El ocaso de los dioses de la estepa

by Ismail Kadare

Titulo fundamental dentro de la obra de Ismael Kadaré (1936), El ocaso de los dioses de la estepa (1978)- cuya versión definitiva, publicada en 1998 tras la caída del régimen comunista en Albania es la que ahora se ofrece- se nutre de las experiencias del autor, tanto personales como literarias, en sus estancia juvenil en la Unión Soviética. Si bien pueden rastrearse ya en ella algunos de los motivos que son recurrentes en su obra –como la confrontación de los mitos eslavos y albaneses o las relaciones entre el poder y la literatura-, la novela constituye una acerba y corrosiva crítica de los principios que dieron forma al yermo “realismo socialista”, así como de la mediocridad y la insania del régimen soviético contra los grandes escritores, personificados aquí en Boris Pasternak, cuya novela Doctor Zhivago forma parte de la trama misma de la narración.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Russia, Literature, Albanian Literature, Novels, Book Club

233 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1978

About the author

Ismail Kadare (also spelled Kadaré) was an Albanian novelist and poet. He has been a leading literary figure in Albania since the 1960s. He focused on short stories until the publication of his first novel, The General of the Dead Army. In 1996 he became a lifetime member of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences of France. In 1992, he was awarded the Prix mondial Cino Del Duca; in 2005, he won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize, in 2009 the Prince of Asturias Award of Arts, and in 2015 the Jerusalem Prize. He has divided his time between Albania and France since 1990. Kadare has been mentioned as a possible recipient for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. His works have been published in about 30 languages.

Ismail Kadare was born in 1936 in Gjirokastër, in the south of Albania. His education included studies at the University of Tirana and then the Gorky Institute for World Literature in Moscow, a training school for writers and critics.

In 1960 Kadare returned to Albania after the country broke ties with the Soviet Union, and he became a journalist and published his first poems.

His first novel, The General of the Dead Army, sprang from a short story, and its success established his name in Albania and enabled Kadare to become a full-time writer.

Kadare's novels draw on Balkan history and legends. They are obliquely ironic as a result of trying to withstand political scrutiny. Among his best known books are Chronicle in Stone (1977), Broken April (1978), and The Concert (1988), considered the best novel of the year 1991 by the French literary magazine Lire.

In 1990, Kadare claimed political asylum in France, issuing statements in favour of democratisation. During the ordeal, he stated that "dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible. The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship."

Reviews

[Adam Dalva · Rating 4 out of 5]

A strange, lucid, sometimes alienating snapshot of life as a Soviet writer the year that Pasternak won the nobel prize. It feels ferociously contemporary in the way it veers between autobiography and invention, and there are some absolutely bravura sequences (the first chapter, in particular, is stellar). The blur of characters and detail and the occasional fevered sequence make things a bit confusing, and this is a classic case of one of my least favorite tropes: a male protagonist who impulsively acts badly/erratically as a function of plot alone. On the line level, it's extraordinary. In short: a strange one. Check it out if you have interest in non-Russian Soviet writers. They've been a low-level obsession of mine lately, and this is the best illustration so far of their constraints.

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 4 out of 5]

In his early twenties, Kadare was selected to pursue literary studies at the prestigious Gorky Institute for World Literature in Moscow. He was there during the Kruschev era, from 1958 till 1960 when Albania broke off relations with the USSR. His time there is the foundation for Twilight of the Eastern Gods which, though a fictionalised account, uses the real names of the instructors and fellow students who were at the Institute at the time.

Translator David Bellos, in his excellent introduction, notes that while in many respects Kadare had a wonderful time in Moscow and outwardly achieved success while he was there, he came to be profoundly disenchanted with the course, the type of staff and students selected and, above all, the politicised nature of the approved socialist-realist literary style.

This disenchantment pervades the novel. The protagonist, Albanian like Kadare though not Kadare, is never fully accepted in the student group, socially isolated and, as relations between Albania and the USSR deteriorate over the months before they are broken off, he comes under security surveillance - particularly frightening because there is no public news about the strain on the relationship, only rumours and suspicion.

Boris Pasternak was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature while Kadare was in Russia. Chapter 4 of Twilight of the Eastern Gods tells the story of the ferocious campaign waged by the USSR against Pasternak that forced him to decline the award, or face exile.

This is not an easy book to read. Tinged with moments of mordant humour, the tone is dark and the world he portrays is at times nightmarish, almost surreal in its constraints and distortions - of values, of writing and of life.

[Ernst · Rating 1 out of 5]

Hmm ich frag mich wo meine Rezension hingeraten ist. Hab das vor 1-2 Jahren gelesen und mich zu Tode gelangweilt. Die umständliche, angestaubte Ausdrucksweise hat mich überhaupt nicht eingefangen. Und eigentlich war ich mir sicher, dass ich das hier bereits alles wortreich festgehalten habe. Aber dann täusche ich mich wohl. Ist mir erst jetzt aufgefallen weil ich drauf und dran bin, nochmal was anderes von Kadare zu probieren (Pyramide).

[Thomas Hübner · Rating 4 out of 5]

http://www.mytwostotinki.com/?p=3080

Moscow, 1958. A young and talented Albanian author is sent to the centre of the Communist world in order to complete his literary education at the renowned Gorky Institute. The bustling atmosphere of the Soviet capital with all its interesting opportunities in the cultural sphere (despite the limitations that the communist ideology imposes), the chance to meet with fellow writers from diverse backgrounds, the less puritan lifestyle in Moscow compared to the more and more paranoid atmosphere in Enver Hoxha’s Albania, and its (then) backwater capital Tirana, and the elevated feeling to belong visibly to the chosen intellectual elite of the future in the communist world – all this should make this stay a pleasant experience for someone who aspires to be a professional writer.

