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Diptych #2
The Successor
A fictionalized political tale based on true-life events and the author's conversations with the victim's son follows the events surrounding the death of Mehmet Shehu, a hand-picked successor to hated ailing Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha who succumbs to an unlikely suicide and sparks a government maelstrom.
216 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2003
72 people are currently reading
1748 people want to read
About the author
Ismail Kadare
271 books1,730 followersIsmail 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."
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."
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September 28, 2018
Scary! And familiar!
“Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.”
Dictatorship cannot accept the multifaceted truth of a writer, and a writer cannot accept the empty propaganda words of personality cult. When a writer starts a novel, he puts himself into opposition to dictatorship, by thinking for himself. I wonder if that applies to readers as well?
Many years ago, I had a phase when I read almost anything by Ismail Kadare that fell into my hands. I proceeded to put his works on my top favourite shelf in the living room, and moved on, thinking that his fiction has its perfect place in European history, and his writing style its place of honour somewhere between Franz Kafka, Heinrich Böll and Herta Müller.
I honestly thought his depiction of dictatorship, and the paranoid, unstable environment it creates and nurtures, was a thing of the past in established democracy. The fears and conspiracy theories of the Albanian "court" seemed almost comical in their exaggeration, and the personality cult of the leader an impossible scenario in an enlightened, educated world without communication borders - in an era of internet-based news distribution, I thought, people would read the "facts" and oppose the lies of opportunistic populism.
How naive I was, and how right was Kadare! The past can never be buried. Layer upon layer of soil is added, but a short earthquake is sufficient to instantly bring historical layers back to the surface.
If you want to read a scary ghost story of dictatorship, based on real events, and including the psychological profile of a highly narcissistic regime in power and its internal break-down, Kadare delivers the truth in the way only a novel can - adding different interpretations, scenarios, questions unanswered, layers of emotional reality underneath the surface, hundreds of years of historical changes, all adding more reasons for conflict: political, social, religious, dogmatic marks of identity waiting for a fruitful moment to stir up dusty ideas and create new violence.
Can a dictator really have a successor? Is the concept even thinkable for a person who believes solely in his own person? And what kind of a life does a successor have, in the shadow of the leader, always fearing to be brushed aside on a whim, or killed for having dared to be more than a shadow, a person with a life and a brain of his own? Or just a person with enough personality to be a threat to a fragile, narcissistic ego?
At the court of a dictator, the air you breathe is foul, and nothing can ever be safe. Does it even matter whether the successor committed suicide or was killed? He had given up his identity long before he died. Should he have succeeded in becoming the next dictator, he would also have been a different person.
Sadly, we see that happening every day. Power eats people.
Kadare writes about them.
“Dictatorship and authentic literature are incompatible... The writer is the natural enemy of dictatorship.”
Dictatorship cannot accept the multifaceted truth of a writer, and a writer cannot accept the empty propaganda words of personality cult. When a writer starts a novel, he puts himself into opposition to dictatorship, by thinking for himself. I wonder if that applies to readers as well?
Many years ago, I had a phase when I read almost anything by Ismail Kadare that fell into my hands. I proceeded to put his works on my top favourite shelf in the living room, and moved on, thinking that his fiction has its perfect place in European history, and his writing style its place of honour somewhere between Franz Kafka, Heinrich Böll and Herta Müller.
I honestly thought his depiction of dictatorship, and the paranoid, unstable environment it creates and nurtures, was a thing of the past in established democracy. The fears and conspiracy theories of the Albanian "court" seemed almost comical in their exaggeration, and the personality cult of the leader an impossible scenario in an enlightened, educated world without communication borders - in an era of internet-based news distribution, I thought, people would read the "facts" and oppose the lies of opportunistic populism.
How naive I was, and how right was Kadare! The past can never be buried. Layer upon layer of soil is added, but a short earthquake is sufficient to instantly bring historical layers back to the surface.
If you want to read a scary ghost story of dictatorship, based on real events, and including the psychological profile of a highly narcissistic regime in power and its internal break-down, Kadare delivers the truth in the way only a novel can - adding different interpretations, scenarios, questions unanswered, layers of emotional reality underneath the surface, hundreds of years of historical changes, all adding more reasons for conflict: political, social, religious, dogmatic marks of identity waiting for a fruitful moment to stir up dusty ideas and create new violence.
Can a dictator really have a successor? Is the concept even thinkable for a person who believes solely in his own person? And what kind of a life does a successor have, in the shadow of the leader, always fearing to be brushed aside on a whim, or killed for having dared to be more than a shadow, a person with a life and a brain of his own? Or just a person with enough personality to be a threat to a fragile, narcissistic ego?
At the court of a dictator, the air you breathe is foul, and nothing can ever be safe. Does it even matter whether the successor committed suicide or was killed? He had given up his identity long before he died. Should he have succeeded in becoming the next dictator, he would also have been a different person.
Sadly, we see that happening every day. Power eats people.
Kadare writes about them.
March 31, 2021
Shehu’s Suicide Seems Suspicious
The thing about totalitarian governments is that the Leader doesn’t trust any underling. Since an orderly process of succession is a moot point by definition, it follows that coups and assassinations are inevitable, unless constant vigilance is maintained. [When absolute loyalty to the “Sheriff” becomes the only criteria for power, the life of a “deputy” is likely to be short. That was one of the scariest signs of Trump’s regime.] Albania’s Communist Party came to power in 1944 under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. Mehmet Shehu stood loyally a few steps behind him, ever-rising, but always subordinate to El Supremo. It was well-known for years that he would succeed Hoxha. Shehu maintained a hardline position, never flinching from executions. But, at the end of 1981, one dark and wintery night he turned up dead. The official story was that he committed suicide. It is very likely that he was murdered. Did he over-reach himself? Was the marriage of his son to a girl with relatives in America the cause? Why did Hoxha immediately arrest Shehu’s wife and children and send them to prison where several died before the regime changed in 1991?
Ismail Kadare has woven another dark, murky story, full of suspicions, half-conjectures, and misgivings, each one leading to another strand, never underlining anything as “the truth”. He has taken a few liberties with what facts are known, and never names the two main characters, calling them “the Successor” and “the Guide”. There is a daughter, not in fact a main character in the news, the Minister of the Interior, an architect, and a doctor. As in many other of Kadare’s books, a knowing old lady turns up who was supposed to be dead and may actually have been. Nothing definite stands, suspicion in the novel mirrors the constant suspicion and deadly wariness that marks dictatorships. The Guide is jealous of the Successor because he will go on when the Guide is gone. Or could there be something else? “…envy, the prime though oft-forgotten mover of crime, doesn’t fade away but grows ever blacker.” (p.186) The net must be cast more widely in this dark affair.
“Apart from the deceased, two other individuals seem to have been implicated. But no one would ever know exactly how they had gotten themselves tangled up in the murky business, where they had crossed paths, when they had put each other off, how they had blackmailed each other until the whole thing fell under the shroud of silence.” (p.157)
The novel weaves in and out, you see the same story from the point of view of each main character. By the end of the book, you realize that just as tyrannical regimes taint all who cooperate with them, so the guilt in this case is like a foul smell spreading far from the source. Will you find out who put the bullet in the Successor’s head? I’m not about to tell you, but the realization of Kadare’s genius will hit you by the time you finish this short, but powerful novel of a bloody regime that has thankfully disappeared.
The thing about totalitarian governments is that the Leader doesn’t trust any underling. Since an orderly process of succession is a moot point by definition, it follows that coups and assassinations are inevitable, unless constant vigilance is maintained. [When absolute loyalty to the “Sheriff” becomes the only criteria for power, the life of a “deputy” is likely to be short. That was one of the scariest signs of Trump’s regime.] Albania’s Communist Party came to power in 1944 under the leadership of Enver Hoxha. Mehmet Shehu stood loyally a few steps behind him, ever-rising, but always subordinate to El Supremo. It was well-known for years that he would succeed Hoxha. Shehu maintained a hardline position, never flinching from executions. But, at the end of 1981, one dark and wintery night he turned up dead. The official story was that he committed suicide. It is very likely that he was murdered. Did he over-reach himself? Was the marriage of his son to a girl with relatives in America the cause? Why did Hoxha immediately arrest Shehu’s wife and children and send them to prison where several died before the regime changed in 1991?
