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    Chronicle in Stone: A Novel
    Unavailable
    Chronicle in Stone: A Novel
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    Chronicle in Stone: A Novel
    Ebook260 pages7 hours

    Chronicle in Stone: A Novel

    By Ismail Kadare and David Bellos

    4/5

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    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this ebook

    Masterful in its simplicity, Chronicle in Stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature, a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up. His sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny, but new waves of domination inundate his city. Through the boy’s eyes, we see the terrors of World War II as he witnesses fascist invasions, allied bombings, partisan infighting, and the many faces of human crueltyas well as the simple pleasures of life.

    Evacuating to the countryside, he expects to find an ideal world full of extraordinary things, but discovers instead an archaic backwater where a severed arm becomes a talisman and deflowered girls mysteriously vanish. Woven between the chapters of the boy’s story are tantalizing fragments of the city’s history. As the devastation mounts, the fragments lose coherence, and we perceive firsthand how the violence of war destroys more than just buildings and bridges.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcade Publishing
    Release dateJul 1, 2011
    ISBN9781628721300
    Unavailable
    Chronicle in Stone: A Novel
    Author

    Ismail Kadare

    Ismail Kadare is Albania’s best known novelist, whose name is mentioned annually in discussions of the Nobel Prize. He won the inaugural Man Booker International Prize in 2005; in 2009 he received the Príncipe de Asturias de las Letras, Spain’s most prestigious literary award, and in 2015 he won the Jerusalem Prize. In 2016 he was named a Commandeur de la Légion d'Honneur. James Wood has written of his work, "Kadare is inevitably likened to Orwell and Kundera, but he is a far deeper ironist than the first, and a better storyteller than the second. He is a compellingly ironic storyteller because he so brilliantly summons details that explode with symbolic reality." His last book to be published in English, The Traitor’s Niche, was nominated for the Man Booker International.

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    Reviews for Chronicle in Stone

    4/5

    109 ratings6 reviews

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    • 3/5
      In simplest terms, this is a book about a youngster growing up in worn-torn Albania as World War II developed. It is written essentially from the perspective of that child. However, the narrative frequently goes beyond what that child could easily have known on his own, transitioning smoothly from first-person into general narrative and back again. In any event, the emphasis is clearly on what that child is absorbing about his town and what transpires within it, both from normal social interactions of family, neighbors, and general town folk, but, specifically, about the symbols of war that pass in and out multiple times. The author relates the child's observations in a manner in which any normal person can relate. Yet, even the more horrific events are absorbed in a manner more influenced by the child's curiosity than by his added vulnerability as a child. One must read the book to appreciate how smoothly the author shows the child taking everyday events into account, so that he knows intuitively the degree to which he needs to respond to actions that affect adults much more profoundly. In short, this book is not about the tragedy of the scars of war being forced upon an innocent child. It is much more about how clearly everything -- the big picture -- can be seen within societal chaos, by those so inexperienced as a child, but in which adults let themselves be swept into emotional states, stubborn responses, and ill-conceived actions.
    • 4/5
      This is the semi-autobiographical novel of a young boy coming of age during World War II. In this case, the young boy lives in Gjirokaster, Albania, which is near the Greek border. Gjirokaster itself is almost a character in this book, and seems to be a magical and remote place. The town is built primarily on a rocky hill, and the roads frequently are level with the roof tops of the houses on one side of the road. It is dominated by "the Citadel" which plays a prominent part in the book. Gjirokaster is now on the World Heritage list.In the first part of the novel the war is something like a big adventure or game for the narrator. Because of its location, control of the town frequently changes between Greece and Italy, with little effect on the daily lives of the villagers. While the boy is foremost, Kadare also brings to life the many relatives and neighbors who people his life, with their gossip, superstition, and eccentricities.Then the war intrudes in most horrific ways, although the narrator at first fails to recognize the seriousness--his primary reaction is pride at the fact that his family's house is chosen as a shelter from the British bombers. In some ways, the book reminded me of Ballard's Empire of the Sun. In both books, a somewhat naive boy witnesses and lives through the atrocities of war, while maintaining a sense of wonder, curiosity and awe of the world as it opens before him.
    • 4/5
      Stunning, both poetic and blatantly raw vision of Albania in the 20th century. Torn between Turks, Austrians, Italians, Greeks, Chinese and eventually Germans a boy speaks about his childhood in a city made of stones. A series of striking characters are seen through his eyes and his innocence. Wonderful writing, amazing composition. A real trip into Karare's mind and his view of a country as it was during tormented times.
    • 3/5
      Ismail Kadare is a great writer, and this book explores his childhood. It has some great pieces to it, the opening pages with the raindrops and the cistern is especially beautiful, as are the descriptions of the city as a living creature of stone perched on the side of a mountain. The book only covers a small chunk of Kadare's childhood, though, and I finished the novel wanting to know more and get a more complete picture of how Kadare grew up. Because of the incomplete feeling of this book it didn't rise to the same heights for me as did The Palace of Dreams or Broken April. Still worth a read though if you're a Kadare fan.
    • 3/5
      Nice book, but translation makes the style look inconsistant. I wish scribd had the more current translation in the database.
    • 4/5
      Chronicle in Stone begins as the story of a boy and his family and neighbors living in and about Gjirokastër, Albania’s topographically “slanted” city of stone. A story that’s often refreshing and filled with good humor. Then the threat of bombing interferes and becomes curiously twinned to the “abomination” of a wedding announcement. Wait. An abomination? Puzzled, I did a web search for Albania and marriage and while so engaged came upon the custom of burrnesha, a custom that couldn’t help but grab my attention.Michael Paterniti writes in GQ that in Albania an ancient tradition allows a woman to choose to live as a man. She must take an oath of burrnesha,, a pledge “To dress like a man, work like a man, assume the burdens and liberties of a man.” But “these freedoms came with a price: The burrneshas also made a pledge of lifelong celibacy.” And for the sworn virgin, Wikipedia notes, breaking the vow of celibacy was punishable by death. To say that this option is tied to illiberal views of women (and others) is to tell you something you’ve no doubt deduced. While the wedding in this novel was not one that violated burrnesha, the custom helps show that in Albania the consequences of departing from norms were severe and gives Kadare’s portrait of his city of stone a more bitter flavor and scarier feel, changing the story told by a mostly happy child.It becomes even bitterer when Albanian Communists commence violence against the powers that be and the opposition is spurred to pitiless measures. Uncertainties abound, as do absurdities:“What have they done? Why are they taking them away?” a passer-by asked.“They spoke against.”“What?”“They spoke against.”“What does that mean? Against what?”“I’m telling you. They spoke against.”We read a notice posted around the city:“Wanted: the dangerous Communist Enver Hoxha. Aged about 30. Tall. Wears sunglasses. Reward for any information leading to his capture: 15,000 leks; for his capture: 30,000 leks.”Those sunglasses . . . Worn by a man whose darkened belief, stated by the real-life Enver Hoxha elsewhere, was that “Dissenters must be exterminated like a weasel in a chicken coop.” The events that follow are dark enough for any who are caught in them. Until the war arrived, the Gjirokastër the boy perceived was a city that despite normal disputes or antagonisms seemed a more or less integral community. The stresses of the continuing war, with its politics, force a shattering of that idea.Unlike Chronicle’s characters, we know the history: Albania was just then poised to enter, after the war, its era of Stalinist control and the man with the dark glasses would become the nation’s leader. All that is material for another novel. If it were to be a novel by Ismail Kadare, I’d expect it to be as well worth reading as the excellent Chronicle in Stone.