Theodoros by Mircea Cărtărescu

Reluctant to wait for the first translations of Mircea Cărtărescu’s latest novel to start coming out in the second half of 2024, I taught myself enough Romanian to read it in the original.

This “pseudo-historical novel”, as the author prefers to call it, has been inspired by a letter of the Romanian statesman Ion Ghica to his friend Vasile Alecsandri. The collected letters, first published in 1884, are now regarded as a classic of Romanian memoir literature. On July 27, 1883, Ion Ghica writes to his friend to tell him the most extraordinary story of social climbing one can imagine. According to the author, the Emperor of Ethiopia Tewodros II, who committed suicide fifteen years before in the fortress of Magdala, following the defeat by the British troops, was a Wallachian man Tudor, a former servant of his father Boyar Tache Ghica. Ion grew up together with Tudor at his father’s estate, where everyone called the boy Teodoros because that is how his Greek mother Sofiana referred to him. His Wallachian father Grigorie was a mender of ishliks, high-crowned fur caps worn by the nobility. One day, already as a young man, Teodoros left on business and never returned. Seven years passed without any news, but then his distraught mother received a brief letter in which her son assured her that he was alive and well. Under the signature, the word “Magdala” was written. Despite the absurdity of the mere conjecture that Kassa Hailu (Tewodros II’s real name), the son of a nobleman from the Qara district in Ethiopia, and Teodoros, the son of a Wallachian ishlikar mender from the estate of Ghergani in Wallachia, were the same person, Ion Ghica was dead certain that it was the case!

Tewodros Holding Audience, Surrounded By Lions. Image Source

Cărtărescu had been obsessed with this story for several decades as he immediately saw an opportunity to use Ion Ghica’s implausible claim as the basis for a novel. Due to various reasons, the project had been postponed until the Covid pandemic struck, and that is when Cărtărescu finally buckled down to bring his idea to fruition. The result of the two years of work is an epic adventure novel with an extensive cast of characters, fictional and real-life alike, and a slew of interpolated stories, ranging from realistic to phantasmagorical. The Teodoros of Ion Ghica becomes Cărtărescu’s Theodoros whose action-packed life forms the backbone of the narrative. The novel is divided into three parts titled after different variations of the main character’s name: Tudor, Theodoros, Tewodros. Each part consists of eleven chapters, thus making the total number of the chapters correspond to that of the cantos in a Dante canticle. That is obviously not a coincidence considering the strong theological element in the novel. Although each part roughly corresponds to a distinct period in Theodoros’ life, the narration is not linear, and we keep jumping back and forth between the events taking place, respectively, in Wallachia, the Greek Archipelago, and Ethiopia. For the most part, the novel is set in the nineteenth century, which is reflected in some of the vocabulary used by the author. There are quite a few of archaic and regional words that may be unfamiliar even to a native speaker of Romanian. In terms of intertextuality, Theodoros is a treasure trove of open and covert references to many great authors, among whom I would highlight Borges and Flaubert. The influence of the former is evident in some of the fabulist set pieces exploring the themes of infinity and the interconnectedness of all literary texts. As for the latter, one cannot help but think of the stylistic exuberance of Salammbô when reading the accounts of the battles in nineteenth century Ethiopia and the descriptions of the sumptuous regal life at the time of King Solomon and Makeda, the Queen of Sheba. The parallel story about the love between Solomon and Makeda, unfolding in the four chapters that interrupt the main narrative is probably a nod to the Pontius Pilate episodes in Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. The visual arts also have a conspicuous presence. Here we speak not only about the references to concrete paintings but also about the general impression left by the colourful world created by Cărtărescu, who has said in an interview that he was inspired by the Byzantine art in Romanian churches and monasteries. Speaking generally, Theodoros is a departure from the writer’s surrealist investigations of the self like Blinding and Solenoid. As he himself has said, this is his first proper novel. While there is no autofiction element anymore, the surreal one is still flamboyantly present, for which I am personally very grateful.

Fresco of the Last Judgement at Voroneț Monastery in Romania

First and foremost, this novel is a deep exploration of human ambition and the lengths one is ready to go to in order to attain power and glory. Already as a child, Theodoros knows that he is going to become an emperor, but not like any of those depicted in the fairy tales his mother reads to him. The emperors in Romanian folklore are usually denoted by colour: there is the White Emperor, the Red Emperor, the Yellow Emperor, the Black Emperor, the Green Emperor. The Blue Emperor is not to be found in any tale, for associating a ruler with the colour of the sky would suggest that he is none other than God. And that what the little Theodoros aspires to become: not only an emperor on earth but also in heaven. His boundless ambition is further fuelled by the stories about ancient kings which he reads in the cheap books bought by his father at the local fair. He is particularly fascinated by the life and exploits of Alexander the Great. One of his favourite games becomes a recreation of Alexander’s victory over Darius III, in which he naturally plays the role of the King of Macedon, whereas the boyar’s son Ion Ghica impersonates the defeated King of Persia. The game invariably ends with the servant tying up his master’s son and mercilessly thrashing him. Later on, as an adolescent servant in Tachi (sic!) Ghica’s house in Bucharest he seems to finally realise that for a person of his status the only way to social mobility is crime. At the age of sixteen he escapes from his master to join a band of brigands or hajducs under the command of the legendary Iancu Jianu. With a robber experience under his belt, he travels to the Greek Archipelago, where he becomes the leader of the most feared gang of pirates that for seven years terrorises the crews of all merchant ships sailing in that region. Besides the usual plunder, rape, and murder, Theodoros is also engaged in a quest which somewhat resembles a mission in a role-playing video game. This should not come as a surprise, for Cărtărescu has admitted on several occasions that he is a passionate gamer. Back in Bucharest, it was revealed to Theodoros that the key to absolute power was the biblical Ark of Covenant which had been stolen from King Solomon by Menelik, his son with the Queen of Sheba, and brought to the present-day Ethiopia. In order to find the Ark, the young Wallachian has to locate the seven letters that made up the name SAVAOTH on the seven islands of the Archipelago whose names begin with the respective letters. Once the mission is accomplished, the hardened pirate departs to Ethiopia, where he learns the language, reads the sacred book Kebra Nagast, adopts the local customs and, by switching identities with the real Kassa Hailu, becomes an Amhara noble. As a ferocious warlord, supported by the military aid from Queen Victoria, he conquers one province after another, and, following his victory in the Battle of Derasge in 1855, the former servant of a Wallachian boyar gets crowned as Tewodros II, the emperor of Ethiopia. All that is left for him now is to find the Ark and gain the absolute power he’s been craving, for being just an emperor is not good enough.

