Ultima noapte de dragoste, întâia noapte de război (Volumul II) by Camil Petrescu

Ultima noapte de dragoste, întâia noapte de război (Volumul II) Reviews

• 
  MihaElla

  This book had to be written. Big Thank You to its author!
  
  Odd stuff for me to start with the end, meaning volume II, moreover that, as my eyes rested on first page of volume II, I had felt like I wouldn't like what I was to read for the next one hundred and so pages. I could blame this impression on an old prejudice I had against this writer. The Romanian language and literature professor I had in high school stamped on my mind a disturbing memory about him, although now I cannot recall what it was all about. I suspect that he himself did not like him (at all), so in his lectures he used to convey his own, personal reflections, as very solid evidence that the author is not to be liked or pleasant. I wish I hadn’t been so impressionable, yet I had trusted him and so I had lost reading some valuable book(s) once upon a time. Mea culpa!
  
  What a lively paradox between these two books, with a title that indicates clearly that each will talk extensively about a different subject. Volume I ‘The last night of love’ is in fact the end of a passionate and, initially great, love affair, of a marriage (soulfully) and as it’s known (in real life especially) that after love the war starts, surprisingly, the volume II ‘The first night of war’ tells us that it’s not about a ‘classic’ war between ex-lovers, husband and wife, but it’s indeed about a real war, sometime in 1916 when The (old) Kingdom of Romania eventually entered WWI…
  
  Having finished the novel, I had realized at once why I would rate higher volume II, though I was impressed greatly with both. The second part of the novel which begins with the first night of war, is built after the author's WWI own memorial, borrowed in tiny details to his hero Stefan Gheorghidiu, now a second lieutenant, while in his civil life a professor of philosophy. In a note written 25 years later, the author clarified that the first part of the novel is a fictitious tale, an invention of an author who was neither married nor had a family at that time. I didn’t know about it before I read Volume I, therefore I was convinced that things were like that. I was shocked later to learn that the happenings that occurred to his hero Stefan G. (middle-class educated, young handsome man, initially poor but soon to fall under a fortune by getting into an inheritance from his misery uncle) and his wife Ela (which in fact didn’t exist at all) are pure fiction. And the greater news was that the novel should have been continued with volume III, sadly, wasn’t written at all.
  
  It looks that the author himself had very strong, deeply felt convictions, publicly too (by writing articles in newspapers and gazettes), about how things (politics, authorities, society, economy, etc) should be handled in a state that should look after all its citizens, and not just a part of them, and especially he had a long lasting ‘battle’ with bourgeoisie, overall…
  
  It is an awfully 'nouveau riche' settled bourgeoisie, in which the aristocratic lusts are still boiling. Her lack of scruples is frightening. The hatred it provokes in intellectuals is terrible. See Eminescu's satires and Caragiale's plays. […] It is no wonder, then, that the Romanian army was sacrificed to class interests and taken un-commanded and unequipped to one of the most categorical national catastrophes (* the novel was written in 1930). Bourgeois nationalism reveals itself inferior to the class spirit and we can say that none of the classes of the Romanian people has so little sense of true patriotism as this bourgeoisie that fights nationally with fists in its chest and operates in the name of holy principles...
  
  Together with the pulsations of life and love, the author reveals in this novel the 'law suit' aimed at the lifestyle of the bourgeoisie, it dissects its mentality, its fierce spirit of the class violently in solidarity when it comes to material interests, its parasitism that consumed the substance of the state…
  In just two words, The last night of love, is the passionate confession of a jealous man, though he was right eventually... Apparently, a very ordinary middle-class history, and yet it is not trivial at all. There is a very high degree of uncertainty about the events and the psychology of the characters... (I should write more on Volume I..).
  The first night of war, is a real front diary. Stefan G. parted with his wife Ela, with his whole past as he himself said, and was on the front, in the first line, somewhere between Campulung-Muscel and Bran, a mountain road, which he crosses several times. (Camil Petrescu himself participated in this phase of the war between 1916 and 1918, losing his hearing due to blasts of artillery ...)
  The idea that resonates out of these pages is that war means neither bloody bayonet battles nor mountains of corpses, but much simpler and more human things in the daily life of military officers and soldiers, who speak all sorts of trivial stuff when together at meals, suffer from awful stomach aches or extreme cold and, quite often, they die shattered by bombshells. Nonetheless, the war is no less dreadful and the novelist considers that the horrible should not be sought in the exceptional side of reality, but in the ordinary side too.
  
  Romanian bayonets are a match for any cannon...
  
  What was horror to read in this second book was to clearly understand how unprepared the Romanian army was. Everything looks like a really ‘bad joke’. There was not enough weaponry, and they were still using bayonet, that was used during 1888! During their earlier talks it looks they had no idea how to fight a war, and on later stages of war development, it shows that the officers had no idea about strategy or tactics. It is no wonder that when they met in battle the Germans, who had the heavy equipment and knew how to fight, they had to retreat and in a logical way, it could end only one way, as history tells us that an armistice was signed by end of 1917...
• 
  Natalia

  huh...însfârșit am terminat-o.
  
