“Read it for its slow time, its hardened labors, its unexpected choices for comforts, its quick lessons on 10-card Preference gambling, its broken villages, the resolute and painful choices made and accepted. “

Wind back about 100 or 150 years, slow your attention to drift into the small valleys of the Carpathian mountains, and then settle in to listen to the old tales; these are the ones where old men chuck the reins on their carts, young people fall in love and fail, women weave and carry news, and sometimes people fall astray and meet a darker and cursed past.

There is nothing “fresh” about this collection of short tales from authors of the turn of the 20th century; some to Western/English readers will not feel wholly as stories–more character sketches or moments. But this simplicity and age is the draw, as well. Whatever Romania becomes now in its emerging 21st century economy, it may still be anchored richly in this soil.

Read it for its slow time, its hardened labors, its unexpected choices for comforts, its quick lessons on 10-card Preference gambling, its broken villages, the resolute and painful choices made and accepted. These are not stories of global ambition but of locality and time. And the visit was more than rewarding.