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The ThreeArched Bridge Ismail Kadare John Hodgson 9781559707923 Books

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The ThreeArched Bridge Ismail Kadare John Hodgson 9781559707923 Books

Narrated in the first-person by a monk named Gjon, THE THREE-ARCHED BRIDGE is an allegorical tale about the building of a bridge across a river, the Ujana e Keque ("Wicked Waters"), in 1377 in Albania (sometimes called Arberia in the novel). The central event in Gjon's tale is the immurement of a local young man, Murrash Zenebisha, in the structure of the bridge. Late-medieval Arberia is a region in which legends, ballads, imprecations, and betrayals proliferate, and in a twist on one of the most revered legends, Murrash Zenebisha is sacrificed (voluntarily?, or is he murdered?) and his body incorporated into the bridge, and then plastered over so that his white face stares out at the world, in order to save the bridge from mysterious forces that are working to bring it down. Not long after it is finished, the bridge becomes the site of bloodshed, in the first local skirmish with marauding Turks.

The three-arched bridge was a radically new development in Arberia. It was built to supplant a ferry enterprise, to the wonder and consternation of many. But, as with other changes in this feudal world that seem so momentous at first, most people eventually adapted to the bridge. There is one looming development, however, about which the monk Gjon cannot be sanguine or philosophic: the encroachment of the Turks (the Ottoman empire) upon the Balkans. "I saw Ottoman hordes flattening the world and creating in its place the land of Islam. * * * And our music, and dances, and costume, and our majestic language, harried by that terrible '-luk,' like a reptile's tail * * *. And above all I saw the long night coming in hours, for centuries." (Historically, the Battle of Kosovo, after which most of the Balkan peninsula became vassal states to the Ottomans, occurred in 1389, twelve years after the time of Gjon's tale.)

At the beginning of the novel, Gjon explains why he is setting down his narrative: "To stop them spreading truths and untruths about this bridge in the eleven languages of the peninsula, I will attempt to write the whole truth about it: in other words, to record the lie we saw and the truth we did not see * * *." At the end, however, it still is not clear what was lie and what was truth. THE THREE-ARCHED BRIDGE is densely layered and multi-faceted in potential interpretatons and meanings, in addition to the basic one that it is a portrayal of late-medieval Albania. (Is it also some sort of comment on Enver Hoxha's totalitarian regime in Albania, which was near its height at the time of the novel's publication?)

What truly distinguishes THE THREE-ARCHED BRIDGE is the writing -- straightforward and spare, yet colorful, imbued with magic, and compelling. Published in 1978, it is much more accomplished than "The General of the Dead Army" (published in 1963), the best-known of Kadare's novels and the only other one that I have read. This is a splendid novel.


Tags : The Three-Arched Bridge [Ismail Kadare, John Hodgson] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. A bridge under construction in 14th Century Albania is secretly sabotaged by ferry men who are afraid of being made redundant. Officially they blame a prophecy that no bridge will stand over the river without human sacrifice to the water spirits. So the builders immure a villager and the bridge gets built. A Balkan parable by the author of The Pyramid.,Ismail Kadare, John Hodgson,The Three-Arched Bridge,Arcade Publishing,1559707925,Albania;History;To 1501;Fiction.,Bridges;Albania;Design and construction;Fiction.,Parables.,Albania,Bridges,Design and construction,FICTION Literary,Fiction,Fiction - Historical,Fiction General,Fiction-Literary,GENERAL,General Adult,Historical - General,History,Literary,Parables,SLAVIC (LANGUAGE) CONTEMPORARY FICTION,To 1501

The ThreeArched Bridge Ismail Kadare John Hodgson 9781559707923 Books Reviews

A good historical book. I enjoyed very much. It is easy to read, has a good pace, and it is entertaining.
it's a good read I like the part about the three brothers
This novel truly takes you back in time. Kadare does a masterful job in emerging the reader in a time period that is long gone. You feel enthralled by the story yet thankful you live in the modern days. What does one do when a powerful empire approches? You basically rely on your faith, which is what the monk did. I enjoyed this book.
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!
It is the Spring of 1378 and change is a foot in the Balkan Peninsula. The Byzantine Empire is in steady decline and the Ottoman Turks are surging. Christendom is devided and unable to check the Ottoman's steady advance. Meanwhile in an Albanian backwater, outsiders have come to build a bridge across a strategically important river.

On the surface, "The Three Arched Bridge" is the story of the conflict surrounding the building of a stone bridge. However, this is a novel produced during the dictatorship of Enver Hoxha. Like any well written Eastern European novel of the period, there is a deeper meaning interwoven into the threads of the text. The pleasure of this novel is teasing out the allegory that Kadare has so skillfully placed into his novel.

Ismail Kadare is a perennial candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature and he is also the innaugural winner of the Man Booker International Prize. "The Three Arched Bridge" is literature at its very best. Although I have some knowledge of Balkan history, this book would have been more enjoyable if my understanding of the region had been more profound.
Narrated in the first-person by a monk named Gjon, THE THREE-ARCHED BRIDGE is an allegorical tale about the building of a bridge across a river, the Ujana e Keque ("Wicked Waters"), in 1377 in Albania (sometimes called Arberia in the novel). The central event in Gjon's tale is the immurement of a local young man, Murrash Zenebisha, in the structure of the bridge. Late-medieval Arberia is a region in which legends, ballads, imprecations, and betrayals proliferate, and in a twist on one of the most revered legends, Murrash Zenebisha is sacrificed (voluntarily?, or is he murdered?) and his body incorporated into the bridge, and then plastered over so that his white face stares out at the world, in order to save the bridge from mysterious forces that are working to bring it down. Not long after it is finished, the bridge becomes the site of bloodshed, in the first local skirmish with marauding Turks.

The three-arched bridge was a radically new development in Arberia. It was built to supplant a ferry enterprise, to the wonder and consternation of many. But, as with other changes in this feudal world that seem so momentous at first, most people eventually adapted to the bridge. There is one looming development, however, about which the monk Gjon cannot be sanguine or philosophic the encroachment of the Turks (the Ottoman empire) upon the Balkans. "I saw Ottoman hordes flattening the world and creating in its place the land of Islam. * * * And our music, and dances, and costume, and our majestic language, harried by that terrible '-luk,' like a reptile's tail * * *. And above all I saw the long night coming in hours, for centuries." (Historically, the Battle of Kosovo, after which most of the Balkan peninsula became vassal states to the Ottomans, occurred in 1389, twelve years after the time of Gjon's tale.)

At the beginning of the novel, Gjon explains why he is setting down his narrative "To stop them spreading truths and untruths about this bridge in the eleven languages of the peninsula, I will attempt to write the whole truth about it in other words, to record the lie we saw and the truth we did not see * * *." At the end, however, it still is not clear what was lie and what was truth. THE THREE-ARCHED BRIDGE is densely layered and multi-faceted in potential interpretatons and meanings, in addition to the basic one that it is a portrayal of late-medieval Albania. (Is it also some sort of comment on Enver Hoxha's totalitarian regime in Albania, which was near its height at the time of the novel's publication?)

What truly distinguishes THE THREE-ARCHED BRIDGE is the writing -- straightforward and spare, yet colorful, imbued with magic, and compelling. Published in 1978, it is much more accomplished than "The General of the Dead Army" (published in 1963), the best-known of Kadare's novels and the only other one that I have read. This is a splendid novel.