Women by Mihail Sebastian

Romanian author Mihail Sebastian’s novel Women was first published in his native country in 1933.  It has now just been translated into English.

It is, and this is to its credit, a hard novel to define.  

First, in regards to its structure; it is presented in four parts.   These are titled with women’s names and vary in voice and tone, starting with an omniscient third-person account, changing to first-person narration, followed by an epistolary section as written by another to our protagonist and returning in the fourth to the first-person.  The time span isn’t spelled out but would appear to be only a few years.   The narrative arc, such as it is, is subverted by this shifting of perspective and tone.

The other hard to pin down aspect, is what to make of our erstwhile protagonist, Stefan Valeriu.  The novel’s focus is his relationships with women, and they with him.   These interactions are delineated with a curious mix of passion and passivity.  Our opinion of him is regularly blindsided, but often in such subtle ways as to leave us unsure of our assessment.

There are aspects of this novel that called to mind Henry Miller, particularly Tropic of Cancer, but, as well as not being anywhere near as explicit, Women is possessed of a much gentler and more humane  nature.  Perhaps the difference between Mittel -European literary aestheticism and American brashness.