What immediately strikes the reader is that the story of Theodoros is narrated in the second person. It’s not “he” or “I” who undertakes all these adventures, but “you”. The narrator addresses the protagonist and in detail relates everything that happens not only to him, but to the scores of other characters, including historical figures such as Queen Victoria and Lord Palmerston. Such omniscience can come only from above–not from God directly, of course, but from the intermediaries between the world of humans and the heavenly abode. It is the seven archangels who relate the captivating and frequently terrifying tale of Theodoros’ path to power strewn with corpses of men, women, children, and even babies, unflinchingly describing each and every atrocity committed by the power-hungry arriviste alongside all his displays of friendship, kindness, tenderness, and love, for no villain is totally deprived of at least a tiny bit of virtue. Michael, Gabriel, Raphael, Uriel, Salathiel, Jegudiel and Barachiel are not just passive observers. From time to time they interfere in the course of the events they narrate so that the destiny of Theodoros is fulfilled as it has been foreseen. Sometimes they resort to extremely ingenious means to respond to an emergency that can cause a premature conclusion of their narration. For example, when an English officer fires a rifle at Theodoros during a naval battle, they create a whole new world on the bullet, so that its inhabitants can come up with a way to change its trajectory and save the life of the giant creature standing in their way.

The bullet began to cool in the air, and little points on its surface became receptive of our life-giving breath. In a fraction of a moment that would be thousands of millennia in our world, life emerged: first as unimaginably tiny creatures, nourished by the heat of the bullet, which then merged to form new ones that were larger and more complex. Over the period of millions and millions of rotations, changes occurred, and forms that were totally unknown to us appeared, preying on and devouring one another. Species that walked beneath the copper, species that crawled on the copper surface, and species that flew within a hair’s breadth above the copper succeeded one another, dying and getting born, living their punctiform lives in the light of the sun and in the shadows beneath the bullet. Heliophile species began to change sun rays into nutrients and energy, developing into forests and groves populated by nameless beings with infernal and nightmarish faces, clad in armour shining with the colours of cobalt, aniline, and turquoise, and carrying swarms of some other beings on their appendages.

There were disasters and devastations: occasionally, the vapours of molten copper killed nearly all living creatures, but new ones appeared in their place, even more hungry for the sweet essence of life, even more striving towards light and spirit, for once the river of life begins to flow, it can never be stopped. We waited for at least a spark of the Spirit which pervades us all to reach that world, as it once did yours, and, indeed, the hundreds of eyes of some living beings of cadmium and iridium, with their purple veils and their nostrils like labia, lit up with the divine Intelligence, the love that moves the sun and other stars. Countless civilisations of these wonderful creatures perished, thousands of rotations happened until, halfway between the rifle and your chest (you were frozen, like everything around–the sea, the ships, the bullets flying through the clear air–in a daguerreotype of fatality), the intelligent beings started to explore the world, asking themselves, just like you, in your vanity, who they were, where they came from and where they were going. Countless disputes erupted, schools and academies were built, the laws of the universe were discovered, the means of transforming copper into pure energy were invented, and history was written, but not the way it had happened, just like your false histories. Having learnt to perceive the constantly rotating dark and luminous world they inhabited, they realised that it was part of a much larger world. Bit by bit, that huge world revealed itself to them: the port of Potamos, the battling ships, the white puffs of smoke, the cries of the drowning.

After hundreds of generations, the scientists and engineers of the bullet world manage to build a huge engine running on the energy of vacuum that is capable to alter the course of the projectile when it is already dangerously close to the hairy chest of Theodoros.

Massimo Stanzione, The Seven Archangels

The thirst for power is not the only driver of the protagonist’s actions. Although he has relations with many women, especially after ascending the emperor’s throne, he does not escape the spell of all-consuming romantic love. His second most important quest is to win the heart of Stamatina, a daughter of the former Prince of Wallachia Grigore IV Ghica, who was removed from power in 1828 following the Russian occupation of the Danubian Principalities. The deposed ruler did have two daughters, but neither of them were called Stamatina, so here we have a typical example of the author’s blending of fact and fiction, which is his modus operandi throughout the whole book. Trying to court a daughter of a high-standing noble is a tough proposition, whether you are a humble servant in Bucharest or a redoubtable corsair in the Greek Archipelago. However, there is an even more formidable obstacle on the way of the enamoured young man, which comes straight from Romanian folk mythology. Theodoros has a powerful opponent who laid his eyes on the love of his life when she was just six. Since then, he has constantly visited her in dreams, taking her along to the wheel-shaped city in the sky where he lived. This incubus-like creature is known as the zburător (literally: flyer), a supernatural entity that at nights penetrates into the bedchambers of maidens to seduce them. The myth of the zburător has been immortalised in the poems of such classics of Romanian Romanticism as Ion Heliade Rădulescu (Zburătorul) and Mihai Eminescu (Luceafărul). Another word commonly associated with this being is zmeu, which means a serpent or a dragon. The fact that the same word also denotes a kite allows Cărtărescu to set up a fantastic stage for Theodoros’ first encounter with his rival. When still employed as Tachi Ghica’s servant in Bucharest, one day, the boy climbs an impossibly long rope attached to a huge kite with a full-height portrait of Stamatina painted on it. And while resting on the kite or zmeu high above the ground, he sees the zmeu from the legends flying past him and towards Grigore Ghica’s house in Câmpina. Cărtărescu’s version of the zburător is somewhat reminiscent of Doctor Manhattan from Alan Moore’s Watchmen. It is a completely naked muscular man with turquoise-hued skin whose face does not betray a hint of human emotion. With time, Theodoros comes to believe that the only possibility of vanquishing his opponent is to gather an army of flying archers that would be transported by cranes to the celestial city of the blue demon to kill him there and free Stamatina from the enchantment. To attain such a feat, one needs to have enormous power and resources at his disposal, which perhaps leads the protagonist to believe his paths to the throne of Ethiopia and the heart of his beloved will eventually converge. What he does not realise yet is that no amount of political power or wealth can grant one the ability to capture and possess the elusive ideal of true love.

