The life and opinions of Zacharias Lichter / Matei Calinescu ; translated from the Romanian by Adriana Calinescu and Breon Mitchell ; introduction by Norman Manea.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Călinescu, Matei, author.

Contributor:

Calinescu, Adriana, 1941- translator.

Mitchell, Breon, translator.

Series:

New York Review Books classics

New York Review Books Classics

Standardized Title:

Viața și opiniile lui Zacharias Lichter. English

Language:

English

Romanian

Subjects (All):

Romanians--Fiction.

Romanians.

Genre:

Biographical fiction.

Fiction.

Historical fiction.

Novels.

Physical Description:

xiv, 145 pages ; 21 cm.

Place of Publication:

New York : New York Review Books, [2018]

Summary:

Ugly, unkempt, a haunter of low dives who begs for a living and lives on the street, Zacharias Lichter exists for all that in a state of unlikely rapture. After being engulted by a divine flame as a teenager, Zacharias has devoted his days to doing nothing at all-apart, that is, from composing the odd poem he immediately throws away and consorting with a handful of stray friends: Poldy, for example, the catatonic alcoholic whom Zacharias considers a brilliant philosopher, or another more vigorous barfly whose prolific output of pornographic verses has won him the nickname of the Poet. Zacharias is a kind of holy fool, but one whose foolery calls in question both social convention and conventional wisdom. He is as much skeptic as ecstatic, affirming above all the truth of perplexity. This of course is what makes him a permanent outrage to the powers that be, be they reactionary or revolutionary, and to all other self-appointed champions of morality who are blind to their own absurdity. The only thing that scares Zacharias is that all-purpose servant of conformity, the psychiatrist. This Romanian classic, originally published under the brutally dictatorial Ceausescu regime, whose censors initially let it pass because they couldn't make head or tail of it, is as delicious and telling an assault on the modern world order as ever. Book jacket.

Contents:

The Life and Opinions of Zacharias Lichter

Portrait 3

On God's Flame 6

On the Stages of the Spiritual 8

From the Poems of Zacharias Lichter 12

On the Book of Job 14

On Courage 17

On the Realm of Stupidity 20

Begging 22

Existence and Possession 24

Regarding the Devil 30

De Amicitia 32

From the Poems of Zacharias Lichter 36

On Women 37

The Revelations of Begging 39

On Children 44

On Poetry 47

Responsibility and Freedom 49

On One Form of Divine Wrath 51

On Travel 54

From the Poems of Zacharias Lichter 56

The Crime of "Analysis" 57

On Suicide 60

On Comfort 64

On Mathematical Language 69

A Poem Tossed into the Trash Bin of a Public Garden by Zacharias Lichter and Retrieved by His Biographer 73

On Old People 74

On Saying and Writing 79

On the Meaning of Love 85

The Wandering Jew 87

The Metaphysics of Laughter 89

Legends 91

On Reticence 97

Again on "Analysis" 102

The Significance of the Mask 107

On Haste 109

From the Poems of Zacharias Lichter 111

On Illness 112

On Mirrors 118

Innocence and Guilt 120

On Self-Indulgence 123

On Lying 126

Eulogy of the Question 128

On Imagination 131

The Moral Law 139

From the Poems of Zacharias Lichter 141.

Other Format:

Online version: Călinescu, Matei author. Life and opinions of Zacharias Lichter.

ISBN:

9781681371955

1681371952

OCLC:

990117330