Enigma Otiliei (The Mystery of Otilia) is a Romanian novel written by George Călinescu and published in 1933. The action centers around Felix Sima, a student at the University of Medicine who comes to Bucharest to live under the guardianship of his uncle, Costache Giurgiuveanu. There, he meets a beautiful and intriguing girl Otilia, whom he develops a crush on.
This book provides examples of:
- All for Nothing: Costache's obsession with frugality, getting as much money as possible and his pathological need to have his money close to him ultimately comes to naught: it doesn't help his health and he dies after being robbed by Stănică Raţiu, leaving his adopted daughter in a vulnerable position, leading to her decision to marry a man she doesn't love.
- Ambiguous Disorder: Titi is a shy young man obsessed with copying paintings and illustrations, even entire manuals and music sheets. He never creates anything original, and has a very precise way in which he wants to work and study, becoming frustrated when Felix suggests they try something new. He also has trouble concentrating, and stops the tutoring session after only half an hour, claiming a headache. Additionally, he likes to tell people absolutely everythig that happens to him and what he sees on the street on any given day, and when he goes for a walk he likes to stick to a certain itinerary and absolutely refuses to go to certain places. Even more noteworthy is his habit of occasionally rocking back and forth, something which is inexplicably encouraged by his mother.
- Arranged Marriage: Costache's first marriage was arranged by his and his bride's family, and he had no say in it. He was 20, his bride was only 13. She did not know anything about sex, and was so scared at being without her mother that she begged her to stay with her on her wedding night. In a particularly creepy passage, Costache remembers that his young wife was playing with dolls while pregnant.
- Attention Whore: Aurica wants men to pay attention to her, and she will often complain obsessively about being single and about the plight of unmarried women.
- Awful Wedded Life: Olimpia constantly rejects Stănică's conjugal advances and refuses to have another child with him, which rapidly diminishes his affection for her. Eventually, once he steals Costache's money, he divorces her and marries Georgeta instead.
- Weissmann mentions that losing one's sanity is an unavoidable outcome of living with Aglae. In his opinion, being married to her must be hell. Seeing how she never has a kind word to say to or about Simion and callously gets rid of him once his dementia becomes unmanageable, he's not that far off.
- Berserk Button: Felix hates it whenever someone calls him an orphan.
- Pascalopol's mood sours quickly whenever Aglae or Aurica throw veiled insults toward Otilia.
- Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Tulea family is one of the famous examples of Romanian literature. The father (Simion), once an adulterer in his youth, is now senile and begins to experience delusions. He is mostly ignored by his wife Aglae, who is a tyrannical, smothering woman ruling the lives of her children with an iron fist. She gets rid of Simion by having him sent to a psychiatric ward, and refuses to even say his name, let alone visit. Their eldest daughter Olimpia scandalously had a child out of wedlock with an opportunistic moocher who blackmailed her parents for her dowry. She is a terrible mother, an her child dies of neglect. The second daughter, Aurica, is obsessed with the idea of getting married and getting increasingly desperate as she ages. She throws herself at any available men, and is consumed by envy for Otilia. The youngest child, Titi, is mentally deficient and unstable, possibly autistic. His glaring problems are overlooked by his mother, who enables him. He is frustrated and feels misunderstood.
- Black Comedy: Costache telling the story of how his grandfather died. He was out hunting in the woods with his son when he slid from the saddle and had a terrible fall which left him unconscious. His son thought that he was dead, and he rushed to get help, only to find his father very much alive upon his return, sitting on a large rock and looking down the barrel of his gun to check if anything got stuck there. The gun accidentally went off and killed him.
- Blatant Lies: Incredibly, almost everything that comes out of Stănică's mouth is a lie, designed to either make him look better or to extract money or benefits from others.
- Book Ends: The story begins and ends with Costache saying Nobody lives here!
- Greed: Costache Giurgiuveanu's defining characteristic. Despite being fairly rich, he refuses to spend any of his money.
- His sister Aglae shares the same pathology. When Costache dies, she and her family begin looking frantically through his house for his money, and even lifts up the mattress where his body was lying to look for any signs of cash or valuables, pushing his corpse to the wall in the process.
- Downer Ending: Costache is robbed of most of his fortune and dies, Otilia is pressured to leave the house she grew up in by Aglae and she gives up on her love for Felix and ends up running away with the much older Pascalopol. Felix never sees her again, and lives for years not knowing what happened with her, only to meet the now old Pascalopol by accident and be informed that Otilia moved to Latin America and married another wealthy man after her divorce. Felix can't recognize the woman in the photo, and realizes that the freshness of youth has left Otilia.
- Everyone Loves Blondes: Otilia has long blonde ringlets, and aside the Tulea family (who sees her as a threat), she is admired by most of the people she meets, from her colleagues at the Conservatory to the doctor brought by Pascalopol to check on Costache - and of course, Felix.
