Plato affirmed that the soul was immortal and clothed in many bodies successively.
In Necessary Marriage, I tried to repeat entire phrases without the reader noticing. My work doesn't have the rigor of music, but I hope it alludes to it.
After multiple trips to Paris and being accused of participating in 'heinous' activities in regard to the state, I found my Romanian nationality revoked by 'presidential decree' in 1975. Because I hadn't asked for political asylum like everyone else, I had to live and travel with the infamous Nansen Passport from then on. This wasn't easy. . . I finally obtained my French citizenship in 1983.
But music doesn't sum up my approach to literature - even in Vain Art of the Fugue. To 'fugue' I had to invent 'trap-words,' or words that would force the narrator to turn around and start his path anew.
The reader's impression is one of a dream - the only thing that's left upon waking is the memory of a melody at the end of a concert.
In so-called communist Romania, chess was held in high esteem, even if our champions were weaker than the Soviets. This game, this "sport of the mind," was at the time a better way to establish your reputation than literature.
I was a professional chess player in Romania, but only a small-time master. When I came to France, I continued playing chess for many years: I played tournaments in numerous countries with mixed results. I wrote and published a book - La Défense Alekhine and translated two others from Russian. I taught chess in schools; I earned more money through chess than through literature.
In short, no association or alliance can be happy or stable without me. People can't long tolerate a ruler, nor can a master his servant, a maid her mistress, a teacher his pupil, a friend his friend nor a wife her husband, a landlord his tenant, a soldier his comrade nor a party-goer his companion, unless they sometimes have illusions about each other, make use of flattery, and have the sense to turn a blind eye and sweeten life for themselves with the honey of folly.
A goose flies by a chart which the Royal Geographical Society could not mend.
Romance classically has tragic underpinnings to it.
In reality, many choices are between things that are not that much different. The value of choice depends on our ability to perceive differences between the options.