Broken April

Rating:
Summary: The ultimate novel of the blood feud in Albania
Review: Blood feuds have existed in many parts of the world throughout history. The USA, with its Hatfields and McCoys, is no stranger to the custom either. The practice seems to run most deeply in remote, mountainous areas where tribal societies cannot provide a universal system of justice to cover everyone. The code of the blood feud develops to handle murder cases. Nowhere (that I ever heard of) did the system evolve into such an intricate traditional code of laws as in the mountainous highlands of Albania. There, the Kanun, or Law of Lek Dukagjini spread throughout the lawless region now lying in northern Albania, Kosovo, and Montenegro, a region that largely maintained its own identity and customs throughout the centuries-long period of Turkish rule, to emerge in 20th century Europe with the blood feud still flourishing.

Kadare, Albania's premier writer, has written a vivid, dark novel that not only captures the details of highland Albanian life in the 1920s, but also shows the ultimate tragedy for a society that allows murder to follow murder, inexorably and unchallenged. A couple from the more urbanized, less-traditional lowlands go for their honeymoon into the highlands, riding in a horse-drawn carriage--a great luxury for the highlanders. The man, a writer, tends to romanticize the blood-soaked traditions of his country's remote regions. At the same time, Gjorg, a young highlander, who has killed a man in revenge for his brother, is given a month's truce before he in turn will become a target. He can expect a bullet at any moment after April 17, hence his April is broken into safe and dangerous parts. His fate intersects with those of the literate travellers and the book comes to its inevitable ending. For a novel that explores seldom-seen territory, written in a terse, but beautiful style, please read this book. Since the end of communism in 1991, the blood feud has returned to Albania, still largely lawless in its mountain areas. This book is no fossil.

Rating:
Summary: Well told tale about revenge violence and family honor
Review: Broken April is an brilliant novel whose plot revolves around revenge violence in the highlands of Albania.

In a nutshell, the novel describes a society where family honor and revenge violence are the two cornerstones. The "Kanun" dictates revenge in the society. The "Kanun" is a seemingly sacred set of rules, laws, and applicable punishments that apply to the values of society and what happens if the values are broken. However, the rules of the "Kanun" create a vicious cycle of murder and mayhem in the society it is supposed to be protecting. If person "A" kills person "B", person "C" (brother of "B") must kill "A". After "A" is killed, person "D" (brother of "A") must kill "C". In the meantime, "C" is in hiding, thus leaving his family to fend for themselves, leaving his fields unattended, etc.

The cycle of violence is described from 3 points of view, Gjorg's, Bessian and Diana's, and Mark Ukacierra. Part of the beauty of this novel is the telling of the tale from three unique and unrelated view points. Gjorg is a highland Albanian who is caught up in the blood feud and kills a man to avenge his brother. Bessian and Diana are honeymooners who traveled to the highlands from the city who are foreign to the culture of the highlanders, even though Bessian is knowledgeable of the Kanun and the basics of revenge violence in the highland Albanian society. Mark Ukacierra is first cousin to the prince, whose job it is to collect death taxes, to collect a tax due to the prince after each killing. This tax is collected from people like Gjorg. The author does a remarkable job pulling the three stories together into one.

The only real issue I had with the book was that the chapters seemed long in the middle and there were few natural places to stop reading. The beginning of the novel was beyond my expectations and the ending was shocking. However, after the second chapter, the book seemed a little long-winded. Nonetheless, the story was terrific overall. This would be a great book to learn about and understand cultures whose existence depended on honor and revenge violence. This book is not my typical read, but it was still well worth the time.

Rating:
Summary: Sad story of Albanian blood feuds
Review: How can a people live without an organized government? The northern Albanians seem to have found an answer, but it's not necessarily one we'd want to emulate. Throughout years of cursory rule by the Ottomans, King Zog, and Hoxha's Communists, the highlanders have observed only the law of their ancestors: the Kanun of Lek Dukagjinit (an excellent translation of this is available on Amazon). At the center of this law stand two concepts: hospitality and honor. Both are protected by a system of revenge killings. A killing demanded by honor, however, demands a revenge killing in return, and the feuds spiral out of control until whole families have been eliminated.

It all sounds very romantic in the abstract, but Kadare resists the temptation to exploit this quality. His novel is based on the contrast between a young man obliged by the Kanun to kill another man, and a young married couple from Tirana, urban intellectuals who have come to the north for their honeymoon and to study the blood feuds. The tension between their two points of view (the northerner who feels trapped within the Kanun, and the southerners who see it as a marvelous bit of local color) drives this novel.

