Customer Reviews

The Romanian: Story of an Obsession

5 star:		(9)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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 Benderson jolts us right out of our outdated heterosexual and homosexual bourgeois notions.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.

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.

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.

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.

I loved this book. It was honest, although at times it did teeter on the pretentious. I'm not sure if there really was a valid point to his parallel tale of Romania's last king and mistress and Benderson's affair with the his Romanian hustler. Perhaps Benderson was just trying to displace some of his guilty feelings over exploiting a poor and desperate young man. By the end it really doesn't matter - his rose tinted glasses are off and it's all just grime, grit as dirty as uncut diamonds. I came to realize that everyone is an accomplice in their own undoing.

Not only did the author give the reader a glimpse into his personal story of obsessive love; but also the added problem of his obsession - the young man that he lusts after is much younger than him, more beautiful, and lives and hustles in Romania.
There is a feeling for the reader, of impending doom throughout this book.

Bendersen's deep feelings of lust/love is is made more difficult for him knowing this beautiful man will do anything for money - including sell his own body.
So it begs the question throughout the book. Does this beautiful young man really like our older pursuer; or is he merely a means to an end.

Romulus does what he wants, even when the author visits him every few months from the states....but Romulus always makes his body available and therein is our 'catch 22'.
Benderson pulls no punches about the beautiful body of Romulus always there for him.

Angst,frustration,anger and helplessness go hand in hand with Benderson as he tries to cope with his feelings of loving someone he can't control - and who has also made it plain to Benderson that he prefers women and is not gay.

We are also given a parallel stories of obsessive love between Prince/King Carol I and his paramour a Jewess. THAT story ended badly.

Benderson's story of his obsession, is also his total renunciation of his personal life, in order to satisfy his need,his lust, his compulsion for his beautiful boy.

So we are kept wondering...will it work?....can it work?....It's worth the read to find out.

Thank you to my Romanian friend, Anton, for recommending this book to me.

I knew nothing about this memoire but the title before i picked it up so you can imagine my suprise as the plot became clear.

I enjoyed this book more than i expected because the characters pulled me in and the pace seemed to be more like a mystery than a memoire. Knowing that the story was not dreampt up made the characters feelings weigh a bit more heavily.

I really enjoyed the journey the author goes through...knowing he's venturing down the wrong path but going anyway, for the immediate satisfaction that lays there.

This book surpassed all my expectations. Taking a part of Romanian history and intertwining it with a love story of a forbidden hustler. The parallels show exactly how scandalous a royal family can be. The book flips from the carrying-on's of Bruce's obsession with a Romanian hustler to the hustling of the Romanian family so seamlessly, you might wonder if Lupescu herself was in that hotel room on the Danube taking opiates. This book is a beautiful insight that brings history into modern perspective.

Bruce Benderson has created an entirely new form of travel memoir with his impressive new book, "The Romanian." Like his fascinating, gritty account of the New York Times Square underworld in his 1994 novel, "User", Benderson transforms his obsessions into intellectual, psycho-sexual soap operas, where danger and revelation lurk within seedy hotels, dark alleyways and uncharted, foreign landscapes. Drugs augment the experience, but this time out Benderson trades in crack cocaine for opiates, lending a hallucinatory William S. Burroughs-like recklessness to the proceedings. Benderson's prose is as vivid and haunting as crumbling palaces in Communist-ravaged Eastern Bloc countries - "The Romanian" is the travel memoir of 2006.

The Romanian is a multi-layered look behind at least two different curtains. One would be the mindset of an "old" literate homosexual regarding life in general and his cruising style and objectives in particular. This was of only moderate interest to me but might be a highlight for other readers. It really does open up the world of suppressed, pre-equal rights gay life. The second was an excellent look into Romania and the vestiges of the former Soviet Union in eastern Europe. Americans are often ignorant of the histories and cultures of the many smaller nations that were gobbled up by Soviet expansion. These countries have rich, centuries-long traditions and are different enough from our own experience to provide some startling contrasts while being similar enough to allow us to relate to their struggles, whether on a personal or national level. A good read, worth the time for its B+ writing and its A- look at history and personal relationships.