The Three-Arched Bridge

Rating:
Summary: Regional
Review: I found this book one of the minor works of Ismail Kadare.
The three-arched bridge stands here as a symbol for the dangerous political situation of Kadare's homeland Albania, between the West (for him, capitalism) and the East (the Turks, Islam).
The construction of the bridge is also a sign of the violent transition from agricultural and rural (the pontoon) to industrial and commercial interests (toll).
The incorporation of the ancient Albanian legend about a ritual murder needed to preserve the bridge seemed to me rather exaggerated.

Unlike Kadare's masterpieces (e.g. The General of the Dead Army, The Pyramid, Moon Night), this story concerns more Albanian regional problems. It tackles general human problems more or less indirectly.

But it is still a worth-while read.

Rating:
Summary: A Symbolic Gem!
Review: I never heard of Kidare until I ran across a review of this book in the NY Times. I am glad I was introduced and look forward to reading his other works. This was a special read; deceptively simple prose, characters, themes and storyline. (Isn't it the simple things that are the best?) The book is loaded with religious imagery; the narrator, a 14th century monk, the three-arched bridge, the designer and master-builder. As in all good literature the setting transcends the particular to the universal. The pre-reformation setting mirrors the world in which we live in today. The novel tells the story of old-money (the boats & rafts, co.) and the inherent old way of doing things versus progress (the bridges & roads, co.) and its inherent changes. Over all this looms the State, both old (the liege Count) and the new (the expanding Ottoman Empire), threatening to undue everything. Intermingled with this struggle are the roles of superstition, religion and myth. Wonderful stuff!

Rating:
Summary: When legend catches you in its snare
Review: The monk Gjon Ukcama, narrator of this rain-swept tale of the 14th century Balkans, says at one point, "...like all the affairs of this world, this story was both simpler and more involved than it appeared." This sentence could sum up the book. In one way, you can read it as a simple tale of how a bridge was built; beginning with medieval machinations, certain unforeseen setbacks, a sacrifice, and ultimate success. A second approach to the novel is to look at it as a little-known historical period brought to life through a legend-like tale---the decline of Byzantium, the subsequent rise of many small principalities in the Balkans together with the ever-rising crescendo of Ottoman power from the East, the new commercial combines directed from the Italian states and other countries further west. A third way of looking at THE THREE-ARCHED BRIDGE is to think of it as an allegory of Albanian history, showing Albania as one of those many small countries to which history "happens" without their having any say-so. In a fourth way, this is a tale about change in any period of human history. Can there be major changes without someone paying a steep price ? A person here, a social class there, an entire way of life over there....Kadare's story move with dark inevitability. Finally, you can read this novel as being about life and death: people struggle to bridge the gap, but the two worlds--of the living and of the dead---remain separate. The legend of an old Albanian bridge tells us this. We can't penetrate further.

A Christian monk, writing in the 14th century, might have seen the Turks as a threat, though animosity between Rome and Byzantium was worse than between Islam and Christianity. That is not to say that everyone at the time did see them like that. Many Christian peasants of southeastern Europe preferred to live under the less-rapacious, better-organized Ottomans. Many even gladly converted to Islam. So, although the Turks are portrayed as menacing in this novel, even as symbolic of death and disaster, I would like to point out that Albanian history has been re-written in the 19th and 20th centuries to suit those who opposed the decayed Turkish rule four centuries after the initial conquests. We are still dealing in legends, in other words. Kadare does not vary from nationalist history, which has to be seen for the legend it is. Other than that minor criticism, this is without doubt a five-star book. My only question is---when is Kadare going to get a Nobel Prize ?