The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

Solenoid by Mircea Cărtărescu, translated by Sean Cotter (Pushkin Press))

Solenoid, written by Mircea Cărtărescu and translated by Sean Cotter, submerges us in the mundane details of a diarist's life, and then spirals into a bizarre, existential account of history, philosophy and mathematics. Grounded in the reality of communist Romania, the novel grapples with frightening health care, the absurdities of the education system and the struggles of family life, while investigating other universes and forking paths.

Find out more about the International Booker 2025-longlisted book: https://thebookerprizes.com/the-booke...

Just started this and really enjoying it.

It’s clearly way too long but at the moment that seems to suit after a longlist of short books which only really seemed to have one idea each (even if almost always well expressed and explored).

It's a lot more accessible than the Orbitor trilogy - only one third of which has been translated into English.

A great review from 2022 from one of the shadow jury who read it in the original (which means she’s also read all three of the Orbitor/Blinding trilogy)

https://findingtimetowrite.wordpress....

"The greatest surrealist novel ever written", according to The Untranslated: https://theuntranslated.wordpress.com...

I really don’t know what to make of this

A lot if it is brilliant and it has more ideas than the entire rest of the longlist put together

But huge chunks should have been deleted - the surrealist parts were often way too long and the dream parts were self indulgent (the 3000 help!s part was actually more enjoyable to read and more integral to the plot than the dream diaries).

And the low level but persistent misogyny is not too my tastes.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "it has more ideas than the entire rest of the longlist put together"

It's longer or at least denser than the rest of the longlist put together!

Yes but I think it has more ideas in the 400 or so pages that should have been retained.

I am trying this on audiobook. I love the prose, but i made the wrong choice: I find myself falling asleep, and it doesn't really make any difference - I could simply go on without rewinding, I think. but I enjoy it a lot, and will be switching to a hardcopy. (maybe Electronic - books over 600 pages are just too heavy!)

I started in hard copy but I bought an ecopy also - more so I could quickly revisit the recurring images, incidents l, characters and ideas which are a key part of this spiral of a novel (spiral itself I think featuring nearly 50 times).

The one issue with this on the Booker is it's been out ages. I was very late to get to this but I still read it a year ago (actually to the day - finished on March 15, 2024) and many others will have read in 2022 or 2023. Would be an odd choice to win in that regard.

Yes and won a big (in prestige but not prize money) US prize in 2022

And a big (in prestige and in money) Irish prize in 2024 which is well known for picking up books 1-2 years late after all the other prizes have already got to them.

And with 200x the prize money.

Gumble's Yard - Golden Reviewer wrote: "I started in hard copy but I bought an ecopy also - more so I could quickly revisit the recurring images, incidents l, characters and ideas which are a key part of this spiral of a novel (spiral it..."

This is one of the main reason I strongly prefer ebooks, as I frequently use the search function. Plus, for multiple reasons, we no longer collect hard copies of books. My local, gigantic, warehouse type, used book store, will pay $1 for a longlisted book that I’ve had to order from Blackwells. Fortunately I have a few friends who are eager to read them first.

Anna wrote: "I am trying this on audiobook. I love the prose, but i made the wrong choice: I find myself falling asleep, and it doesn't really make any difference - I could simply go on without rewinding, I thi..."

I bought, but have not started, the audio book. It gets mostly positive reviews at Audible US and the length is not a negative for me. I listen during my daily walk, so I don’t think I will fall asleep!

Some idiot or bot has messed up the book editions for the Pushkin paperback - I think it has been merged incorrectly with an older edition. Which has also messed up the page count...

Hugh wrote: "Some idiot or bot has messed up the book editions for the Pushkin paperback - I think it has been merged incorrectly with an older edition. Which has also messed up the page count..."

I found the Pushkin Press edition by ISBN, it does have a separate entry among all other editions, but was missing all info about publisher, page count etc - I've fixed that. Does that help?

At the time of the longlist announcement there was a correct Pushkin edition woth a page count linked to all the others, and that was what I linked this discussion to. Some time earlier today the reviews and links to it got switched to a different older edition. This may have been done by the same bot thst created the new edition and failed to link it with the older editions. Either way it is annoying. My edition in currently reading also got changed and lost its page count. Bots are always messing things up and nobody ever tests them properly. Nobody in Amazon cares.

Weirdly the edition I was reading is back to normal today...

Hugh wrote: "Weirdly the edition I was reading is back to normal today..."

I checked out your profile and the edition you're reading is the one I fixed yesterday! It takes some time for the changes to actually show up in the system.

Hugh wrote: "Weirdly the edition I was reading is back to normal today..."

There is something appropriate about a weird transformation of this book - maybe it was all a dream Hugh.

Picked this up yesterday. The first two chapters were enjoyable enough (as someone who has been fighting a losing household battle with lice since November, I identified). My husband is a big fan of Cartarescu though he's always saying the trilogy is better than this.

I really wish it wasn't 600 pages though. I got the paperback which isn't all that heavy but as soon as you start reading the cover curls....

I mentioned this has been out some time

Hadn’t realised Snoopy reviewed it

https://x.com/_zeets/status/190165775...

Wrote it more like - it’s Charlie Brown reviewing it.

Blinding: Volume 1 is being published by Penguin in November this year. Does anyone know if other two volumes will follow?

Was not that translated into English and published a dozen years ago. I guess the question is more whether Sean Cotter has indicated he has started work on the translations

It was and is published by Archipelago in the USA. But then, for some reason, everything stopped. I vaguely remember there was a falling out between Cartarescu and the publisher or something. I suppose Penguin is having another go at the trilogy after the Archipelago failure. At least I hope so.

Two thirds in and I find it quite hard work. At times this (besides the obvious Kafka references) this actually makes me think of Stephen King, with kids inquiring into the real nature of reality and being cruelly treated by parents. Another similarity is how long it is. I have good hopes to finish this at least before the shortlist.