Week Nine: Norman Manea, The Trenchcoat

This week’s read was The Trenchcoat, by Norman Manea. To me, this short story was probably the trickiest piece to read so far. It was written using all of these subtle insinuations and half-hidden meanings that lurked behind the character dialogues and mundane, surface-level activities of these characters. It was like every line had another meaning to it and it was up to the readers to see through it. It wasn’t a long story, but it required me to concentrate on every passage for me to understand what was really happening. It was quite abstract and I felt as if I had to decode the sentences. 

Certain passages were just non-stop, broken ramblings by the characters and it felt easy to get lost in what was being said. I even restarted from the beginning at one point because I felt like I didn’t absorb it the first time through. 

In the lecture video, the significance of the appearance of the trenchcoat was one of the points of discussion. As I was reading it, the trenchcoat gave me the vibe of being a forgotten, accidental clue of the slightly scary, grimy things that are happening just underneath the boring mask of monotonous everyday life. Just below the layer of stilted conversation, fake niceties and polite friendships, there’s something big and dark churning and the trenchcoat fell out of it simply by mistake. It was not meant to be seen by the hostess, but it was and it acted as the last drop in the nearly overflowing vase of her fragile mental stability.  The near desperate search for the proprietor of the coat truly demonstrates the depth of the paranoia that lay in the subconsciousness of the hostess. The smallest dent in the mask of normality caused her entire surface to shatter and fall apart.

I find it interesting that the author himself is from Romania. It always has more depth when the writers themselves have a personal connection to the characters, the history or the true events of the setting from which the story unfolds. It makes me think about what kinds of influences would trickle into my writing were I to attempt to write a short story or a novel of some kind. I wonder what factors in my life would fuel my pen and come to life in my storytelling. I’m excited to hear from the author himself and listen to him discuss his writing. I think it’s going to be quite interesting. 

Here are my two potential questions for the author, Mr. Norman Manea. What is your favourite book genre (or one of your favourites) and why? Did you start writing when you were young or was being an author something that was unplanned and just ended up happening in your life?