Ismail Kadare has woven another dark, murky story, full of suspicions, half-conjectures, and misgivings, each one leading to another strand, never underlining anything as “the truth”. He has taken a few liberties with what facts are known, and never names the two main characters, calling them “the Successor” and “the Guide”. There is a daughter, not in fact a main character in the news, the Minister of the Interior, an architect, and a doctor. As in many other of Kadare’s books, a knowing old lady turns up who was supposed to be dead and may actually have been. Nothing definite stands, suspicion in the novel mirrors the constant suspicion and deadly wariness that marks dictatorships. The Guide is jealous of the Successor because he will go on when the Guide is gone. Or could there be something else? “…envy, the prime though oft-forgotten mover of crime, doesn’t fade away but grows ever blacker.” (p.186) The net must be cast more widely in this dark affair.
“Apart from the deceased, two other individuals seem to have been implicated. But no one would ever know exactly how they had gotten themselves tangled up in the murky business, where they had crossed paths, when they had put each other off, how they had blackmailed each other until the whole thing fell under the shroud of silence.” (p.157)
The novel weaves in and out, you see the same story from the point of view of each main character. By the end of the book, you realize that just as tyrannical regimes taint all who cooperate with them, so the guilt in this case is like a foul smell spreading far from the source. Will you find out who put the bullet in the Successor’s head? I’m not about to tell you, but the realization of Kadare’s genius will hit you by the time you finish this short, but powerful novel of a bloody regime that has thankfully disappeared.
December 19, 2021
Vergeßt, damit man euch vergißt. rät die (vermeintliche) Großtante den erwachsenen Kindern des Nachfolgers, nachdem ihr Vater eines Morgens mit einer tödlichen Schusswunde in seinem Bett gefunden wurde. Hat sich der Nachfolger selbst gerichtet oder war es Mord? Das Haus war verschlossen. Der einzige Zugang war ein Tunnel vom Haus des Führers, der nur von dort aus betreten werden konnte. Das Land verfällt in Schockstarre. Niemand konnte sich in Sicherheit wiegen, solange der Führer seine Meinung nicht geäußert hat. Dann endlich: Es war ein Komplott! Aufatmen. Dann kann es mir nicht an den Kragen gehen? Oder doch, war ich vielleicht Mittäter ohne es zu wollen und gar zu wissen? Hatte der liberale Geist mich infiziert? Teufel noch mal, ganz schön gerissen, dieser Geist, schnappt sich einen, wenn man am wenigsten damit rechnete.
Aber wer war involviert in das Komplott des Nachfolgers? Der Innenminister, der sich am Abend zuvor auf Weisung des Führers, aber eben doch verdächtig, um das Haus des Nachfolgers drückte. Oder der Architekt, der es entgegen der vorgegebenen Stilrichtung so herrschaftlich (schöner, als gut ist) baute, dass es selbst das Haus des Führers übertraf. Und wer ist dafür zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen? Natürlich die ganze Familie. Das versteht sich von selbst. Aber auch der Gerichtsmediziner, der die Leiche des Nachfolgers untersuchte. Ah, natürlich, jetzt, da klar ist, dass es sich um ein Komplott handelte, müssen die Überreste des Nachfolgers vom Heldenfriedhof verschwinden. Wohin? Egal, in eine Plastikplane und ab auf die nächste Müllkippe.
Eine Dystopie? Mitnichten. Der Geschichte liegen die Ereignisse um Mehmet Shehu, den erkorenen Nachfolger des albanischen Langzeitdiktators Enver Hoxha, zugrunde. Ismail Kadare beschränkt sich nicht auf das Nacherzählen. Beispielhaft schildert er wohin extremer Personenkult und das Prinzip des rückwärtigen Zerfalls führen kann, gemäß dem alles mit einem zerstörten Opfer beginnt, um dann ex post die Vergangenheit zu gestalten, die dazu führen mussten. Wahrlich Orwells „Ministry of Truth“ in realitas.
Aber wer war involviert in das Komplott des Nachfolgers? Der Innenminister, der sich am Abend zuvor auf Weisung des Führers, aber eben doch verdächtig, um das Haus des Nachfolgers drückte. Oder der Architekt, der es entgegen der vorgegebenen Stilrichtung so herrschaftlich (schöner, als gut ist) baute, dass es selbst das Haus des Führers übertraf. Und wer ist dafür zur Rechenschaft zu ziehen? Natürlich die ganze Familie. Das versteht sich von selbst. Aber auch der Gerichtsmediziner, der die Leiche des Nachfolgers untersuchte. Ah, natürlich, jetzt, da klar ist, dass es sich um ein Komplott handelte, müssen die Überreste des Nachfolgers vom Heldenfriedhof verschwinden. Wohin? Egal, in eine Plastikplane und ab auf die nächste Müllkippe.
Eine Dystopie? Mitnichten. Der Geschichte liegen die Ereignisse um Mehmet Shehu, den erkorenen Nachfolger des albanischen Langzeitdiktators Enver Hoxha, zugrunde. Ismail Kadare beschränkt sich nicht auf das Nacherzählen. Beispielhaft schildert er wohin extremer Personenkult und das Prinzip des rückwärtigen Zerfalls führen kann, gemäß dem alles mit einem zerstörten Opfer beginnt, um dann ex post die Vergangenheit zu gestalten, die dazu führen mussten. Wahrlich Orwells „Ministry of Truth“ in realitas.
May 27, 2020
3.5
Paranoia is the currency of totalitarianism. Couple it with fear and they are what turn the cogs of the machine. In such a state you devour or are devoured. There’s no middle ground, no tolerance, no spontaneous consensus, nothing that can save you.
Ismail Kadare blends fiction with reality to explain how power is exercised under these circumstances. The reality is the death of Mehmet Shehu, the right hand man of Enver Hoxha who lorded over Albania for a good chunk of the 20th century. Shehu died, either by his own hand or by that of another, on the 17 of December 1981. The most obvious explanation is that he was killed on Hoxha’s orders. In his fiction Kadare endorses this version only to a point. The Successor in the book dies because he lived under a dictatorship, because even when he obeys his leader or when he complies with the State he’s still signing his own death warrant. There’s no escape, no way of winning. The regime strangles the Successor despite his hardline positions, and regardless of how much he is loved by his Guide (what Kadare calls his fictional Hoxha). Even his family and acquaintances are slowly but surely engulfed in the same burst of terror that killed him. At the end, he pleads with his wife to finish him before they get to him. That is the lesson of totalitarianism: no matter how safe you think you are, they always get to you in the end.
This small book reminded me of Garcia Marquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch. Although Marquez’s book is far more spectacular and colourful, they are both a study of tyrants and of the claustrophobic aura that is inevitably attached to countries oppressed by their leaders. I will spare you the cliché of saying this is a book for our times. But I will say it is a poignant read.
Paranoia is the currency of totalitarianism. Couple it with fear and they are what turn the cogs of the machine. In such a state you devour or are devoured. There’s no middle ground, no tolerance, no spontaneous consensus, nothing that can save you.
Ismail Kadare blends fiction with reality to explain how power is exercised under these circumstances. The reality is the death of Mehmet Shehu, the right hand man of Enver Hoxha who lorded over Albania for a good chunk of the 20th century. Shehu died, either by his own hand or by that of another, on the 17 of December 1981. The most obvious explanation is that he was killed on Hoxha’s orders. In his fiction Kadare endorses this version only to a point. The Successor in the book dies because he lived under a dictatorship, because even when he obeys his leader or when he complies with the State he’s still signing his own death warrant. There’s no escape, no way of winning. The regime strangles the Successor despite his hardline positions, and regardless of how much he is loved by his Guide (what Kadare calls his fictional Hoxha). Even his family and acquaintances are slowly but surely engulfed in the same burst of terror that killed him. At the end, he pleads with his wife to finish him before they get to him. That is the lesson of totalitarianism: no matter how safe you think you are, they always get to you in the end.