And indeed we see our hero/narrator (who shares many experiences and characteristics with the book’s author) at a writer’s holiday retreat on the Baltic sea – a previous one at the Crimea is mentioned -, enjoying romantic infatuations with several young women, indulging in “typical” student’s activities in Moscow at that time, like getting terribly drunk on several occasions, and so on. In between, we follow our hero to lessons at the Gorky Institute, which are moderately interesting, or we read his talks, discussions or overheard rumors that usually centre around the Russian literary elite; Yevtushenko asks the hero on one occasion in the corridor of the student’s building, if he has seen Bella (Akhmadulina) – that’s the kind of every day experience the narrator has. And yet, for the main character Moscow and particularly the Gorky Institute and the literary circles become a serious disappointment, for various reasons.

When Lida Snegina, the hero’s love interest for most of the book mentions to him that she doesn’t like living but only dead authors, it sounds a bit provoking first. But somehow this casual remark is a kind of trigger for some soul-searching and analysis of the authors and would-be authors that surround the hero at the Gorky Institute: the majority of them mediocre figures, willing to sell their souls and to change their convictions immediately if a new party line requires it. And their works: books that have got almost nothing to do with the real life of the people in the Soviet Union or their respective homeland, most of them idyllic descriptions of a non-existing communist paradise without any literary value.

There is of course another literature in Russia at that time, but it’s a literature that is banned, and circulated only in Samizdat, copied secretly and handed over clandestinely from friend to friend. In an abandoned tract of the student’s building, the narrator finds an incomplete manuscript of Boris Pasternak’s Doctor Zhivago, the famous banned novel for which Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. Once the news regarding this award is out, a ferocious, well-orchestrated, nation-wide campaign against Pasternak is let loose, a campaign that is so vicious that the narrator asks himself how it must feel when one is at the receiving end of so much hate propaganda, venom, and even threats against one’s own life. No wonder, that his opinion about most of his colleagues at the Gorky Institute becomes free of any illusions:

"At long last, after overcoming their adversaries, having accused them of Stalinism, liberalism, bourgeois nationalism, Russophobia, petty nationalism, Zionism, modernism, folklorism, etc., having crushed their literary careers and banned the publication of their works, having hounded them into alcoholism or suicide, or, more simply, having had them deported, that is to say, after having done what had to be done, they had been inspired to come to the Gorky Institute to complete their literary education."

While this evaluation may be true for the big majority of students, there are a few of his colleagues with whom the narrator develops a distanced friendship. One of them, the Greek Antaeus, a veteran of the Greek Civil War, and by coincidence a one-time patient of a hospital in Gjirokaster, the narrator’s home town, reminds the narrator of the besa, this Albanian obsession about the keeping of a once given word under all circumstances, and even when it means to rise again from the dead, as it happens in the old Albanian legend of Kostandin and Dorutine; this legend that plays a certain role in this novel. There are more references to Kadare novels that obviously are brainchilds of his stay in Moscow: The General of the Dead Army, The Niche of Shame, and The Three-Arched Bridge. The world of the Kadare novels is full of cross-references, and The Twilight of the Eastern Gods is no exception.

I mentioned it in another review of a Kadare book: it rains a lot in Kadare’s novels – as much as it does in the movies of Andrey Tarkovsky. Twilight of the Eastern Gods is no exception, but it gives a hint why this is a recurring theme in all of Kadare’s books. In the books that were typical for the Socialist Realism of the 1950s it would hardly ever rain, the sun was always shining over the Worker’s Fatherland. The insistence on rain is also an act to distance himself from this kind of fantasy literature that was expected from writers who had graduated from the Gorky Institute; at least this is how I understand Kadare.

In the end, Albania and the Soviet Union start to distance themselves; everybody seems to realize it before the narrator does it. We know what will happen: the narrator will have to return home, and experience his own, even worse dictatorship again.

Maybe Twilight of the Eastern Gods is not exactly on the same literary level as some of his masterpieces (Broken April, The Pyramid, Palace of Dreams, The General of the Dead Army, Chronicle in Stone, The Winter of our Discontent), some of the characters are a bit flat, but still it is a good novel that gives valuable insights in the world of this giant of contemporary world literature. It is his most autobiographical book and I can recommend it to anyone with an interest in Kadare’s works.

One word about the translation, and about the translations of Kadare’s books in general. The reviewed edition in English is translated by David Bellos from the French translation by Jusuf Vrioni – similarly to The Siege that I reviewed here previously. Overall not a bad effort, although I am in principle opposed to this kind of translations that are for me only acceptable when there are no translators at all for a given combination of languages; so for this edition there is no excuse based on availability of translators. There are excellent translators from Albanian to English. But the case of Kadare is a bit more complicated, and – very typical for this author – even a bit ambiguous.

