CONSTANTIN MATEESCU, novelist, literary critic:
The works of M.M. Loviște stem from the true tradition of our literature. Without obstinately looking for innovation or other sophisticated narrative techniques, the author proves he knows how to relate, skillfully lead the storyline and create suspense. His style is sober, well-tempered and his language simple, natural, and unostentatious. M.M. Loviște's literature carries the scent of the stories whispered at nighttime, in the dim light of an oil lamp.
PROF. DR. FLOREA FIRAN, literary critic:
M.M. Loviște moves his magnifying lens over odds and ends, revealing clearly the texture of the finest details that make up his books: the epic approach of rural life in post-war Romania in his first novel A CROSS TOO HEAVY, the torture and humiliations endured for almost a decade by Romanian prisoners in Stalin's Russia in the novel STOLEN IDENTITIES, the drama of Romanian intellectuals in NESSUS'S ATTIRE, and, in the novella THE IRRETRIEVABLE, the fantastic world of the wronged peasants from Loviștea county, where the author melts with the pain of the peasants he stems from. The look of the narrator freezes the subject, making it stand still in previously selected poses. Through a process of metaphoric sublimation, movement reabsorbs itself, becoming spatializes, flowing stops, lucidity rearranges everything in primordial patterns of an infinite simplicity and grandeur of existence. THE CITY OF THE LAST ECLIPSE is the expression of a supreme strain, a desperate cry in the face of the contrasts of a society in eclipse. Under the power of vice hides a social drama close to the limits of human endurance, experienced by the characters under the empty sky of a torrid sun in which the author anchors himself in the crude reality of the times. He exposes the “gods” of the citadel and perverts the spirits, drinking himself enough hemlock. His crushing laugh causes the instantaneous explosion of the demagogy of vain talks, of the false culture, and the false humor. M.M. Loviște presents himself as a narrator of human differences, unrepeatable situations, and attention to the unique - interesting characteristics at a time when human values no longer receive proper credit. The author reflects at what he writes, surrounding the tragicalness, the sublime, and the grotesque in the fine mask of irony. Under this apparently innocent humor hides in fact the immeasurable drama of society.
CLARA NICOLLET, France, moderator of the discussion list dedicated to contemporary Romanian literature Nadir_latent:
I have read THE CITY OF THE LAST ECLIPSE. I simply adored your book and have to express my entire admiration for this novel that Romanians needed.
PROF. DR. FLOREA FIRAN, literary critic:
M.M. Loviște moves his magnifying lens over odds and ends, revealing clearly the texture of the finest details that make up his books: the epic approach of rural life in post-war Romania in his first novel A CROSS TOO HEAVY, the torture and humiliations endured for almost a decade by Romanian prisoners in Stalin's Russia in the novel STOLEN IDENTITIES, the drama of Romanian intellectuals in NESSUS'S ATTIRE, and, in the novella THE IRRETRIEVABLE, the fantastic world of the wronged peasants from Loviștea county, where the author melts with the pain of the peasants he stems from. The look of the narrator freezes the subject, making it stand still in previously selected poses. Through a process of metaphoric sublimation, movement reabsorbs itself, becoming spatializes, flowing stops, lucidity rearranges everything in primordial patterns of an infinite simplicity and grandeur of existence. THE CITY OF THE LAST ECLIPSE is the expression of a supreme strain, a desperate cry in the face of the contrasts of a society in eclipse. Under the power of vice hides a social drama close to the limits of human endurance, experienced by the characters under the empty sky of a torrid sun in which the author anchors himself in the crude reality of the times. He exposes the “gods” of the citadel and perverts the spirits, drinking himself enough hemlock. His crushing laugh causes the instantaneous explosion of the demagogy of vain talks, of the false culture, and the false humor. M.M. Loviște presents himself as a narrator of human differences, unrepeatable situations, and attention to the unique - interesting characteristics at a time when human values no longer receive proper credit. The author reflects at what he writes, surrounding the tragicalness, the sublime, and the grotesque in the fine mask of irony. Under this apparently innocent humor hides in fact the immeasurable drama of society.