This small book reminded me of Garcia Marquez’s The Autumn of the Patriarch. Although Marquez’s book is far more spectacular and colourful, they are both a study of tyrants and of the claustrophobic aura that is inevitably attached to countries oppressed by their leaders. I will spare you the cliché of saying this is a book for our times. But I will say it is a poignant read.
January 27, 2014
Based on real events, The Successor tells the story of Mehmet Shehu who was considered as the successor to the office of Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha who many people hated. However, on the night of December 13, 1981, Shehu was found dead inside his room with bolt-in lock from the inside. Despite the lock, people did not believe that it was suicide but foul play. His daughter, an architect and the minister of interior told different versions of the story based on the last interactions with Shehu. People also suspected the new successor, Adrian Hasobeu because he was the automatic heir to the position. But was it really not a suicide?
You have to read up to the last page of the last chapter to find out. Many of my friends here on Goodreads think that the last chapter was a letdown. Me? No. I thought it was clever as I did not expect it. I will not tell you who suddenly became the narrator in the end as I do not want to spoil your fun. But believe me, the thrill in eating the cake is in the icing.
According to Wiki, Kadare served as a member of the Albanian government during the Communist rule between 1970-1982. When he was accused of using his writings in deliberately evading politics, he claimed asylum in France where he wrote most of his novels that got included in the 1001 books.
This is my first time to read a work of Ismail Kadare (born in 1936) and I have a mixed feelings whether to like this book or not. The novel is short and easy to read. However, the prose felt (for me) verbose but considering that this book was originally written in French, maybe there were somethings that got lost in translation. Or maybe I had high expectations from Kadare considering that at least 3 of his books are included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and he won The Man Booker International Prize (2009). Or maybe I was expecting something like Kundera in Kadare because their books were originally written in French. The only difference is that Kundera was originally a Czech while Kadare was an Albanian. But they are both well-renowned and frequently rumored as strong contenders to Nobel Prize for Literature.
Well, at this point, I am more for Kundera rather than Kadare. But again, it's me.
You have to read up to the last page of the last chapter to find out. Many of my friends here on Goodreads think that the last chapter was a letdown. Me? No. I thought it was clever as I did not expect it. I will not tell you who suddenly became the narrator in the end as I do not want to spoil your fun. But believe me, the thrill in eating the cake is in the icing.
According to Wiki, Kadare served as a member of the Albanian government during the Communist rule between 1970-1982. When he was accused of using his writings in deliberately evading politics, he claimed asylum in France where he wrote most of his novels that got included in the 1001 books.
This is my first time to read a work of Ismail Kadare (born in 1936) and I have a mixed feelings whether to like this book or not. The novel is short and easy to read. However, the prose felt (for me) verbose but considering that this book was originally written in French, maybe there were somethings that got lost in translation. Or maybe I had high expectations from Kadare considering that at least 3 of his books are included in the 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die and he won The Man Booker International Prize (2009). Or maybe I was expecting something like Kundera in Kadare because their books were originally written in French. The only difference is that Kundera was originally a Czech while Kadare was an Albanian. But they are both well-renowned and frequently rumored as strong contenders to Nobel Prize for Literature.
Well, at this point, I am more for Kundera rather than Kadare. But again, it's me.
April 11, 2013
It is typical in a work of fiction to start with a disclaimer, something which includes the caveat “Names, places , and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.”
No such disclaimer here. Instead, Kadare promises “Any resemblance between the characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable.”
The eponym in The Successor is Mehmet Shehu, a Communist leader in 20th Century Albania known for his brutality and, later, his suicide. He could be inspirational, I suppose, in an Albanian sort of way, such as when he famously said, “Whoever disagrees with our leadership in any respect, will get spat in the face, punched on the chin, and, if necessary, a bullet in his head." You know, the better angels of our nature.
At the time of his demise, Shehu was the second in command to Enver Hoxha and his presumed successor. When Shehu died of a gunshot to his head one night in his home, it did not take long for suspicions to surface that perhaps he was murdered and not a suicide.
Kadare calls Shehu ‘The Successor’ and Hoxha ‘The Guide’ in this fictionalized account of those events. But everybody knows who he’s talking about. He expands the list of murder suspects, for artistic purposes, to include Shehu’s daughter (whose engagements he kept breaking for political reasons), another minister with ambition, and even an architect who may have created a secret passageway between Shehu’s abode and The Guide’s palace.
There are some almost humorous depictions of Communist paranoia. A pathologist who performs the autopsy on Shehu recalls another autopsy of a different suicide. That corpse was buried with full honors in the Martyr’s Cemetery. But then signs of anti-Yugoslavianism were found in his file so he was dug up and buried in a municipal grave. Then Albania broke with Yugoslavia, so he was dug up again and re-buried in his original tomb as a Herald of Anti-Yugoslavianism.
This had some moments but was ultimately unsatisfying. Although, I did learn a lot about Albania. Well, maybe not a lot, but a general sense. It reminded me of one of the early episodes of the American sitcom Cheers, when it was still funny, you know, before Kirstie Alley. In the episode I’m talking about, Sam and Coach are taking a night course to get their GEDs. Both are academically challenged. As a way to help his memory in Geography class, Coach puts what he needs to know about each obscure country to music. Thus is Albania immortalized in song:
Al-ban-i-a, Al-ban-i-a,
You border on the Adriatic,
You are mainly mountainous, and your major export is chrome!
You’re a communist republic,
You’re a red regime….
If you don’t believe me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_tT-...
No such disclaimer here. Instead, Kadare promises “Any resemblance between the characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable.”
The eponym in The Successor is Mehmet Shehu, a Communist leader in 20th Century Albania known for his brutality and, later, his suicide. He could be inspirational, I suppose, in an Albanian sort of way, such as when he famously said, “Whoever disagrees with our leadership in any respect, will get spat in the face, punched on the chin, and, if necessary, a bullet in his head." You know, the better angels of our nature.
At the time of his demise, Shehu was the second in command to Enver Hoxha and his presumed successor. When Shehu died of a gunshot to his head one night in his home, it did not take long for suspicions to surface that perhaps he was murdered and not a suicide.
Kadare calls Shehu ‘The Successor’ and Hoxha ‘The Guide’ in this fictionalized account of those events. But everybody knows who he’s talking about. He expands the list of murder suspects, for artistic purposes, to include Shehu’s daughter (whose engagements he kept breaking for political reasons), another minister with ambition, and even an architect who may have created a secret passageway between Shehu’s abode and The Guide’s palace.
There are some almost humorous depictions of Communist paranoia. A pathologist who performs the autopsy on Shehu recalls another autopsy of a different suicide. That corpse was buried with full honors in the Martyr’s Cemetery. But then signs of anti-Yugoslavianism were found in his file so he was dug up and buried in a municipal grave. Then Albania broke with Yugoslavia, so he was dug up again and re-buried in his original tomb as a Herald of Anti-Yugoslavianism.
This had some moments but was ultimately unsatisfying. Although, I did learn a lot about Albania. Well, maybe not a lot, but a general sense. It reminded me of one of the early episodes of the American sitcom Cheers, when it was still funny, you know, before Kirstie Alley. In the episode I’m talking about, Sam and Coach are taking a night course to get their GEDs. Both are academically challenged. As a way to help his memory in Geography class, Coach puts what he needs to know about each obscure country to music. Thus is Albania immortalized in song:
Al-ban-i-a, Al-ban-i-a,
You border on the Adriatic,
You are mainly mountainous, and your major export is chrome!
You’re a communist republic,
You’re a red regime….
If you don’t believe me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-F_tT-...
November 2, 2020
The nameless Successor, designated by the Guide to be the next leader, is shot dead in his bed. Reports of shadowy figures seen moving through the rain and fog of the night; of a secret passage connecting the Successor’s place to that of the Guide, begin to filter out and suggest that perhaps his death was not suicide as the State insists, but murder. But who? How? Why? This is the easiest part of the answer.
The setting and the incident are based in the Albania that Kadare left in the 1990s, yet the characters and themes of this novel could come from any similar regime on any continent.
Kadare grapples with the brutality and terror of a totalitarian regime ruling through fear, suspicion and mistrust. This dystopia is real, it’s one he lived through; he didn't need to create it from imagination. ‘Any resemblance between the characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable’, he writes in his foreword.
