The thing about this novel that really fascinated me is how a story can revolve around something as simple as a trenchoat in midst of the Romanian World War II. The story focuses less on the war (compared to) but works with monotony, boredom, repetition and habit. “The Trenchcoat,” becomes more than just an article of […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with books, fiction, norman manea, reviews, romanian world war 2, The Trenchcoat, writing
Seemingly becoming a trend, I again feel very neutral about this book. When I finished reading, all I thought was “okay, I guess that’s it,” and not much else. I chose this book this week because I am interested in the Cold War and the Soviet Bloc countries during this time period. I think this […]
Posted in Blogs, Manea | Tagged with communism, control, fear, norman manea, surveillance, The Trenchcoat, trenchcoat
Hearing from Professor Manea himself was a true honour. Such a deeply personal insight into the book through the lens of the author and his experience. After hearing about his life, about totalitarian Romania, about his exodus, it all made The Trenchcoat much clearer. I have to say though, even after knowing more about the […]
Posted in Blogs, Manea | Tagged with norman manea, trenchcoat
blog#9 – the Object of Anxiety — I’ll admit that I am not very good at remembering character’s names when reading, especially during the part I have to read in dialogue. But in this book, many characters have a kind of tic or catchphrase that they say which I thought was really interesting. Whatever their […]
Posted in Blogs, Manea | Tagged with anxiety, Compulsory Happiness, norman manea, object, perspective, Romania, time
It was starting the bat with this week’s reading, the trench coat. I found it exciting but quite challenging to…
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with BlogEntry, norman manea, Weekly Blog Entry
At our last class, Professor lightly hinted that I often overanalyze texts to find a deeper meaning that perhaps might not exist so I carried this with me in the reading of this text. Without the lecture as a precursor, this text was nearly incomprehensible with a familiarity necessary to understanding the setting of the […]
Posted in Blogs | Tagged with anguish, answers, anxiety, communism, norman manea, panic, politics, Symbolism, unclear, upperclass
“What, what the… what the hell is it with that raincoat?” (p.253) This story made much more sense when the context is explained in the lecture. I read the initial part blind and found myself thoroughly confused but also very tense and intrigued (in a good way); it conveyed an unnatural feeling that something […]
Posted in Blogs, Manea | Tagged with allegory, censorship, communism, metaphor, narrative, norman manea, tension