All books of Kadare that were published in Albania before 1992 were subject to censorship. Some of his books were even banned after publication in Albania, despite having undergone careful reading by the censors. At the same time, Kadare could publish some of his novels abroad or in Albania in translations. His translator in French was Jusuf Vrioni, also an author and close friend of Kadare. Kadare speaks French and worked usually closely together with Vrioni in the process of translation to French. After the fall of communism in Albania, Kadare started to review his books and included in new editions also banned paragraphs and pages. Therefore, the updated French language editions of Vrioni would contain more authentic versions of Kadare’s novels than the originally published Albanian versions. At a later stage the expanded, uncensored French versions were then published in Albanian, in Kadare’s favourite publishing house Onufri. The German translations of Kadare novels on the other hand are exclusively translated directly from Albanian, based on the versions that Kadare authorized.

There is another reason why Kadare (or his agent, Mr Andrew Wiley) usually favors a translation of his older novels from the French translation, and not from the Albanian originals. Albania has become very late a member of the relevant international agreements on authors’ rights and copyright. As a result, authors of Albanian works that were published prior to the ratification of these agreements by Albania, have no copyright protection. Kadare wouldn’t see a penny of royalties for a translation of any of his earlier novels, unless a publisher would – for ethic, not for legal reasons – decide to compensate him. The French translation is considered according to these agreements as a new work (because it includes many changes compared to the original Albanian text), and is therefore subject to royalties. Not that it affects in any way the literary value of Kadare’s works, but this background is necessary to know, if one wants to understand the strange translation practice of his work in the Anglophone world.

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

In this entertaining, autobiographical novel, Kadare recalls the time he spent as a young man in Moscow at the Gorky Institute. Not much happens. really. The narrator woos a local girl at a writing retreat on Latvia's Baltic coast. He returns to Moscow where he and his fellow students get stupidly drunk (vodka consumption is high throughout the novel). While in this state, he falls out with his girlfriend, Lida. The Soviet press whips up a campaign of vilification against Pasternak when he wins the Nobel Prize. The narrator senses the coming of the breach that will divide communist Albania from the Soviet Union and knows that he will soon be returning home.

His fellow writing students seem to be a dreadful bunch - Kyuzengesh, apparently the tundra's only writer, the politically correct Armenian, Pogosian, AKA "The Masses in Their Tens of Millions" and so on. Kadare implies that most of them have little talent. Decades later, the introduction relates, Kadare tried to find out what had become of his colleagues. He discovered the fate of only two of them, the two for whom he held the greatest regard. While the Greek Antaeus was living in Athens, the Latvian Hieronymus Stulpanc had committed suicide.

Ideological hysteria hangs in the air like a Russian snowstorm. Kadare has little time for it or for its effects on Soviet literature. He prefers to apply the lessons of Albanian folklore to his life and to share its tales with his girlfriends. He's meant to be working on his first novel, The General of the Dead Army but we hear very little about it. In this sense, we might call it a coming-of-page novel.

The inestimable David Bellos translates from a French translation and provides a helpful introduction. In translating second hand, Bellos is effectively undertaking the Oulipian process deployed in Multiples, edited by Adam Thirlwell. According to The Guardian:

Thirlwell has selected 12 stories whose originals (which are not printed) are variously written in Danish, Spanish, Dutch, Japanese, German, Arabic, Russian, Serbo-Croat, Italian, Hungarian, English and Italian again. Ten stories are first translated into English, the other two into German and Spanish. The first translation is translated, and then the subsequent translation is translated again. The translators only see the preceding version of the story. The longest chains contain six translations, though every other version is in English.

"However poor my deferred rendition..." states Bellos, "I think Kadare's main qualities survive: his humour and his anger, his self-critical wit, and his conviction... that real literature is, in the end, more important than anything else." Indeed.

[Hendrik · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ein klarer Fall von zu hoher Erwartungshaltung meinerseits. Ich dachte die Kampagne gegen den Nobelpreis von Boris Pasternak würde im Mittelpunkt des Romans stehen. Aber Kadare verarbeitet doch eher allgemeine Eindrücke seiner Zeit als Student in Moskau. Sein Schreibstil hat mir gut gefallen, aber es fehlt einfach die Spannung in der Geschichte.

[Noah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Auch ein starker Autor schreibt manchmal ein schwaches Buch... Eine etwas verkorkste Liebesgeschichte im Moskau der 50er Jahre mit einen unsympatischen Protagonisten, wobei der im Klappentext angedeutete Skandal um Pasternaks Nobelpreis eigentlich nur auf drei Seiten als Hintergrund dient. Nicht viel von der Erzählkunst und Mystik, die Kadares andere Romane auszeichnet.

[Liam Ostermann · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kadare is a writer I have always meant to read more of but until reading 'The General of the Dead Army' and recently 'A Dictator Calls' (which has prompted me to write this review) it was intention honoured in its breech rather then in fulfilment. It may be that this odd novel is one reason why I have not read more Kadare, not because it is not good, it is memorable and aspects of it come immediately to mind even eight years, but because I was unengaged by the story which is based on Kadare's time in Moscow at the time Pasternak was forced to refuse the Nobel prize for literature and when the split between Albania and the Soviet Union (because Albania's dictator Enver Hoxha rejected Kruschev's denouncing of Stalinism) turned him into anti-Soviet element and forced him to leave the Soviet Union.

My summary is of course a simplification, Kadare is a writer of short but densely complex novels in terms of meaning and message, but I couldn't help thinking after reading it that it was odd that Kadare could so honestly describe and denounce the suffocating ways of life in Moscow's Gorky institute and the spies amongst students, denunciations, etc. remain an 'ornament' of the oppressive and ugly Albanian communist regime. I now know that my supposition of his being a communist collaborator was both inaccurate and simplistic. Kadare is a good writer 'The general of the Dead Army' is dazzling and because of that novel, not this one, I will continue to read his earlier novels.

