WORLD LITERATURE TODAY - UNIVERSITY OF OKLAHOMA

Eleftheria koundouri. I epohes tis idanikis aftapatis. Athens. Voyiatzi. 1996. 160 pages.
A young scholar of French literature and internaseveral books of modernist verse since 1980, one novel, and two volumes of her own poetry translated into Russian and English. A professional journalist and often honored with literary prizes in Greece anh abroad. Koundouri has now released " The Seasons of Ideal Self-Deception," a strange book that is difficult to classify or characterize.
The author explains her own text aw "four seasons and twelve letters, contemplative texts, "which address a "dear" man in the second person and are illustrated by color reproductions of surrealistic painting by the famous Max Ernst.
As if deriving from or suggested by these illustrations, the four longish chapters (with subdivisions)in epistolary form are written in lyric prose and communicate the
existential anguish of a sensitive and erudite woman attempting to intimate her
feelings and thoughts to another "self", a man (one assumes) whose responses are occasionally recorded and reported by the speaker. The stream of thoughts and emotions remains fluid, as nothing is thematically or systematically organized, and
topics remain utterly personal and esoteric in a way excluding third parties from this "communication."
"escape,quest,return" of these persons involved in the reification of an ideal idea constituting failure and self-deception make up the flesh of Koundouri's text
while the Ernst pictures offer its ortical skeleton. The book is a tour de force indeed, and it reads pleasantly despite a number of strictly cultural or academic allusions which do not contribute toward communication with a broad audience or readership. The text has no quotable passages and thus cannot be termed "philosophical", although it is sufficiently contemplative and abstract
to suggest a feminine sensibility which does not merely tell stories of a pessimistic nature. "Archaic Sea," "Pierced Stone," "Hidden Fire," "and "Unsilenced Wind" are the poetic titles of the four parts, their lyric flow witnessing the inner
drama of a rich and talented soul.

M.Byron Raizis
University of Athens