“Short, savory,… a brief but exquisite pleasure.” (202)

This book felt just like this quote. However, I feel like there’s a lot in this book that went over my head. For the first half, I was just trying to keep up with who was married to who and who all these random mysterious characters were (the kid, the learned one, the researcher, etc…) until I pieced together that they were all one. I might need to start watching the lectures before reading the books now haha! However, there’s something quite fun about reading a book and having no idea what’s going on until after I finish… allowing me to form my own wild ideas before discovering perhaps what’s actually going on.

First of said ideas was that I was curious about the subtle discussion of Jewishness. Perhaps it didn’t read as subtle for others, but to me, I thought it was rather brushed over. I can tell this is how Manea treated many aspects in this book—just casually mentioning large themes/motifs (or not at all) for the reader to pick up on their own. Personally, this setting made me connect a lot more to this story, as much of my family is Ashkenazi Jew and fled from various parts of Eastern Europe to immigrate to America. However, they fled far before World War ll, so it was interesting to see in this book how life may have been similar for my grandparents if they had stayed (not identical as they were not Romanian… but still). (Random side note: it made me laugh when they were talking about violinists at the beginning and how it wouldn’t matter what their nationality is so long as they are of Odessa Jew origin. I am not sure why but it reminded me of a story my grandma tells of my great-grandfather who was a well known (according to her) violinist back in Russia before he fled to America. Apparently he played for the Tsar? Wish I could fact-check this right now but it is far too late where my grandma lives. Anyway, the joke is that when he moved to America he lost all of his skills (but what actually happened is he just had to take on a new profession and got busy starting a family)). Wow, okay, I rambled on longer than the Kid did to Dina on the phone.

Speaking of Dina, I was a little suspicious about her. It almost seemed like the trenchcoat was something she made up as an excuse to see the other couples more/to prove an excuse to talk to them. I realized later that this is likely not the case, but as this has been a topic of discussion about previous works, I was curious if the trenchcoat was even real at all. For example, we discussed in Nadja if she herself was even real. I thought, could this just be a figment of Dina’s imagination? Or rather, could she be aware of its non-existence but just wanting something new and exciting to discuss so that her “friends” may think she is interesting for once. However, if that were the case—I have no idea why she would have made up a lie as simple as a left-behind coat. 

Anyways, after sharing my own rambles, I’d love to hear some of yours. What are some random thoughts/connections you had or theories that formed while reading that you later discredited (or realized to be still plausible)?