As each chapter is told from within the mind of one of the characters, its tone varies as do the memories each person recalls - the doctor called to do the autopsy; the architect who designed the palace; the sexually driven daughter of the Successor; the Minister of the Interior (the next successor and therefore the next victim); the Guide and the ghost of the successor himself, looking back over his death and its aftermath.
There is also humour, quite remarkable in a story as fear full as this one, but a New York Times reviewer described it as almost a tragi-comedy.
The story is compelling, the writing just as it need to be.
Kadare sits with Orwell, Kakfa and Kundera in my view.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/bo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_...
The setting and the incident are based in the Albania that Kadare left in the 1990s, yet the characters and themes of this novel could come from any similar regime on any continent.
Kadare grapples with the brutality and terror of a totalitarian regime ruling through fear, suspicion and mistrust. This dystopia is real, it’s one he lived through; he didn't need to create it from imagination. ‘Any resemblance between the characters and circumstances of this tale and real people and events is inevitable’, he writes in his foreword.
As each chapter is told from within the mind of one of the characters, its tone varies as do the memories each person recalls - the doctor called to do the autopsy; the architect who designed the palace; the sexually driven daughter of the Successor; the Minister of the Interior (the next successor and therefore the next victim); the Guide and the ghost of the successor himself, looking back over his death and its aftermath.
There is also humour, quite remarkable in a story as fear full as this one, but a New York Times reviewer described it as almost a tragi-comedy.
The story is compelling, the writing just as it need to be.
Kadare sits with Orwell, Kakfa and Kundera in my view.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/200...
https://www.nytimes.com/2005/11/13/bo...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ismail_...
May 4, 2018
Story about to the long-appointed number two “The Successor” to the country’s dictator “The Guide” who, just as the dictator’s health and sight are failing, is found dead after being denounced by the Guide in a party committee. Initially the death is reported as suicide, and the impression given that the Successor was going to be pardoned by the Guide after presenting his self-criticism the next day.
We follow the story through a number of different narrators: the Successor’s daughter (who had recently been engaged to a possible state enemy), the architect of the Successor’s new residence (whose elaborate design may have incited the jealousy of the Guide’s wife and which also had a secret passage rumoured to lead to the Guide’s house and only to be able to opened from that side), the Successor’s arch-rival (who was outside the residence on the night of the murder following uncertain instructions from the Guide), the Guide himself (who rules by fear and uses the device of a break before self-criticism to force rivals to commit suicide) and then from the Successor – commenting on the future fall of the Guide from beyond the grave.
Kafkaesque in its world of denunciations, double-speak and uncertainty, but without a K type figure. Interesting ideas about the very existence of a successor reminds dictators of their mortality. As with all Balkan type authors – style is fable like and very simple (actually too simple to seem engaging) – Kadare claims that this is in the tradition of the Greek epics, but also that was due to suppression of written forms of Balkan languages by Ottoman empire leading to the verbal form having to retain the culture’s memory and hence due to the continuation of literature as folklore.
We follow the story through a number of different narrators: the Successor’s daughter (who had recently been engaged to a possible state enemy), the architect of the Successor’s new residence (whose elaborate design may have incited the jealousy of the Guide’s wife and which also had a secret passage rumoured to lead to the Guide’s house and only to be able to opened from that side), the Successor’s arch-rival (who was outside the residence on the night of the murder following uncertain instructions from the Guide), the Guide himself (who rules by fear and uses the device of a break before self-criticism to force rivals to commit suicide) and then from the Successor – commenting on the future fall of the Guide from beyond the grave.
Kafkaesque in its world of denunciations, double-speak and uncertainty, but without a K type figure. Interesting ideas about the very existence of a successor reminds dictators of their mortality. As with all Balkan type authors – style is fable like and very simple (actually too simple to seem engaging) – Kadare claims that this is in the tradition of the Greek epics, but also that was due to suppression of written forms of Balkan languages by Ottoman empire leading to the verbal form having to retain the culture’s memory and hence due to the continuation of literature as folklore.
June 23, 2021
Nur auf den letzten Seiten ist Ismail Kadares "Der Nachfolger" etwas enttäuschend.
Insgesamt schafft es Kadare, eine klaustrophobisch albtraumhafte Atmosphäre im sozialistisch-stalinistisch geprägten Albanien der fühen 1980er Jahre heraufzubeschwören. Ähnlich wie bei Trifonows "Das Verschwinden" sind die Opfer von Verfolgung die Angehörigen der politischen Nomenklatura selbst- die Täter bleiben im Verborgenen; ihre Motive sind völlig unklar. Anfangs auktorial erzählend wechselt Kadare in der zweiten Hälfte des Romans die Erzählperspektive. Jetzt wird aus der Sicht verschiedener Charaktere erzählt. Hier erlebt der Roman aber einen kleinen Abbruch, er verliert an erzählerischer Dichte. Aber insgesamt ein großartiges Buch.
Insgesamt schafft es Kadare, eine klaustrophobisch albtraumhafte Atmosphäre im sozialistisch-stalinistisch geprägten Albanien der fühen 1980er Jahre heraufzubeschwören. Ähnlich wie bei Trifonows "Das Verschwinden" sind die Opfer von Verfolgung die Angehörigen der politischen Nomenklatura selbst- die Täter bleiben im Verborgenen; ihre Motive sind völlig unklar. Anfangs auktorial erzählend wechselt Kadare in der zweiten Hälfte des Romans die Erzählperspektive. Jetzt wird aus der Sicht verschiedener Charaktere erzählt. Hier erlebt der Roman aber einen kleinen Abbruch, er verliert an erzählerischer Dichte. Aber insgesamt ein großartiges Buch.
January 4, 2021
بسیار ازهمگسیخته و گنگ. شاید اگر ماركز چنین مضمونی را دستمایهی یک رمان قرار داده بود حاصل خیلی خواندنی از كار در میآمد. یك مشكلی كه با این كتاب داشتم این بود كه نفهمیدم چه دلیلی دارد اینقدر به حالات درونی و شخصی دختر جانشین پرداخته شود در حالی كه مرگ جانشین -كه موضوع اصلی اثر است- در میانهی كتاب به كلی به حاشیه رانده شده بود. شخصیتهایی كه حجم زیادی از كتاب را اشغال كردهاند از جایی به بعد بیسرانجام به حال خود رها میشوند. نویسنده برای چنین اثری باید روی عنصر تعلیق خیلی مانور دهد، ناسلامتی جانشین دیكتاتور مرده و كسی نمیداند به قتل رسیده یا خودكشی كرده
نمرهام 1/5 است
نمرهام 1/5 است
December 30, 2021
Der Nachfolger des Führers wird tot aufgefunden. War es Selbstmord oder Mord? Auf der Grundlage des Schicksals einer realen Figur, des albanischen Ministerpräsidenten Mehmet Shehu, entwirft Ismail Kadare das Porträt einer politischen Klasse innerhalb der Diktatur, die geprägt ist von Misstrauen, Angst um die erkämpften Privilegien, Angst um das eigene Leben, Lügen und Intrigen und Anbiederung. Mit einem Galgenhumor, bei dem das Lachen im Halse stecken bleibt, zeigt der Autor, wie schwer das Überleben an der Seite eines wahnsinnigen (oder doch vielleicht genialen?) Führers ist, wenn man sich zu weit an ihn herangearbeitet hat. Darum drehen sich alle Gedanken. Eine Ideologie oder politische Leitlinie spielt längst keine Rolle mehr. Es geht nur noch darum, zwischen den Zeilen zu lesen, mit feinen Antennen Gefahren zu erkennen, sich nicht zu weit aus dem Fenster zu lehnen, nicht aufzufallen.
Die Paranoia ist schon so weit fortgeschritten, dass sich Menschen am Tod des Nachfolgers schuldig fühlen, die nichts damit zu tun haben, wie z. B. der Architekt, der ahnte, dass er mit einem so schönen Haus, einem schöneren als dem des Führers, den Neid wecken würde, der tödlich enden könnte.