Panel from Watchmen by Alan Moore and Dave Gibbons

In addition to being an unscrupulous power seeker and a lovesick romantic, the multifaceted Theodoros is also a superb storyteller. It may be even argued that the real main theme of the novel, underlying all others, is the power and joy of telling stories. When he was a child, his mother Sofiana used to read him a lot of fascinating tales based on Greek mythology and Romanian folklore. This early exposure to the fictional world of magic and adventures comes in handy when he begins writing his mother letters from the Archipelago. These messages, composed in the archaic style of the fairy tales from his childhood, contain, accordingly, considerably more fantasy than truth, for he cannot break the heart of his mother by revealing to her that his routine primarily consists of pillage and coldblooded murder. He lies to Sofiana that he has become a respectable merchant sailing with his crew from island to island, engaged in the trade of various goods. He also relates to his mother utterly bizarre and fantastic adventures, his primary goal being to amuse her, for there is no way she would ever believe that those fabulations are true. Thus, he tells her how he and his companions crossed the river on the back of a giant catfish and valiantly fought man-sized insects with triangular heads, and how they used pregnant women as sails to propel the ship in windless conditions. She also learns from her son about a man who had slept in a cave for 215 years, about a woman whose tattoos do not cover her skin but float slightly above its surface, about an artisan skilled in the practice of catching fleas with a knife, and about musical worms, each with a distinct voice, that are used to turn Theodoros’ flotilla into a floating orchestra. There is also a stunning revelation that the smuggling of poetry books is a serious crime in the Archipelago, for poetry is regarded as the most potent drug, much stronger than opium.

Not all of Theodoros’ stories, however, are inspired by the tales and legends from his childhood. At least two of them are an anachronistic response to the works by Jorge Luis Borges. The story of Sisoe the icon painter is obviously an homage to The Aleph. In the very first letter we learn that one day the said Sisoe, one of Theodoros’ companions, is seized with insurmountable horror vacui while looking at the sails. So much space is wasted! He proceeds to cover with paintings first the sails of the ship he is on, and then, having gathered a large group of disciples, the sails of all the ships in the Archipelago. However, even that is not enough, for the empty sky above his head instils him with even stronger anxiety. To overcome it, he spends a year, aided by his disciples, painting a huge face of Christ on the celestial dome. This portrait is made up of everything which can be found in the universe from super strings to neutron stars; there is every single human being, all animals, plants, fungi, viruses, chemical elements, and so on. This all-encompassing Sistine Chapel by a Borgesian Michelangelo is a more staggering achievement than the unfinished poem of the character from The Aleph, who contemplates a little sphere containing all points in the universe to pen an epic describing every single location on Earth.

The story of Ingannamorte, an immortal man on a floating island who is credited with originating all literature, is inspired by Borges’ famous essay The Four Cycles, in which the Argentine author maintains that there are only four basic stories which are constantly reiterated and elaborated upon throughout human history: the siege of the city, the return home, the search, and the sacrifice of a god. Ingannamorte kicks off the literary process by writing a series of chain letters, which he throws into the wind so they may be carried to their random addressees. Whoever finds a sheet of paper with Ingannamorte’s text has to copy it ten times and transmit the resultant writings further, thus becoming the Ingannamorte of the second degree. All known literary works have emerged as a result of numerous mistakes, embellishments, and alterations that have creeped into this constant process of copying, which has been going on for ages. Naturally, the novel Theodoros itself is a product of this textual evolution.

In the course of centuries, the initial pages turned into thick books that some copyists, driven by the sin of pride, signed with their names and provided with titles, although these books had been written by everyone. And thus came into this world Homer’s Odyssey, Longos’  Daphnis and Chloe, Dante’s Commedia, and the story of Alexander of Macedon that you read to me at Ghergani, while the north wind was wailing in the flue, and, to close the circle, the divine Ulysses by the bard of Éire.

When reading Theodoros, the hunt for references to visual art can be as engrossing as uncovering literary allusions. I cannot claim to have discovered every subtle nod to an artwork woven into the texture of the novel, but those few that I did detect deeply resonated with me. I will mention here just three ekphrases that I found especially interesting.

