On a bizarre camper holiday, my then-10 year
old cousin (a really avid reader, at least back then) ran out of books and
borrowed this from his rather surprised mom. He found it really, really sad. I
don’t think my comments can be any more insightful, although I seriously don’t
think I would have been able to read this classic of Italian literature when I was
10, I was sufficiently emotionally drained when I read it as a 25-year old.
The book is about a soldier’s wait for a
long-promised attack to his fortress by the Tartars. Except that the attack
never comes. And he waits. And the reader waits with him. I am often surprised
by how great writers can draw up masterpieces from simple stories in which little
happens, but Il Deserto dei Tartari takes
this to an entirely new level – 80% of the book is just about the desolating wait
of the main character, Drogo, and yet it keeps the reader’s interest very much alive.
And forget about Drogo’s final deep thoughts, I
wanted him to fight the Tartars – winning or losing didn’t matter much, I
wanted him to fight, and I am a relatively committed pacifist...
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