Oder lag es daran, dass die Tochter sich mit dem falschen Mann verlobt hat? Oder hatte Adrian Hasobeu seine Hände im Spiel, der „nach dem Rechten“ sehen sollte? Ein gewaltiges Komplott wird aufgedeckt, wer hätte das gedacht. Alle sind doch irgendwie darin verstrickt, viele ahnten es selbst nicht.
In beeindruckender Weise entsteht beim Lesen ein Missbehagen, ein Gefühl der Ausweglosigkeit und Beklemmung trotz der lockeren, ironisch-satirischen Schreibweise oder gerade deswegen. Das Buch ist nicht umfangreich, kein Satz ist überflüssig um tief in eine Diktatur einzutauchen, in der sich alle Rituale verselbstständigt haben, in der es nur noch um das Wohlbefinden des Führers geht, dem sich alles unterzuordnen hat, in dem das Volk keine Rolle mehr spielte. Und doch wäre jeder im Zentrum der Macht, jedes Opfer, unter anderen Vorzeichen selbst Täter oder war dies bereits. Es ist nicht möglich, in diesen Kreisen ein redliches Leben zu führen.
Großartiges Buch!
Die Paranoia ist schon so weit fortgeschritten, dass sich Menschen am Tod des Nachfolgers schuldig fühlen, die nichts damit zu tun haben, wie z. B. der Architekt, der ahnte, dass er mit einem so schönen Haus, einem schöneren als dem des Führers, den Neid wecken würde, der tödlich enden könnte.
Oder lag es daran, dass die Tochter sich mit dem falschen Mann verlobt hat? Oder hatte Adrian Hasobeu seine Hände im Spiel, der „nach dem Rechten“ sehen sollte? Ein gewaltiges Komplott wird aufgedeckt, wer hätte das gedacht. Alle sind doch irgendwie darin verstrickt, viele ahnten es selbst nicht.
In beeindruckender Weise entsteht beim Lesen ein Missbehagen, ein Gefühl der Ausweglosigkeit und Beklemmung trotz der lockeren, ironisch-satirischen Schreibweise oder gerade deswegen. Das Buch ist nicht umfangreich, kein Satz ist überflüssig um tief in eine Diktatur einzutauchen, in der sich alle Rituale verselbstständigt haben, in der es nur noch um das Wohlbefinden des Führers geht, dem sich alles unterzuordnen hat, in dem das Volk keine Rolle mehr spielte. Und doch wäre jeder im Zentrum der Macht, jedes Opfer, unter anderen Vorzeichen selbst Täter oder war dies bereits. Es ist nicht möglich, in diesen Kreisen ein redliches Leben zu führen.
Großartiges Buch!
January 11, 2023
Fascinating. This is a novelization of the last days and death of Mehmet Shehu, the anointed successor of Enver Hoxha, the Stalin-like dictator of Albania. The names were changed (to protect the guilty?), and I don’t know of any evidence that things played out as Kadare describes. A fast, but not easy, read. It would be rewarding to readers who are curious about Albania, life among the elite in a Communist dictatorship, or dystopias in general. Kadare uses several narrators and a jumbled chronology to tell the tale. My appreciation benefited from several google searches of names and events in Albanian history.
I expect to read more of Kadare’s work.
I expect to read more of Kadare’s work.
October 25, 2023
My second Kadare novel did not disappoint. He gets dictatorship and Stalinist-era communism right. This could be set next to books by Orwell and Koestler.
February 14, 2017
We are fortunate that Albania’s Ismail Kadare won the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005 because it resulted in his works being translated into over thirty languages and introduced to the world.
By the way, he faced serious competition for the award as the finalists included Gabriel García Márquez, Milan Kundera, Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow, Gunther Grass, Naguib Mahfouz, Doris Lessing, Kenzaburō Ōe, Stanisław Lem, Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark and John Updike. I count six Nobel Prize winners in this group.
The Successor follows events from 1981 in Tirana about the unexplained death of Prime Minister Mehemt Shebu, the designated successor to dictator Enver Hoxha who ruled for 40 years and is referred to in book as The Guide. Kadare interviewed many eyewitnesses, including Shebu’s son. The story unfolds through the interior monologues of people directly involved. Several different theories are presented but never brought to any conclusion.
This book is much, much more than a detective mystery. Kadare provides insights into a world of irrational and always menacing paranoia that was Albania in the 70s and 80s. Kadare would know, since he was in Parliament at the time, although not a party member.
There are universal truths told here that are not limited to Albania. The mind of totalitarianism is shaped in similar manner, wherever we find it. The Guide prefers to avoid issuing direct orders and uses indirect hints for his acolytes to interpret. Without direct communication about the internal workings of the State, everyone obsessively searched for early warning signals – who was seated next to whom, in what order did the leadership enter a room, and so on. There was a continual feeling of uncertainty, new rules were invented and quickly changed. Since power is never static and the leadership was ruthless, the uncertainty lead to an overwhelming feeling of dread.
Kadare had been compared to Kafka and Orwell, but while they warned us about these dystopic conditions, they did not live it like Kadare did. For that reason, I find a stronger comparison with Arthur Koestler who wrote the magnificent Darkness at Noon and enabled us to understand the thinking inside the Stalin show trials.
Kadare dark disturbing story is told in a casual manner that allows us to get to know the flesh and blood characters and even appreciate humor when it occurs, but the absurd logic of a society ruled so arbitrarily remains very chilling.
Kadare sought exile in Paris in 1990, after Hoxha died but before Communists left office. Almost immediately, the Sigurimi, Albania's secret police, began discrediting him as a collaborator, an informer. Kadare admits he was not a dissident, but then no one was permitted to be a dissident in Hoxha’s Albania. In 2005, Albania’s National Archives, released internal documents that show Kadare was at risk of arrest, relegation or worse throughout the Hoxha years, and he was only kept free due to his enormous popularity as a writer among his countrymen.
A well written and very enlightening book about a country that is mysterious to most of us.
By the way, he faced serious competition for the award as the finalists included Gabriel García Márquez, Milan Kundera, Margaret Atwood, Saul Bellow, Gunther Grass, Naguib Mahfouz, Doris Lessing, Kenzaburō Ōe, Stanisław Lem, Ian McEwan, Philip Roth, Muriel Spark and John Updike. I count six Nobel Prize winners in this group.
The Successor follows events from 1981 in Tirana about the unexplained death of Prime Minister Mehemt Shebu, the designated successor to dictator Enver Hoxha who ruled for 40 years and is referred to in book as The Guide. Kadare interviewed many eyewitnesses, including Shebu’s son. The story unfolds through the interior monologues of people directly involved. Several different theories are presented but never brought to any conclusion.
This book is much, much more than a detective mystery. Kadare provides insights into a world of irrational and always menacing paranoia that was Albania in the 70s and 80s. Kadare would know, since he was in Parliament at the time, although not a party member.
There are universal truths told here that are not limited to Albania. The mind of totalitarianism is shaped in similar manner, wherever we find it. The Guide prefers to avoid issuing direct orders and uses indirect hints for his acolytes to interpret. Without direct communication about the internal workings of the State, everyone obsessively searched for early warning signals – who was seated next to whom, in what order did the leadership enter a room, and so on. There was a continual feeling of uncertainty, new rules were invented and quickly changed. Since power is never static and the leadership was ruthless, the uncertainty lead to an overwhelming feeling of dread.
Kadare had been compared to Kafka and Orwell, but while they warned us about these dystopic conditions, they did not live it like Kadare did. For that reason, I find a stronger comparison with Arthur Koestler who wrote the magnificent Darkness at Noon and enabled us to understand the thinking inside the Stalin show trials.
Kadare dark disturbing story is told in a casual manner that allows us to get to know the flesh and blood characters and even appreciate humor when it occurs, but the absurd logic of a society ruled so arbitrarily remains very chilling.
Kadare sought exile in Paris in 1990, after Hoxha died but before Communists left office. Almost immediately, the Sigurimi, Albania's secret police, began discrediting him as a collaborator, an informer. Kadare admits he was not a dissident, but then no one was permitted to be a dissident in Hoxha’s Albania. In 2005, Albania’s National Archives, released internal documents that show Kadare was at risk of arrest, relegation or worse throughout the Hoxha years, and he was only kept free due to his enormous popularity as a writer among his countrymen.
