The Siege

Kadare, Ismail. The Siege. Translated by David Bellos. Canongate, 1970.

Reason read: Albania declared independence in November of 1912. They celebrate on the 29th. Read in honor of the day.

Kadare used his knowledge of the 1475 siege in Albania to write The Siege. It is not a factual nonfiction; not of actual events, but rather a retelling of war in general yet horrible terms; what any siege would sound, look, smell and even taste like. Using an army chronicler named Melva Celebi to tell the tale from the Turks’ (attackers) side of the siege, he described the actions of the janissaries, tumbrels, doctor, poet, astrologer, sultan, dervishes, architect, engineer, sappers, and wives. The alternating yet brief chapters were told from the perspective of the Albanians as they defended their citadel. Occasionally, the wives or prostitutes spoke of their perception of war.
Back to the plot: the attackers tried to breach the citadel walls with little success. First, a flurry of man to man combat. When that failed, their next move was to try to dig a tunnel up under the citadel. That also failed. Next the attackers tried to shut off the citadel’s main source of water. [As an aside, I thought using a thirsty horse to find the aqueduct was clever but cruel.] It was this tactic I found most disturbing. In order to know if the lack of water was affecting the besieged, the attackers needed a live Albanian to dissect to analyze his organs. This victim would signal if the enemy was weakened by dehydration. Not wanting to wait for the lack of water to take effect, the attackers then tried a new cannon which backfired (pun totally intended). The Turks’ final assault was to release diseased animals into the castle in hopes of poisoning the Albanians. Each attack was more frenzied than the one before while the besieged practiced stoic resilience.
In The Siege Kadare captured the utter gruesomeness of war: the chaos of men and horses screaming in pain, the slipperiness of blood and gore, the din of weaponry booming, the choking smoke, and stench of death everywhere. There is one striking scene when the chronicle and astrologer are observing a dead man’s face reflected in a shiny pool of oil, soon to be incinerated by the encroaching flames. This image will stay with me for a very long time. Kadare also describes the strategy of war: rations are running low. The attackers know they need another battle to lessen their numbers by 3-4 thousand men as a way to stretch supplies.

Line I liked, “Crows don’t pick out each other’s eyes” (p 236).

Author fact: Kadare was also a poet. He died when he was 88 years old.

Book trivia: The Siege was first titled The Drums of Rain but was changed to The Castle. The English translation is The Siege. It was the least unsatisfactory name for the English version.
And speaking of translation, I would love to know how they say willy-nilly in Albania.

Music: “Te Deum.”

BookLust Twist: from Book Lust To Go in the chapter called “Albania” (p 12). Just a note about the index for this book. There is a different book with the same title. Both books are under the same indexing, but they should have separate entries.