I can't help thinking that this novel is a signpost on Kadare's more active separation from sympathy with or maybe tolerance for the Hoxha regime. It is interesting that Kadare returned to this same period in his 2018 'A dictator Calls' (which I am also reviewing). It might in fact be worth reading this novel before reading 'A Dictator Calls'.

A novel which left me unsatisfied but may have more to say in the long term about Kadare and his attempts to come to terms with his choices in life then first appears.

A rather compromising three stars because I didn't enjoy it, but didn't hate it and while I am not going to reread it and would hate to put anyone off reading it.

[Farhan Khalid · Rating 4 out of 5]

I would wander for a while around the gardens of the Writers’ Retreat

The Baltic turned a slightly different colour each night

Would I manage to break free from my enslavement?

Men sometimes appeared beneath the disguise of initials in books

It is difficult to go around with foreigners

They often leave without even telling a word

I came from an ancient Balkan land with grandiose legends about the given word

Her departure would be like an eclipse of the moon

It is said in our land, the given word makes Death step back

We were now connected by a small secret

I prefer not to know where I’m going. I like walking aimlessly

All great art expresses universal pain

Everybody has their share of that pain

You have to let your imagination roam sometimes

You can never know in advance from which forgotten depths the attack will come

The corridor was endless

The emptiness in the corridor was unbearable

By meeting a writer you might become someone

Let loneliness cure loneliness

Typical characters arise in typical situations

That’s the way large nations always behave

Scare the people

Besa — Albanian word

One day it will come into every language in the world

Sunday — The day was rushing away beneath my feet

It was only ever today. Eternally now

Her eyes seemed like a very old painting, worn away by time

My story is about dead people

Stories that would never be written and would never be performed on any stage

They’ll never write any of the things they’ll tell each other

They’ll write other things, often the exact opposite

What kind of country is this? And why am I in it?

A novel called Doctor Zhivago had bagged the Nobel

It had to be a bad novel. A very bad one

A living army commanded by the ghosts of a dead general and a dead priest

A fantastic invention

Or a dead army commanded by a living general and a living priest

The Nobel Prize — A Scandinavian plague

A poisoned gift of the international bourgeoisie

Quarantine was declared the following afternoon

[Czarny Pies · Rating 4 out of 5]

"Le crépuscule des dieux de la steppe" est un excellent roman sur le dilemme de l'écrivain derrière le rideau de fer à la fin des années cinquante qui serait peut-être difficile a suivre pour le lecteur qui ne connait pas le contexte. Il plaira certainement à ceux qui connaissent l'œuvre de Boris Pasternak, Joseph Brodsky, Milan Kundera, Alexandre Soljenitsyne, Bohomil Hrabal, et Joseph Skvorecky. Si on ne connait déjà deux ou trois auteurs de ce group, on aura beaucoup du mal a suivre "Le crépuscule des dieux de la steppe".
Le roman qui est autobiographique décrit les expériences de Kadaré entre 1958-1960 quand il a été inscrit à l'Institut de littérature Maxime-Gorki à Moscou. Pendant cette période Kadaré fréquentait surtout d'autres étudiants étrangers qui comme lui qui étaient là pour apprendre à écrire dans le style du réalisme-socialiste exigé dans les pays communistes.
Ces étudiants pour la plupart trouvaient la situation stressante. Ils se méfiaient mutuellement parce qu'ils savaient qu'il y avaient beaucoup d'espions parmi eux. En plus les Russes ne leur faisaient pas confiance. Les loisirs proposés (les randonnées du ski par exemple) étaient souvent des calvaires surtout pour ceux qui n'avaient jamais vu de neige afin d'arriver en Russie.
Malgré les inconvénients, le protagoniste qui est l'alter ego de Kadaré accepte assez bien la situation. Il veut faire la carrière dans un pays communiste et son seule passe-temps est de courir après les jupes. Il est troublé néanmoins par la peur qu'il va commettre une trahison à un moment critique.
Peu à peu son enthousiasme pour l'URSS s'effrite. Il n'aime pas que les Russes lui dit comment écrire. Convaincu que Homère était Albanais, il ne croit pas que la culture Russe est supérieure à la sienne. Quand il tombe sur une version samizdat (clandestin) du docteur Jivago de Boris Pasternak, il commence à poser des questions sur la censure Stalinienne.
Peu après, le comité Nobel accorde son prix littéraire à Pasternak et le régime monte une compagne féroce de salissage contre Pasternak. Quand ses amis se mettent à dénoncer Pasternak, le protagoniste est outragé. En même temps il a peur qu'il sera forcé à ajouter sa voix aux autres qui attaquent Pasternak.
À ce moment on annonce que le régime Albanais d'Envers Hoxha a décidé d'effectuer une rupture avec l'URSS et se l'allier avec la Chine populaire. On convoque le protagoniste à l'ambassade Albanais où on lui dit qu'il devra quitter l'URSS dans les plus brefs délais et de renoncer immédiatement à tout rendez-vous avec des filles russes .
Le protagoniste pense à une jeune fille qu'il avait beaucoup aimé mais qu'il perdu à cause de sa manque de maturité. Il décide de la voir pour une dernière fois afin de faire ses excuses convenablement. Pourtant dès qu'il la voit, il se souvient de ses ordres de ne pas rencontrer des filles russes. Il coupe court la rencontre et fuit. Ainsi, il effectue la trahison dont il avait eu longtemps peur.

