Manea’s The Trenchcoat

Hi!

This week I’ll be reflecting on Norman Manea’s novella, The Trenchcoat. Right off the bat, I have to say that in order to truly understand this text, one must be able to read through the lines, which requires at some basic knowledge of Romanian history. While reading the text, I had little to no knowledge about Romanian history, therefore, making it extremely challenging to understand and leaving me quite confused. However, after watching Professor Jon’s lecture and reading some other students’ blog posts, gaining that extra general knowledge surrounding the history provided me with the context needed to draw conclusions and make connections within the text.

Having said all this, The Trenchcoat still ends with a huge question mark. Manea not only has us questioning the ending but also drawing our own conclusions as to what the trenchcoat truly symbolizes. Although at times, these types of endings leave me frustrated and annoyed that I didn’t receive the closure I wanted, I still appreciate the openness to interpretation as well as the reader–text interaction that comes with it. I find that Manea captures this perfectly, where throughout the text, there is a significant interaction between the reader and the novella. Specifically that the ambiguity and abstractness that the text encapsulates, in turn, invites the readers to constantly read between the lines and find hidden meanings about anything and everything –even the most mundane/”unexciting” parts. The biggest, most obvious one is the trenchcoat. Even after reading the novella –and I would assume even with copious knowledge of Romanian history– we as readers are left with a multitude of questions. Although we can make justified, educated guesses, there is still a level of uncertainty.

Another thing I noticed while reading the novella was the inconsistent addressing of names, or rather, at times, the lack of names where characters were instead referred to by their descriptions –eg. “The Kid”, “The Learned one” or “The Researcher” amongst others. For starters, this way of addressing the characters made it challenging to keep track of and identify who was who. There were often times when I would have to reread parts just to figure out who was being referred to. This may be a stretch, but I believe that this inconsistent and somewhat dehumanizing way (I know this isn’t necessarily dehumanizing, but it’s still stripping some humanity/power from the characters) of addressing the characters were meant to distract and inhibit readers from forming any connection with/to anyone. I reckon that aids in pivoting the reader’s attention to the symbolism behind the plot and focusing on the themes of fear and mistrust as mirrored by Romania’s history instead of getting attached to the plot itself. I find it interesting that Manea didn’t want to be seen as a ‘political writer’, as Professor Jon mentions in his lecture, since his novella seems to focus significantly on politics and highlight the extremely harsh reality of totalitarian systems.

Lastly, this week’s questions of the post are specifically directed to Manea: Given the symbolism and storyline of The Trenchcoat, in what ways did having lived under a communist regime yourself impact your writing? And did it bring forth any particular challenges (or potential benefits) throughout the writing process?

: )