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Chronicle in Stone (Paperback)

by Ismail Kadare (Author)
5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)

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Product details

  • Paperback: 277 pages
  • Publisher: New Amsterdam Books; Open market ed edition (22 April 1998)
  • Language English
  • ISBN-10: 0941533506
  • ISBN-13: 978-0941533508
  • Product Dimensions: 22.9 x 15.2 x 2.5 cm
  • Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
  • Amazon.co.uk Sales Rank: 3,683,649 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Wartime Albania seen through a boy's eyes, 12 May 2007
By Ralph Blumenau (London United Kingdom) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   
This review is from: Chronicle in Stone (Paperback)
Another atmospheric book about Albania by its great national writer. This one is about his native town, the ancient, higgeldy-piggeldy, stone-built city of Gjirokastër, near the Greek border. It seems to be permanently either swept by freezing winds or drenched in rain. Its older inhabitants are primitive and superstitious, especially the old women, and they believe in witchcraft. The story is told in the first person by a child. He must be very young, though his age is unspecified. He has a poetic imagination and the ability to put it into words which are both so extraordinary that they defy credibility: for example, he sees the raindrops which are caught in a cistern as sentient and resentful prisoners; or he imagine his eyes as sucking in images. Never mind that these seem to be more like the imagination of an adult poet - simply enjoy these and other wonderful conceits throughout the book for what they are. More credible: the boy becomes obsessed with words, tries to fit images to idioms like `devouring someone with his eyes'. When he hears that soon there will be `a slaughter of nations', the boy, whose has been horrified by a visit to a slaughter-house, tries to imagine what the slaughter of nations might look like.

He soon finds out. The story covers the period from 1939 to 1944. When it opens, the Italians, who had taken Albania in April 1939, are in occupation. The Greeks capture the town in 1940; the Italians recapture it briefly, are driven out again, but then return once more. When Italy leaves the war in 1943, the Germans take over Albania.

The first sign of war is that, just outside the town, the plain where the cows have been grazing is being turned into an aerodrome. Then there are orders for a black-out at night; then planes start flying over the city; and eerie searchlights play over the sky and the buildings. And then the air-raids begin, steadily becoming more frequent and intense. Initially the Italians are not hated as much as the old enemies, the Greeks. But then young people - boys and girls - go up into the mountains to join the Partisans. (For the old women, the main anger is that the girls are up there with the boys and will bring shame on their families.) Some partisans are caught and deported. The commander of the Italian garrison is assassinated. There are now executions by the Italians and reprisals by the Resistance. But the partisans, divided into three rival groups, also murderously fight each other. When the Italians leave the war and the city, the Communist partisans hold the town for a while and carry out `revolutionary justice', but then the Germans pour into the country, and before their arrival there is a mass exodus of the citizens into the unfamiliar countryside. Only a few old women remain behind, together with a handful of resistance fighters. From far off the refugees hear the thunder of German artillery subduing the town. Then the guns fall silent, and the refugees return to the battered stone city ... And there, with the war not yet over, Kadare ends his book.

One old woman in the story keeps on crying `the world is coming to an end'; but as often as not, what provokes these exclamations has little to do with the war: strictly local dramas, the behaviour of neighbours, the gossip about them, is just as likely to provoke them as having to shelter from the bombs. And because our little story-teller pays much attention to what his elders are saying, his narrative is not confined the war either. As in so many books that present historical events through the eyes of a child, it is the adult reader who attaches significance to things that a child would not fully understand and that are often of lesser importance to him than more quotidian events. Only towards the end of the book do the horrors of civil war in the town, the exodus and the return overwhelm everything else and move to the centre of the boy's narrative.

Once again Kadare has given us an unforgettable picture of his harsh homeland and of its gritty inhabitants.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Recapturing childhood, 21 Jan 2008
By B. Hutchings - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: Chronicle in Stone (Paperback)
Kadare recreates the irrepressible wonderment and imagination of childhood. All the characters come alive, their traits seemingly emphasised by child-like observation and innocence. Unsophisticated routines of long sheltered traditions and community are shattered by war and foreign intervention but there is a timeless quality in the depiction of human foible and behaviour.
The introduction is informative. The translation reads well,suggesting a poetic quality in the original.
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5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Youthful imagination, 11 July 2007
This review is from: Chronicle in Stone (Paperback)
In this intriguing novel Kadare creates wonderful atmosphere and portrays his childhood town through the eyes of a young boy. He allows the reader both to picture all the idiosynchracies of Southern Albanian life with its mixture of traditions and superstitions for him/herself, and through the narrators youthful innocence.
Kadare allows us to see how the all consuming nature of the second world war broke into the relatively insular life of Gjirokaster.
The narrative through a young boys eyes also provides humour and fear.
An easier read than most Kadare novels
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Most Recent Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars Beautifully written
I read this book while spending a week in Albania last summer and went to Gjirokaster, where the book is set. Read more
Published 12 months ago by starski

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