Andrei Pleșu, Dilema.ro: Again and again Caragiale (relevant reprise)

When I get bored or feel down, or fall into depression, or I feel like leaving everything behind (which happens to me daily, since I browse newspapers), I save myself – or at least keep myself afloat – by browsing the writings of Nenea Iancu. A true national vitamin, a brave, realistic, unpretentious man, full of humor, of redeeming relativism, and of a healthy melancholy… That I did not have the luck to be his contemporary, to be around him, to drink with him a few pints or a few bottles of good wine is, I believe, the great misfortune of my life.

Recently, I therapeutically rediscovered a few passages that I offer, Christianly, to the readers of this column.

About the eternal "political society" of our country: "Here we have today nothing but a growing, more and more mixed and heterogeneous crowd. This crowd of influx, which changes its appearance every day, which has no needs above the individual ones, which cannot have a tradition, and therefore, in no circumstance a unity of thought and feeling, is far from what is understood by the words 'society of the settled'. This world resembles a vast fair, where everything is improvised, everything is transient, nothing is truly established, nothing durable. In fairs, flimsy shacks are raised, for a very limited time, not durable monuments that would remain and serve others besides those who built them." (1896)

Or, on the same theme: "…In justice, the people have no trust; it has, thus, authority, but no prestige; and among this justice without prestige and the skeptical people, there unfolds the formidable and excessively numerous class of lawyers – the most prosperous in Romania after the great landlords. Lawyers constitute the bulk of the intellectuals; their class is the great nursery of State men. Thus is recruited the oligarchy that rules Romanian land. It is not an oligarchy even stable, of historical tradition, of bravery, of moral obligations, of nobility, or of merits; it is a mutable oligarchy, of perpetual change, accessible to anyone through unmerit, through lottery, through adventure. Great audacity, devoid of any scruples, renunciation of personal dignity, of family honor, infamy even, if necessary, and a little luck – and the brilliant career is ready." (1907)

About a minimal hygiene of the press: "Honor and grammar, these are the first conditions of a good press."

A formidable anticipation of virtual "communication", of borderless blogging, of insomniac "socializing": "For a Romanian who knows how to read, the hardest thing is not to write."

Beyond the countless texts with references (the eternal "actuality" of Caragiale), there are also samples of simple humor that is both entertaining and prophetic of avant-garde boldness.

1) Ironic humor, with an eye on the self-inflated literary pretenders: "On a summer afternoon, Mr. Găvănescu had the bad inspiration to live with a novella. It was a novella in the style of the time, with Gheorghe and Simina who loved each other in the field, dancing the hora... The reading began. Caragiale, for a while, took off his coat. Then the vest. Then the collar (the author always read: 'And Gheorghe like this and beyond, when he saw Simina...'). And leaving himself quite well on all fours, Caragiale thus avoided the author's ugly chair, and stopping in front of him and raising only his head, a terrible mask: 'Assassin, stop! he said with a thundering voice to the author. Do you intend to kill us all?'" (scene narrated by Octavian Goga)

2) Surrealist plunge, worthy of the taste of the local and European avant-garde. Oneiric improvisation (also narrated by Octavian Goga): "At Rășinari, on a moonlit night, we admired the horizon cut by a rugged peak. And then Nenea Iancu felt a desire that contrasted the two extremes within him: 'You see, it would be sublime now, like this, with everyone in their birthday suits here, and a piano, and Beethoven!'"

What a man! What an extraordinary mix of supreme normality, euphoric imagination, genius of farce and fascination of the immediate! Aferim, Nenea Iancule! With people like you around, even agony becomes bearable.

https://www.dilema.ro/situatiunea/iarasi-si-iarasi-caragiale-reluare-de-actualitate