Bucharest

The main events of the novel take place in contemporary Bucharest. This includes Lorenzo’s hotel, Lula’s apartment and Anselmi’s apartment, and the church where they hold the funeral. The city remains scarred by Nicolae Ceauşescu’s reign (1967 – 1989), at least fifteen years after it came to an end. The narrator draws our attention to concrete buildings, scaffolding, stray dogs and unfamiliar sounds. Even the grand Palace of the Parliament (called the “Ceauşescu Palace” or the “People’s Palace” in the novel) is portrayed as ugly and intimidating, notable for its sheer quantities of gold and marble – a “catalog of materials and measurements” – rather than for its aesthetic appeal (121). A glimpse of freedom and beautiful countryside at the end of the novel, when Lorenzo and Christian take their trip out to the Danube, shows another side of Romania and provides a foil to the oppressive...