7 May 2018

The Lucky Mill, by Ioan Slavici


Ioan Slavici’s collection Nuvele din popor (Novels from the People), published in 1881, includes Moara cu noroc (The Lucky Mill).  Slavici (1848-1925) was a Transylvanian, and he became a highly influential writer in Romania.  The Lucky Mill is the best known of his works outside that country, probably because it seems to be about the only one to have been translated; it is available in a 1919 edition published by Duffield and Company.

The Lucky Mill (a building which turns out to be anything but) follows the fortunes of Ghitza in a rural part of Transylvania.  Ghitza has recently come to run the eponymous Lucky Mill, near the town of Ineu, with his wife Anna and two children.  The mill is actually an inn, and Ghitza is doing well there.  One of the locals is Lica; he is ostensibly a pig herder (apparently quite a big deal) but has a significant side-line as a brigand.  He is someone you want to keep on the good side of if you know what is good for you.

There is a minimal police presence in the area, and the influence of Lica is stronger, with those in power ready to turn a blind eye to injustice as long as it is worth their while.   Lica is able to exploit Ghitza, first threatening to reduce his custom by having the herders boycott the inn, then implicating Ghitza in his nefarious deeds, which eventually include murder and theft.  Having corrupted him, Lica uses Ghitza to launder the proceeds of crime, and finally seduces Anna, the licentious atmosphere of the inn having created the conditions for her growing attraction to Lica and her eventual spiral into immorality.  She is aware that Lica is a bad boy, but considers him more of a man than her husband, while Ghitza doesn’t help by pushing her away in his preoccupation with Lica.

Despite his best efforts Ghitza is unable to escape his tormentor, but is himself ambivalent, fearful of implication in illegality but greedy for its proceeds.  He even begins to regret having a family as he finds it hampers his criminal association.  A policeman, Pintea, who wants to destroy Lica, finds himself helpless in the face both of Lica’s cunning and official indifference.  Ghitza is finally the means of Lica’s undoing.  He is appalled at what he has done and wishes to make amends after being acquitted when put on trial, while also taking revenge on Lica for having brought him low.

The title is ironic as the inn brings no luck.  The novel climaxes with Anna murdered by Ghitza, Ghitza murdered by Lica’s henchman Renz on Lica’s orders, and Lica committing suicide by bizarrely hurling himself at an oak tree and cracking his head.  It is mayhem in a harsh universe, with due punishment for malefactors, even Anna for an act of adultery Ghitza could have prevented.  The story ends with the inn having been burnt down on Lica’s orders and Anna’s elderly mother and their children wandering off who knows where.  Greed and weakness of character have propelled Ghitza’s downward spiral and led ineluctably to ruin for all.

An accurate assessment of The Lucky Mill’s merits by readers lacking Romanian may need to wait until it is translated again, but on this showing Slavici has been so concerned with the plot that he has somewhat neglected character, with the exception of his dashingly wicked brigand.  Ghitza seems to oscillate between a sense of purpose and helplessness, often within a few lines, making it difficult to pin him down as having a consistent personality.  An introduction by translator A. Mircea Emperle notes a Romanian nationalist resurgence which was creating a distinctive literature freed from imitating foreign authors, but perhaps imitation would have improved the psychological precision.

The novel’s strength lies in the combination of realistic action – sometimes surprisingly graphic, not least the murder of a widow and her five-year-old son, with Pintea carrying the woman’s corpse on his shoulder at night – and the mythic landscape in which it is set.  Reading the Lucky Mill makes one want to visit those forests and experience the wildness of the region: in fact at Ineu can be found Hanul Moara Cu Noroc, a water mill converted into an hotel and restaurant, so one can get close to the spirit of the original, hopefully minus the robbery, murder and arson.  There is a 1955 film adaptation of the novel, available on YouTube though minus English subtitles.


(This was first published on The Joy of Mere Words, 14 November 2017)