A well written and very enlightening book about a country that is mysterious to most of us.
June 8, 2012
Another great book by Albanian author Ismail Kadare.
It deals with the 'disappearance' of Mehmet Shehu, Enver Hoxha's right hand man. When I visited Albania in 1984, Enver Hoxha was still alive but Shehu's face had been airbrushed out of photographs on display in museums.
The weird, frightening atmosphere of Albania, until recently the last bastion of Stalinism in Europe, is beautifully portrayed in this story.
It deals with the 'disappearance' of Mehmet Shehu, Enver Hoxha's right hand man. When I visited Albania in 1984, Enver Hoxha was still alive but Shehu's face had been airbrushed out of photographs on display in museums.
The weird, frightening atmosphere of Albania, until recently the last bastion of Stalinism in Europe, is beautifully portrayed in this story.
Read
July 15, 2009The Successor is one of those rare books that can be read with equal pleasure by lovers of psychological or analytical writings, and by readers looking for “action.” Written in the form of a thriller, the novel manages in some miraculous way to go to the essence not only of Communism, but of all dictatorships, revealing with unusual psychological finesse how throughout history there are some archetypal dramas that keep repeating themselves, from Greek myths to Macbeth to the history of the Balkans. Here too, Kadare’s most powerful gift resides in inserting a “regional” story within a universal model, in finding mythological equivalents to contemporary events, and in reading the signification of one through the other.
The novel’s plot, a fictionalized version of a political crime that happened in 1981 in Albania, is simple: on the night of December 13 the designated Successor of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha is mysteriously shot dead. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Kadare crafts a successful drama, in which the answer to the questions “Was it suicide or murder? And if it was murder, who was the killer?” shifts—as the genre of the murder mystery demands—from one chapter to the next. But unlike the usual mystery novel, The Successor doesn’t have a “shocking ending.” In fact, the narrator tells the facts as if even he didn’t know the answer. Moreover, the dictator himself, referred to as “the Guide”—an appellative shared by most Communist leaders—doesn’t seem to possess the key to the entire story either, although he obviously is the gray eminence behind the crime.
Kadare’s skill in creating an ambiguous situation that triggers the reader’s curiosity to the maximum matches his genius in going straight to the essence of things, particularly in the scenes involving the Guide before and after the Successor’s death, which reveal the mechanism of power in Communist dictatorships. To begin with, when the Guide summons to his office the Successor’s successor—Hasobeu—he never pronounces the words “Kill him!” though this is what he is getting at. What he says is so vague and ambiguous—he orders Hasobeu to go to the Successor’s house and do “what is to be done,” and, in spite of his confusion, Hasobeu doesn’t dare ask “What?”—that Hasobeu goes twice to the house, wandering around and trying to interpret the Guide’s words. The game of interpreting is present throughout the book whenever the Guide appears, revealing a system in which everything is a sign demanding to be interpreted correctly if one wants to keep his head. But the absurdity is that there are no rules one could follow in order to properly decipher the signs, and any head could fall at any time. Because of the system’s total arbitrariness it seems at times that the Guide himself, although theoretically the one who makes and changes the rules, doesn’t know everything, as if Power secreted itself like a mythological monster mortals cannot touch, but can only surrender to. Thus, Kadare’s numerous comparisons of the Communist regime to a religion aren’t simply metaphors, but deep insights into its power structure. He compares the ties of comradeship forged at the beginning of Communism between those who spilled blood to come to power, with
"the ties of clan and family, because it too was a tie of blood—but with a difference. It wasn’t based on inner blood, the blood in your veins, identical to the blood of your family going back a thousand years, according to genetics, but on the other kind, on outer blood. That’s to say, on the blood of others, blood they had drunkenly spilled in the name of Doctrine."
Trying to decipher the mystery of the Successor’s death, Hasobeu keeps asking himself what did the Guide actually believe?
"Perhaps, like half the population of Tirana, the Guide took him for the killer. Or did he suspect that his minister [i.e., Hasobeu:] had intended to commit murder, but hadn’t managed to do so, seeing as someone else got his bullet in first? Or that the Successor has beaten both his assassins to the wire by pulling the trigger on himself?”
After leading us to believe that Hasobeu is the killer, Kadare implies that in fact he isn’t. But he also tells us that the Guide himself is engulfed in his own guessing game and deciphering of the signs, as if he didn’t know either who the killer was. Indeed, a few pages further we are told that the Guide “didn’t know and never had known, what had really happened at the Successor’s residence on that night of December 13. And since he didn’t know, it could take a thousand years for anyone else to find out.”
At this point, what we have suspected so far is confirmed: no one knows who the killer is. But immediately after this revelation we are led to another possible suspect: we are told that, apart from Hasobeu, the only other individual that seemed to have been implicated is the Architect of the Successor’s house. And then the story suddenly takes a turn, but the move is so subtle that the reader might still believe he is reading a murder mystery, when in fact the novel has become a reflection on art and the condition of the artist.
We know that the Architect had had his own reasons to hate the Successor for having been once publicly humiliated by him. We know that he had thought of punishing him, but when asked by the Successor to remodel his residence, the desire of punishing him by building something ugly is immediately replaced by a much stronger impulse: that of building something of unsurpassed beauty. In a Communist country where almost all buildings were state property and of a monotonous, uniform gray, the Architect has the rare chance of realizing his artistic vocation by building something unique. Indeed, once finished, his work is so beautiful that at the Successor’s party where the Guide himself is present, the gasps of admiration let out by the guests are indirectly saying the unsayable: the Successor’s house is more beautiful even than the Guide’s house!
Kadare’s psychological analysis of the oldest and most common reason for committing a crime—envy—is doubled by another legend, this time a Hungarian one, which narrates a monarch’s revenge on a vassal who not only had the cheek to have a castle built that was finer than his, but he had invited him to the inauguration party. Now, it appears that the Guide had been, after all, the one who had ordered the Successor’s death, because he was jealous of his house. But this hypothesis is, again, undermined in the last chapter written in the voice of the Successor, who speaks from beyond the grave, and we are back to the idea that the enigma remains unsolved. Even the opening of the secret archives after the fall of Communism hasn’t managed to uncover the secret, says the Successor. And if he tried to explain it, there is only one person who could understand him, Lin Biao, who had once been the Successor of Mao Tse-Tung, and whose life ended in circumstances similar to those of the Albanian Successor. No one will ever know what really happened on the night of December 13. Although, right before the end of the novel, the Successor seems to remember how that night, as he was dozing off, he saw his wife—whom the Guide called “Comrade Clytemnestra” after her husband’s death—point a gun at him... But did he really see her or was it just the vision of a man who was falling asleep?
The novel’s plot, a fictionalized version of a political crime that happened in 1981 in Albania, is simple: on the night of December 13 the designated Successor of Communist dictator Enver Hoxha is mysteriously shot dead. From the beginning to the end of the novel, Kadare crafts a successful drama, in which the answer to the questions “Was it suicide or murder? And if it was murder, who was the killer?” shifts—as the genre of the murder mystery demands—from one chapter to the next. But unlike the usual mystery novel, The Successor doesn’t have a “shocking ending.” In fact, the narrator tells the facts as if even he didn’t know the answer. Moreover, the dictator himself, referred to as “the Guide”—an appellative shared by most Communist leaders—doesn’t seem to possess the key to the entire story either, although he obviously is the gray eminence behind the crime.
