The Tartar Steppe: Amazon.ca: Dino Buzzati, S. Hood: Books

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15 Reviews

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4.9 out of 5 stars (15 customer reviews)

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5.0 out of 5 stars 19th century adventure/20th century sensibilty, Sep 12 2003

By	Doug Anderson (Miami Beach, Florida United States) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER)

This review is from: Tartar Steppe (Paperback)

After reading Dino Buzzati's short story collection The Siren I picked up Tartar Steppe(1945) and took it to the beach with me where I read it all the way through in about four hours. Its a captivating novel which takes place almost entirely in a remote hilltop fort which faces a foreboding desert that has never been crossed. The soldiers stationed at this remote outpost keep watch over the desert in anticipation of a confrontation with an enemy they have never seen. We learn about the history of the fort as well as those who occupy it when Giovanni Drogo, a young soldier, arrives there to begin what he hopes will be an illustrious career. Upon arriving at the fort Giovanni is immediately struck by the desolate atmosphere of the place and want s to leave but is coerced by the forts adjutant to stay for at least four months. Four months becomes four years and then four years becomes...... Giovanni like many young soldiers wants to advance his career and yet year after year he stays on in the fort and his career goes nowhere. As the years pass and Giovanni remains in the fort somehow unable to find the will to ask for a transfer Buzzati weaves in meditations on the passing of time, the fading of youth and youths dreams, as well mans infinitely renewable capacity for self-deception. Buzzati might be compared to Kafka for the parable like quality of his writing but Buzzati has his own style and Tartar Steppe is much more reader friendly than either of Kafkas novels. Jean Paul Sartre characterized Kafkas writing as "the impossiblity of transcendence" and that would fit Buzzati's writing as well. There certainly are similarities between the two authors but with Buzzati you feel much closer to real life than you sometimes do in Kafka (whose favorite author was Swift). I would call Tartar Steppe a very effective merging of nineteenth and twentieth-century style and content. Buzzati seems to me to be examining why 19th century adventure stories of war and travel appeal so much with a 20th century sensibility. The result is a mesmerizing read, like Giovanni you never stop believing that the enemy is about to show themselves. This book is often mentioned in the same breath as Julien Gracq's Opposing Shore, a book which I also highly recommend.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Filling the gaps of existence... with sand, Jan 22 2003

By	Ariadna "whydoihavetopickone" (Buenos Aires) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tartar Steppe (Paperback)

This is a book about how absurd existence is and how men are deemed to deal with the fissure they find between life and its meaning. The question of whether this meaning must come from within man himself or from an event which is external to him lies beneath the whole novel.

Sharing this sense of absurdity with Kafka and Camus, Buzatti creates an atmosphere within which not only the main character gets trapped, but also the reader. They both expect something that never actually occurs, and the tension this anticipation generates page after page makes the novel a compelling read.

The story of Giovanni Drogo, a simple man who attempts to make of his destiny something grand without really doing anything but live and wait and let go, is one of the most fascinating and moving stories in the 20th century literature.

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5.0 out of 5 stars Loneliness without being alone, Feb 6 2002

By	A. G. Plumb "Greg Plumb" (Melbourne, Australia) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: Tartar Steppe (Paperback)

This is an extraordinary novel where the main character looks into the eternal, emptiness beyond - just as we all look into the unknowableness of the future. And as we do it - sometimes with intimations of things to happen, sometimes with firm and dreadful 'knowledge', and sometimes with hopes - we are alone in our journey, despite those around us. There is only true solace in looking back at the past, in seeing what we have experienced that no-one can take away from us.

There is little humour in this vision, little hope, little respite. Always an aching emptiness prevails. But for all that it does have a crystalline beauty - a clear and shining crystal with cold, sharp edges. Read if you dare, but brace yourself when you do. This is no roller-coaster of action, its pace is slow, slow, slow ......

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Most recent customer reviews

3.0 out of 5 stars An unusual but entertaining pearl of Italian literature
Dino Buzzati's novel THE TARTAR STEPPE is a rather unusual piece of literature. Written while the author was in despair over a dead-end job in a newspaper, the book is a metaphor... Read more

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5.0 out of 5 stars Achingly beautiful
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Published on Dec 17 2001 by Meredith Brunel

5.0 out of 5 stars After all, this is life
On first thought, this is a overwhelmingly desolate book. It is the life of Giovanni Drogo who, after graduation as military officer, is sent to Fort Bastiani, located on... Read more

Published on Feb 23 2001 by Guillermo Maynez