Customer Reviews

The Farce

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"The Farce" is a beautifully sketched slice of life
which describes the impact of Romania's transition from
a communist dictatorship to its initial efforts to become a capitalist democracy upon a family.
Ms. Firan's writing is not only historically accurate, but also extremely perceptive and rich in its characterizations.
As readers, we become as involved in the psychological struggles of the husband and wife as we do in the greater political events
that shape their lives. Above all, this novel is really well-written. "The Farce" is a work of literary fiction that is economical in its words,
rich in its style, evocative and eloquent.

I read this book at the same time I read Oriana Fallaci's The Rage and the Pride. At the time Fallaci's book made a bigger impact, but this book has a quiet strength in it that has made it endure in my memory while the Fallaci book has kind of disappeared. The understated brilliance of this book's examination of the fall of Nicolae Ceausescu and its effect on a journalist living with his family in Bucharest is difficult to summarize but the concrete details and warmth of the narration make the book impossible to either forget or to categorize. The ending has left me wondering for a month or two -- as the new age takes over from Marxism as the reigning ideology of the new regime. Farcical, indeed. I'd like to read more of this author.