Cărtărescu plants a reference to Albrecht Altdorfer’s famous pullulating canvas The Battle of Alexander at Issus on at least two occasions. When recounting the Battle of Debre Tabor in which the regional ruler Dejazmach Wube Haile Maryam fights against the Regent Ras Ali II, the author, as if in passing, mentions a rather remarkable detail: in the sky above the battlefield there is an enormous tasselled cartouche that reads “The Battle of Debre Tabor. Anno Domini 1842.” As we know, in Altdorfer’s painting there is an inscribed tablet likewise suspended in the sky and adorned with a tassel. The canvas with the clash of Alexander the Great and Darius is evoked for the second time in Theodoros’ first letter to Sofiana, in which he tells her about a hallucinatory vision he and his friends experience at the summit of the Rhodope Mountains. What they contemplate for a brief moment is the battle scene from Altdorfer’s painting: “and the whole land, as far as the sea, was teeming with hosts, thousands of horsemen and foot soldiers bravely clashing in combat, and among the Macedonian troops there was Alexander in golden armour, with a golden helm on his head, but on the other side, below the moon, was the chariot of King Darius.”

Albrecht Altdorfer, The Battle of Alexander at Issus

In his depiction of the decisive Battle of Derasge in which Theodoros routs Dejazmach Wube, becoming the emperor two days later, the author makes use of The Battle of Anghiari by Leonardo da Vinci. The painting featuring in its centre the clash of four horsemen fighting for the possession of a standard was to adorn a wall of the Hall of the Five Hundred in the Palazzo Vecchio but was irretrievably lost when the paint began to run and the colours mixed up. Only the preparatory sketches survived to remind the posterity of Leonardo’s great vision. The best-known version of the battle scene can be found in Peter Paul Ruben’s copy of Lorenzo Zacchia’s engraving The Battle of the Standard, which, in its turn, was a copy Leonardo’s cartoon for the painting. Cărtărescu chooses to insert an ekphrasis of Leonardo’s lost painting at the moment when Theodoros with an unsheathed sword is chasing after the commander of the opposing force:

When Wube’s men saw you, they thronged to shield him, but it was too late: your rearing horses in motley caparisons collided chest to chest, trying to bite each other’s neck. They were then joined by another horse that was carrying on its back one of the Dejazmach’s generals, and then a fourth arrived. Your broadswords crossed in the air, striking sparks, a thick spear ran through the back of the general with a bronze ram on his armour and came out of the other side. A soldier who collapsed beneath you took shelter under a shield, another was dying with his throat cut by the dagger of the enemy who was astride him, but they all were going to be crushed under the hooves.

Peter Paul Rubens’s copy of The Battle of Anghiari

Finally, on the island of Hydra, visited by Theodoros and his companions, we come across a triangular square enclosed by porticos and with a statue in the middle, which immediately brings to mind The Mysterious Departure by Giorgio de Chirico. It should be well known by now to the readers of Cărtărescu that Chirico is one of his favourite artists. His metaphysical paintings are prominently featured in the Romanian author’s previous book Melancolia. In his ekphrasis of The Mysterious Departure, Cărtărescu makes one significant alteration: he replaces Chirico’s anonymous statue with the monument to the Greek revolutionary and admiral Andreas Miaoulis, which indeed can be found on Hydra, though not in a metaphysical square with empty colonnades.

Giorgio de Chirico, The Mysterious Departure. Image Source

Seven years after Solenoid, Cărtărescu does it again: he delivers a hefty encyclopedic novel with a wealth of engrossing facts, ingenious fabrications, unexpected imagery, and mind-bending twists. In addition to that, Theodoros is a remarkable linguistic feat whereby contemporary idiom is blended with archaic and regional vocabulary to create a specific language corresponding to the anachronistic historicity of the narrative. The ending of Theodoros is even more spectacular and monumental than that of Solenoid and is actually one of the best endings of a novel I have ever read. What unarguably sets Theodoros apart, is the violence, which should not be surprising given the subject matter of the novel. There are enough scenes of torture and murder to make even the seasoned reader wince with dismay. Some scenes are oddly horrifying and beautiful at the same time being tributes to the aestheticisation of the repulsive in Baroque art. The already mentioned departure from autofiction is another distinct trait of Theodoros, which may mean that we are witnessing the beginning of a new phase in Cărtărescu’s work. Obviously, the setting of the novel and some of its plot elements hark back to The Levant, but even in that epic poem about a band of adventurers plotting a coup in nineteenth-century Wallachia, the author’s biographical details are an important part of the narrative. If we read Theodoros carefully, we do find one brief appearance of Cărtărescu without his name being mentioned, but this cameo is more of a scherzo compared to his god-like, overbearing presence in The Levant. If Theodoros marks a decisive shift from introspection to the creation of fictional worlds with their own distinctive characters, then the question that suggests itself is: what’s next? After exploring the eternal questions of power, love, and salvation in a playful pseudo-historical novel brimming with unobtrusive erudition, will Cărtărescu turn to the present day or will he, maybe, create a totally new fantastic universe? I am eager to find out what this particular version of Ingannamorte’s chain letter will end up being.

