Spring Flowers, Spring Frost

As I close out my Albania book, I toss it to the side and mumble “wtf” First and foremost, my rating is neutral because I don’t think I can rate the story itself by the English version fairly. It was translated twice over from Albanian to French to English, and I figure a lot of nuance is missing making the book more confusing than it needs to be. Also, that could be the point as well. The lines between reality and myth seem to blur as Ismail Kadare takes you on an adventure through the eyes of Mark, an artist that has a weird obsession with his girlfriend’s body hair, works for the Albanian police and seems to be just there listening to and observing the people around him post Communism as they navigate the political climate of their country. For almost every chapter there is a counter chapter that takes myth and tries to connect it to the storyline; like the woman who married a snake, Prometheus, Oedipus, and a strange conversation with the iceberg that sank the Titanic… While the connections of these stories to the main plot can be seen, they still feel randomly placed, and honestly it was hard to know where myth and life began and ended. However, after discussing this author with a friend, it does feel like it falls in line with his tendency to be avant-garde in writing style. It’s an interesting read to say the least. I’m glad I did give it a chance, but unless I somehow learn Albanian and read the book as fully intended, I probably won’t revisit.