The Tartar Steppe Paperback – November 1, 2005

The Tartar Steppe is ostensibly the story of a soldier posted to a distant fort whose life is wasted in fruitless vigilance for an attack which never comes during his active duty.But it’s more one of the great existentialist allegories of the twentieth century. The soldier, Giovanni Drogo, must first choose between an ordinary life surrounded by family and friends and a life led in pursuit of glory. The allure of gloriously defending the fatherland lures him to where he can no longer empathize with his family and former friends. Nature, that great source of commune for Romantics, is for Drago simply barren cliffs and unscalable mountains.Slowly, his soul accustoms itself to the previously unbearable life of soldiery. There are signs, such as needless and brutal slayings, that Drago is missing by his choices a good answer to the mystery of life. And finally, old age catches up with him and one sees the existentialist theme that death puts an exclamation point on the futility of man’s quest for meaning.Written in Fascist Italy the book, while somber, is anything but depressing. I read it as a critique of what Mussolini’s culture offered to the educated Italian. As such, it finds the various paths of life wanting. But I think the author wanted to say we can think of better, more humane ways of living. I see it less as a critique of man’s existence and more of a critique of what mid-twentieth century Fascism had to offer.But it’s written in terse, allegorical prose that allows for more than one interpretation. For what it’s worth, it’s the favorite novel of public intellectual Nicholas Nassim Taleb (this is how I heard of it.) Highly recommended.

Well, I've finished The Tartar Steppe, and it's really an excellent book. I'm glad I discovered it. It's melancholy throughout most of the book, and it may be best suited to a reader around my age, over 40, but younger readers can certainly get a lot out of it too... heck maybe it can even be a wake up call to some. It's very much a book about time, and the cruelty of the passage of time, lost opportunities, squandered moments and squandered years. It's a medium-short book, and a quick read, yet it manages to give the impression of immensity of space and events and long stretches of time.It also manages to be suspenseful and mysterious, and the tone of mystery is sustained effectively throughout. Hence, I won't spoil the narrative, but will confine myself to describing tone, style, impression.As far as the style, tone, I continued to think about it relative to the works of some other authors I admire. Its similarity to Kafka includes the heavy anxiety and the arbitrary swings between hopefullness and despair... it has a lot of reversals, reversals of mood, reversals of the interpretation of events... in that way, it's certainly like Kafka. It's more obsessive and committed to following a single theme than most of Kafka's works, and it's less absurd, but still has it's degree of absurdity, especially as expressed by the the absurd decisions and opinions expressed by the higher command of the army.Relative to Celine, it's pessimistic, but not nearly as pessimistic as Celine, and more sentimental. Celine's pessimism is brutal and uncompromising, Buzzati's is more muted, but still full of dread, and contrasted by the sentimentalism of youth and age. Honestly, though, I imagine Celine would himself have rejected Buzzati as wishy-washy... it's impossible to say for sure... but I resisted judging it that way, and let myself be sentimental and go along with the author's intent.I think it was the end of Chapter Six which cured me of my reservations and skepticism, and made me really feel what the author was after. This is quite early in the thirty chapter book. In it, Buzzati metaphorically describes the passage of life from youthful ambition to the disillusionment of the elders.Meanwhile, the opportunities for noble action are rare, ellusive, and easily lost if not acted on immediately. Words which are contemplated but go unspoken also undermine our hope for a noble, significant life. There's an almost mystical commitment to the idea that, if only the right words had been spoken at the right time, just a moment earlier before some sudden turn of events, things would have turned out quite differently for everyone.

Life can lead you on some wonderful journeys, but if you don’t exercise agency and take it in a direction you want, it can lead you into an abyss. This is a brilliant story written on the eve of the Second World War that has nothing to do with the Tartars of the Golden Horde, nor anything to do with the ideologies and nationalism that tore Europe apart.This story centers on a young and enthusiastic army officer sent to an isolated desert outpost near the border with his nation’s northern enemy. Initially determined to leave at the first opportunity, he gradually becomes attached to the mission and consequently, the lonely fort. The longer he stays, the more accustomed he becomes to life at the fort, and the more his dreams of a city life fade.This is a universal story of finding fulfillment in an otherwise dreary and mundane life. But rather than tell an uplifting story, The Tartar Steppe, shows the darker side of boundless patience and credulity through a tortured character. Despite several opportunities to leave and embrace a different life trajectory, the main character cannot countenance the idea that he might miss the confrontation for which he has been preparing. Inertia and the fear that his years spent at the fort will have been for naught, he makes perseverance a goal. As he pushes on, his willingness to question authority and challenge convention fades along with his city dreams.Some aspects of the story reminded me of the “sunk cost” decision making concept in economics, whereby the more one has invested, the more difficult it becomes to abandon that investment. Finding meaning in challenging situations can be a powerful tool of survival, but we should be careful not to let such meaning take hold of us and wholly determine our future.