Critical references
“The
product of a powerful original prose
writer, a rara avis in post communist Romanian literature, The
Ghost
in the Mill is not only a first-rate literary event of the current
year,
but also one of the most convincingly poignant works of fiction
addressing the
topic of local communism to be published during the last decade. (Paul
Cernat -
Revista 22, Bucureştiul cultural, 2.12.2008)
The Ghost
in the Mill is an
imaginative novel, in line with autobiographical fiction, in which magic realism and daily realism intertwine.
[...] This mill, which is an axis mundi, the center, the hearth and the
obsession of the village, where the character has no clue if he has met
the
angel or the devil, this mill is the
place where a murder occurs, as at the dawn of all worlds: a certain
Max, an
epileptic, is killed by mistake [...] and everybody is obliged to keep
silent,
thus becoming accomplices in the murder. We
have all been accomplices in what has defined and punished
us. This
is the parable of communism. A novel with substance, a sinewy prose
which, I
repeat, equals a part or several parts of Cărtărescu’s Orbitor”. (Dan C. Mihăilescu, Omul care aduce cartea,
ProTV, 13 10 2008)
Doina Ruşti
has the vocation of a builder constructor, the capacity to build a
meaningful
narrative and exuberant imagination. If asked to recommend certain
characters,
pages or sequences from the second part of The Ghost in the Mill,
I
wouldn’t know which to mention first, because almost all of them are
remarkable. There is no doubt that it would be far too less if I only
mentioned
Săndina, the old cooperative worker, that lurks around the deserted
mill and
writes, without anybody suspecting her, informative notes for the
Secret
Police, the grotesque Gabriel Neicuşoru,
the unctuos physicist from the Phenomena Institute, or the terrifying
scene
where the mill is demolished. Bianca Burţa Cernat - Observator
cultural, nr.
459, 29 01 2009
The Ghost in
the Mill is, from my
point of view, the best novel published last year. Şerban Axinte –
Observator
cultural, nr. 459, 29 01 2009
The
characters drawn by Doina Rusti are incredibly genuine: the author has
the rare
gift of seeing things both in a synthetical and a contingent way,
including
detail within the portrait. The core of the novel is the second part:
The Mill,
being slightly over 200 pages and exceptional. It is this time-space
condensed
sequence that reveals the great qualities of the author; these are the
narrative construction and the capacity to suggest the texture
(substance) of a
certain humanity. Mihai Iovanel,
Cultura, 29 01 2009, nr. 4
Doina Rusti
is a mature, complete writer, one of the most professional Romanian
writers
today, with well-defined themes of work and a qualified view on the way
literature should be written. Her talent does not necessarily stand for
her
ability to build phrases, but characters and situations which are not
only
convincing, but also give you the sentiment of contingency. The
imagined scenes
are stringent and their fall-like succession is overwhelming. The theme
of
communism suits very well with such a gifted writer, the demoniacal
history of
the terrible 45 years that Romania has undergone in the isolated space
of a village. (Doris Mironescu - Suplimentul de cultură, 9-15 05, 2009)
Doina Rusti
joins the elite of our still youthful prose writers with her third
novel, both
ambitious and masterful. (...) The second part, the longest one (of The
Ghost in the Mill) is read and
assimilated with higher difficulty, as the description is a little too
detailed, almost journalistic. But it is worth reading. The whole
construction
is remarkable: the epic matter, both dense and fluid, typologically
diversified
and symbolically rearticulated; the varying rhythm, alert or slow, of
the
narrative; the clever assemblage and great control. And above
everything, an
obvious artistic maturity. Daniel Cristea Enache - Timpuri noi,
Ed. Cartea Românească, 2009, p. 177
The Ghost
in the Mill is,
without any doubt, one of the landmarks of Romanian contemporary prose,
because
of the technical clearness of the writing which simulates innocence,
the
morbid-exuberant imagination and, last but not least, the convincing
manner in
which it revisits the totalitarian period, with tender detachment,
obsession
for details and understanding. Gabriel Cosoveanu: Ramuri, No.
10,
October, Craiova, 2008
"Erudition, a sense
of narrative that is
lacking in contemporary authors and, above all, a style that bears her
distinctive mark." (Andreea Rasuceanu in Viaţa Românească
Journal, no.
8-9, 2006)
"The
novel [Zogru] is filled with an atrocious realism, showing a
vision as
veridical as possible strictly of contemporary reality, but it escapes
in the
fantastic in a way as natural as Marquez’s famous Remedios was rising
to the
sky while she was hanging the laundry to dry." (Horia Garbea in
Saptamana
financiara Journal, March 27th, 2006).
"The
fabulous, the miraculous, the
supernatural blend with the petty history, in detail, even in the
day-to-day
life. A substantial and gripping novel, an altogether unwonted presence
on the
current literary stage." (Daniel Cristea-Enache in România
literară Journal,
no. 23 from June 13th 2008).
"The
protagonist [The Ghost in the mill ] is indeed a scepter, hidden
in a
ruined mill, a topos of horror, but an obsessive attraction for people
of
Comosteni-village. In several hundred pages, the novel exposes the
story of a
family and many individual micro-narrations. The characters are
transformed in
kafkian style under the influence of totalitarian system, so that the
final
section, entitled Two days, is a delta for all wild rivers of life with
the
flavor of burnt rubber.” (Gabriel Cosoveanu: Spectral messages, Ramuri,
No. 10,
October 2008)
