Chronicle In Stone Review
Plot and thoughts on the read: War, the war scenes are once again drawn in my mind. This time differently, wholly differently. There was teenage love that took place in a tiny part of the novel (which is something I REALLY liked), there was lust, sexuality and homosexuality. The scenes were perfectly portrayed in my mind like a huge movie, I love that I could visualize every single thing in the novel, everything was described amazingly, not to mention the poetic part I'll come to later on..
The ending was kind of abrupt, but I think I got used to that from the first novel I read for him. Wasn't bad though.
The protagonist: That crazy, little young man who craves for the things adults do, he has the brain of an adult, but the heart of a little boy. Loved the comedy parts in his scenes..and I definitely enjoyed accompanying him as a reader and imagining what he's going through.
The names: The only thing I didn't like about the novel; the names were uncountable and seemed endless, the complicated-looking names like for example "Mane Voco" or "Xivo Gavo" confused me so much that in the middle of the novel I was pretty lost and did not know who is who to who and when did this appear to be his Grandpa and such..
The Translator: Thank you again, thank you for being honest with your translation, thank you for the introduction you left for us, it really did help me understand things about the novel, before reading, that I would've never understood , thank you for not changing the names of the town's people-despite how hard to read they were-and most of all thank you for caring to translate such an awesome novel.
The images: Undoubtedly the best thing in this novel: I cannot believe the amount of dazzle Kadare brought to me when he came up with such images and metaphors. I'm simply in love with his imagination. I will surely mention some of them, although if I could, I would've mentioned them all for each one deserves to be mentioned. Here we go:
-"It was a slanted city, set at a sharper angel than perhaps any other city on earth, and it defied the laws of architecture and city planning. The top of one house might graze the foundation of another, and it was surely the only place in the world where if you slipped and fell in the street, you might well land on the roof of a house - a peculiarity known most intimately to drunks."
-"I tried especially hard to remember his lips, which had caught my eye that day more than anything else about his face. They were special lips: lips that had already kissed."
-"Thick clouds like wet, muddy sponges had settled over the city. The sky was black as pitch. A supernatural light spilled in through the rent in the cloud cover. It slid over the grey roofs and came to rest on a white house"
-"In our eyes that field had something sacred about it. It had been a kind of sister or bride to the sky"
-Some other comments: Kako pino's favorite saying "It's the end of the world" impressed me each time it was said. Not because of the sentence itself, it was rather because of the emotions I was imagining she's holding, while talking.
-The beard that was a metaphor for a girl being lesbian could not be comprehended if one didn't read the translator's introduction. I didn't understand it until I went back and read the introduction. It was very clever!
The ending was kind of abrupt, but I think I got used to that from the first novel I read for him. Wasn't bad though.
The protagonist: That crazy, little young man who craves for the things adults do, he has the brain of an adult, but the heart of a little boy. Loved the comedy parts in his scenes..and I definitely enjoyed accompanying him as a reader and imagining what he's going through.
The names: The only thing I didn't like about the novel; the names were uncountable and seemed endless, the complicated-looking names like for example "Mane Voco" or "Xivo Gavo" confused me so much that in the middle of the novel I was pretty lost and did not know who is who to who and when did this appear to be his Grandpa and such..
The Translator: Thank you again, thank you for being honest with your translation, thank you for the introduction you left for us, it really did help me understand things about the novel, before reading, that I would've never understood , thank you for not changing the names of the town's people-despite how hard to read they were-and most of all thank you for caring to translate such an awesome novel.
The images: Undoubtedly the best thing in this novel: I cannot believe the amount of dazzle Kadare brought to me when he came up with such images and metaphors. I'm simply in love with his imagination. I will surely mention some of them, although if I could, I would've mentioned them all for each one deserves to be mentioned. Here we go:
-"It was a slanted city, set at a sharper angel than perhaps any other city on earth, and it defied the laws of architecture and city planning. The top of one house might graze the foundation of another, and it was surely the only place in the world where if you slipped and fell in the street, you might well land on the roof of a house - a peculiarity known most intimately to drunks."
-"I tried especially hard to remember his lips, which had caught my eye that day more than anything else about his face. They were special lips: lips that had already kissed."
-"Thick clouds like wet, muddy sponges had settled over the city. The sky was black as pitch. A supernatural light spilled in through the rent in the cloud cover. It slid over the grey roofs and came to rest on a white house"
-"In our eyes that field had something sacred about it. It had been a kind of sister or bride to the sky"
-Some other comments: Kako pino's favorite saying "It's the end of the world" impressed me each time it was said. Not because of the sentence itself, it was rather because of the emotions I was imagining she's holding, while talking.
-The beard that was a metaphor for a girl being lesbian could not be comprehended if one didn't read the translator's introduction. I didn't understand it until I went back and read the introduction. It was very clever!
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