Flavia Cosma's "The Fire That Burns Us"

As the title suggests, this novel brings in front of the reader an entire complex of emotions and life experiences, all of them being perceived as threatening and devouring. The symbolism of the fire is essential, placing the accent on the idea of internal combustion, purification and supreme suffering and sacrifice. The story in itself is not very complicated, a beautiful love story having as its main protagonists two young people: Alexander Visan and Anna, two young and free spirits destroyed by the rigidity and absurdity promoted by a communist system. Alexander decides to choose the exile, leaving behind his beautiful wife whose constant attempts to leave the country are met with refusal. Step by step, the inner struggle becomes the main character of this novel, two tormented souls trying to find a common path, although their communication is impossible. Her letters never reach him, his attempts to contact her are all in vain and their interior monologues are constantly separated by a permanent physical and spritual wall. Different pieces of thoughts, different instances of consciousness make up the body of this psychological novel.

Analysing Flavia Cosma's book, the main idea one can reach is the fact that all the characters and all the elements building up the essence of this literary work can be divided into victims, or oppressed heroes and oppressors, or different instances of the same character -- Procrustes, a well-known mythological hero whose legend is suggestive for this story. The character's bed represents the symbol of torture not only because the travellers who have the misfortunes of meeting him are lengthened or shortened to match that very pattern, but also because it bears the seal of absurdity. The main reason for this is the oppressor's absurd desire of leveling the nature. There is a double torture here: the one oriented towards human nature's diversity, a diversity made to conform to a predetermined model and, another torture, the oppressor's, obsessed in his madness with this diversity. The background in which the two protagonists of the novel are placed represents the very epitome of a "Procrustes' bed". The main victims are Alexander and Anna, two idealists thrown in the middle of an insensitive and rigid society, the one in which even their pure love is felt as something harmful. Despair is the feeling epitomized by the two characters' situation and it is often proposed as an alternative to their life.