Graduate School (Aspirantūra) by Margarita Perveņecka

Ever since I first learnt about C. P. Snow’s lecture The Two Cultures and the heated debate around it, I have been fascinated by the possibilities offered by any text or work of art that could bridge the notorious gap between the sciences and humanities. I truly believe that the great literary masterpiece of the twenty-first century, as paradigm-shifting as Joyce’s Ulysses, will be written by someone who would combine a profound knowledge of maths and science with virtuosic stylistic capabilities. So far, out of all the authors who have tried to bridge the gap, Thomas Pynchon has proved to be the most accomplished and persuasive. The blending of scientific discourse with the literary, historical, and social contexts both in Gravity’s Rainbow and Against the Day is nothing short of a triumph in taming the two cultures. We shouldn’t forget, of course, that Pynchon is in the rare position of having a background in both: before joining the Navy, where he was trained as an electrician, he had two years of studying engineering physics at Cornell under his belt, whereas, upon returning to the university, he switched to English and graduated with a humanities degree. We can also find the creative recourse to scientific ideas in the works of Tom Stoppard, Don DeLillo, Richard Powers, David Foster Wallace, and probably a dozen more other authors for whom science plays more than just a decorative role. A combination of stylistic mastery and a deep understanding of scientific concepts which we find, for example, in Gravity’s Rainbow, is an especially rare thing. It is quite often the case that the sense of style and the knack for sophisticated writing are outweighed by the inability to understand scientific concepts or, inversely, scientific expertise stumbles upon utter helplessness when it comes to style and diction (think of all the terrible sentences produced by scientists who became Sci-Fi authors). Perhaps the most telling recent example of a famous writer of fiction deliberately seeking to immerse himself into science for the benefit of his work was Cormac McCarthy, who was associated with the Santa Fe Institute for more than thirty years and had an opportunity to learn about cutting-edge scientific research directly from the likes of Murray Gell-Mann. McCarthy’s last two novels The Passenger and Stela Maris, which were conceived and written in the environment of intellectual cross-pollination fostered by the interdisciplinary think tank in New Mexico, are yet another addition to the growing body of literary works attempting to bridge the gap between the two cultures. Compared to the majority of fiction published every year, there are very few novels that seriously engage with scientific ideas and go beyond the simplistic metaphors of pop-sci bestsellers by incorporating the respective technical vocabulary that is likely to scare off nine out of ten readers. I am always on the lookout for a such novel because it promises to teach me something new and, possibly, lead me somewhere beyond the ordinary, the historical, and the political—to some compelling realm created at the crossing points of scientific and humanist pursuits. The Latvian author Margarita Perveņecka’s massive philosophical science fiction novel Graduate School fits the bill perfectly for me. This book, which required many years of labour and was finally published in 2023, seems to be equally inspired by Roger Penrose’s The Road to Reality and The Tibetan Book of the Dead. Behind the black cover modestly adorned with a cross-section of the Calabi–Yau manifold, one will find a story that is inextricably intertwined with a number of scientific disciplines such as molecular biology, chaos theory, organic chemistry, crystallography, genetic engineering, and string theory. Besides that, it is also one of the weirdest novels I have ever read. It has passages so densely packed with specialised jargon as to become borderline glossolalia for a layperson, and, on the other end of the spectrum, there are moments of mind-numbing domestic mundanity which work like nails on a chalkboard. But, in addition to those, there are poetic passages of filigreed wordsmithery and depictions of transcendental visions that take one’s breath away. At its darkest moments, the narrative delves into episodes of eye-searing cruelty and depravity, along with shocking surreal vignettes that the reader is unlikely to forget. The novel as a whole is a huge puzzle that does not give away its secrets readily and requires multiple readings. During my first reading, it was barely comprehensible, and only when I finished a re-read, I picked enough connections to make sense of what actually goes on although I cannot claim a complete understanding, and many things that I have to say about Graduate School are the product of my interpretation.

The Sciences and the Arts, attributed to Adriaen van Stalbemt. Image Source

The main setting of the novel is an alternative version of Earth that saw major technological advances much earlier than we did. In that fictional world, space travel and genetic engineering were made possible already in the 19^th century. The novel begins in the future, probably some 300 years from now, but, as things develop, we get more glimpses of the events which took place in the 19^th, 20^th, and 21^st centuries. The society of the future is highly stratified, with the technocratic elite whose name I would translate as “alphanumerics” (ciburi) at the top. The highest echelon of the alphanumerics resides above Earth and holds the political and economic power over its inhabitants. It is not entirely clear where exactly these rulers live, so my best guess would be some kind of advanced space stations orbiting the planet. The alphanumerics regard consciousness as a biochemical product that can be modified in different ways and transferred from one body to another. A total opposite of the materialist ruling class is a small apolitical group of menticulturists (prātkopji). As the name suggests, these individuals are dedicated to the nurturing of their intellectual and cognitive abilities; in fact, they do little else as the mind is both the tool and the object of their contemplation and exploration. The most accomplished menticulturists also live above the planet guiding their earth-bound disciples called aspirants, those who aspire by the rigorous and continuous mental practices to rise to the level of their mentors with the ultimate goal of leaving the material world altogether and blending in with the universe of pure Platonic forms. Immediately below the alphanumerics is the large community of the holists. We do not learn that much about them except that they have been responsible for integrating the scientific achievements of both the alphanumerics and the menticulturists in a new education system. Then follow the lowest: those who never progressed beyond undergraduate studies and therefore are limited to a rather dull existence of satisfying their basic needs. Having a Bachelor’s diploma or its analogue is not enough to make it in this learning-obsessed meritocracy. However, the lowest are not at the very bottom of society as their name may suggest. The truly lowest place is reserved for the dregs (padibenes), people with either rudimentary education or no education at all who live in densely populated communities; their concerns never rise above the first step of the Maslow pyramid.

