THANATIC OBSESSION IN THE „FRAGMENTS” OF ANTON HOLBAN Cover Image

THANATIC OBSESSION IN THE „FRAGMENTS” OF ANTON HOLBAN
THANATIC OBSESSION IN THE „FRAGMENTS” OF ANTON HOLBAN

Author(s): Adelina Lascu
Subject(s): Romanian Literature, Theory of Literature
Published by: Editura Arhipelag XXI
Keywords: obsession; death; analysis; love; existences;

Summary/Abstract: The Concern about the issue of death is continued by Anton Holban with the same intensity in the sketches or the short stories. Clearly acknowledging the supremacy of small-scale prose, preferring the term "fragments" instead of short-stories , as the latter would involve various combinations that could give the impression of artifice, Anton Holban is the creator of true masterpieces of the genre that perfect his work. Most "fragments" are for the author a way of extending some of the themes approached in the novels, allowing him to focus his attention and analysis on a single theme. In the continuation of the novels, relying on the idea that an author's books influence each other, as was the case in Marcel Proust's work, Holban extends the existence of Sandu and even that of Irina in some short stories: Conversations with a Dead, Icons at the Tomb of Irina, Tourments, Hallucinations, Rica, Lidia Miras, The Obsesion of a Death, Colonel Iarca, Grandma is preparing to die and Two Faces of the same Landscape, published a few days after the death of the author. Not less than eight small writings resulted from the obsession of love or the alleged love of Sandu for Irina who, shortly after leaving the protagonist, fatality or premeditated, died in Sinaia. The eros that troubled him to torture the hero intertwines with the Thanatos, resulting in magnificent psychological analysis pages of a soul oscillating between life and death.

  • Issue Year: 2017
  • Issue No: 11
  • Page Range: 438-446
  • Page Count: 9
  • Language: Romanian