Amidst a batch of books someone recently gave me was Petru Dumitriu’s Incognito. I’m embarrassed that I’d never heard of it, as literary critics compare it to the works of Dostoevsky and to Boris Pasternak’s Dr. Zhivago. The story is set in Romania. Sebastian leaves his middle class home in the countryside, driven by a longing that there is more to life. He enlists in the Army, dreaming of heroism, and fights on the side of Germany during WWII. He is captured by the Russians and, while in a prison camp, becomes intrigued by communism. Post war, he gradually rises to a modest position in the party. Eventually, he becomes disillusioned, is betrayed and imprisoned, and undergoes his final transformation, a belief that God embodies the universe, the good and evil, and that all must be loved, even life’s monsters. The novel’s strengths are its depictions of battle, prisons, and the intrigues of a system where almost no one, even family members, can be trusted, where informers lurk everywhere. The influence of Dostoevsky is obvious. The conversations recall the master’s great works. The reliance on faith, although different from Dostoevsky’s belief in the strictly defined Russian Orthodox Church, has a similar feel. The acceptance of suffering as man’s fate is also a common link. The protagonist is similar to Yuri Zhivago in that he so loves his country he will never leave, unlike the narrator, who escapes to write the book, which is based largely on Sebastian’s writings. It was first published in France in 1962. Westerners, most of us blessed with the freedom to create our own suffering rather than to suffer it at the hands of monsters, may find it difficult to relate to the brutality that was totalitarianism -- the beatings, treachery, arrests, murders, suicides, and the insanity it engendered. The title refers not only to the need for citizens to conceal their real selves in order to survive, but to God, who for so long Sebastian did not see. In fact, he recalls an inscription on an Athenian temple incorrectly, and is ridiculed by a learned friend as it being Deo Ignoto, not incognito. The insights into the psychology of human beings is keen and not restricted to the machinations of apparatchiks. They include this gem: “There was a strong sexual undercurrent in my bellowing even though what I said was true. Our actions have always more than one source.” Is the novel perfect? No. The constant party meetings become tedious, as they must have been for those who endured them. The same can be said of when Sebastian meets individually with his friends, brothers and sister to explain his new found belief. There are instances where I sense the translator faltered, and there are numerous grammatical errors, but they do not detract from the overall power of the novel. Is it a masterpiece? If it isn’t, it’s a close as a book gets. On a scale of five, 4.5. By no means an easy read, it was not as difficult as I’d expected. It is important as a chronicle of the evil of communism and of existential angst, the age-old questions: Why? What does it all mean?
Funny how things turn out. I finally got a Sunday parking spot in front of the Dolphin gym on 86th Street and 24th Avenue, a short walk from my old homestead. I figured at the least I'd sell books in Russian to those who have moved into the neighborhood in the last 15 years. I didn't sell one, but I did sell Close to the Edge. My thanks to Michael, and to the woman who bought two paperback thrillers.
Vic's 4th Novel: http://tinyurl.com/bszwlxh
Vic's 3rd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/7e9jty3
Vic's Website: http://members.tripod.com/vic_fortezza/Literature/
Vic's Short Story Collection (Print or Kindle): http://www.tiny.cc/Oycgb
Vic's 2nd Novel: http://tinyurl.com/6b86st6
Vic's 1st Novel: http://tiny.cc/94t5h
Vic's Screenplay on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/cyckn3
Vic’s Short Story on Kindle: http://tinyurl.com/k95k3nx
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