Plumb is a profound exploration of the melancholic and desolate landscapes of the human psyche, masterfully penned by George Bacovia. This work embodies the essence of Romanian Symbolism, transcending the boundaries of literary currents to reach a universal appeal.

Bacovia's poetry serves as an exquisite lesson in the relationship between reality and transformation, between mimesis and representation. He ingeniously theatricalizes not only suffering and tragic sentiment but also the world in its apparent unfolding.

The real is de-natured, projecting the internal landscape of the self and a dominant feeling of desolation onto the canvas of reality. The world becomes a cemetery, the landscape a tableau of death, the psyche a screen of terrifying evanescences, and the social environment a theater of perpetual poverty and unhappiness.

Everything functions as a whole; one exits depression only to enter another variant of it. The relationship between the interior and exterior deepens the sense of insecurity that dominates the subject.

Victor Hugo wrote Les Contemplations in 1856 during his political exile, a theme he also explored in Les Châtiments. For several years, he experienced an internal exile that haunts Les Contemplations. The work is composed of two distinct parts: "Autrefois" and "Aujourd'hui". This collection is Hugo's first poetic masterpiece, consisting of over ten thousand lines cast against the sea and sky on the island of Jersey.

Marked forever by the death of his daughter Léopoldine, Hugo announces in his preface that these two parts cannot be reconciled: "an abyss separates them, the grave." Within Les Contemplations are some of Hugo's most beautiful poems about the force of nature, the nostalgia of childhood, and the inevitability of death. The variety of rhythm and tone, ranging from classical to romantic, showcases Hugo's mastery of poetic creation.

The poem "La bouche d'ombre", with its eight hundred verses, elevates the poetic vision to a higher order. Hugo's words transform into a cosmological, theological, and moral treatise. "God dictated, I wrote," Hugo logically concludes at the end of the collection.

Today, even after Rimbaud considered it "the first of the seers" and the surrealists hailed Hugo as a master, his protean genius continues to impress. Les Contemplations remains a testament to his enduring legacy.

Istanbul: Memories and the City is a shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer, Orhan Pamuk. Born in Istanbul, Pamuk still resides in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms.

His portrait of his city is also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share: the sadness that comes from living amid the ruins of a lost empire.

With cinematic fluidity, Pamuk moves from his glamorous, unhappy parents to the gorgeous, decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus; from the dawning of his self-consciousness to the writers and painters—both Turkish and foreign—who would shape his consciousness of his city.

Like Joyce’s Dublin and Borges’ Buenos Aires, Pamuk’s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility, beautifully written and immensely moving.