Giorgio de Chirico, The Seer

The main characters of the first part titled The First Transcendental Equation: Vector Solution are vaguely humanoid individuals each of whom is designated by the letter V with a number next to it, like a vector component. In most cases, they are alone in a classroom attacking some problem on the blackboard covered with a thin film of some enigmatic substance. These problem-solvers are aspirants engaged in their daily pursuit of menticulture. They are often referred to as “personalisations” of certain vector components, which makes us think that their consciousness gets transplanted from one synthetic body to another. With time, it becomes apparent that the main actors of the unfolding drama are V₂₄ and V₂, both of whom, at different time periods, acquire the mysterious apartment No. 7 in the building of the former post and telegraph station that also used to house the SCCC (Space Communications Coordination and Computation) office. It takes V₂₄ almost 11 years of hard work at an electronic data archive to earn enough money for the down payment. By the way, in this future world, all currencies are tied to the oscillations of energy generation and consumption and are measured against the universal monetary unit called ergob, which corresponds to one bit of energy. Ironically enough, at some point in the future, all V₂ has to do to buy the same apartment is to breathe for thirty minutes into the tube of an energy conversion device at a bank terminal. V₂₄ is the only employee at the archive, and his main task is to retrieve and restore as much information as possible from the heap of centuries-old hard disk drives using mathematical modelling on his hybrid computer. The archivist’s findings are of utter importance because they help us to fill in some gaps regarding the past of that civilisation, especially the crucial events that took place at the end of the 19^th century and the beginning of the 20^th. It is thanks to the newly restored electronic files that we get our first view of the Auror Empire, which reached the heyday of its scientific development under the rule of Auror III before being dismantled by the regime of the obscurants, ardent opponents of menticulture, whose rule consigned to oblivion many technological achievements of the empire. The opening of the Space Communications office was one of the many technological breakthroughs during the reign of Auror III, who also converted the military port Aura into a “science town” with the biggest space observatory in the world. At the same period, the preparations for the first interplanetary expedition began.  The post and telegraph building that has aroused the interest of the two aspirants turns out to be an important node connecting characters from different points in time, not only because they live or work there, but also because some of their messages are received as “telepathograms” and deciphered by the SCCC office operator Varlam, who manned the station in the final years of the empire. It also seems that the boundaries between different dimensions are much thinner inside that building, which allows its occupants to see or experience some bewildering phenomena hidden from other people. A century later, apartment No. 7 will serve as a laboratory for the crystallographer and bioengineer Imáldis. She is the novel’s protagonist destined to resuscitate the lost technologies of the empire after the collapse of the obscurantist regime.

The second part of the novel follows the life of Imáldis at the end of the 20^th and the beginning of the 21^st centuries. We also learn about the people in her life, especially her partner, a high-school dropout named Klemente. The events in this part primarily unfold in the city of Viturg, which is modelled after Latvia’s capital Riga. At the age of four Imáldis discovers in her grandmother’s wardrobe an envelope with sixteen X-ray photographs of a crystal, and that finding determines her future career. The material depicted in the X-rays is not to be found among any existing samples, and when Imáldis begins her doctoral studies the main goal of her ambitious research is to synthesise the enigmatic crystal in a laboratory. She fails to recreate the proto-material, but still, her research is deemed significant enough to earn her a doctor’s degree. This failure does not discourage the young woman from further probing the mystery of the monochrome photographs, which she does within the framework of her postdoctoral research in bioengineering, which she conducts at a closed facility called the Terminal. The researchers for these elite institutions get selected from regional Teatrons, recently established interdisciplinary platforms connecting and integrating various branches of STEM and the humanities. The main findings of Imáldis’ research both during her crystallography period and the bioengineering stint at the Terminal are recorded in her laboratory notebooks the excerpts from which are provided closer to the end of the second part. Those are followed by some of the telepathograms deciphered and filed by Varlam at his space communications station. In so many obscure scientific terms, the startling revelation of Imáldis’ decade-long research is the possibility of combining organic and inorganic matter (including radioactive materials) to create a new organism that could exist and function in extreme environments unsuitable for human beings. This revolutionary discovery, however, is nothing but a resurrection of the great breakthrough made a century ago in the Auror Empire on the eve of its destruction. What is truly remarkable is that this bioengineering feat was just the first step in the ambitious project curated by the emperor—the second one was the development of a technique allowing to extract the consciousness of a human being and transplant it into an extremophile body. The provenance of the 16 X-rays is the work done at the end of the nineteenth century by the experimental biologist Ramon, a monster the likes of which few have seen.

Erica McGilchrist, Organic and Inorganic Forms. Image Source

The story of Ramon dominates the third part of the novel. One of the most significant scientists of the empire spends his childhood years as a member of the horde, a nomadic tribe, from which he escapes to study biology and medicine at college. Already as a kid, he shows great interest in fauna, flora, and natural phenomena. Along with collecting insect specimens and compiling herbaria he also catches animals for detailed study. Having finished his field research, he lets some of the critters loose and sells the ones he has managed to tame. But besides those, there are also the animals he intends to eat or taxidermise; he subjects them to the torture of slow death to check the extent of their endurance and viability. This early sadistic bent grimly foreshadows most repugnant experiments Ramon is going to conduct on human and humanoid subjects when he grows up. During research at the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine, he achieves the above-mentioned phenomenal breakthroughs destined to change the course of human history. Initially, he builds an endosymbiotic metalorganic cell which he then combines with the human stem cell, which serves as the starting point for the development of humanoid extremophile organisms. After that, he finds a mechanism to “extirpate” consciousness from one body and transfer it to another, not only the body of a human being but also that of a laboratory-grown extremophile. Many subjects of his experiments get either killed or horribly mutilated. At the beginning of Graduate School, we may be led to believe that the period of the empire is some kind of golden age ushered in by the wise monarch who guides his nation towards enlightenment and scientific progress, but the more we learn about the morbid details of the way this progress is achieved, the more we begin to question the implied superiority of the imperial scientists over the obscurants, who destroy much of their heritage after seizing power. As we find out, the emperor is ready to sustain this collateral damage for the sake of his great goal—sending the first expedition to outer space on a one-way exploration mission. To achieve that, he needs a crew of well-prepared extremophiles. Ramon is put in charge of testing and selecting bioengineered candidates at the Aura Test Station, an imposing facility that contains pavilions simulating extraterrestrial environments.  Some details of his experiments at the so-called underwater house appear in a document restored by the archivist V₂₄:

From a distance, it looks like a quicksilver coral tree with a massive trunk and four long branches. From two of those protrude stick-like outgrowths, and the other two branches are permeated with pores. Female specimens are planted on the stick outgrowths through their vaginal openings. The male specimens have their penises firmly lodged into the pore canals. All of them are equipped with a permanent oxygen supply system. Rooted in a tangle of hydrothermal veins, the metalorganic deep-water harbor holds the specimens in a tight grip. It is only possible to remove them by cutting off their genitals. The harbor sucks in the sperm of one male specimen, draws it into the nucleus of its cell and then injects it into a female specimen. The female creature spends a certain period of its pregnancy on the branch. The males are replaced after sufficient milking for the sake of genetic diversity. In the second trimester, the harbor pulls the half-ripe fetus out of the female’s uterus and places it into the trunk, where it continues to develop. Through the node where two forking branches meet, the harbor pushes out the triadic progeny, an aggregate. Check [3 chr] the endurance capability and other qualities. From those (the offspring), select the specimens for the production of the next generation. Depersonalise, obtain sterile [not clear— either extirpations or target bodies]. Compare the latest [3^rd to 5^th] generations of all […] models. Begin selection of the expedition candidates from the elite. The rest of the specimens are to be culled—send some for further examination and research, terminate the others.

