Zenobia by Gellu Naum, Romanian Surrealist, just published
James Brook
Just published by Northwestern University Press--
ZENOBIA
Gellu Naum
Translated by James Brook and Sasha Vlad
Neither memoir ("I could give a damn about memories," Naum once said)
nor novel (which Naum declares he would abhor "perpetrating"), Zenobia
is the evocation of the singular quest of a Surrealist knight-errant
who strives to be true to the gentle demands of his lady in a landscape
of snares, desolation, incipient madness, and material poverty
magically interrupted by moments of extreme beauty. Gellu Naum presents
a narrative of self-discovery and revelation: love, in all its
intimate, carnal communion, lights the path through the dark forest,
the streets of Bucharest, and the desert swamps.
In Zenobia, all that is good emanates from the prefigured life--the
poetic life, enemy of the systematic, rationalist routines of
existence, including those associated with "litherature" and
"culthure," to employ Naum's own disparaging orthography. And like
Dante's Beatrice and Andre Breton's Nadja, Zenobia points the way out
of error. She consoles the narrator--who is equivocal about being
called "Naum"--and soothes his rage and frustration. And he, speaking
from the depths of his love and despair, generously invites the reader
to share in his quest: "I waited for spring to set in so I could take
Zenobia to that wild and tender world, indifferent to destruction,
guided along the precipice by the butterfly, which was the very image,
I now saw clearly, of Zenobia's smile and whispers."
Gellu Naum (born 1915 in Bucharest) was a central figure in Romanian
Surrealism before the Second World War. Closely linked with the painter
Victor Brauner, Naum collaborated with Jacques Herold, Gherasim Luca,
Paul Paun, Trost, and Perahim, among others, in pursuing the Surrealist
adventure in Paris and Bucharest. At the beginning of the war, Naum
settled in Romania, only to find Surrealist activities driven
underground by the fascist regime. At war's end, a Surrealist group
emerged and flourished briefly before its suppression by the Stalinist
authorities; Naum published several books of poems in this period,
including the first book of poems published in Romania after the war,
The Corridor of Sleep. In 1947 Naum's The White of the Bone was
rejected by the censors, and for the next twenty years Naum was
permitted to publish only children's books and translations. Since 1967
many new books have appeared, including Zenobia in 1985.
James Brook is a poet and translator living in San Francisco. He has
translated works by Guy Debord, Benjamin Peret, Alberto Savinio, Victor
Serge, and Gellu Naum (My Tired Father). He edited, with Iain A. Boal,
Resisting the Virtual Life: The Culture and Politics of Information
(City Lights 1995). Sasha Vlad is a translator and visual artist living
in San Francisco; his translations include works by Dan Stanciu and
Gellu Naum ("The Advantage of Vertebrae").
Zenobia 0-8101-1255-8 (paper) $14.95 / 0-8101-1254-X (cloth) $39.95
(July 1995) Order from your local bookseller or from: Northwestern
University Press, Chicago Distribution Center, 11030 South Langley
Avenue, Chicago, IL 60628. Phone: 1-800-621-2736. Fax: 1-800-621-8476.
Add $3.50 shipping and handling for first book, $.75 for each
additional book.