[rafiko32 · Rating 3 out of 5]

jen ai bcp parlé mais je crois que le trope que je préfère (est ce qu'il existe mm?) c une histoire d'amour avc un backdrop de tensions politiques, des mentions 1 peu éparpillées de troubles, d policiers dans la rue alors que les 2 lovers se promènent bras dessus bras dessous, d annonces discrètes à la radio alors qu'ils sont encore o lit, bref d indices qui préfigurent la catastrophe (et on y voit la métaphore de rupture que l'on veut)
ce livre-ci en f mention, et c pr ça que j'excuse la traduction vrm trop faible (quasiment une version d'écolier frr)
3.5 aussi i guess

[Sebastian Harrison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Sencillamente me pareció hermoso. Indispensable para todo aquel que le guste la literatura de Kadare. Relata la estancia del autor en el Moscú Sovietico estudiando letras en el Instituto Gorki. Hermoso.

[Abril Camino · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me recomendaron a Kadaré cuando estuve en Albania hace unos meses y me decidí por esta novela para conocer su narrativa. Me ha gustado mucho, la verdad, a pesar de que conozco poco el contexto y seguro que me he perdido cosas. Pero es una buena crítica a la política soviética de posguerra y una aproximación a la realidad de los países del Pacto de Varsovia, escrito con una narrativa fluida. Se lee en un suspiro. Creo que repetiré con este autor.

[Grace · Rating 3 out of 5]

Quite slow, but interesting.

[Roger Brunyate · Rating 2 out of 5]

Inscrutable Literary Moscow

In the later 1950s, Albanian author Ismail Kadare spent two years at the Gorky Institute in Moscow. This brief novel, published in 1978, is a lightly fictionalized account of his time in the Soviet Union. It is a mixed bag, probably of greatest interest to scholars of Soviet literature and those who have read more extensively into the author's oeuvre than I have. Probably the best thing is the introduction by translator David Bellos, who sets the book splendidly in context. But in actually translating, he can't do much with the frequent proper names, literary references, and interpolations in other languages. Really, the book needs footnotes as well. Here is an example:

In my dreams I was lying in a large bath, and although the art history professor, whose job it was to turn on the hot tap, kept saying, "Ubr jazëk," the water still would not come. Then she declared, "We are in the very same hammam where Aragon, Elsa Triolet and Lida took a bath, but the aesthetico-ideological nature of a hammam is conditioned in the first place by 'tuuli unch bll,' that is to say by the typical situation… in other words by 'tuuli zox'…".

The position of writers in the Soviet Union was like something out of Kafka or Ishiguro. They have their own union, their own residence halls, their own summer retreat centers on the Baltic or the Black Sea. But this is more a restrictive community than a liberating one; the most interesting literary section in the novel concerns the concerted campaign against Boris Pasternak when his Nobel Prize was announced in 1958. Other than that, there is a just a procession of last names that might mean something to Russian readers, but are meaningless to me.

But Kadare was also a young man with normal young men's appetites; the most approachable parts of the book concern his adventures with girls. There is his main girlfriend, medical student Lida Snegina, whom he eventually bequeaths to a fellow writer in a fit of drunken pique. And plenty of others, whether on the Baltic coast near Riga or visiting a dacha outside Moscow. But there was too little of ordinary human interest to sustain me, or to raise my personal reading experience above the "It's OK" level. Though I am prepared to accept that Kadare is a major writer and that this novel, in the context of his other work, makes a real contribution. Just not one that I can appreciate.

[Mandy · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is far more interesting as a snapshot of 1950s literary life in Moscow than as a novel, but it nevertheless held my attention and I was pleased to read something from the acclaimed Albanian writer, who based the book on his own two years spent at the prestigious Gorky Institute in 1958-1960. The novel opens with the narrator on a summer holiday in Riga at one of the Institute’s retreats where he meets Lida, who supplies most of the love interest. Back in Moscow we meet his fellow students, who mostly act like students do the world over, and get a glimpse of life in the student residence. What we don’t get is a look at the teaching in the Institute but it is quite possible that Kadare didn’t think it worth spending time on. The Institute's aim was to educate literary aspirants in the tenets of Socialist Realism rather than foster literary talent. The second part of the book concentrates on the furore caused by Pasternak being awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature and the torrent of criticism from the establishment and the public that it sparked.
There are cameo appearances by real people, such as Yevtushenko and other writers, and certainly the novel is atmospheric and a valuable slice of Moscow literary life, but as a novel there is little plot and little effective characterisation and it plods along quite tediously most of the time.
The introduction from translator David Bellos is invaluable, as is the list of real people who appear, but essentially it’s a book for dedicated Russophiles or students of Russian literary life rather than the general reader.

[Jim · Rating 3 out of 5]

Twilight of the Eastern Gods is a valid—although not the most significant—contribution to the world literature that underlines the belief that freedom of speech should be an absolute human right. It revolves around the reaction of the Russian people to the news that Boris Pasternak was to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature and it was not a celebration, far from it. It was a shame what Pasternak went through but what would be a real shame is that he went through it and nothing ever changed. That said, this is not Kadare’s best work although it has its moments. It might have been realistic to include all the romance (for want of a better word) but it does take away from the momentous events going on all around him and yet strangely enough I felt short-changed on both counts.

Read my full review on my blog here.