The way Imáldis manages to repeat Ramon’s success a century later, inspired by the pictures of his metalorganic cell would make for a nice plot twist, but things are not that simple in Perveņecka’s novel. There is growing evidence that it is a collaborative effort carried out by three individuals living at different time periods but, nevertheless, being able to communicate telepathically through the spacetime continuum they all share. Occasionally, the narrative is disrupted by dialogues between Ramon, Imáldis, and the high-degree aspirant Vilgo discussing the course of the molecular research. If my hypothesis is true, then the 16 X-rays that determine the fate of the four-year-old Imáldis are partly the result of her future self’s scientific investigation.

The preoccupation with esoteric matters in Graduate School is as strong as its fascination with science. A telling example is the multiple interests of Imáldis, who, besides writing a doctoral dissertation on crystallography, also pens a treatise titled Introduction to Stichanthropy: The Experimental Research Expressions of Chaosmic Bundles. Stichanthropy (stihantropija) is defined as “the unified science of humankind-nature-cosmos”, and can be viewed as a hermetic equivalent of the theory of everything, that holy grail of physicists which is supposed to give an exhaustive explanation of all the aspects of the universe. The young woman effectively lays the foundations of this all-encompassing discipline in which physics, chemistry and biology are intertwined with the arcana of visionary realms. The latter burst into prominence in the fourth part of the novel, in which the writing often gracefully balances between prose and poetry. We have a glimpse of a planet with a 30-kilometre tall cryovolcano and a vesicular dendric structure that engenders a giant ophidian which immediately proceeds to carve cities in a massive of crystal. After that, we get introduced to an enigmatic box which is described as “a vector machine for the generation of topologies and the autogenous synthesis of bodies”. It seems that the box is related to the concept of multiple dimensions required by string theory to maintain its mathematical coherence. The centrepiece of that part is the section dedicated to the realm of eidoi or pure forms populated by a hierarchy of daemons. There are seven basic eidoi in this ideal space, each of which corresponds to a geometric object:  a dot, a line, a triangle, a square, a pentagon, hexagon, and a pyramid. Just like the humans in the physical world, the daemons in this abstract dimension have to learn in order to rise up the established hierarchy. They consecutively study the seven eidoi to reach the status of the archdaemon, who can play with all possible combinations of these fundamental elements for eternity. The most advanced rank is that of the hyperdaemon, who grows on its body a recondite polymer capable of catching a reflection of some transcendental entity called the black silk HippoDracocampoHydra. I am not going to delve further into this bizarre mythology not only due to my uncertainty about its meaning but also because a thumbnail sketch is more than enough to convey the novel’s esoteric bent, which may be perceived as either a weakness or a strength depending on your aesthetic and conceptual preferences.

HR Giger, National Park

The fifth and the final part of the novel is titled Encyclotopia, which possibly refers to the interpenetration of all possible spacetime dimensions. This section appears to draw significant influence from Bardo Thodol, a Buddhist text with detailed instructions for guiding the consciousness in the intermediate state between death and the next life. The main purpose of this sacred manual is to help the departed attain complete liberation from all six realms of existence and, in case this is not possible, to ensure that the deceased achieve the most favourable rebirth. The concluding part of Graduate School depicts a kind of bardo in which a bunch of consciousnesses roam, searching for a domicile. Descriptions of different buildings and interior spaces abound. Many of these souls are designated as “unknown”, but those who do have a name are familiar to us: they are Imáldis, Klemente, and Ramon. Later on, Ramon’s allotrope (dubbed Ramonotrope) appears. The wanderings of these immaterial characters are described in a series of short, one-page episodes in which the situations range from trivially mundane experiences to the jolting outbursts of surreal horror. On many occasions, the characters revisit their past, offering additional insights into their stories. If there were any lingering uncertainties about the systemic character of the barbaric cruelty inflicted on the humanoid subjects within the empire’s fascist eugenics programme, several visits to the Teratology Unit at the Institute of Biology and Experimental Medicine eliminate such doubts. Ramon isn’t a glitch but a feature of the most ambitious scientific enterprise in history whose glorious end, the colonisation of space by genetically-engineered superhumans, justifies for the authorities any execrable means of achieving it. What we see through the eyes of Ramon’s itinerant soul looks like a variation of Unit 731, the notorious Japanese research facility that conducted deadly experiments on human subjects during WWII. The fact that the Institute performs experiments on bioengineered individuals instead of proper humans, does not make this practice less shocking.