  „Drama războiului nu e numai amenințarea continuă a morții, măcelul și foamea, cât această permanentă verificare sufletească, acest continuu conflict al eului tău, care cunoaște altfel ceea ce cunoștea într-un anumit fel.” -p.104
  
  „Între noi e o prietenie definitivă ca viața și ca moartea. Și totuși încerc un sentiment ciudat. Mi-e imposibil să îi pun vreo întrebare despre viața lui de familie. Îl cunosc cum nu l-a cunoscut nici mama lui - căci numai acolo, în fața morții și a cerului înalt, poți cunoaște oamenii - dar nu știu absolut nimic despre el. Și nici despre vreun alt camarad al meu.” (Gheorghidiu despre Orișan) -p.122
• 
  Maia

  “Drama războiului nu e numai ameninţarea continuă a morţii, măcelul şi foamea, cât această permanentă verificare sufletească, acest continuu conflict al eului tău, care cunoaşte altfel ceea ce cunoştea într-un anumit fel.”
  
  m-am cam plictisit
• 
  Anna (the.bookwiitch)

  E gata.. nu știu cum mă simt.
  Mi a plăcut, dar nu la fel de mult ca primul.
• 
  squirtle

  Recunosc că am citit aproape în zigzag pasajele despre război, încurcam până și numele personajelor de la atâta confuzie. Oh well, at least it's over.
• 
  I'm Daria

  3,5⭐️
  
  "I-am scris că-i las absolut tot ce e în casă, de la obiecte de preț la cărţi... de la lucruri personale, la amintiri. *Adică tot trecutul*."
• 
  iedu

  tarfa dracului
• 
  Amelia Asiminei

  la inceput nu prea m a dat pe spate, nu ma asteptam sa mi placa dar pana la urma a fost super ok, fain plotul si personajele 🫶🫶🫶
• 
  Hana

  Mi-a plăcut cum e scrisă cartea , descrierile , chiar si pasaje … , dar nu îl pot înțelege in totalitate pe protagonist , Ștefan Ghiorghidiu … îi înțelegeam sentimentele din preajma războiului , dar nu am putut sa înțeleg toate acțiunile lui față de Ela , care el ca om superior , ce studia filosofia și făcea față războiului a morții a pericolului , nu știa să treacă peste ceva banal , sau poate ceea ce ar fi numit chiar el o etapă . Mai bine ar fi donat toată aceea avere sau chiar nu știu , o păstra pentru însuși dacă ar fi supraviețuit in continuare … dar ultima lui fapta nu mi-a sa părut una eroica , sau dulce , sau a omului superior ci a celui ce sa lasă tocmai de aceea onoare neexistentă păcălit . El care știa ca trăiește intr-o lume a împrejurărilor , una rece .
• 
  Victor :P

  A fost bine scrisa si indetaliata dar nu pot relata cu o poveste de razboi fiindca nu am luat parte la nici un razboi lol
• 
  Bianca Andreea

  1🌟
  
  AMIN AM TERMINAT-O.
  NU MAI VREAU SĂ AM DE-A FACE CU EA IN VIATA MEA!!!!!!
• 
  Adri

  Când credeam ca povestea nu mai poate deveni mai rea
  Apare partea a doua
• 
  Lara

  Cea mai captivantă carte de bac pe care am citit-o până acum. Felul in care sunt descrise bătăliile și banalitățile din avanposturi conturează, pe de-o parte, dura realitate a războiului, dar și oamenii din spatele soldaților.
  
  CA SA NU MAI SPUN DE FINAAAAL. Domnule Camil Petrescu, meritați hype-ul.
• 
  Larisa

  41% dnf for now
• 
  Dana

  🤎 Prima carte bună pe care am fost nevoită sa o citesc pentru română. Consider totuși că poate fi prea devreme clasa a zecea pentru citirea acestui roman, deoarece ca să te afunzi complet în mintea personajului-narator ai nevoie de o experiență de viata amoroasa personală, focusul cărții fiind pe relatia de dragoste dintre Ștefan si Ella si sentimentele puternice de gelozie.
  
  🤎 Pe parcursul primei jumătăți consideram relația lor perfectă, dar mai apoi am putut sa percep tragedia geloziei pe care o traieste Ștefan.
  
  🤎 Lipsa unui "plot" este complet compensată de profunzimea emotiilor pe care le transmite opera. Nicaieri pe parcursul acesteia nu pot spune că m-am plictisit, fapt care m-a surprins placut, avand in vedere faptul ca este un roman clasic.
  
  3⭐/5⭐
• 
  Daria Andreea

  ✨,,I-am scris că-i las absolut tot ce în casă,de la obiecte de preț la cărți...de la lucruri personale,la amintiri. Adică tot trecutul."✨
• 
  Carmen Iofcea

  in sfarsit Ghiorghidiu s-a maturizat si nu mai m-a enervat ca in prima parte.
• 
  The B00k Elf

  A fost un chin să trec prin acest volum al romanului. Dacă nu aveam nevoie de el pentru școală chiar nu m-aș mai fi chinuit.
  Povestea este, într-adevăr, interesantă, pentru cine citește romanul de plăcere, dar nu a fost și cazul meu. Am trecut prin pagini întregi și m-am uitat ca pisica-n calendar, pentru că nu am înțeles mai nimic. Pagini întregi despre politică și grade militare cu care nu sunt familiară, deci nu am înțeles mare lucru. Au fost și câteva pagini despre povestea de dragoste care au fost mai interesantă, dar gândirea lui Ștefan a stricat toată plăcerea acelor fraze.
  Am iubit sfârșitul, mai ales ultimele propoziții, căci, în sfârșit, după două volume întregi despre cât de distrusă e relație dintre cei doi, chiar s-a făcut ceva pentru a rezolva problema.
  Din nou, pentru cine e interesant cu adevărat de poveste, chiar recomand să o citiți, pentru că fiecare carte e o experiență.