block of flats on Stefan-cel-Mare Boulevard, where the mysterious boy Mendebilus captivates a whole gang of children with somnambulistic acrobatics and profound stories. Or the slippery underground tunnel through which Gina and Andrei end up in the Natural History Museum, where they experience their first night of love. Finally, there is the bizarre, melancholy tower on the outskirts of the city and its gigantic inhabitants.