Kadare is a wonderful writer, and this is one of his finest efforts. It's also a very dark story, and its concerns can seem a bit obscure to the non-Albanian reader. Ultimately, though, this is probably the best novel I've ever read about a culture wholly alien to my own.

Rating:
Summary: From the first page, couldn't put it down.
Review: I started reading and finished this book in one day--I've owned it for a few years but never read it, admittedly. But I picked it up yesterday and couldn't put it down.
Admittedly, I was a bit shocked that this book made it to the printing presses (assuming as I am that Kadare lived in Hoxha's Albania in 1982 when this book was written). Hohxa was a Tosk and tried to stamp out all vestiges of the Kanun and the gjakmarrje (blood feud). But, in a special way, this book transcends the customary law and the Northern Albanian Alps: it tells a time-honored tale of honor, obedience to one's father, and hospitality.
The metaphors used by Kadare to describe the honored role of the guest in the Albanian home are true to this day. His depiction of Albanian mannerisms, knowledge of the Kanun of Leke, and interplay of the main 3 sets of characters make for a worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: Broken April
Review: I started reading and finished this book in one day--I've owned it for a few years but never read it, admittedly. But I picked it up yesterday and couldn't put it down.
Admittedly, I was a bit shocked that this book made it to the printing presses (assuming as I am that Kadare lived in Hoxha's Albania in 1982 when this book was written). Hohxa was a Tosk and tried to stamp out all vestiges of the Kanun and the gjakmarrje (blood feud). But, in a special way, this book transcends the customary law and the Northern Albanian Alps: it tells a time-honored tale of honor, obedience to one's father, and hospitality.
The metaphors used by Kadare to describe the honored role of the guest in the Albanian home are true to this day. His depiction of Albanian mannerisms, knowledge of the Kanun of Leke, and interplay of the main 3 sets of characters make for a worthwhile read.

Rating:
Summary: dark, intense, subtle and masterful.
Review: Kadare is a writer of subtlety and irony, capable of powerfully saying what he thinks without ever actually saying what he thinks. I guess you must learn to do this when you grow up in a strict communist dictatorship. The first and main character of the book, Gjorg, steps into the ages-old tradition of bloodfeud, and begins the ending of his own life. Kadare masterfully tells this from Gjorg's viewpoint in a dark, terse but poetic style that feels as desperate as his character. Then the irony kicks in, as he introduces a writer and his new wife, who are from the city, who is fascinated with Northern Albanian culture. Bessian is wrapped up in the terrible romance of the blood feud, and a conscious reader must identify him/herself in this curious character, wanting to watch, both fascinated and horrified, as people destroy each other for the sake of tradition. And the to turn the screw one notch further, we briefly meet the Blood Mark, the government officer responsible for tracking the blood killings and receiving the blood tax. A look inside his almost-normal mind is eerily frightening, as death becomes life and life becomes death. I'm afraid I'm too un-Albanian in thought-patterns, however, to grasp the climactic motion of the novel. I don't want to give away the end of the novel, but I must say it seems to build and build towards a particular event... and then just narrowly miss that event. It is difficult to identify the climax of the novel, and difficult to be satisfied with the progression. Maybe this is simply because my mind is quite Western, and my sense of things is different. But I'm not totally unexperienced at reading non-Western works...

Anyway. A wonderful, if dark and intense, novel. An education, as well.

Rating:
Summary: Vendettalogy
Review: This book is one of Kadare's regional (Albanese) novels. It is the story of bloody family feuds regulated by the unwritten rules of the Kanun (an Albanese tribe law).
'Broken April' is the picture of more specific (not general) human conflicts. It doesn't have the same high intensity of his political novels like the violent masterpieces 'The Pyramid', 'The Palace of Dreams' or 'The Eagle' about life, politics and the longing for freedom in a totalitarian State.

I also found the mixing of the blood feud part with the visit of a writer and his wife to the Albanese Rrafsh region, as well as the brief encounter of his wife with a family feud murderer, rather artificial.
The story is also partly written in a 'superlative' style.

Not one of Kadare's masterpieces, but, as always with this masterful author, a worth-while read.

Rating:
Summary: Broken A/p/r/i/l - An Appreciation
Review: This is a book you must read. It gives you a convincing picture of a completely alien culture and way of life, and death. From the opening lines it draws you deep into the deadful world of the Kanun, the ancient rituals which govern vendetta in Albania. It leads you through the corrupting influence which greedy men have had on a set of unofficial laws which, I believe must have been originally merciful in nature, set up to regulate the mass revenge killings endemic in ancient Albania. Blood money is paid to a powerful war-lord after each killing. He employs a factor to gather this money, and the factor is tormented by the problem of how to increase his lord's income from this practice so that he (the factor) can retain his position in the lord's household. Shudderingly horrifying!