413. The Tartar Steppe

The Tartar Steppe
Dino Buzzati
1940
Around 200 pages

We haven't had an Italian novel in a spell, and I think we should check in on those guys considering the time period. This is one of those books where I enjoyed the premise more than the execution. But still an unusual novel that clearly had a large influence.

Drogo spends his life as a soldier in a remote outpost overlooking a Tartar desert, waiting for the rumored horde of barbarians to attack. I'm glad I read this in a post Game of Thrones world, so I could picture Jason Mamoa in the leading role, which increased my enjoyment of this story tenfold.

I thought this was a nice twist on a rather tired (but accurate) story of the disillusionment of a soldier hungering for glory. Instead of seeing violence and misery, he spends most of the novel waiting. And if you spend your whole life waiting for an attack, you're going to waste it. And still be fucked when the barbarians finally arrive. 

So a good novel, the pacing is slow but it's obviously intentional. I'll have to read the Cavafy poem now.

RATING: ****-

Interesting Facts:

The novel was heavily influenced by the 1904 poem "Waiting for the Barbarians" by Constantine Cavafy.

Ranked 29th on Le Monde's 100 Books of the Century list.

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