[Ana-Maria Bujor · Rating 3 out of 5]

Kadare is one of my favorite writers, but I feel like this is one of his weaker works. I like the parts about the Soviet writer community, the promoted values and the workings of propaganda. Some of the other writers were quite memorable, just like the part about the writer living far away in Siberia and what a day means to him. The short mention of Albanian folklore was also very interesting.
However, the book did not do as much for the me because I found the main character extremely unlikable, but not in an interesting way. Maybe a longer book would have brought some depth.

[Old Man JP · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read several of Ismail Kadare's books now and they have all been excellent to extraordinary but this one fell far short of that rating. At best, it was just okay. This is a lightly fictionalized autobiography of Kadare's time as a graduate student at the Gorky Institute for World Literature in Moscow. At times it was interesting but it seemed to lack a focus and was, mostly, about a series of unrelated episodes that occurred while he was there. He was one of the few foreigners at the school, being Albanian, and faced some discrimination and felt like an outsider most of the time. Some of the topics he talked about in the book included his love life, an outbreak of smallpox in Russia, Pasternak winning the Nobel Prize and the furor that this created in Russia and the cooling of relations between Russia and Albania. These topics were somewhat interesting but he never stayed on a subject long enough to fully flesh it out and seemed to leave it unfinished, which was frustrating. Kadare is an exceptional writer who I would strongly recommend reading but, maybe, leave this one off the list.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

Rating is more of a reflection of my lack of awareness of anything this was commentating on, rather than on the novel itself. Also, lol, I kept waiting for him to go back and start reading doctor Zhivago. I loved the folklore though and found it hilarious how it led him into pretending he was dead to his girlfriend.

[Juan de Dios Reyes · Rating 3 out of 5]

Es un libro interesante, autobiográfico, que muestra una época de su vida en la URSS inmediatamente post stalinista mientras era visitante para una formación como escritor en un instituto en Moscú. No da muchas luces sobre su sentir, pero igual muestra escenas de la vida diaria y una "velada" crítica al servilismo presente en esa época en la intelectualidad literaria de la órbita soviética/comunista (no eran solamente rusos, de hecho el escritor es de Albania). Tampoco aquí encuentro gran profundidad en las motivaciones ni compromiso personal manifestando su opinión desde la reflexión interior. Se lee fácil, conocí algo de ese mundo, pero me deja con sabor a poco...

[koyna · Rating 4 out of 5]

happy to have discovered Ismail Kadare; this book got me out of a mini reading slump and i am excited to read another book of his i just bought: 'The File on H.' :))

[Larrauri CléMent · Rating 5 out of 5]

Chaque fois que j'ouvre un Kadare, c'est un enchantement. Ce court roman est le premier Kadare que j'aie lu jusqu'ici dont l'action se déroule hors de la terre albanaise, en l'espèce à Moscou. Le grotesque de la condition d'écrivain soviétique y est magistralement dépeint. On peut penser à Boulgakov de temps en temps. Le caractère partiellement autobiographique du roman ajoute beaucoup de tendresse dans l'écriture. En fin de compte, c'est un roman très différent des autres Kadare que j'ai pu lire mais tout aussi remarquable.

[Jose Carlos · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mucho más que retazos de la propia experiencia de Kadaré que, en efecto, pasó una temporada en el Instituto Gorki de Literatura de Moscú, son las impresiones que se apelotonan abrumadoramente en esta reflexión, muchas veces lírica, sobre la conciencia del escritor enfrentado a los designios del Estado, empecinado en dictarle cómo y sobre lo que debe escribir.

Son recuerdos de aquella estancia en un Moscú aterrador y sombrío, una URSS modélica para los albaneses, un país de referencia para los regímenes comunistas que ansiaban convertirse en ella. En medio de todo, de la tristeza de las calles y de la gente, el protagonista estudia literatura en el Gorki inmerso en el sistema que ha asesinado a sus autores más representativos o los ha conducido a la destrucción –como Pilniak, Bábel o Tsvaieva,- que ha represaliado a los que no han acatado las órdenes del Partido. Es la tensión entre escribir o plegarse al héroe positivo, al realismo socialista, a la esterilidad espiritual de una literatura política de exaltación.

El Gorki es una institución que emana una tristeza que se le adhiere al protagonista, que contempla Moscú con ojos derrotados, desesperanzados, mientras Pasternak ha ganado el Nobel y sus compatriotas se avergüenzan de ese escritor europeizado, occidentalizado, vendido al capital y que en su Doctor Zhivago no hace sino cometer una y otra vez multitud de desviaciones. La campaña de descrédito es voraz, mientras el narrador continúa recibiendo clases literarias y sintiéndose escritor. ¿Se puede recibir una clase de literatura y sentirse autor en el seno de tanta infamia?

De esta forma, bien pocas formas quedan de evadirse, quedan el alcohol y las chicas moscovitas, ciertamente hipnotizadas por lo que representa ser escritor, tal vez el primer motivo de resistencia, o de irresponsabilidad, en unos tiempos en los que escribir en el ámbito de la URSS y sus satélites políticos podía costarte la vida. Al final, la residencia de estudiantes es un edificio maléfico más, como el Tabir de El palacio de los sueños, como todos esos ministerios que aparecen en las obras de Kadaré, incluso estructurado, en su casta de pisos, como los círculos del infierno de Dante, en función de lo vendidos, chivatos, plagiarios o supervivientes que fueran los escritores que los ocupaban.

