Diversitate si Identitate Culturala in Europa (Nov 2019)
Fănuș Neagu – „Addenda” to the volumes published between 1959 and 1962
Abstract
As it is well known, Fănuș Neagu published between 1959 and 1962 three volumes of sketches, short stories and tales (Ningea în Bărăgan, Somnul de la amiază and Dincolo de nisipuri). The three books have been generally well received, and although almost every chronicle included a fair quantity of criticism, they acknowledged the author’s “robust” talent, his ability to build strong narrative conflicts, and his particular style, which was to become unmistakable. Some pieces of his storytelling failed to be totally adequate to the reality of that time (socialist realism) and exhibited a certain attachment to the past, visible in his passion for evoking human relationships within the Romanian village before the Liberation (from the fascist occupation). Therefore, the “reception” of the artistic message, the chronicles, reviews, or critical studies that have been dedicated to the literature in these first volumes should be regarded with a certain circumspection, which should also be applied when considering the obvious adherence to the ideology of the moment in some of his narrative works which were mostly praised. We should agree to the fact that those were times when writers were forced to adapt to, be it out of conviction, or opportunism, or with the wish of acceding to privileged positions. Without abiding completely to the party guidelines, Fănuș Neagu witnessed the bleakest phase of the communist experiment in our country by writing… in a different manner. The sketches and short stories he wrote in this early period of his life revealed how his memories and his consciousness were able to fill an empty page with grotesque images and situations, at the high time of the communist sleep of reason. Since many of the events that intersected the writer’s biography have not been interconnected with the critical reception of the three volumes, they will be inventoried in an Addenda to the critical reception.