Kadare’s skill in creating an ambiguous situation that triggers the reader’s curiosity to the maximum matches his genius in going straight to the essence of things, particularly in the scenes involving the Guide before and after the Successor’s death, which reveal the mechanism of power in Communist dictatorships. To begin with, when the Guide summons to his office the Successor’s successor—Hasobeu—he never pronounces the words “Kill him!” though this is what he is getting at. What he says is so vague and ambiguous—he orders Hasobeu to go to the Successor’s house and do “what is to be done,” and, in spite of his confusion, Hasobeu doesn’t dare ask “What?”—that Hasobeu goes twice to the house, wandering around and trying to interpret the Guide’s words. The game of interpreting is present throughout the book whenever the Guide appears, revealing a system in which everything is a sign demanding to be interpreted correctly if one wants to keep his head. But the absurdity is that there are no rules one could follow in order to properly decipher the signs, and any head could fall at any time. Because of the system’s total arbitrariness it seems at times that the Guide himself, although theoretically the one who makes and changes the rules, doesn’t know everything, as if Power secreted itself like a mythological monster mortals cannot touch, but can only surrender to. Thus, Kadare’s numerous comparisons of the Communist regime to a religion aren’t simply metaphors, but deep insights into its power structure. He compares the ties of comradeship forged at the beginning of Communism between those who spilled blood to come to power, with
"the ties of clan and family, because it too was a tie of blood—but with a difference. It wasn’t based on inner blood, the blood in your veins, identical to the blood of your family going back a thousand years, according to genetics, but on the other kind, on outer blood. That’s to say, on the blood of others, blood they had drunkenly spilled in the name of Doctrine."
Trying to decipher the mystery of the Successor’s death, Hasobeu keeps asking himself what did the Guide actually believe?
"Perhaps, like half the population of Tirana, the Guide took him for the killer. Or did he suspect that his minister [i.e., Hasobeu:] had intended to commit murder, but hadn’t managed to do so, seeing as someone else got his bullet in first? Or that the Successor has beaten both his assassins to the wire by pulling the trigger on himself?”
After leading us to believe that Hasobeu is the killer, Kadare implies that in fact he isn’t. But he also tells us that the Guide himself is engulfed in his own guessing game and deciphering of the signs, as if he didn’t know either who the killer was. Indeed, a few pages further we are told that the Guide “didn’t know and never had known, what had really happened at the Successor’s residence on that night of December 13. And since he didn’t know, it could take a thousand years for anyone else to find out.”
At this point, what we have suspected so far is confirmed: no one knows who the killer is. But immediately after this revelation we are led to another possible suspect: we are told that, apart from Hasobeu, the only other individual that seemed to have been implicated is the Architect of the Successor’s house. And then the story suddenly takes a turn, but the move is so subtle that the reader might still believe he is reading a murder mystery, when in fact the novel has become a reflection on art and the condition of the artist.
We know that the Architect had had his own reasons to hate the Successor for having been once publicly humiliated by him. We know that he had thought of punishing him, but when asked by the Successor to remodel his residence, the desire of punishing him by building something ugly is immediately replaced by a much stronger impulse: that of building something of unsurpassed beauty. In a Communist country where almost all buildings were state property and of a monotonous, uniform gray, the Architect has the rare chance of realizing his artistic vocation by building something unique. Indeed, once finished, his work is so beautiful that at the Successor’s party where the Guide himself is present, the gasps of admiration let out by the guests are indirectly saying the unsayable: the Successor’s house is more beautiful even than the Guide’s house!
Kadare’s psychological analysis of the oldest and most common reason for committing a crime—envy—is doubled by another legend, this time a Hungarian one, which narrates a monarch’s revenge on a vassal who not only had the cheek to have a castle built that was finer than his, but he had invited him to the inauguration party. Now, it appears that the Guide had been, after all, the one who had ordered the Successor’s death, because he was jealous of his house. But this hypothesis is, again, undermined in the last chapter written in the voice of the Successor, who speaks from beyond the grave, and we are back to the idea that the enigma remains unsolved. Even the opening of the secret archives after the fall of Communism hasn’t managed to uncover the secret, says the Successor. And if he tried to explain it, there is only one person who could understand him, Lin Biao, who had once been the Successor of Mao Tse-Tung, and whose life ended in circumstances similar to those of the Albanian Successor. No one will ever know what really happened on the night of December 13. Although, right before the end of the novel, the Successor seems to remember how that night, as he was dozing off, he saw his wife—whom the Guide called “Comrade Clytemnestra” after her husband’s death—point a gun at him... But did he really see her or was it just the vision of a man who was falling asleep?
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April 13, 2021ভিন্ন ভিন্ন নায়ক বা সময় কেন্দ্র করে ঐতিহাসিক উপন্যাস লিখতে বসেও, বহু লেখককেই দেখি পুনরাবৃত্ত এক ছকে আবর্তিত হতে।
ইসমাইল কাদারে আবার আগাগোড়া উল্টো। আজীবন ধরে লোকটা কেবল একটা সুনির্দিষ্ট সময় আর নায়কের গল্পই বলে যাচ্ছে, কিন্তু আঙ্গিককে সে গড়ে নিচ্ছে প্রতিবার।
ইসমাইল কাদারে আবার আগাগোড়া উল্টো। আজীবন ধরে লোকটা কেবল একটা সুনির্দিষ্ট সময় আর নায়কের গল্পই বলে যাচ্ছে, কিন্তু আঙ্গিককে সে গড়ে নিচ্ছে প্রতিবার।
March 15, 2022
A labyrinth of a story as intricate as the communist country under a single ruler it describes. How did the successor fall out of favor with 'the Guide' (aka the head of state)? Or did he? Did he fall on his own sword as a good disciple who has disappointed his master? Or did the master order a hit? Or the next in line, to move up? No one knows, maybe no one really wants to know. Asking questions is not good policy as it might imply displeasure with the Guide (and lead to displacement to a less pleasant part of the country, or worse). Those asked to find out rightly fear for their lives and even the Guide may not want to know. The cryptic tale is based on the actual death of Mehmet Shehu, the designated successor to Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha, in 1981, and it is masterfully told. In sections each told by parties in the mystery: The family, the autopsy performer, the architect who build the house (where a 'locked room' mystery might be explained by a secret tunnel), and so on. Even the deceased himself tells his version. The communist rule in Albania and it's intricacies and reliance on fear is the real story - but elegantly shown though the riddle of the successor's death.
January 26, 2012
the successor follows a plot thread established in agamemnon's daughter and is based on the apparent real life suicide of albanian chairman mehmet shehu. kadare's novel is a work of political intrigue and totalitarian excess framed as a murder mystery. told from multiple perspectives, the story leaves the reader, until the conclusion, questioning whether the title character has indeed killed himself or has, in fact, been a victim of the repressive communist regime. while both the plot and the pacing lend an air of suspense to the story, it lacks an overall depth or richness that one would perhaps expect as complement to the action. kadare's prose often seems too reserved or impersonal for the reader to develop any allegiance to the characters or the tale itself. kadare writes about important themes, yet the successor lacks a necessary zeal.
we are a race apart, and we can only understand each other. but we are so few in number that amid the dark turmoil of this world above which human souls swirl, it is only rarely, extremely rarely- once every thousand years, maybe every ten thousand?- that we ever come across one of our own.
December 10, 2013
Albanias "succesor" gets iced out and who is to blame? At first it looks to be a suicide, but after further review someone murdered him.
But who and why for? Hmmmmmmmm. Pretty good book, not great, but good, writing is clear and a bit like a journalistic entry, just the facts mam, the political fettering is entertaining and interesting.
I will hold my judgment of Kadare for another book, at present I could take him or leave him, leaning closer to the latter at this point. Good thing for Mr. Kadare he has 3 more books on the list!
But who and why for? Hmmmmmmmm. Pretty good book, not great, but good, writing is clear and a bit like a journalistic entry, just the facts mam, the political fettering is entertaining and interesting.
I will hold my judgment of Kadare for another book, at present I could take him or leave him, leaning closer to the latter at this point. Good thing for Mr. Kadare he has 3 more books on the list!
December 20, 2011
It was the announced pasing of Kim Jong Il that prompted my reading, a belated one of sorts as I've always found a welcome tumult in Kadare's novels. The jutapoisiton with North Korea is functional in as I know so little about its shadowed pratices. Perhaps that is the point. This is a remarkable tale, one which seethes and whsipers leaving the reader shuddering at political reality and swooning in the wake of such sweet prose.
July 29, 2011
A whodunit about the death of the successor to Albania’s ruler. But also a political novel about the madness of a dictatorship. Fear, envy, suspicion, and whim disguise as loyalty to motivate political intrigues. And politics, whether in governments, corporations, churches, or families, don similar costumes.
