I don’t think I should have dedicated this book to old Maiorescunians. They know everything I am trying to put together in this writing. Even better than me. They are many and create a collective memory, like the net in which Hephaestus caught Aphrodite and Ares when they were embracing each other. In addition, to dedicate odes to each other would be like what Homer did when he sided the Achaeans in the “Iliad”. Shakespeare said that a compliment is like a meeting between two monkeys. I do not know everything about this high school. On the contrary. Thank God that a monograph dedicated to a centenary and a half of the existence of “Ion Maiorescu” National College from Giurgiu has recently been printed. This writing is an addendum. Include it to “others”. And you know how important “others” are. They explain everything and give charm to life. I’m privileged. The food has been cooked. I am just seasoning it. And obviously I am tasting it. Right from the hot tip of the spoon. It was autumn. September 15th. Four years before the 1989 Revolution. I was making my ninth-grade debut. Like hundreds of other Maiorescunians. Classes A to F, thirty students in each of them. The school yard was full. There were also older colleagues. Colleagues? They didn’t even say a word to us. They scared us by their indifference towards us, by their unity, the noise they made, the ease they displayed.
Today we talk about The Old Maiorescunians, a book by Cosmin Stefan –Georgescu published with our publishing house Europe Books.
Europe Books had the pleasure of interviewing the author Cosmin Stefan –Georgescu to get to know him better and what was the moment that led him to the writing of his book The Old Maiorescunians.
Below you can find our interview. Take a seat and enjoy your reading!!!
- Is there a particular moment in your life that led you to the writing of your book?
Definitely, yes, it was! But not a moment, a whole period: Kindergarten, General School, High School, all lived and not graduated, in my home town, Giurgiu, a town on the banks of the Danube, where pigeons still find food and people peace. I don’t have a degree, I’m not licensed. I’m a repeater. I resume my primary, secondary, college, university and doctoral classes indefinitely. I always fail them with flying colours. I represent the perfect failure of the educational system. My escape : literature. Without it, I would not have been able to express my crass lack of culture and refinement. A special moment was represented by the 150th Anniversary of the National College “Ion Maiorescu”, but it is rather a coincidence, I am not able to give value to such a paideic event by writing a book.
- What do you want to communicate to readers with this work?
Nothing at all! I’m not the torpedo fish that propagates electricity. People have enough grace and essence in them, therefore they do not need to be challenged to understand beauty. The book is a means that they themselves choose if they are convinced that they want to ascend to the stars. I mean all books in general not just mine. “THE OLD MAIORESCUNIANS ” is an inaccurate fresco of the school period. Inaccurate because it is seen with the mature eyes , 30 years post-factum. Can you still express in words your high school love after you’ve known almost all possible types loves? The book does not give the answer, it denies it. But by denying it, it is not exonerated , it accuses itself of its own experience. Teaching itself does not matter if it is not affected by affection.
- How would you describe your writing style?
I don’t have a style or if I have one I am running away from it. Not so much a literary style. Probably eroticism hidden in philosophy. As I have not studied any of these subjects academically and methodically, I consider myself an amateur. I do everything with pleasure, but with such naivety that it cannot create a system and a hermeneutics. I do not write, I have discussions with the readers, in writing. And with the female readers, obviously!
- While writing, do you have any special habit?
Countless: all arts and sports. In fact, sport is also an art: when you run barefoot on the beach with your ankles bathed in the sunrise light …And the medicine that I practise is the art of Apollo, Hippocrates and Aesculapius. In the name of life, I make people healthy, good and happy.
Nothing is out of art if it is touched by love.
- Are you working on a new writing project?
The teacher Dana Capatana, the wonderful English translator of my sketches, works more. I’m just playing. We are preparing a book of poems in English, something that has not been seen since Shakespeare’s Sonnets (don’t laugh, you’re right) and a treatise on “Culpable Happinesses,” a novel of hedonistic imperfections in a decadent manner. Needless to say but I say, the publication will be made under the auspices of Europe Books, the Publishing House to which I promised I would receive a Nobel Prize for literature and the first row of seats all reserved for them for Stockholm Gala.
Europe Books thanks the author Cosmin Stefan – Georgescu once again for taking the time and answering our questions. We are really pleased to have walked alongside him on the editorial path that led to the publication of his book The Old Maiorescunians. We wish him the best of luck for his book and for his future works.
To you, my dear reader, I wish you to be moved by this collection of schooling and teaching memories collected by the author and, at the same time, that allows you to remember your personal memories, perhaps looking at them with wiser eyes and with a hint of nostalgia that you may have removed.
So, my dear reader, all I have to say is to really enjoy your reading!
Your Editor!