G. IBRAILEANU, ADELA (ADÈLE) OU LES AFFINITÉS NON ÉLECTIVES
G. IBRAILEANU, ADELA OR NON-ELECTIVE AFFINITIES

Summary/Abstract: G. Ibrăileanu, Adela or non-elective affinities. Published in 1933, Adela is a novel concerned with the topic of ‘non-elective affinities’; it is the diary of a male character observing the changing outline of the female body undergoing transformation. It is also the novel of irreconciliable irrationality; the aspiring young student writing the diary falls in love. Standing before him is a girl, with the body of a child too young to be loved; the young girl becomes an adult. The doctor before her believes himself to be too old to be desired. While the companionship of others around them makes communication between the characters quite difficult, the young girl conveys herself through all that her body presents as means. In the attempt of reconciliation, what become involved are the moving body, its vigour or fragility, her head, her eyes, the colour of her hair, her skin and all the lines that can be noticed by the 40 year-old doctor. It is this section of the diary that we will displace, we will provide an inventory of those means of communication that, in fact, suggest the particular intelligence of either the male or female body. We argue that the act of reading the journal must be synchronised with a code decided upon only after the recognition of irreconciliability as reigning supreme in the framework of the narration.

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