The Mookse and the Gripes discussion

TK

Eileen Battersby:

Albanian veteran Ismail Kadare, inaugural winner of the Man Booker International in 2005 and a likely future Nobel laureate, has a large body of work. The longlisting of his surreal and admittedly witty fable The Traitor’s Niche (translated by John Hodgson), which was originally published as long ago as 1978, seems an odd choice, considering that so many of Kadare’s books reached translation so much sooner. As a Kadare fan, I would say he has written better books.

I also read the Eileen Battersby thinks that as an older novel it should make way for newer work, but as I read the book it felt very current. The themes of cruel regimes and how vulnerable we are to their ruthlessness are certainly relevant today.

After reading the description, I was going to pass on it and wait to see if it made the short list first but after picking it up and looking through it, I was drawn in. I never imagined a book about severed heads could be so clever!

And Byron even makes a short appearance ;-)

I really liked this one. One for my personal shortlist, I think.

Review here: The Traitor’s Niche

How did you interpret the ending Neil? (view spoiler)[was the forgetting already working? (hide spoiler)]

Louise wrote: "How did you interpret the ending Neil? [spoilers removed]"

Louise, your spoiler is how it felt to me. (view spoiler)[Even though Black Ali has been defeated, that is not enough and Albania has to be wiped out. The passage about reduction of language to nonspeak a bit earlier in the book was fascinating and I think the ending was where we see that process of a nation losing its identity beginning to happen. (hide spoiler)]

I'm halfway through, enjoying it, and now itching whether to click through the view spoilers. It doesn't feel a book that lends itself to needing spoiler alerts.

You are probably right, but I am always hesitant about openly discussing the final sentences of a book that others have yet to read!

Not sure I quite agreed on the ending, given these conversations are in Istanbul not Albania. I saw this more as a life moves on, the machinations of those in power are actually not that relevant, sort of thing. There was a quote in the story pointing out the people: were less surprised by the news-criers than by the wild ducks that came in March.

There was another quote from the novel I noted down early as significant (and was going to open my review), but which at the end confused me a little as it seemed to contradict the memory theme:

Recently people had come to understand that forgetting was more difficult than remembering.

Paul wrote: "Not sure I quite agreed on the ending, given these conversations are in Istanbul not Albania. I saw this more as a life moves on, the machinations of those in power are actually not that relevant, ..."

My take was that the conversations in Istanbul were already having trouble remembering Albania meaning that the powers in Istanbul were succeeding in wiping it out.

The quote you mention was one I used in my review, too, because it seemed very significant to me. I wonder if one point of it is that it is, apparently, relatively simple to make people in one country forget about another country, but very difficult to make people in a country forget about their own country.

Neil wrote: "Paul wrote: "Not sure I quite agreed on the ending, given these conversations are in Istanbul not Albania. I saw this more as a life moves on, the machinations of those in power are actually not th..."

Those both make sense.

Actually checking I misremembered the quote - it is actually: Recently people had come to understand that forgetting was more difficult and complicated than remembering. The complicated bit is I think key. The specific reference is to it being not allowed to mention Scanderbeg's name but there being no such rule to discuss the two Sultans' campaigns against him. At another point, one of the Caw-caw team observes that although a lot of Albanian nobels' families have been wiped out, they live on in the landscape via the names given to rivers, mountains etc,

So I think the quote is suggesting that the Caw-caw work isn't that simple in reality - and of course Albania and the Albanian language did survive.

Paul wrote: "Neil wrote: "Paul wrote: "Not sure I quite agreed on the ending, given these conversations are in Istanbul not Albania. I saw this more as a life moves on, the machinations of those in power are ac..."

And indeed I see that the very two things I refer to are both in your review! I should have re-read it before posting.

:-)

I'd rather have an interesting discussion!