El narrador, el protagonista, contempla el mundo absurdo y cruel que lo rodea con un velo de angustia descarnada, con el corazón oprimido, con una sensación de ahogo de la que no consigue liberarse en toda la novela, por mucho que busque giros poéticos y líricos que, lejos de suavizar las impresiones que tiene, son demoledores apuntes del natural.

De repente, en mitad del huracán de infamia y vergüenza, se produce la ruptura de relaciones entre Albania y la URSS de Jruschov; a toda velocidad, el protagonista debe retornar a su país, dejando a medias sus estudios, pero sin abandonar su estupor, interrumpiendo algún que otro romance, olvidando a una mujer que lo esperará en una próxima cita a la que ya jamás acudirá, sin poder excusarse por ello. Enver Hoxha ha sido el culpable del plantón. Y regresará a Albania cargado de tristeza y amargura, con una mochila lírica que le hará interpretar desde ese instante las cosas desde una nueva perspectiva: ser escritor es, más que nunca, una cuestión de resistencia.

[Gabriele · Rating 3 out of 5]

La scena è quella d'apertura: un gruppo di letterati dalle diverse nazionalità, ospiti di una casa di riposo per intellettuali, nella loro noia trovano come unico passatempo quello di appostarsi sulla spiaggia. Qui, con le loro macchine fotografiche, sono pronti a catturare il momento in cui il sole si inabissa nel Baltico. Anche se qualcuno, di tanto in tanto, riesce a farsi sfuggire pure quell'attimo.

È con questa scena che Kadaré, in un romanzo autobiografico dai toni calmi e soffusi, parla dell'oppressione intellettuale nell'Unione Sovietica ai tempi della Guerra Fredda. Dalle reprimende verso il nobel assegnato al Pasternak del Dottor Zivago, alla chiusura verso gli stati di un'Europa che guarda ancora con diffidenza ai propri vicini, lo scrittore albanese vive sulla propria pelle l'oppressione del regime verso la letteratura. Aggirandosi in quello che è l'istituto Gorki, dove scrittori di ogni dove si rifugiano per imparare a scrivere, Kadaré ne studia i comportamenti diffidenti, le sfrenate serate alcooliche, le fantasie letterarie riguardo romanzi che mai scriveranno in un regime che continua a guardare con sospetto e a mettere alla gogna ogni scritto che non rispetti le regole impartite. E fra incontri amorosi e fraterni, fra epidemie che vere o presunte costringono l'allontanamento fra le genti di Mosca, lo scrittore cerca di non soccombere a ciò che viene imposto dall'alto, lì dove i suoi compagni sono pronti a seguire senza remore gli ordini del partito.

È un Kadaré differente rispetto a quello trovato in altri libri, anche se più mi addentro nella sua bibliografia più mi rendo conto di come non esista un Kadaré sempre uguale a se stesso. I toni autobiografici rendono questo libro piuttosto lento nella prima parte, tanto che è difficile entrare in sintonia con un racconto che per quasi due terzi del libro non capiamo dove voglia portarci. Frammentario, non nei tempi ma nelle vicende che paiono quasi scollegate fra loro, si ricongiunge solo nella fine, dove tutto il disegno dello scrittore finalmente si chiarisce, pur lasciando un finale completamente aperto. Bisogna prenderlo così come viene, partendo dal presupposto che di un'autobiografia si tratta, e di un'autobiografia che comprende appena sei o sette mesi della vita di Kadarè.

"Ogni tanto una coppia passeggiava in lontananza sulla riva, entrando nel campo dei nostri obiettivi. E quando facevamo sviluppare i rullini, sulle fotografie appariva una minuscola macchia scura, perduta e insignificante sulla distesa senza fine".

[Bbrown · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I've read enough Kadare now to pinpoint the type of his writing I like the best: books about something he has direct experience with, but not books that border on the autobiographical. When he writes a story about something he has limited or no experience with, like The Pyramid or The Siege, the book doesn't rise to the heights of his works where he can draw upon his life experiences. When he writes something that's less a fictional story than a recounting of actual events, the structure of the work suffers and the writing isn't quite as lively, lyrical, or beautiful as normal. Chronicle in Stone only has these issues to a minor degree, as Kadare was writing of his childhood decades after the fact- and at that point, childhood is less an actual experience than a series of stories you've told yourself a thousand times before. Twilight of the Eastern Gods, however, is a book written while the memories were still fresh to Kadare, and so the book lacks the slight otherworldly mood present in many of his other works. The writing is also far more sterile than Kadare's usually is, meaning that, although there are still beautiful scenes and passages, there are fewer here than in other Kadare books. While the blurb on the flap of the book makes it sound as though there is an overriding story drawing parallels between Kadare and Pasternak, in fact Pasternak only becomes a central topic two-thirds into the book. Instead the main plot primarily concerns a failed relationship that is also a reimagining of an Albanian myth, though this main plot takes up far fewer pages than the space Kadare uses to recount vignettes and scenes from his time at the Gorky Institute. These scenes never come to a climax or resolution, and while some provide context and symbolic significance to the failing central romance, others don't, which leaves the book feeling somewhat disjointed and rambling. In sum, it's not bad, but it's a long way from my favorite Kadare. Going forward I'm going to prioritize his purely fictional works above any more of his semi-autobiographical works, though of course you'll have to give each a try to figure out if you share my preference.

