Mircea Cărtărescu, Orbitor, vol. 1 [Glaring]

Letitia Guran (Longwood College)

Ed. by Cristina Sandru, The Literary Encyclopedia
The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 1.8.4: Romanian Writing and Culture.
Vol. editors: Calin Andrei Mihailescu (University of Western Ontario)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1996

Places

Romania (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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For those unfamiliar to Cărtărescu’s prose,

Orbitor

can be an overwhelming experience. Its dense, profound, visionary style may startle the reader not prepared for a text that is both “realist and dream-like, descriptive and hallucinatory, a Proustian novel of remembering and reclaiming things past, […] a meta-narrative of reading, […] and simultaneously an archaeology and anatomy of being” (Manolescu, back cover,

Orbitor.Aripa stîngă

). For those familiar with the author’s previous texts,

Orbitor

may appear like a re-writing, which illuminates through its grander scale and design, but also though re-contextualized repetition of earlier themes, imagery, and references. As the title,

Glaring

, promises, the text attempts to bring into full light, the glaring, absolute, total…

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2277 words

Citation: Guran, Letitia. "Orbitor, vol. 1". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 03 June 2010 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=30165, accessed 07 May 2024.]

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