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The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 9781841959283 Books

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The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 9781841959283 Books

I read this book years ago and thought it was a good read--compelling characters, surprising plot and overall a good tale. I'm now reading it a second time, slowly and carefully. At the moment, I think it is the best book I've ever read. Probably an overstatement, but I can't get it out of my mind, seeing my own life reflected in the strange and lonely life of the protagonist. I'm now 78, and see many of the twists reflected in my own life now approaching the end--at least the end of the many adventures that I had planning and unplanned. The book is bound to be depressing to those just beginning, unless it's read for its elegant prose, as I did years ago. Frankly, it's hard to believe the author was so young when this masterpiece was published for the clarity of his vision and haunting style.


Tags : The Tartar Steppe [Dino Buzzati] on Amazon.com. *FREE* shipping on qualifying offers. Young Giovanni Drogo arrives at the bleak border area of the Tartar Steppe where he is to take a short assignment at Fort Bastiani,Dino Buzzati,The Tartar Steppe,Canongate Books Ltd,1841959286,Fiction,General,Modern fiction

The Tartar Steppe Dino Buzzati 9781841959283 Books Reviews

This is the best book I think I've ever read. Like poetry, with a moral to the story. I just can't say enough good things about this little novel. This book should be required reading for every young person about to graduate high school and/or college. Also, for anyone stuck in rut or facing a midlife crisis. It is not a book that I would want to read in my retirement and think to myself, "that was me." It has touched me deeply and will stay with me as long as I live. The translation by Hood is incredible. If you read one book this year, make it this one.
Wonderful book, beautifully written. Really resonated with me. I suppose I would call it existentialist, it's a little depressing, but well worth the read.
A beautifully written book although I did find it a sad and somewhat depressing story. The prose is evocative and haunting. The story of Giovanni Drago, a young soldier sent to the isolated and regimented Fort Bastioni on the very edge of the unknown Tartar Steppe. Atmospheric and deeply moving it has a dreamlike quality that stays with you well after the last page is turned. Recommend.
A well written book that keeps your interest despite its rather simple plot. The book is an alegory for a life of opportunities missed while waiting for that "one big event" and as such its principal charachter is sent to an backwater fort on the "northern frontier" and languishes there waiting for the enemy to attack. Problem is, the enemy has never attacked through this region before. He passes up life in general and specific opportunities waiting for the attack that he has convinved himself will eventually come. The ending is pure irony.

This book is not for those folks who have a tendancy to rue missed opportunities. It is, however, a good tale for the young and timid.
Giovanni Drogo, a new officer, is sent on a mission on Fort Bastiani, a remote location where he is to watch over a potential invasion of barbarians, in a rough frontier where nothing has happened in decades. The more he stays there and sees friends die of old age and boredom, the more he convinces himself that it is his duty to watch over the barren landscape, that it is too late to leave, and glory will come one day. Until the final day, where the tartars finally invade, and he's too old and sick to do anything about it.

This is a perfect counterpoint to the Hero's journey parable, a reflection on what happens when you spend your life dreaming about the day where opportunity will knock on the door. A prescient insight about how we convince ourselves that staying in our lives of quiet desperation is the correct choice, and we rationalize how miserable we really are.
"Often likened to Kafka's The Castle, The Tartar Steppe is both a scathing critique of military life and a meditation on the human thirst for glory".
I have always been surprised by the platitude of some of the official reviewers of this wonderful book. Obviously Drogo's story has nothing to do with critique of military life and thirst for glory. The book is "only" one of the most creative allegories ever written on the human condition. Young we start our journey toward Fortress Bastiani dreaming of a glorious future full of meaning and glory. We incessantly toil along its ramparts during adulthood, trying to reconcile reality with our childhood dreams. The dreams fade and we cling to our duty and duty becomes our defining quality. And finally, alone and forgotten at the periphery of the action, we realize that duty has been our life accomplishment and what defines us, and this knowledge gives us strength to face death.
I, like many, was led to this book by the reference in financier/mathematician/philosopher Nassim Nicholas Taleb's book, The Black Swan. In short, I would rank it in the top five books I have ever read. Like a Camus novel, the language is sparse and monochromatic, reflecting the setting of the remote mountainous fort that Lieutenant Drago is assigned to help defend as a young man in his early twenties. Fort Bastiani defends the northern frontier against the Tatars, a real or imaginary foe lost in the mists of time. As a defense against the sameness and mind-numbingly boring routine at his desolate outpost, Drogo (like many others) constructs a fantasy of glory based on a future Tatar attack. As the seasons and years pass by and Drago realizes that the Tatars are likely to never come, he still cannot bring himself to leave the cold comfort of Bastiani. Fear of the unknown, of going back to the city that Drago grew up in but has now left him behind, keep him moored to Bastiani. The obvious parable to life is the creeping mediocrity the vast majority of us accept. Once it is acknowledged, it is almost always too late to redress, and that one glimpse of glory (in the form of defending against Tatars, real or imaginary), never comes.
I read this book years ago and thought it was a good read--compelling characters, surprising plot and overall a good tale. I'm now reading it a second time, slowly and carefully. At the moment, I think it is the best book I've ever read. Probably an overstatement, but I can't get it out of my mind, seeing my own life reflected in the strange and lonely life of the protagonist. I'm now 78, and see many of the twists reflected in my own life now approaching the end--at least the end of the many adventures that I had planning and unplanned. The book is bound to be depressing to those just beginning, unless it's read for its elegant prose, as I did years ago. Frankly, it's hard to believe the author was so young when this masterpiece was published for the clarity of his vision and haunting style.