The Romanian: Story of an Obsession

Benderson, Bruce, "The Romanian: Story of an Obsession", Tarcher/ Penguin, 2006. An Intellectual Triumph Amos Lassen and Literary Pride If you are in the mood for a serous book that will indeed make you think, pick up a copy of Bruce Benderson's "The Romanian: Story of an Obsession" and I can promise you that you will not be disappointed. I knew nothing about it and the more I read the more surprised I became and the more I loved this book. Written as a memoir, it is really more of a mystery. It s one thing to go down the wrong road but it is something else when you knowingly do so. The book is honest (sometimes too much so) and realistic (because it really happened). Anyone who has ever loved a person or a place with pain and obsessed, fantasized, felt not at home, or thought about the concepts of history and fate will have a pleasurable read. Benderson takes Romanian history and enmeshes it with the love story of a forbidden hustler. Benderson's obsession with a Romanian rent boy parallels the scandal of a royal family and in doing so takes us with beautiful insight into the modern perspective. Benderson has created a whole new form of travel memoir with this book. He transforms his obsessions to matters for the intellect and we get a psycho-sexual soap opera where danger and truth hide in run down hotels, dim cul-de-sacs and unknown foreign landscapes. The titillation he could have provided his readers by writing this as a soft-core porn novel is instead relates as depraved, masochistic luminous and comical story. There is no hint of redemption and no patented wisdom. The style of the author is depressing and decadent and seems to be infused with mind altering drugs but this is what makes this book so great. Benderson is at times self-indulgent but we never lose interest. It seemed to me that the author was trying to exorcise some of his guilt feelings about exploiting a young hustler but this is not really of importance as we see when the book draws to a close. Everything is just dirty and the man brought about his own fate. Benderson felt that his mother had suffocated him emotionally and it is through this knowledge and his relationship with a young man that he begins to realize that everyone of us carries some kind of flaw and that above all, we are human. In learning this, the book shocks us into the reality of the way we live and we start to search within ourselves. Benderson shocks us out of any preconceived notions we may have about the nature of sexuality and we learn that we are mainly responsible for our undoing. The layers of the book are plentiful as past and present intertwine and the passion of Benderson becomes the passion of the person reading his book. The language is beautiful and the way three different themes are bound together is nothing short of amazing. The descriptions are lush and I bet that Romania has never looked so good before. Benderson uses his beautiful narrative to tell us of things that should ordinar

I am straight and was wonderfully surprised how "The Romanian" depicted facets of my own love life and how Benderson's relationship with his mother was similar --the same suffocating control and tenderness. Benderson jolts us right out of our outdated heterosexual and homosexual bourgeois notions. Whether it is his mother or a shameful street hustler, Benderson is only too aware that we are all flawed; that we are only all too human. A shocker for sure but almost right from the beginning, we stop judging and start to search, along with Benderson, deep into our own souls. "The Romanians," multi- layered intertwines the past with and present in such a brilliant way that we not only learn something about ourselves but also about several cultures. A smart director like Paul VERHOEVEN or TARANTINO would be smart to snatch up the rights.

While I may like this book partly because I know its main locale, anyone who has ever loved a person or a place with pain, obsessed, fantasized, felt exiled, or contemplated history and fate, will find this a fascinating read.

I just finished reading The Romanian, after a 4-day marathon of more or less non-stop reading. It is going to remain on my desk for a while, as I intend to re-read and re-savor it. In addition to the vibrant telling and the always lush use of language, what's most impressive about The Romanian is Benderson's fluid and seemingly effortless fusion/synthesizing of the three major narratives that run through the book: Benderson's relationship with Romulus (in Romania and Hungary), with his ailing, 93-year-old mother in NY - who is as feisty and explosive as her son - and, as a background to these, the hovering majestic figure of King Carol and his relationship with his mother and his Jewish mistress; luscious descriptions of the Romanian capital and countryside are the bonus here. Benderson is an exciting and passionate author, and his excitement and passion inevitably become the excitement and passion of the reader - at least this reader. The French have given Benderson one of their most prestigious literary awards - the Prix de Flore (Benderson is the first American to win it). Hopefully, the American literary establishment will soon follow suit.

Few projects can sound less promising than a 400-page chronicle of a pudgy middle-aged Jew's erotic obsession with a scraggly Romanian hustler, but Bruce Benderson has written a minor classic. What so easily might have been pretentious soft-core sociology intent on justifying its author and titillating its readers has been transformed into a tale that is by turn comically masochistic, depraved, psychologically lacerating and finally luminous. There's no redemptive arc, no gratuitous groveling or ersatz wisdom. Benderson's honesty and deeply civilized, codeine-infused, depressed and decadent style lift this book echelons above the usual run of memoir.