Book review:
For those of you who have seen Tales from the Golden Age and enjoyed it, Dan Lungu's novel could reiterate that experience. There is also a movie made after the novel in 2013.
I’m a Communist Biddy! is nowhere near a profound, serious novel; it doesn't promise revelations or novelties (well, at least for the Romanian readers, it doesn't). But it is undoubtedly funny, even in spite of the sad realities it encompasses. A book I fell in love with from the moment I read its first paragraphs and which I didn't want to part with, not ever. As far as I am cocerned, I fully enjoy Dan Lungu's writing; I appreciate his delicious humor, which is far from being stale, predictable or vulgar. I only wish for him to be finally translated into English!
Travelling along the recollections of Emilia - the communist biddy -, we go back to a world in which the subscription for Scînteia* was mandatory, employers managed to slip in liquor inside compote jars, drivers of milk trucks found ingenious methods to extract butter, while teachers behaved nicely with students from 'healthy' families, as one could never know the important positions they might acquire over the years.
*The Spark - official newspaper of the communist regime; the subscription fee was automatically retained from the employers' salary.
I enjoyed the point of view from which the novel is written; I had the opportunity to see through the eyes of the numberless old people who complain that 'It was way better under communism!' and find out one of the stories - undoubtedly, not far from the truth - which lies behind this regret. I’m a Communist Biddy! will likely remain as a testimony, in a tragicomic key, of the generations which will perish in a couple of decades, taking with them the stories, justifications and regrets.
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| Some books I bought for my bday |
For most people, communism was a bleak period devoid of color, happiness and freedom - while, for Emilia, it was the best period of her life. Ambitious, she fulfilled her dream of leaving her rural background - which only promised a constant production of dung cakes - and settle in the city. She was fortunate to work for the export, which indirectly brought certain benefits. After the fall of communism in 1989, her life took a turn for the worse. In a phone conversation with her daughter, relocated to Canada, Emilia takes apart all the arguments brought in favor of democracy:
- What about freedom, mom? This can't compare to anything. We used to be afraid of our own shadows... The fact that now you can tell what you want and write what you want, that you can travel and shout "Down with the government!"...
- You know what, the ones that do the travel are the rich, those who stole what we worked for. As for shouting, now you can shout until your voice breaks down, nobody listens to you anyway... If I could have my way, I would go back to communism starting with tomorrow even.
The novel is structured on three intermingled temporal levels: Emilia's childhood in the countryside, enlivened by a few visits in town, her life at the working place during communism and her life as a pensioner during democracy. I won't get too much into details, so that I won't spoil your pleasure of discovering for yourself the reasons why Emilia regrets communism. At the end of the novel you might come to understand, perhaps, the story of one of the innumerable cantankerous old people, forever disgruntled and grouse, lamenting over a long gone era which, for others, brought so much pain and suffering - or even death. Their melancholic approach is, ultimately, a narrow, ignorant and selfish view on life, but this doesn't make it less valid, irrespective of other people's experience.
The novel is strewn with anecdotes about Ceaşcă and Leana*, humorously narrated by one of Emilia's droll colleagues - funny stories that used to be in circulation during communism. Some readers have found the inclusion of these anecdotes a bit unnecessary, complaining about the narrative discontinuity, but I thoroughly enjoyed them - also because I didn't know them in detail. All in all, I didn't feel the need to become too critical with this novel - the pleasant state it got me into was enough to ignore its possible drawbacks.
*Ceaşcă (literally meaning 'cup') is one of the nicknames of Nicolae Ceaușescu, while Leana was used for his wife, Elena.
Poor Nicolae Ceaușescu! During his visits through the country, he was almost always presented with a fake reality. No matter how absurd the events in the novel may seem - like the painting of fir trees so that they would acquire a more vivid color, or the replacement of anemic cereals with more vigorous plants, at the visible sides of the field - they do not force the border of credibility. The communist goals had to be fulfilled even by means of illusions. It is an artificial symbiosis between the real and the absurd, a strange, yet functional hybrid; it is, ultimately, a typical form of survival for Romanian people (and not only), an existence adapted to a totalitarian regime which had lost its grip on reality.
On this occasion, I was reminded by Ma Jian's The Noodle Maker, where I found Ceaușescu in a similar deceitful situation: crossing a Chinese town and admiring - at the car's speed, it's true - the fine-looking houses on the main boulevards, not knowing they were in fact painted wood panels, behind which there stood the real, ugly buildings.
I could recognize myself in this novel, in a couple of tragicomic details from the years I spent under communism. I remembered the bland taste of diluted milk which, on its long journey to the store, became mostly water. I was reminded of the postcards with famous actors, sold at the newspaper stand, which I was buying by the dozen, avid for faces from another world. I wonder if my parents still have the colored glass pane that was placed in front of the black-and-white Tv set, having a blue strip at the top (for the sky), a green strip at the bottom (for grass), and a third one in the middle for... well, for everything else.
I could see that, for many (Romanian) users, the novel did not represent a five star experience. My enthusiastic rating shows the sympathy and enjoyment I felt while reading the book, as well as the truth - important for me, but not necessary related to the novel - which hit me in the end.
Despite the humorous tone of this book, I realized that I don't really know my parents' life under communism. I only know bits and scraps, but not the whole picture. The other day, I was complaining to a friend that my parents don't know the real me. But only now have I understood, after all this time, that I don't really know them. I have no idea if they had a 'record', if they were kept under observation, not even if they were party members. I want to know the answer to all these questions and fill up, somehow, the wide gap between our generations. This is how literature can change a person's life sometimes.
Keep this title in mind, because one day (which I hope will come soon) it will be translated into English and you will find it in a library in your town. When that day will come, buy it without thinking twice. You should not miss it if you want to learn about communism in Romania and not get depressed. It is fun, witty and memorable. It thoroughly deserves your pennies.
Editura: Polirom, 2013
Număr de pagini: 240
Număr de pagini: 240
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