Ruxandra Cesereanu

176 Ruxandra Cesereanu Andrei Codrescu – An Anarchetypal Writer ABSTRACT Andrei Codrescu (born in 1946) is an Andrei Codrescu, American writer of Roma- American writer of Romanian origin who nian origin, can be seen as a creative mosaic, an can be seen as a creative mosaic, an artistic artistic palimpsest and a multiple subject. In his palimpsest and a multiple subject. In his writings, there reverberate hybrid mélanges of writings, there reverberate hybrid mélanges the buzzing Balkan culture and the Central- of the buzzing Balkan culture (picturesque, European substrate. To these two ingredients of magical, oozing eroticism) and the Central- the author’s mindset are then added his Jewish European substrate (the key influence being sensibility and, finally, the decisive, american- exerted by the space and atmosphere of ized layer of the immigrant who has assimilated Sibiu, Codrescu’s hometown, a multicultural, the culture of his host country via two carni- Saxon city located in Transylvania, with a valesque or Babelian cities – New York and rigorous and institutionalized penchant for New Orleans. Andrei Codrescu is an author the arts). To these two ingredients of the fascinated with decentering and anarchy, which author’s mindset are then added his Jewish he endeavors to put forward not necessarily as a sensibility (with all the traditions he some- model, but as a creative structure, clearly times turns upside down, ironically and self- influenced by the techniques of the avant-garde, ironically), his peripatetic and, alternatively, but also by postmodern techniques. From this flippant or stern cast of mind and, finally, point of view, he is an anarchetypal writer (the the decisive, Americanized layer of the term anarchetype belongs to another Romanian immigrant who has assimilated the culture writer, Corin Braga). of his host country via two carnivalesque or Babelian cities – New York and New KEYWORDS Orleans – with all their artisticity, whether Andrei Codrescu; Anarchetype; Avant-garde; we speak of the Beat counterculture and the Postmodernism; Romanian Origins; Balkan flower-power medley of New York or the Culture; Jewish Sensibility; Dada; Poetry; French-American culture, mixed with the Beat Counterculture; Posthumanity; Bibliodeath; voodoo influence, in New Orleans. As a Anarchobook; Sheherezade and the Arabian teenager, Codrescu had two Romanian Nights. cultural models, which were nonetheless RUXANDRA CESEREANU radically opposed, in poetic and philosophical Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania terms: Lucian Blaga (1895-1961, a Diony- [email protected] sian with Apollonian overtones, who became Andrei Codrescu – An Anarchetypal Writer a Gnostic author at maturity) and Tristan oir-essays and thirteen are 177 Tzara (1896-1963, a fervent avant-garde travel essays (which the artist, the founder of Dada). After Andrei author refers to as Codrescu immigrated to America, where he travelogues). To these are added a few accepted and was accepted under the books written under a pseudonym, plus influence of the Beat poets, one of his three books of poetry written in Romanian recognized mentors was the poet Ted (one of these, an experimental volume, Berrigan (1934-1983) and, collaterally, the Forgiven Submarine, was co-authored with famous Allen Ginsberg (1926-1997). Still, the undersigned)3 and one of dialogs, also the true master who steered Codrescu’s written in Romanian. Not to mention his artistic becoming was not a particular person, anthologies, revised editions, etc. I will but a movement, an -ism recalibrated by the focus here solely on Andrei Codrescu’s author after a personal recipe: 1915-1916, latest books of essays, as I have already the glory years of Cabaret Voltaire in written, on another occasion, about his Zurich, where Dada and other avant-garde novels (the most spectacular of which are – movements came into being, were recon- in order of my preference – Mesi@, verted by Andrei Codrescu through the Wakefield and Casanova in Bohemia) and lenses of the 1970s in America, the years some of his poetry.4 These recent essay when the Romanian writer who had just books are (thus far): The Posthuman Dada immigrated to America came under the Guide. Tzara & Lenin Play Chess (2009, tutelage of the Beat poets and experienced translated into Romanian in 2009), The life and literature to the fullest. Poetry Lesson (2010, translated into Roma- These nuances that combine to form nian in 2014), Whatever Gets You through the multiple literary subject Andrei Codrescu the Night. A Story of Sheherezade and the have not revolted against one another, but Arabian Entertainments (2011) and Biblio- cohabited with intercultural voluptuousness, death. My Archives. With Life in Footnotes each serving as a supporting platform for (2012). the others, with the effervescence of a Above all, however, I ought to clarify chemical reaction.1 Hence, a few defining what an anarchetypal writer is and why characteristics for the writer who is under Andrei Codrescu is such a writer. The term scrutiny here: 1. the relatively compulsive anarchetype belongs to the Romanian nov- predilection for anything that might be elist and essayist Corin Braga, who defines Dada; 2. the postmodern-baroque-avant-garde it in his book From Archetypes to Anar- carnivalesque; 3. his tuning into the rebel- chetypes (2006). In Braga’s conception, while liousness of American counterculture, but modern man is confined to a schizomorphic without ever forgetting his Balkan origins or state, postmodern or post-postmodern man denying his ludic Jewishness; 4. his wit, assumes the stance of a multiple subject. In which appreciates the freedom to think and post-postmodernity, the archetypal cultural write and is allergic to anything that borders model (predicated on the central position of on cultural coercion, censorship or (sym- the subject) is no longer valid, being re- bolic) lobotomy. Not least, his profoundly placed by an anarchetypal model (anarchic, anarchetypal spirit.2 decentered, atomized).5 In this new type of Andrei Codrescu has published fifty- anarchetypal structure, there is no continuity: three books in English (by 2015), of which there is unpredictability, deviation, devertebra- twenty-two are books of poetry, seven are tion and, respectively, polydirectional evolu- books of prose, eleven are books of mem- tion (this is the structure underlying, for Ruxandra Cesereanu 178 instance, books like Alice’s chetypes is, of course, that of anarchy. As Adventures in Wonderland – Corin Braga explains, “Anarchetypes involve by Lewis Carroll, Finnegans the workings of an anarchic mimesis, which Wake – by James Joyce, In Search of Lost refuses compliance with ideal types and Time – by Marcel Proust, Hopscotch – by produces fortuitous and irreducible, singular Julio Cortazar and V by Thomas Pynchon). entities...” “As its name suggests, an an- Corin Braga summarizes the definition of archetype is a concept that manifests itself anarchetypes thus: “An anarchetypal work anarchically against the idea of a pattern or is one in which the plot is atomized into a a center.”11 While an archetype resembles a nebula of meaning”; an anarchetypal work “solar system configured around a star,” an “does not lend itself to the Aristotelian logic anarchetype is more like “interstellar dust” of classical physics, but to quantum logic”; or a “galactic cloud.”12 the pulverization of the archetype turns the Why should Andrei Codrescu (the anarchetype into “a figurative cloud” com- writer and essayist) be seen as an anarche- posed of meteorites, asteroids and debris.6 It typal writer?13 Because he is an author who should be noted that an anarchetype can is fascinated with decentering and anarchy, consist of archetype remnants and symbols, which he endeavors to put forward not but these are no longer dominant, they are necessarily as a model, but as a creative fragmented, the anarchetype coagulating structure, clearly influenced by the techniques these remnants. It should also be stressed of the avant-garde. Andrei Codrescu’s writ- that Corin Braga does not define anarche- ings are particularly open to the idea of types from a systemic perspective, but from shock and anarchy, taken from the avant- an artistic standpoint, as a mechanism of garde. As an author, he is situated between creation.7 In this sense, an anarchetype is a postmodernism and post-postmodernism, in disassembled archetype whose structure has my opinion, because his stylistic and au- been reassembled. Another point to be thorial avant-gardism is not homogeneous made: an anarchetype can be comprehended, and monochrome, but patchy and fragmented. at the level of interpretation, through a sub- The critifictions from his latest four books hermeneutics that no longer aims to of essays resort to the technique of the interpret meaning, but to infra-construct it.8 galactic cloud or dust (theorized by Corin Although the conceptual dyad arche- Braga), even though Andrei Codrescu was type-anarchetype could be strategically not aware, at the time of writing these envisaged to encapsulate the disjunction books, (except very vaguely) with the term between modernism and postmodernism, of anarchetype. anarchetypes tend to define the paradigm of the post-postmodern world.9 An anarche- ≈ type will deconstruct an archetype, but will not be confined to this process, as it will The Posthuman Dada Guide. Tzara & autonomously build something else, exploring Lenin Play Chess is an anarchetypal book the polyhedral nature of cultural and from several

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