Mircea Cartarescu Theodoros Site

Of all the impossible cartographies etched into Mircea Cărtărescu’s skull, the most persistent was that of a city that did not exist. Bucharest, his beloved, monstrous, spectral Bucharest, had for decades fed him its dreams through the keyhole of sleep. But tonight, as the November fog lacquered the streets of Dorobanți, a different map unfurled behind his eyes: a labyrinth of salt-white stairs and Byzantine cisterns, and at its center, a man named Theodoros.

He is a worm , Cărtărescu thought, waking in his armchair, a half-drunk glass of ouzo sweating on the side table. A worm chewing through the apple of my brain. mircea cartarescu theodoros

Outside, the fog lifted. Bucharest stretched its thousand cracked bones. And somewhere in the negative space between a sigh and a sentence, Mircea Cărtărescu and Theodoros walked together through a city that had never been built, constructing it with every step. Of all the impossible cartographies etched into Mircea

He was smaller than in the dreams, no taller than a child, but dense as a neutron star. His chlamys was now a coat of woven eyelashes—whose eyelashes, Cărtărescu could not say. He carried no scroll this time. Instead, he held a single object: a mirror the size of a playing card. He is a worm , Cărtărescu thought, waking