Agamemnon’s Daughter Ismail Kadare
A Flavour of the Book: “A
returning messenger who stopped here last night brought us disturbing
news. In the western marches of
our Empire, right opposite our wall and barely a thousand feet from it, the
Barbarians had built a kind of tower, made not from stone but from severed
heads…”
The Authortrek View: The narrator of the title novella is in
mourning for the loss of his lover, Suzana. Now that her father has risen through the ranks of political
power, he has advised her to drop the narrator, as it would not be seemly for
her to have a paramour who is practically engaged to someone else. Inspired by reading The Greek Myths
by Robert Graves, the narrator somewhat overdramatically equates her forfeit
with that of Iphigenia, the daughter of Agamemnon, who Agamemnon himself had
ordered to be sacrificed to appease the gods before the Greeks set sail to besiege
Troy. Although the use of this
parable is complicated by the fact that in some versions, Iphigenia was saved
by Artemis, who put a deer or a goat in her place. It is quite probable that Kadare is being quite ironic here,
since the dropping of unsuitable lovers due to ‘public opinion’ is something
that occurs in Western democracies as well as in the old Eastern bloc
totalitarian states, with freedom of choice being curtailed in both
circumstances. Far more chilling however, is the story of what happens to the Head
of Broadcasting, after the arrival of the risible but deadly letter from
Lushnje… The collection ends with a rather abstract tale of The Great Wall
of China: the barbarian Tamerlane needs the wall because he fears that the luxuries
of the Chinese court will soften and corrupt his hordes, while the Chinese need
the wall to keep out the barbarous hordes. However, the best and most gripping tale in the collection
is The Blinding Order, where a decree is passed to punish those who have
maliciously wielded the ‘evil eye’.
This leads to a series of denunciations, just as in Stalinist communist
societies, where the evil eye is used by the unscrupulous as an excuse to get
rid of their enemies, and to hysteria, where innocent bystanders are killed by
the mob for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. And just like a witchcraft trial, it’s
almost impossible to prove your innocence once you have been accused (although,
if you are rich, you do have the luxury of choosing a less painful method of
blinding). Xheladin is a
qorrifirman, one of the officials in charge of the blindings. Soon to be married, he and his
bride-to-be, Marie, have broken convention by already sleeping together, to
which his father-in-law turns a blind eye. Yet, if the blinding order is just a ruse to get rid of the
Grand Vizier, then can even Xheladin truly be safe?
None
of these stories have strong resolutions, even the exceptional The Blinding
Order, which would have perhaps made them even better, although some subtleties
are bound in a translation of a translation. Kadare also seems to be far superior when he is totally
immersed in the myths that he so loves, rather than using them as analogies,
which may or may not fit the story that he is trying to tell. However, the collection is worth buying
just for pleasure of reading that sublime story - The Blinding Order –
since it is a true masterpiece.
You can read a resume of the
book on our Amazon store below. To find out more about the author,
please visit our Ismail
Kadare page.
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