Living Life in Reverse and the Perfection of Joseph Roth
So much of what I see and experience in Romania recalls a history that for Americans is difficult to fathom. The invasions, the wars, the peasants, the kings, the culture, the decay, the refinement.
Just by walking the streets of Bucharest and driving the hills and mountains to the north, I conjure a romanticized version of this diverse and rich past without any great difficulty. Indeed, much of that time seems yet to remain. Poverty, though unwelcome, keeps the cities unpolished and the villages unkempt so that this past still lives on with relics brought forward to the present in ways no longer found in more prosperous, updated, and repainted nations. (more…)