Ears

Lehel Vandor

Average Rating 9/10 (1 Review)

Ears, too many of them, catching any accidental voicing of free thought... The tragicomedy of spraying trees with green paint during the Leader's visits... The deadly denial of the existence of serious 'imperialist' diseases... Three hours of TV broadcasts per day, food rationing, power cuts...

Then, the Romanian Revolution of 1989, which replaced communism with democracy, artificial stability with chaos, external threats with internal tensions, power with corruption, religion with greed... and one dread with many fears.

It is a personal journey of a Transylvanian Hungarian ethnic child of Ceausescu's dark '70s, a teenager during the suffocating Romanian '80s, a student during the surreal '90s and an emigrant of recent years.

His journey from a world that Kafka imagined, but Ceausescu created, to a society that still fights with numerous ghosts also reveals unexpected parallels between that past totalitarianism and the disturbing transformations of his recently adopted home.

Review by Levente Toth (080309) Rating (9/10)

Review by Levente Toth
Rating 9/10
There are a number of aspects that are immediately noticeable whilst reading this quite unique memoir. I do use the word unique, because after many desiccated accounts of various dictatorships, it is truly refreshing to read something that combines the memories of a child's personal experiences with the subtle humour of the reminiscing adult, genuine literary craftsmanship, a gentle lyrical tone of remarkable restraint even when writing about everyday experiences we can't even imagine to live through once.

To quote part of the synopsis, "It is a personal journey of a Transylvanian Hungarian ethnic child of Ceausescu's dark '70s, a teenager during the suffocating Romanian '80s, a student during the surreal '90s and an emigrant of recent years. His journey from a world that Kafka imagined, but Ceausescu created, to a society that still fights with numerous ghosts also reveals unexpected parallels between that past totalitarianism and the disturbing transformations of his recently adopted home"

On the other hand, it is not just a memoir of years spent during an infamous totalitarian regime - it is also a sensitive and deeply observant description of what came after the Romanian Revolution of 1989. The tableau of a society going through the most disorienting tectonic shifts, seen from 'street level', are simply remarkable.

What is novel for what seems to be 'just' a memoir, is that in the final chapters there are revelatory parallels drawn between the author's former and his later adopted home.

Whether the dumbing down and exquisite propaganda tactics are used by a communist dictator or, years and miles apart, a free democratic country's government seeing itself in the second line of a so-called 'War on Terror', it becomes evident: the context and details may differ in certain methods used by radically different powers, but the essence and intent of those classic methods can be remarkably similar.

This is a memoir of someone who not only hasn't taken for granted what his past and present homeland has offered to (and/or forced upon) him, but also, despite all the fast and slow traumas, kept a fascinatingly clear analytical eye for the very different worlds he experienced.
Levente Toth (8th March 2009)