CLARA NICOLLET, France, moderator of the discussion list dedicated to contemporary Romanian literature Nadir_latent:
I have read THE CITY OF THE LAST ECLIPSE. I simply adored your book and have to express my entire admiration for this novel that Romanians needed.
EUGEN NEGRICI, literary critic:
M.M. Loviște possesses real and evident writing skills: the ability to create atmosphere, the journalistic feeling of the concreteness, and narrative fluency. The author has a bright future ahead of him.
ILEANA MĂLĂNCIOIU, poet:
ILEANA MĂLĂNCIOIU, poet:
M.M. Loviște writes intelligently and with a keen sense of humor.
MIRCEA GHIȚULESCU, drama critic:
M.M. Loviște is a tenacious, vivacious author with serious abilities for prose.
EMIL BOROGHINĂ, director, theater manager:
I had the immense pleasure of reading your books. You can at anytime make a good film from the subjects you approach. Congratulations!
DAN ZAMFIRESCU, literary critic and historian:
I had the immense pleasure of reading your books. You can at anytime make a good film from the subjects you approach. Congratulations!
DAN ZAMFIRESCU, literary critic and historian:
Vâlcea can now boast an important Romanian writer. M.M. Loviște is a true writer, writing like the “decrepit”, the “old-fashioned”, the “expired”, Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, Zola, Balzac. His books are devastating, true ballads of suffering, keeping you on the edge of your seat. The work of M.M. Loviște will endure in the history of Romanian literature.
ADRIAN ROMAN, director, theater manager:
Upon reading THE CITY OF THE LAST ECLIPSE, I have rediscovered the bitter taste of post-communism Romanian reality, captured in the novel with equal grace and cultivated narrative style. The circumstances, characters, institutions, and social groups blend in an amalgam that is both familiar and surprising, banal and extraordinary. It is about the way we are, but do not admit being. The reading is emotional, laden with satisfactions and revelations. The novel provokes a necessary self-analysis of our dormant knowledge of a reality that is tending to become a nightmare.
Upon reading THE CITY OF THE LAST ECLIPSE, I have rediscovered the bitter taste of post-communism Romanian reality, captured in the novel with equal grace and cultivated narrative style. The circumstances, characters, institutions, and social groups blend in an amalgam that is both familiar and surprising, banal and extraordinary. It is about the way we are, but do not admit being. The reading is emotional, laden with satisfactions and revelations. The novel provokes a necessary self-analysis of our dormant knowledge of a reality that is tending to become a nightmare.
MIRCEA TOMUȘ, critic:
Through the power of narration in the volume THE IRRETRIEVABLE, M.M. Loviște determined me to visit the celebrated Loviștea county. I am twice lucky: I have both read his novels and had the privilege to step on Loviștea realm. I congratulate the author on his inspiration and humor, as well as on the structure and suspense of the plot.
COUNTY LIBRARY OF CONSTANȚA, library adviser ADRIANA GHEORGHIU:
Through the power of narration in the volume THE IRRETRIEVABLE, M.M. Loviște determined me to visit the celebrated Loviștea county. I am twice lucky: I have both read his novels and had the privilege to step on Loviștea realm. I congratulate the author on his inspiration and humor, as well as on the structure and suspense of the plot.
COUNTY LIBRARY OF CONSTANȚA, library adviser ADRIANA GHEORGHIU:
Thank you for your novel THE CITY OF THE LAST ECLIPSE, an excellent radiography of such a non-transitory transition. Let me congratulate you on having а great sense of humor - an extremely rare quality nowadays.