August 26, 2014
Read this to help clear my desk. Interesting Albanian thriller with a clever structure. I wasn’t that thrilled. The writer looks like a sinister KGB Eric Morecambe.
March 30, 2016
Struggled to get through the book.
June 23, 2024
need dua lipa’s takes on Kadare
July 9, 2022
In December 1981, the number two man in Albania, known as the Successor died in his home from a gunshot wound. Was it murder or suicide?
The intelligence agencies around the world very rarely kept up with Albanian politics. Their files were dusty and inaccurate. They could just as well read tea leaves to ascertain the meaning of this event. After all, the Guide and Successor had been friends for forty years.
A few weeks after the funeral, Suzana, the daughter of the successor, wakes to hear noises in her house. The Director is there as are many other men. He announces in a calm reassuring voice that there is to be an autopsy. She goes to see her mother in her room who says to her that she wishes this was all over.
An autopsy could mean a political change and of course it could mean a change in the legacy of the decedent.
The minister suggested that he and the architect take a look downstairs. And the architect saw that a secret door had been walled up. This was a nightmare and caused him great consternation. The Guide could get into the Successor’s house but the Successor could not get into the Guide’s house.
Suzana remembers what it was like to be with Genc. Their relationship had been the cause of her father‘s murder or suicide. She had only been with one other man and that was sometime ago, sometime before her father being declared Successor. Or maybe it had been that previous relationship. Her love life had something to do with it.
Aunt Memë comes to visit and gives the family a great deal of advice including this dictum: “Forget so that you may be forgotten.“
Suzana‘s brother says one day you must be prepared for what you will say to Papa when you see him.
And then one morning Suzana wakes to discover that they must leave the house immediately.
The focus turns to Adrian Hasobeu, who happened to be the fleeing figure in the night. He considered himself to be a rival of the Successor. He anguishes over the orders he was given and which he could not fulfill.
Chapter 5 is narrated by the Guide. It details the fall of Hasobeu.
Chapter 6 takes the point of view of the architect. He anguishes over the design of the remodeling of the successors house. He remembers a social slight by the successor and wishes vengeance. He considers making the remodeling ugly.
The final chapter is narrated by the ghost of the Successor.
It is very clear in a communist country that attempts at knowledge are very unstable. When every aspect of life is ruled by the Party one cannot know what is true, what is false, even what is up and what is down. What is true and what is false depends on the political climate and that can change on a dime and change again on another one. It instills such terrible indecisiveness and fear.
Just as in his other books, while the old ways are anathema to communism they lay just under the surface and these superstitions and old routines are the way that people react when the politics is so unstable.
This is amongst his best works. It is next to The Pyramid and The Palace of Dreams.
The intelligence agencies around the world very rarely kept up with Albanian politics. Their files were dusty and inaccurate. They could just as well read tea leaves to ascertain the meaning of this event. After all, the Guide and Successor had been friends for forty years.
A few weeks after the funeral, Suzana, the daughter of the successor, wakes to hear noises in her house. The Director is there as are many other men. He announces in a calm reassuring voice that there is to be an autopsy. She goes to see her mother in her room who says to her that she wishes this was all over.
An autopsy could mean a political change and of course it could mean a change in the legacy of the decedent.
The minister suggested that he and the architect take a look downstairs. And the architect saw that a secret door had been walled up. This was a nightmare and caused him great consternation. The Guide could get into the Successor’s house but the Successor could not get into the Guide’s house.
Suzana remembers what it was like to be with Genc. Their relationship had been the cause of her father‘s murder or suicide. She had only been with one other man and that was sometime ago, sometime before her father being declared Successor. Or maybe it had been that previous relationship. Her love life had something to do with it.
Aunt Memë comes to visit and gives the family a great deal of advice including this dictum: “Forget so that you may be forgotten.“
Suzana‘s brother says one day you must be prepared for what you will say to Papa when you see him.
And then one morning Suzana wakes to discover that they must leave the house immediately.
The focus turns to Adrian Hasobeu, who happened to be the fleeing figure in the night. He considered himself to be a rival of the Successor. He anguishes over the orders he was given and which he could not fulfill.
Chapter 5 is narrated by the Guide. It details the fall of Hasobeu.
Chapter 6 takes the point of view of the architect. He anguishes over the design of the remodeling of the successors house. He remembers a social slight by the successor and wishes vengeance. He considers making the remodeling ugly.
The final chapter is narrated by the ghost of the Successor.
It is very clear in a communist country that attempts at knowledge are very unstable. When every aspect of life is ruled by the Party one cannot know what is true, what is false, even what is up and what is down. What is true and what is false depends on the political climate and that can change on a dime and change again on another one. It instills such terrible indecisiveness and fear.
Just as in his other books, while the old ways are anathema to communism they lay just under the surface and these superstitions and old routines are the way that people react when the politics is so unstable.
This is amongst his best works. It is next to The Pyramid and The Palace of Dreams.
June 12, 2023
A fictionalized tale about the death of Mehmet Shehu, called The Successor, who was the chosen one to follow Albania's cruel Communist dictator, Enver Hoxha, referred to as The Guide. The Successor was found dead in his bed from a gunshot to the head that was, at first, ruled a suicide. However, questions began arising and then the suspicion became that he had been murdered. Kadare then began weaving different scenarios into the picture that created suspicion about various characters who could have done the murder. He used a brilliant mixture of facts, speculation and fantasy to make a bewildering mystery about what actually happened. He ended the book with a chapter that made it obvious that the most dangerous position anyone could have in a harsh dictatorship is to be the chosen successor of that dictator because of the paranoia that exists but then he ended with a complete surprise about a suspect for the murder that had been totally under the radar. Another exceptional book by the great Ismail Kadare.
December 11, 2017
Book Description:
A fictionalized political tale based on true-life events and the author's conversations with the victim's son follows the events surrounding the death of Mehmet Shehu, a hand-picked successor to hated ailing Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha who succumbs to an unlikely suicide and sparks a government maelstrom.
My Review:
This historical and political novel about the death of the successor to dictator, Enver Hoxha, in 1981 Albania read somewhat like an Agatha Christie novel. Was the successor's death a suicide or was it a murder? The author clearly shows the atmosphere that was happening at the time in the Balkans and the conspiracy theories which surrounded the death of the successor. The book leaves you guessing who could have killed the successor until the very end. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the history of the Balkans and the part that Albania plays in the area in 1981.
A fictionalized political tale based on true-life events and the author's conversations with the victim's son follows the events surrounding the death of Mehmet Shehu, a hand-picked successor to hated ailing Albanian dictator Enver Hoxha who succumbs to an unlikely suicide and sparks a government maelstrom.
My Review:
This historical and political novel about the death of the successor to dictator, Enver Hoxha, in 1981 Albania read somewhat like an Agatha Christie novel. Was the successor's death a suicide or was it a murder? The author clearly shows the atmosphere that was happening at the time in the Balkans and the conspiracy theories which surrounded the death of the successor. The book leaves you guessing who could have killed the successor until the very end. I would recommend this book to those who are interested in the history of the Balkans and the part that Albania plays in the area in 1981.
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September 26, 2022I cannot help but wonder if Kadare was a bit too literal with this one. Metaphors play a chilling part in The Palace of Dreams, for example--the terror builds up through our reliance on Mark-Alem, the narrator and bearer of a cursed family history. Despite this book being based on an explicit episode of Albanian history (the suspicious circumstances surrounding Mehmet Shehu's death), it is perhaps how directly the parallels are drawn, that ironically make this less terrifying. Nevertheless, it is a noteworthy attempt at making sense of the senselessness of state terror, and the Albanian peoples' collective relationship with understanding what happened to one of the major perpetrators of that terror.
August 30, 2020
Knowledge is power. It's a truism that is so widely accepted that it seems impossible to challenge. And yet Kadare's brilliant short novel does just that. Not only challenges it, but tears it to shreds. If you live in a dictatorship and you are not at the top knowledge can be a death sentence. For example if you are a doctor asked to commission an autopsy to determine whether a politician was murdered you are going to end up knowing something very dangerous. On the other hand if you are the dictator, if you get to determine what the accepted truth is, knowledge can be irrelevant. This is a novel which is by turns hilarious and chilling, highly recommended.
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