COLLECTIVE FAMILY & APOCALIPTIC ISOLATIONISM IN ALEXANDRU ECOVOIU's PROSE
COLLECTIVE FAMILY & APOCALIPTIC ISOLATIONISM IN ALEXANDRU ECOVOIU's PROSE

Summary/Abstract: All families inhabit a form of micro-utopia, just like societies imagine utopias in which happiness is never-ending. Problematizations arise from the adaequatio to the utopian setting. In his novel ”Ambitus” (2018), the Romanian writer Alexandru Ecovoiu presents a submersible utopia scenario: suddenly, all 'Vergons' become immortal. No one dies. The explanations for this paradoxical chaos come from all directions: religious, political, mystical, fictional. Nothing pleases Ecovoiu more than drawing the reader into the obscurity of short-circuited destinies of ʽchosen onesʼ (messengers or higher minds). But what if there are no ʽchosen onesʼ when the miracle devastates the order of reality? Dependent on reality and time, Ecovoiu's heroes are awaiting the breakthrough event with the last breath, and when it happens, everyone rushes in on the brink of madness. So they do in Vertigo, a small town in a fictional Empire. Somehow, eternity self-installs as a break and takes a break right in the middle of Vergons. Can someone imagine a meteor-like eternity? Is eternity installed here a simple transient phenomenon? Is it a disease or a curse? Maybe a blessing? But at the first thought of death, awakened with the eternity that challenges any dogma, reality surpasses the Vergons' ideal dream. ”Ambitus” tells the story of this metaphysical overcharge in a world abandoned to comfortable lucidity. Of course, since the novel is premised with such intrigues, any unfolding is possible.

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