ELIZA ROHA, prose writer, poet, playwright, literary critic:
During a night of insomnia, tormented by a terrible cold and overly tired, I reached towards a pile of books waiting patiently for me to read them and felt I made the right decision: HALACHA? The book charmed me, taking me to the virtual world of two thousand years ago. Upon finishing the novel, I felt enlightened, as if I had understood what there was for me to understand, as if I were a new person, set free from illness. What happened to me seemed right. With a vigorous imaginative force and a corresponding literary talent, along with a profound thinking and an infallible logic, all based on a detailed knowledge of the then reality, M.M. Loviște recreates entirely a world, an apogee of circumstances, of conditions, more specifically a system that made possible the judicial error and collective crime. [...] The message is clear, raising above the entire globe, just like the miracles of Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord.
PROF. DR. NICOLAE BĂLAȘA:
The indisputable merit of the author reflects in the fact that he can address all readers alike, irrespective of their studies, religion, age, gender, or race.
PROF. DR. ALEXANDRU POPESCU MIHĂEȘTI:
I have read the first draft of HALACHA? and have not faltered to take on the role of editor for this novel. I was persuaded by the theme, as well as the literary artistic force with which it is built. The plot traverses in a quick rhythm two different worlds. That of the embodied Jesus, burdened by the sin of a world he loves so much that he refuses to abandon it and for which he accepts in an absolute silence every possible humiliation, completing his mission to His Father. The other is our own world, mercantile and rapacious, with leaders having no moral scruples, base and corrupt, at any time ready to sell and assassinate even the Lord of Life. Under the colossal effect of metaphoric sublimation, time vanishes, the place of the characters from 2000 years ago being quickly taken by today's leaders, “blessed” with similar qualities. In spite of the drama, the author succeeds with his typical subtlety to offer the reader many pages of fine humor, which is especially welcome in the profound moral crisis mankind is facing. I firmly believe that HALACHA? deserves a place in universal literature.
I have read the first draft of HALACHA? and have not faltered to take on the role of editor for this novel. I was persuaded by the theme, as well as the literary artistic force with which it is built. The plot traverses in a quick rhythm two different worlds. That of the embodied Jesus, burdened by the sin of a world he loves so much that he refuses to abandon it and for which he accepts in an absolute silence every possible humiliation, completing his mission to His Father. The other is our own world, mercantile and rapacious, with leaders having no moral scruples, base and corrupt, at any time ready to sell and assassinate even the Lord of Life. Under the colossal effect of metaphoric sublimation, time vanishes, the place of the characters from 2000 years ago being quickly taken by today's leaders, “blessed” with similar qualities. In spite of the drama, the author succeeds with his typical subtlety to offer the reader many pages of fine humor, which is especially welcome in the profound moral crisis mankind is facing. I firmly believe that HALACHA? deserves a place in universal literature.
ELIZA ROHA, prose writer, poet, playwright, literary critic:
During a night of insomnia, tormented by a terrible cold and overly tired, I reached towards a pile of books waiting patiently for me to read them and felt I made the right decision: HALACHA? The book charmed me, taking me to the virtual world of two thousand years ago. Upon finishing the novel, I felt enlightened, as if I had understood what there was for me to understand, as if I were a new person, set free from illness. What happened to me seemed right. With a vigorous imaginative force and a corresponding literary talent, along with a profound thinking and an infallible logic, all based on a detailed knowledge of the then reality, M.M. Loviște recreates entirely a world, an apogee of circumstances, of conditions, more specifically a system that made possible the judicial error and collective crime. [...] The message is clear, raising above the entire globe, just like the miracles of Resurrection and Ascension of the Lord.
ALEXANDRE ANDREI, French journalist and publicist:
I am delighted to congratulate you once more for the wonderful novel HALACHA?, presented in highly eulogizing terms in the pages of the December 2016 edition of our cultural magazine Cronica Timpului. My theoretical background is in theology: ten years of education (seminary and university) in Bucharest, four years in Brussels and Paris with a scholarship from the Vatican. So I dare say I have a solid background of Biblical knowledge. What I find especially gratifying is your exceptional faculty of treating extracts from the Holy Scripture like a scholarly theologian in Biblical exegesis!
