loveria

A land of no hope, in a book outside of time. The narrator and her three male friends, all quiet rebels in an oppressed post-war Romania, think their thoughts of freedom and wait with a sickening dread to be punished for them, despite doing little more than writing poetry and planning to emigrate. Muller makes a point of showing just how fragile human connections are in a society based on fear. She lives with various nice women, has a supportive mother, and holds onto her close friendship with Tereza, the daughter of a Party member. But all three of these do their best to force her to forget her dreams of freedom, and she is left to drag what remains across the border and to an eternally-compromised peace. Muller uses the word "transfinite" to describe the good and the bad in a fascist state - the mortal lasts forever when it is made part of the terror or the struggle against it. Told in rapid-fire statements that hop between place and time, the story is most moving when the narrator (based closely on Muller) meets her friends, and they try to defeat, through laughter, knowledge, and love, as much of the evil in the world as they can. According to Muller, even when success comes, the rewards are thin and haunted.

2022-10-21 05:48