The Accident by Ismail Kadare
My rating: 2 of 5 stars

Balkan Irony?

Nothing happens in the Balkans which isn’t significant to someone. Catholics, Orthodox Christians, Muslims and Militant Atheists and their respective nationalities rub up against each other with considerable cultural friction. Small things become big things at the drop of an archduke or a rotating presidency. The region itself is largely the result of historical accident. So even the most random traffic accident could have dramatic implications. Or at least that is the theory of the Albanian and Serbian national intelligence agencies which vie with one another to be the first to discover what these implications might be.

This is life in the Balkans. An epistemological culture of suspicion and nationalistic one-up-manship. To be caught napping while some rival unearths domestic scandal is a profound disgrace. Especially in the case of two Eurocrats who conducted a pan-European affair for twelve years in every capital city and every first class hotel on the continent, and end up dead when their taxi crashes over a barrier. The potential embarrassment would be incalculable if they had been up to something political. What if The Hague Tribunal were to become involved? Who would be safe then? No, dedicated investigation at any cost in such a situation is demanded.

This is not an un-encouraging set-up for a thriller of international intrigue or a parody of cultural rivalry. Unfortunately it deteriorates rapidly into what appears to be a melodramatic allegory. Rovena, the Albanian woman who desperately wants to be wanted by the European diplomat, Besfort, who plays her relentlessly for years. She tries other lovers, even Swiss women, but she can’t rid herself of the idea of being one with him. Besfort has a recurring dream about being an aide to Stalin. He seems only to value Rovena for listening to him about his dreams (well, that and the sex, which has a peculiar Romany puissance apparently). Is this about real people or countries?

The account of years of tediously repetitive break-ups and descriptions of increasingly bizarre sex, do not constitute a coherent narrative. Perhaps the point is to suggest the lack of progress in achieving Albanian integration with either its Balkan neighbours or the European Community. Or perhaps it is just a pointless sexual melodrama. The centrality of the idea of the last forty weeks of the couple’s lives is a mystery, perhaps known only to Albanian folklorists, as with so much more of this opaque and boring book. So perhaps there are indeed events that occur in the Balkans that have no real import after all - for anyone.

I’m also open to the view that Kadare’s novel is one big send-up, an obscure form of Balkan irony. Other suggestions are also welcome.

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