[Ricardo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Al albano y veinteañero Kadaré lo seleccionan junto a otras promesas literarias del Telón de Acero para estudiar en Moscú desde el 58 al 60, año en que Albania rompe con Rusia. Esta novela es un ejemplo de la amargura que provoca la censura soviética. Kadaré retrata a sus compañeros de estudios, salvo algunas excepciones, como chivatos, tragacionistas, maquilladores de la realidad, vendidos al régimen, colaboracionistas... Como muestra asiste como testigo directo a la campaña persecutoria contra el ganador del Nóbel Boris Pasternak por su Doctor Zhivago, obra que los estudiantes leen clandestinamente. "Una sexta parte de la Tierra, 42 millones de kilómetros cuadrados, se haya sumergida en el insulto y los agravios". Y otra muestra es la historia de Fadeyev, que se suicidó al ver el trato que el Partido daba a los literatos, en su agonía "alguno lo miraba con el gozo que la gente insignificante experimenta ante la caída de los grandes".
Ante este panorama angustioso se pregunta sobre "el divorcio entre uno mismo y el arte que crea" y tiene dos escapes: el alcohol y los ligues juveniles. Una joven moscovita le enseña que en ruso antiguo las palabras amar y compadecer se confunden.
Kadaré presume de sus leyendas albanas como la de Costandin y Doruntina frente al ocaso de las leyendas de la estepa. Siguiendo esta leyenda también se enorgullece de su palabra de honor , en albano, "la besa", y las consecuencias de su violación, que le obligarían en este caso a volver de la ultratumba. "Yo era de un país en el cual nadie, sobre la tierra o debajo de ella, jamás quebranta su palabra".
El libro está escrito de un tirón, sin apenas puntos y aparte. A pesar de esta falta de respiros, tiene el mérito de engancharte por su buena traducción, su lirismo y las emociones que transmite.

[Ελσόν Ζγκούρη · Rating 5 out of 5]

Σε δύο μέρες εμβολιάστηκε ολόκληρη η Μόσχα μπας και γλίτωνε από μια μίνι πανδημία, την καραντίνα και το λοκντάουν, όπως θα λέγαμε με τη σημερινή ορολογία. Ήταν η εποχή που ο αντισταλινισμός είχε σχεδόν εδραιωθεί στην ΕΣΣΔ.
Τελικά, η καραντίνα, όπως την αποκαλεί ο Κανταρέ, το λοκντάουν δηλαδή, επήλθε ύστερα από τον θάνατο από ευλογιά ενός ατόμου που δεν ανήκε στον στενό κύκλο του ζωγράφου.
Να υπήρχε άραγε μια ομάδα αντιχρουτσοφική, πίστη στον Στάλιν ακόμα, η οποία να ήταν ενάντια στον εμβολιασμό; Να ήταν ίσως και φανατικοί χριστιανοί και να ωρύονταν πως το εμβόλιο είναι του διαβόλου ή κόλπο της παγκόσμιας μπουρζουαζίας για να πλήξει τα ιδεώδη του κομμουνισμού;
Ο Κανταρέ δεν επεκτείνεται, ο ίδιος, στο μυθιστόρημά του, πήγε αμέσως σε ένα εμβολιαστικό κέντρο κι έκανε το εμβόλιο κατά της ευλογιάς.
Σε αυτό το μυθιστόρημα πάντως ο Κανταρέ είναι συμφοιτητής, συγκάτοικος και φίλος με μερικούς από τους μετέπειτα πιο γνωστούς Σοβιετικούς συγγραφείς από όλες σχεδόν τις 16 Δημοκρατίες.
Ο πρωταγωνιστής, στο τέλος του έργου, σπάει κατά κάποιο τρόπο την καραντίνα, όπως και τη ρητή εντολή από τον πρέσβη της Αλβανίας, και συναντάει για τελευταία φορά, πριν αποχωρήσει έπειτα από τη λήξη του λοκντάουν, οριστικά από τη Μόσχα, την Ρωσίδα αγαπημένη του! Τη συναντά διότι της είχε δώσει αυτήν ακριβώς την υπόσχεση! Όπως λένε και οι μύθοι περί λόγου, περί μπέσας, «στα μέρη μου όταν δίνουμε τον λόγο μας οφείλουμε να τον κρατήσουμε, είτε βρισκόμαστε πάνω στη γη, είτε θαμμένοι σε αυτήν».

[Michael Scott · Rating 2 out of 5]

In this book Kadare combines a love-story written as a memoir with narrative on the Russian political landscape during Khrushchev's era. As a young Albanian literature student at the Maxim Gorki Institute in Moscow, Kadare finds it difficult to maintain his already loose love affair with the Russian Lida when the Russo-Albanian relations cool down. This cool-down is the main story of the book, but, perhaps willingly, finds little physical space in this writing. Instead, we are faced with the unexciting presentation of the love story, and several spicy pages on the Russian society (such as the account of the response to Boris Pasternak being awarded the Nobel Literature Prize for publishing in the West his novel, Doctor Zhivago, which was censored in Russia). Not his best, either on the romantic or on the political sides.

[Emily · Rating 5 out of 5]

David Bellos, who translated from the French translation of Josef Vrioni, wrote: "However poor my deferred rendition of an Albanian original to which I have no direct access, I think Kadare's main qualities survive: his humour and his anger, his self-critical wit, and his conviction, all the stronger for having been put to the test by his Moscow years, that real literature is, in the end, more important than anything else."

I think Bellos succeeded.