- The Fashionista: Otilia loves to buy new pieces for her wardrobe, and is considered the most elegant student at the Conservatory.
- Girly Girl with a Tomboy Streak: Otilia loves fashion and loves to read fashion magazines. For her, not having a new dress or gloves for the season is inconceivable, which is one of the reasons why she is dependent on Pascalopol. And yet her tomboyish side comes out while she is visiting Pascalopol's estate: she loves riding without a saddle, wants to bathe in the pond and climb up haystacks. Pascalopol feels like he can't keep up with her, and is jealous that Felix's youth enables him to follow Otilia up every tree she wants to climb.
- Green-Eyed Monster: Felix feels the sting of jealousy whenever he sees how close Otilia and Pascalopol are.
- Aurica is jealous of Otilia's beauty and her success with the opposite sex.
- Pascalopol is jealous of the handsome and young Felix, whom he rightfully sees as a rival for Otilia's affections.
- Aglae is jealous that Felix is intellectually gifted enough to study medicine, while her own children have only a high school level education, her own son Titi being mentally deficient.
- Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold: Otilia is a beautiful blonde, and a thoroughly decent and lovely human being.
- Head-Turning Beauty: Otilia and Georgeta are beautiful women, albeit in different ways.
- Hypocrite: Aglae takes the cake. She criticizes Otilia unfairly for supposedly being easy and cavorting with many men, when her eldest daughter had a child out of wedlock and her youngest daughter had no sense of shame and considered even the most inappropriate things men were telling her as acceptable.
- High-Class Call Girl: Georgeta became this after she was betrayed by the man she was supposed to marry.
- Ignored Expert: Pascalopol is always giving good advice, whether legal, financial or social, and is almost always ignored:
- He advises Costache to adopt Otilia so she can be his inheritor and not end up thrown out of the house by the Tuleas after Costache's death. When Costache balks at the thought of spending money, Pascalopol offers his own lawyer and assures him that he will take care of everything. When Costache is discouraged from doing that by a letter secretly written by Stănică, Pascalopol tries to get Costache to at least transfer money in a secret account for Otilia, offering to open up the account himself. Costache agrees and gives him a third of the money, but keeps the rest with him, which allows Stănică to rob him of it, leading to Costache's death.
- He advises Aurica, in very delicate terms, that men are put off by women who are too desperate to marry, and that she would have better success at finding a partner if she wasn't so fixated on the idea. She ignores this advice and begins wearing even more garish makeup and walking up and down the boulevard in hopes of attracting attention.
- Ironic Name: Aglae named her children with pompous, Latin sounding names: Olimpia comes from Olympus, the mountain where the gods resided, Aurelia is an old noble Roman name and Titi comes from the Roman emperor Titus. Needless to say, her children failed spectacularly to live up to their names: Olimpia's marriage disintegrates and her child dies because of her negligence, Aurica is a frustrated and desperate old maid and Titi is mentally challenged.
- I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: The reason why Otilia refuses Felix's offer of marriage. She knows that he needs to focus on his career, and that she would only be a burden on him. On a more realistic note, she's also aware of the fact that Felix can't offer her the life she craves, and that she would probably feel trapped and bored as his wife.
- I Was Quite a Looker: According to Otilia, Simion used to have a very adventurous life, with scandals and many love affairs. Because of age and mental deterioration, there is nothing left of the handsome man he once was.
- Jerkass: Stănică Raţiu is an insufferable, hypocritical, backstabbing, opportunistic moocher and thief who is always listening in at doors, spying, lying and luring people into traps. If he ever feels remorse for his actions, he is quick to find a justification.
- Aglae is a hypocritical, tyrannical, greedy and cruel woman with no sympathy for anyone aside her own children (and even then, she clearly favors her son over her daughters).
- Karma Houdini: Stănică Rațiu manages to steal the money hidden under Costache Giurgiuveanu's mattress, which causes the latter to die of a heart attack. Despite committing a crime, he keeps all the money and runs away, gets married to Georgeta and becomes a successful lawyer.
- Kick the Dog: Aglae does this all the time to Otilia and later Felix. She spreads malicious rumors about them, tries to tear at their self-esteem and tries to prevent Otilia from being adopted by Costache. The cherry on top of the cake is when she basically kicks Otilia out of the house after her step-father dies.
- Laser-Guided Karma: After all their machinations and efforts, the Tulea family doesn't get the bulk of Costache's fortune. A third goes to Otilia, unbeknownst to them, and the rest is stolen by Stănică, who divorces Olimpia almost immediately.
- Aurica used to go to Otilia's school specifically to tell people that Otilia is not a part of the family and that she is being raised by them out of pity, giving the school's mean girls ammunition against her. She ends up alone and unmarried, while Otilia marries twice (both times to wealthy men) and ends up leading a life of luxury and adventure.
