orbis quintus

Thus far in May we’ve mentioned two Eastern European authors, Muharem Bazdulj and Bruno Schulz. Today we’ll mention a third: Ismail Kadare.

Kadare is an Albanian whose works, not too light and not too dense, manage to be both entertaining and thought-provoking. I’ve read four of his books and enjoyed all of them immensely. Kadare’s The General of the Dead Army (which I have yet to read) pops up on Tibor Fischer’s Top Ten Eastern European Novels list. He’s also up for the Man Booker International Prize.

Back in January I posted on The File on H, Kadare’s novel on scholars trying to shed light on Homer by studying oral epic in Albania. The book, which could have been dry and pseudo-academic, was suprisingly funny and extremely entertaining. I just finished The Palace of Dreams a few minutes ago, and as always with Kadare, I was far from disappointed. Mark-Alem is a scion of the noble Quprili family, an Albanian family that has provided generals, viziers, and high officials to the Ottoman Empire for centuries. Mark-Alem gets a job at the Tabar Sarrail, the Palace of Dreams, where all the dreams from every corner of the Ottoman Empire are collected, sorted, and interpreted. Kadare’s description of this unusual state agency doubles as a darkly satirical criticism of totalitarian bureaucracy, and because of this the book was banned in Albania.

The Palace of Dreams contains all the familiar Kadare themes: state violence, the power of epic, the tragic whimsy of fate, and the complex question of Albanian identity. There are even concrete links to an earlier novel, The Three-Arched Bridge, in which a monk chronicles the building of a bridge in Albania- a bridge that doubles as Albania itself.

All of Kadare’s works are “important” in the sense that they shed light on Albania’s past and present. His books are multilayered and multifaceted without being too complex. He writes sparely and effectively. He’s a storyteller, and this in the end is what sets him apart. Many times “important” books are also “dry” and “uninteresting” books. Kadare’s works are consistently funny, suspenseful, lyrical, and ENTERTAINING which, in the end, is all that really matters when one tries to read the world.

Check out Kadare’s books at amazon, here.

This study of measuring for increased activity in the amygdala to see if one responds negatively to race is an interesting concept, but with the current disposition of the U.S. i can see this easily as litmus test not of race, but of social values. It wouldn’t work in its current state, but this technique can certainly be refined. Give it ten years, and this will be instituted just like drug tests, ostensibly to make sure one’s values are that coinciding with the company, so as to insure loss prevention (like the multiple choice personality inventories today.) Let the purges begin.

One of my coworkers irritated me yesterday by asking me to burn him some music, something like Sarah McLachlan. I’ve only worked with this guy for a few weeks, but do i seem like someone who would own an extensive collection of music similiar to Sarah McLachlan? I’m constantly surprised by the number of people who are still enamored of all of that Lilith Fair fodder. I’m not the most macho guy around, always beating his chest with how rough and tough his music is, but the stereotypical feminine flavor that these Lilith Fair men seems like the most insincere cliche. It seems more like an accessory to give the illusion of sensitivity than an extension of their personalities with most of these guys.

This is the closest to a concession that i’m willing to make.

Marine Girls “A Place in the Sun”

Marine Girls “Leave Me with the Boy”

Marine Girls “Love to Know”

At the end of last week, the Bush administration crowed about capturing the #3 Al Qaeda man, a Libyan named Abu Faraj al-Libbi, in pakistan. “We’re winning the War on Terror! Woo hoo!” I sawthe Daily Show with Tom Ridge as the guest, and Jon Stewart made a few cracks about how it always seems to be the #3 guy, and what a shit job it must be. Tom Ridge put on a show of parental assurance, confiding with Stewart and the audience that the administration has had an eye on this man for a long time.

Ahem.

The Times (the same newspaper that had the memo last week) reports:

The capture of a supposed Al-Qaeda kingpin by Pakistani agents last week was hailed by President George W Bush as “a critical victory in the war on terror”. According to European intelligence experts, however, Abu Faraj al-Libbi was not the terrorists’ third in command, as claimed, but a middle-ranker derided by one source as “among the flotsam and jetsam” of the organisation.

Oops. Well, that’s just Europeans trying to discredit the effectiveness of the American War on Terror, right? They are just playing sour grapes, eh?

Al-Libbi’s arrest in Pakistan, announced last Wednesday, was described in the United States as “a major breakthrough” in the hunt for Osama Bin Laden.

Bush called him a “top general” and “a major facilitator and chief planner for the Al- Qaeda network”. Condoleezza Rice, secretary of state, said he was “a very important figure”. Yet the backslapping in Washington and Islamabad has astonished European terrorism experts, who point out that the Libyan was neither on the FBI’s most wanted list, nor on that of the State Department “rewards for justice” programme.

Well, golly, gosh and by gum, he must have been on one of them there secret lists, since it was obvious from all previously published accounts that this guy wasn’t a high priority. The only nation known to have wanted him was Pakistan, as he was involved in two assassination attempts on Musharraf, serious stuff, but does that sound like a #3 man to you?

One American official tried to explain the absence of al-Libbi’s name on the wanted list by saying: “We did not want him to know he was wanted.”

Yeah… you folks have earned so much in the way of credibility over the years. Why would we ever doubt you?