Travesti

I'm usually not a fan of these types of post-modern novels drenched in metaphors, meta-commentary, and meandering monologues, but Travesti (which I've read means something like a transvestite, but also a parody in literary terms) was a surprisingly enjoyable reading experience despite my initial doubts.

Despite its short length, it is an incredibly multi-layered novel which explores multiple themes, most of them psychological in nature. Especially neuroticism and its root causes (trauma and isolation in this case) which manifests itself through the narrators vivid and dark hallucinations and intrusive thoughts. The novel is told through a first-person narrator (Victor) from mainly two different periods of his life; his 17-year-old lonely and pretentious self from summer camp, and his 34-year-old successful writer self in a manic state up in a mountain resort trying to erase his trauma through writing. The tone of especially the 17-year-old narration is very cynical as he condemns virtually everything and everyone, but one can also sense that there is an ironic undertone to it all which keeps it from tipping into the realm of genuine pretentious edginess and which fits well with the overarching theme of “parody” that the title suggests.
The novel constantly jumps back and forth in time, as well as in and out of Victor's hallucinations. but despite this, the narrative ends up as surprisingly easy to follow. In fact, as someone who frequently hallucinates during fevers and has been inflicted with haunting intrusive thoughts in stressful periods, I could personally relate a lot to both the content and structure of this novel.

An especially relevant literary reference that is made multiple times in the book is to the British 17th-century poet John Donne. This novel borrows a lot of themes and imagery directly from his poetry, specifically his metaphysical poems filled with conceit such as “The Flea” and “The Bait” where “ugly” imagery such as blood-sucking fleas and fish and bait are used as erotic metaphors. In Travesti, Cartarescu frequently uses a spider sucking out the life of its helpless prey as metaphors for sex. Other scenes such as an emotionless and animalistic threesome, is further used to present the relationship between the sexes as something that boils down to pure sadism and masochism. On the other hand, he at some points presents us with pastoral imagery, such as pure young lovers holding hands naked in a flower field. However, everything that is of the flesh is represented to us as disgusting and animalistic, and Victor, like Donne later in his life, seeks to distance himself from it at the cost of his sanity and sense of community.

Without spoiling anything, I also want to mention that one of the major plot points of the novel revolves around the protagonist being haunted by a meeting with a transvestite in his past, his “chimera” as he calls it. We can deduce that image of a transvestite stands for the duality of the masculine and feminine within an individual being externally expressed to its fullest. This is interestingly enough his strongest trauma (or trigger?) haunting his next 17 years of life. This confrontation between the sexes is also a major theme in this novel, which brings me to another apt literary reference.

Victor at some point refers to himself as Roderick Usher, a major character in Edgar Allan Poe's gothic short story “The Fall of the House of Usher”. In this short story, Roderick ends up locking his own twin sister within a coffin and covers up the door with brick walls as he believes her to be deceased. Later on, it is revealed that she was still alive and that she woke up from her coffin and broke out of her seal, causing great distress and crisis. In Travesti, memories of a supposedly deceased sister also haunt the protagonist's hallucinations, and the imagery of locked doors and monstrous sisters frequently shows up. Cartarescu likens the ransacking self-analysis of one's own brain and especially our memories to the wanderings of an old decrepit villa. Shame with public restrooms. Loneliness with empty buildings. Sexual duality within statues of nymphs. Flesh, bodily fluids, and insides conveying nausea and disgust. This type of psychological exploration of grotesque semi-metaphorical locations and objects also reminded me of games such as Silent Hill, Evil Within and Amnesia. If you like those, read this.

All of this imagery; transvestites, locked doors, fleshy corridors, and insects/spiders makes for a beautifully put together psychological novel on trauma and sex. All the metaphors are wonderfully purposeful and strong in the context of the protagonist's characteristics and history, and they work well when juxtapositioned with the actual non-metaphorical events of the novel. My only complaints are that some of the hallucinatory scenes meander on a bit and the monologues sometimes repeat their points too much or get a bit off track. It is also concluded somewhat awkwardly, though fortunately satisfactory enough to make all the build-up worth it.

Some of the themes I didn't touch upon much is those of isolation, the struggle between the art and the artist, and the one between the physical and the metaphysical. I salute Cartarescu for writing a novel packed full of so many ideas and themes and managing to make it into a cohesive and accessible read. For anyone interested in novels about mania, trauma and sex told through hallucinations and dreams full of disgusting (and beautiful) fleshy metaphors and allusions, try this. I will definitely be rereading this sometime.