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A review by gabesteller
Broken April by Ismail Kadare
4.0
Jumping from bell hooks to Albanian Blood Feuds because I contain multitudes! Anyway basically knew nothing about Albania other than that it has a totally sick flag, And it turns out it is totally fascinating but unfortunately fascinating in the way a lot of places are, in that theres a lot of very sad/bad stuff going on.
Book's all about the existentialist wanderings of Gjorg a young man who has 30 days reprieve before he will he hunted down after murdering a neighbor in the decades long blood feud his family is caught in. He is on occasion spotted by the other main characters a bourgeois couple who who choose to spend their honeymoon in the mountains hoping to get get an taste of the last bit of tradition and myth still around in their modernizing country. The mountains have a cool aesthetic and some of their ancient traditions are kinda badass but are they basically totally fucked up????
I mean Yah its basically totally fucked up but their was some wonderful rumination on the formation of myths and the social order.
i was at first a little skeptical cuz it was kinda exposition heavy but honestly it was pretty interesting . As implied, even tho its the 1930's the mountains are really a land out of time, essentially feudal and totally dominated by the esoteric oral tradition the "Kanun" which outlines the rules of the MANY MANY blood feuds running. And they do a lot of crazy shit like all the dudes who have just murdered a rival or are on the hunt to murder have to wear a black ribbon to mark them as the Living Dead. and when a son is murdered the family like hangs his bloody shirt outside their house until he's avenged. Everyone lives in these Towers called Kullas And once someone murders somebody u gotta pay the blood tax to the Prince at the biggest tower, the Castle of Orosh, to possibly get ur 30 days of freedom before ur hunted. So yah all pretty metal but ya know still a lot of murder! (also My friend Hanna told me it still goes on!! Certain Kulla's are called "towers of refuge" where u can hide out and they are STILL USED and like construction has to go around them and everything to this day!!)
While most of the characters were a little trope-y for my taste as a novel of ideas i thought it was sooo interesting. what is the difference between the blood tax the prince of Orosh takes and the money The Bourgeois writer husband plans to make writing a novel about the blood feuds (but aren't i currently reading a novel about the blood feuds?) and The writer guy seems cringy when he talks about the magic in the mountains but isn't the social power of the kanun such that its a sort of unconquerable magical law for young men like Gjorg who know no other world (Emphasized by the rlly chilling last scene). And therefore it sorta tracks that after seeing Diana the Bourgeois Wife in passing, Gjorg idealizes her into a sort of magical fairy figure cuz hes going a little bit crazy with all the regret and fear and despair and HAS LIKE 2 MORE WEEKS TO LIVE, and he just wants some beautiful transcendence!!
Myth is basically Aesthetics! Albania is cool! Nice job Ismail!
ty 4 the rec hanna!
.
Book's all about the existentialist wanderings of Gjorg a young man who has 30 days reprieve before he will he hunted down after murdering a neighbor in the decades long blood feud his family is caught in. He is on occasion spotted by the other main characters a bourgeois couple who who choose to spend their honeymoon in the mountains hoping to get get an taste of the last bit of tradition and myth still around in their modernizing country. The mountains have a cool aesthetic and some of their ancient traditions are kinda badass but are they basically totally fucked up????
I mean Yah its basically totally fucked up but their was some wonderful rumination on the formation of myths and the social order.
i was at first a little skeptical cuz it was kinda exposition heavy but honestly it was pretty interesting . As implied, even tho its the 1930's the mountains are really a land out of time, essentially feudal and totally dominated by the esoteric oral tradition the "Kanun" which outlines the rules of the MANY MANY blood feuds running. And they do a lot of crazy shit like all the dudes who have just murdered a rival or are on the hunt to murder have to wear a black ribbon to mark them as the Living Dead. and when a son is murdered the family like hangs his bloody shirt outside their house until he's avenged. Everyone lives in these Towers called Kullas And once someone murders somebody u gotta pay the blood tax to the Prince at the biggest tower, the Castle of Orosh, to possibly get ur 30 days of freedom before ur hunted. So yah all pretty metal but ya know still a lot of murder! (also My friend Hanna told me it still goes on!! Certain Kulla's are called "towers of refuge" where u can hide out and they are STILL USED and like construction has to go around them and everything to this day!!)
While most of the characters were a little trope-y for my taste as a novel of ideas i thought it was sooo interesting. what is the difference between the blood tax the prince of Orosh takes and the money The Bourgeois writer husband plans to make writing a novel about the blood feuds (but aren't i currently reading a novel about the blood feuds?) and The writer guy seems cringy when he talks about the magic in the mountains but isn't the social power of the kanun such that its a sort of unconquerable magical law for young men like Gjorg who know no other world (Emphasized by the rlly chilling last scene). And therefore it sorta tracks that after seeing Diana the Bourgeois Wife in passing, Gjorg idealizes her into a sort of magical fairy figure cuz hes going a little bit crazy with all the regret and fear and despair and HAS LIKE 2 MORE WEEKS TO LIVE, and he just wants some beautiful transcendence!!
Myth is basically Aesthetics! Albania is cool! Nice job Ismail!
ty 4 the rec hanna!
.