It’s a classroom. A small chamber with earthen walls, ceiling, and floor that are covered everywhere with dry birch bark and tinder fungus. In the most even places next to the walls there is a blackboard, some teaching aids, and stall bars. There are ten desks in the classroom, and the whole space from wall to wall, from floor to ceiling, is filled with students nominally sitting at the desks. Only by peering into this congenital osteoarthropathoarboretum carefully, it is possible to distinguish individual specimens, each with a unique form of severe bone deformation. They all have coalesced into a complex of continuous and intermittent bone connections of such intricacy that it is hard to determine the ownership of most limbs. The articular head of one specimen fits into the fossa of another. In many places, the outcroppings of red and yellowish marrow can be seen in cavities of the bone. Some lack the parietal bones or the frontal bone, and others have a fish-like spinal column with flat outgrowths of ribs where the ribcage should be. Bone cells generate ramifications of non-human structure, which release the intercellular substances of bone tissue and synovial fluid. Individually, each can budge only their own ramifications, but they can move about solely as a group. Especially bothersome or painful body parts are secured in stabilising and strain-relieving orthopedic devices, external bone fixators and similar mechanical therapeutic equipment. Liquefied humic and mineral nutrients, gruel and vegetable puree, physiological solution, and water are absorbed through the most appropriate body part: usually, a foot, a hand, or just a finger which the outermost specimen dips into the bucket. Thus, both the nearest and the farthest classmate will be fed via the conductive tissues.

The arboretum sways, and, like round beetles slowly scrambling over tree branches, several eyes turn towards us. They radiate the curiosity and diligence of first graders. Books and notebooks are lying open on the desks; the most dexterous phalanges are holding pens, pencils, rulers, and erasers.

The Experimental Molecular Pathology Observation Council has arrived at the Teratology Unit in the elfinwood to put boundary marks on the group members. One individual is cut out from the group. Another will be transplanted in his place.

My analysis may leave a misleading impression of narrative coherence in Graduate School, and, therefore, I would like to stress that everything above is gleaned from the chaosmos of the text and pieced together in a fashion similar to the way V₂₄ retrieves bits of data from the broken hard disks. Although the stories of Imáldis and Ramon are of great importance, there are a lot of other things going on. In this novel, the descriptions of places and the synopses of scientific procedures are as essential as the portrayals of human interactions. It is quite possible that the aspects I have chosen to highlight here are tangential to something bigger that requires a hermeneutic endeavour of a totally different magnitude.

Be that as it may, there is little doubt that one of the major themes of Graduate School is the challenge of bridging the gap between the sciences and humanities with which I began my review. Perveņecka follows in the footsteps of the authors who have made the two cultures meet in their works to make a meta-commentary on a possible scenario of such a meeting. When we think about the ways in which humanists can cooperate with scientists in bioengineering, probably the most significant contribution of the humanists, represented by anthropologists, philosophers, and sociologists, should be making sure that the experiments and technological solutions are ethically sound and do not violate societal values. We do not know exactly the nature of interdisciplinary collaboration in the empire when the space exploration project was being implemented, but, considering that the science town built by Auror III housed both scientists and artists, we can suppose that representatives of humanist disciplines were also involved in the running of the Aura Test Station. Apparently, their engagement was strictly limited to the aesthetic realm, for example, the conceptual design of the spaces simulating the environment on other planets. Whatever other contributions they were making, the ethical dimension was excluded from the equation. It is very unlikely that a century later the Terminals for postgraduate research with their emphasis on interdisciplinarity reassess the malignancy of the approach in which humanist knowledge and skills have only a utilitarian value for scientists. This pessimistic view is confirmed by a scene in the bardo where Imáldis registers the incoming specimens for laboratory research; those include plants, stones, animals, and…humans. The forgotten technologies aimed at conquering space and expanding to other planets rise from the ashes thanks to the efforts of the new scientific elite. Humans will be able to explore and colonise new worlds by adopting synthetic bodies impervious to harsh environments, extreme temperatures, and radiation. What great discoveries lie ahead! Maybe abandoning the most essential part of our humanity to achieve that is not such a high price to pay? Then we won’t care about it anyway.

The Tenth Anniversary of The Untranslated

Still Life with Books and Candle by Henri Matisse

When I started my blog ten years ago, I couldn’t imagine I would persist for so long. I almost called it quits in 2019, but a year later I resumed blogging after the unexpected and overwhelming support of my Patreon subscribers. Once again, I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to all of you because your backing is the sole reason for the publication of all the reviews in the past three years.

I am quite happy with the way many books I have reviewed have become visible to a large part of readers even though the majority of these titles still remain unavailable in English. I think I can claim a partial credit for Mircea Cărtărescu’s Solenoid getting picked up and published by Deep Vellum and a full credit for the acquisition by the same publisher of Miquel de Palol’s The Troiacord: I am pretty convinced that the latter wouldn’t have been acquired without my review. I am also glad that some readers of my blog have started learning foreign languages in order to read and maybe even translate the kinds of books I review.

The tenth anniversary of The Untranslated is a fitting occasion to post the updated list of my top ten novels reviewed on this blog. Those are the books that I hold the dearest and that I am going to keep re-rereading:

1. José Trigo by Fernando del Paso
2. Schattenfroh by Michael Lentz
3. The Sorias by Alberto Laiseca
4. The Troiacord by Miquel de Palol
5. Horcynus Orca by Stefano D’Arrigo
6. Songs of Chaos by Antonio Moresco
7. Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu
8. Remember Famagusta by Alexander Goldstein
9. The Weaver of Crowns by Germán Espinosa
10. The Romance of the Stone of the Kingdom by Ariano Suassuna

As all things are destined to come to an end, so is the surge of relative productivity following my decision to resume blogging at the end of 2020. Until recently, Patreon has provided me with sufficient motivation to keep going, but now it feels more like a source of pressure to produce more content when I do not always feel like it. I still have a couple of interesting things in the pipeline that I hope to get out by the end of the year, and then I am going to delete my Patreon account and semi-retire. I am not going to shut down my blog again, but starting with the new year, I will be posting reviews less frequently, which, hopefully, may improve their quality.

All these ten years I have been fortunate to have a lot of grateful and inquisitive readers, who have appreciated my work and expressed their unstinted support and encouragement. You know who you are. Thank you all.