Masterful in its simplicity, Chronicle in Stone is a touching coming-of-age story and a testament to the perseverance of the human spirit. Surrounded by the magic of beautiful women and literature, a boy must endure the deprivations of war as he suffers the hardships of growing up. His sleepy country has just thrown off centuries of tyranny, but new waves of domination inundate his city. Through … city. Through the boy’s eyes, we see the terrors of World War II as he witnesses fascist invasions, allied bombings, partisan infighting, and the many faces of human crueltyas well as the simple pleasures of life.
Evacuating to the countryside, he expects to find an ideal world full of extraordinary things, but discovers instead an archaic backwater where a severed arm becomes a talisman and deflowered girls mysteriously vanish. Woven between the chapters of the boy’s story are tantalizing fragments of the city’s history. As the devastation mounts, the fragments lose coherence, and we perceive firsthand how the violence of war destroys more than just buildings and bridges.
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wonderful word smithing This is what great literature should be.
hard to read and understand.
This book takes place in Gjirokaster a stone town not far from the Greek border. This story is told from the point of view of a young boy. WWII is going on, and he is surrounded by a situation he does not fully understand. There is a pull between the Italians and the Greeks invading the country – sometimes one day after the other, and the people of this small town in Albania can’t catch a break.
This young muslim boy starts to pay more attention to the town around him. He speaks of the people in his town who do not look kindly on those who are “different”. There is a hermaphrodite that is killed because he dared fall in love. There is a girl that disappears when she is discovered with a boy she likes. And a lesbian who is banned from the town based on just that.
The book reveals how tradition, culture, and outside forces can come to destroy a town that does not do well with change. Beyond the devestation of the war and bombings, many people in the town felt the world was always coming to an end. Their fantastical beliefs and superstitions cause as many problems as the war does.
This was a pretty good book. It is written in a style that requires you to really pay attention. The author does a good job telling the story from the eyes of a child, and I think it is overall well written. The old ladies in this town do believe that the world is constantly ending – whether it be the war and bombings or the towns people that don’t quite fit into their tiny mold.
I am glad I read it. I understand that this small town is a UNESCO site, so I think I will put it on my list to visit someday.
In the opening tableau of Chrinicle in Stone we follow the journey of raindrops as they travel across the stone rooftiles of an ancient city til the raindrops find themselves imprisoned in the subterranean cistern that haunts the imagination of the young boy who narrates the story of this city of stone as it endures the serial invasions, evacuations and rebirths that. the city, Gjirokaster, experienced from the 1930’s to the end of WWII and the establishment of the fiercely independent brand of communism that Albania forged.
High literature that gives soul to a community and a people I knew little about.
We were living “next door” in Dubrovnik when I read this magical tale.
Haunting portrayal of a small village and its residents in Albania on the eve of WW II. The residents of the isolated village have little idea of what will come as the Italians seize control and begin building an airport. As the Germans, Italians and the Allies trade the territory back and forth, the residents cope in various ways. First novel I’ve read by an Albanian writer.
Fantastic writer, such lucid and original use of prose, poetic engaging language, endlessly informative, through the developing awareness of a child growing up in an amazing Albanian cliff hanging hill town; endlessly enduring the occupations of warring Turks, Greeks, French, and Germans, and the small town superstitions and gossip that arises in very small tradition bound communities.
Just delightful . The most original book I have read all year, and I have read close to 100 so far!!!!
A perspective of an Albanian village occupied by many competing forces during WWII as told from a young boy’s point of view. Chilling.
From an adult perspective, living in a war-torn city brings daily terrors. But from the perspective of the youthful narrator, changes provide diversion, excitement and even wonder.
Skip the academic introduction and just start reading this story! Then, if you need historical or political perspectives, or pronunciation guides, you can use the intro for reference.
Difficult to find coherence
I only started this one. I found the writing too mannered and perhaps symbolic to be readable.
Very slow pace; did not read beyond the first chapter.