- Last-Name Basis: Most of the characters are called by their first name except Leonida Pascalopol.
- Love Triangle: Felix is in love with Otilia, who loves him back but ultimately chooses Pascalopol, who is wealthy and completely besotted with her.
- May–December Romance: Near the end of the book, Otilia marries Pascalopol, a rich landlord who is significantly older than her, and they move to Paris. However, they divorce in the end because Pascalopol decides it's better for Otilia to live a free life.
- Costache marries Otilia's mother when she is 20 and he is in his forties.
- The Millstone: Aurica and Titi are this for the Tulea family, especially Aurica.
- Missing Mom: Otilia's mother died when she was still a child.
- My Beloved Smother: Aglae alternates between coddling her children and tearing at their self-esteem. She loves them very much, but she refuses to see their glaring inadequacies, and enables their self-destructive behavior.
- Never My Fault: Aglae's children all end up ruined in one way or another: Olimpia ends up divorced, a big deal in the 1910s, Aurica is an increasingly desperate old maid and Titi is clearly mentally deficient and most likely destined to remain unmarried and financially dependent on his mother. In spite of this, Aglae stubbornly refuses to admit that she they have flaws and most importantly, that she had a hand in raising them poorly.
- Obfuscating Stupidity: Costache's modus operandi. By pretending to be deaf and senile, he manages to borrow money from other people and not repay it, and avoids answering uncomfortable questions.
- Old Maid: Aurica's defining characteristic. She's 25 (and looks about 40) and often laments about how she can't find a soulmate. Part of the reason why she hates Otilia is because she is jealous on her better success with boys.
- Old Retainer: Marina is this for Costache. She's actually a distant relative that he uses as a cook and maid in exchange for food and board.
- Parental Neglect: Olimpia and her husband constantly leave their two month old son alone on a crib without any kind of railing, resulting in the baby tumbling down from it and dying of a concussion. Olimpia receives the news of his death with a great deal of calm.
- Parents as People: Many of the characters in the novel are parents themselves or talk a lot about their own parents and discuss their flaws. Costache for example, truly loves Otilia but his avarice is so deeply-ingrained that he cannot bring himself to secure her future.
- Pet the Dog: Subverted. Stănică is a complete jerkass who gives the reader a new reason to hate him with every scene he appears in, but it seems like he truly loves his family when he goes to visit his aging aunt for her birthday. Except that when he goes there, he mooches money off his wealthier relatives, takes four coffee cups from his aunt's mismatched, dwindling collection (and later lies to his wife that he bought them from an antique shop) and when his brother-in-law gives him a ride home in his carriage, Stănică uses the opportunity to feel up his teenage niece and fantasizes about marrying her.
- Proud Beauty: Felix finds out that this is how Otilia's male colleagues see her. She is "the most elegant student at the Conservatory, and the proudest," according to one of them.
- Rags to Riches: A villainous example. At the end of the story, Stănică finally jumps up the social ladder after stealing a large part of Costache's fortune.
- She Is All Grown Up: At the end of the book, Felix meets up with Pascalopol by accident and he shows him a photo of Otilia. Felix notices that, while still conventionally attractive, she no longer has the youthful beauty she had ten years ago.
- Spoiled Sweet: The friendly and fair Otilia has the wealthy Pascalopol wrapped around her little finger, and he spends large sums of money on her and fulfills her every whim.
- Sour Grapes: Upon finding out that Felix wants to study medicine at the university, Aglae comments nastily that higher education is an unimportant whim and a waste of time. Her own son is 22 and intellectually incapable of finishing high school.
- Supreme Chef: The only unanimously acclaimed skill that Aurica possesses is that she makes really good cakes.
- Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: Costache is very wealthy and knows that his relatives are trying to get their hands on his fortune, but is easily influenced by them (to the point of ridiculousness). When he is seriously thinking about adopting Otilia, he receives a letter (obviously written by Stănică) telling him that if he adopts her, people will think he's actually sleeping with her. The text even lampshades this by pointing out that Costache never pondered who sent him the letter and never tried to match the writing to letters or notes written by the Tuleas.
- Viewers Are Geniuses: Since the Romanian society of 1938 (when the novel was first published) was very fond of reading (and francophile to boot), there are a lot of references that could go over a modern reader's head. For example, when Otilia goes with Pascalopol to Paris, she stays on Michodière Street. It's a high end, ultracentral street in Paris, very close to the Opera, meaning that she is most likely enjoying luxurious accommodations.
- Wicked Step Mother: Aglae is Costache's sister, but she plays this role toward Otilia, whom she sees as an intruder and a threat to her children's inheritance. She is constantly trying to tear her down, and fights bitterly against the idea of Costache adopting her.
- Georgeta's step-mother saw her more as a doll to play dress-up with rather than an actual human being and taught her bad habits at a fairly young age, and to top it off she married the man Georgeta was engaged to.
