The Romanian-born academic Eliade is most famous for his studies of religious history, but his Diary of a Short-Sighted Adolescent, an account of his teenage years first published in English in 2016, revealed he was also an engaging – if not exactly straightforward – writer of his own life. In Gaudeamus, written in 1928 and translated into English by Christopher Bartholomew, the undergraduate Eliade is torn between the rigours of study and the pleasures of company as he escapes “the austerity of adolescence” in 1920s Bucharest.
Seasons last an eternity or are gone in a flash as romances wither and blossom, committees are filled, wine is shared and songs are sung (including the titular “Gaudeamus”, an ode to the joys of university life). He writes beautifully about nature and the buzz of student gatherings, although his lengthy, staged conversations with friends about faith and meaning grow wearing.
Eliade has been criticised for his links to the far-right Iron Guard, but two boorish antisemites get short shrift here. More troubling is the self-important sexism, as he castigates the “mediocrity of sentimental girls”, and treats the two women in his life as objects to be moulded or abandoned.
