Novel
The Morometes
Moromeții
Marin Preda · 1955
Synopsis
In the village of Siliștea-Gumești, on the Wallachian plain, at the end of the thirties, Ilie Moromete, a respected peasant, lives with his wife Catrina, her children Ilinca, Tita and Niculae, and the three sons of his first marriage, Paraschiv, Nilă and Achim. Land taxes pile up, the debts incurred for the sheep fall due, and Moromete, a man of his word and of irony, likes to hold forth in the middle of the village, in Iocan's clearing. The elder sons, who resent their stepmother, want him to sell a plot of land and talk of leaving for Bucharest.
Context
The first volume appeared in 1955 from the state publishing house for literature and art, the second in 1967. The book made its author the most important Romanian novelist of the post-war period, and the second volume surprised the censors with its construction, which makes the village a collective character. The reading sheet of the Lumina library sees in it the disintegration of the traditional family and the patriarchal village under the pressure of history. Stere Gulea made a film of it in 1987, with Victor Rebengiuc in the role of Ilie, and N. Mișu translated it into English in 1957.
Who it is for
A long peasant novel in two volumes, with a slow, ironic narrative; readable in English since 1957 and in French since 1986.
Prizes and reception
Alexandru Piru saw in it proof that the peasant world is capable of great feelings.
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