MATEI VIŞNIEC – A TIME CAROUSEL ON THE BRIDGE OF AVIGNON
MATEI VISNIEC – A TIME CAROUSEL ON THE BRIDGE OF AVIGNON

Summary/Abstract: Matei Visniec’s novel Iubirile de tip pantof. Iubirile de tip umbrelă...(Shoe type Loves, Umbrella type Loves...) published in 2016 refers to two typologies of the couple. Shoe type loves are the couples that do not seem to be too in love at the beginning, but have solid relationships. Umbrella type loves have the intensity and the turmoil of a love like no other. The shoe type people have the vocation of construction, the umbrella type people have the vocation of the abyss. The moment when Visniec discovers an abandoned fountain near Bucharest (an autobiographical episode) is connected to a marathon night of story-telling in an Avignon Festival performance. Characters appear in pairs, like in a popular dance, creating a carousel. The novel is set in the ethos of theatre, of Avignon Theatre Festival, in Provence and in a circus world. Iubirile ... contains many autobiographical scenes and references to Visniec’s other novels. Kaplan, the stage director, has a committed Kafkian destiny. The stage director of Pockets Full of Bread (a play written by Visniec), an "alchemist of the spirit," he infuses the life of the novel with his transubstantiation of a complete devotion to theatre, turning himself into an artist of hunger, in Kafka’s terms (Ein Hungerkünstler). He tames subconscious fears enacted by The Animal that Perfectly Resembles Man, who holds a mirror to man’s progress. As a bridge builder and as a theatre lab mentor, Kaplan involves the readers into continuing the story even after his death. The readers may realize that the whole novel was just a journey from a dead man (Mihai) to another (Kaplan), through the ritual of the theatre.

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