THE KING VERSUS THE IDEAL OF FAMILY IN FILIP FLORIAN' S NOVELS
THE KING VERSUS THE IDEAL OF FAMILY IN FILIP FLORIAN' S NOVELS

Summary/Abstract: The novel "Zilele regelui" (2008) by Filip Florian excels in representing a two-fold reality. On one hand, the king as a fictional character, inspired by a real monarch, must have something hidden, something invisible in the eyes of the subject. The king linked in a subterraneous way with Joseph's mother and sister (although they have never met) is part of the dentist's secret. So the king must have a secret, just like anybody else. On the other hand, the king is the sovereign. His historical role will be to tame the chaos and political uncertainty and bring the order of stable institutions into it. A voyage into an unknown territory will push his life on a different trajectory, accompanied by his personal dentist, Joseph Strauss. The king is also the myth of the king. This aspect is a well deserved prize for Carol I of Romania after withstanding the tribulation of the opposing forces, namely of the political personalities (ready to overthrow him). In parallel, tomcat Siegfried's last days allude to the end of a time in which the unsublimated male instinct prevails. This old self of youth years must die, symbolically, for the dual protagonist, to make room for a new stage of personality. It is the cost of shedding an old skin. In Florian's 2012 novel "Toate bufnițele" (All the Owls), fiction is the realm of making history look like a defeat-able dimension. Imagination must win. Memory becomes the strongest ally of imagination. A 60-year-old and a 12-year-old (re)discover together how imagination is a memory that is heedless of the hold of history.

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