It’s been a cold, rainy week which means it’s been a perfect week for disappearing into sweaters and novels. Last night, my wife and I took the baby to a drive-through Christmas lights show. We sipped hot chocolate and tried to capture the reflection of the lights in our daughter’s eyes, though she was much more interested in playing with the car’s dashboard controls!
After finishing another section of The Brothers Karamazov, I needed a palette cleanser. So I opted for a book I bought two years ago on Pearl Street in Boulder: The Stronghold by Dino Buzzati (an NYRB Classic).
While I’m still warming up to Buzzati’s specific prose style, the imagery and allegory in this book are stunning. It serves as both a commentary on modern life and a powerful parable. We shouldn’t let an uncertain future dictate our lives today. The present is all we are guaranteed.
How much time lay before him! Even a single year seemed interminably long and the good years had scarcely begun. They seemed to form an extremely long series, the end of which was impossible to glimpse, a treasure still untouched and so enormous that it could cause boredom.
I disagree with the common reading of this book. I believe the characters’ mastery of monotony is actually what unlocks their appreciation for beauty. This richness is woven into the descriptions of the clouds, mountains, and the Fortezza. Even amidst military drills, the soldiers intuitively feel the changing seasons. It’s a powerful reminder that discipline can lead to deeper awareness.
The snow fell thick and heavy, accumulating on the terraces and turning them white. Watching it, Drogo felt his usual anxiety more acutely. In vain he sought to drive it away by dwelling on his youth and the many years that remained to him.
The story’s conflict isn’t the wait; it’s the search for meaning. The Fortezza represents the human vessel: existing in nature, aging with time, and waiting for a “something” to justify its existence. It’s built for a war, but not a physical one. Our main character, lost in his own lack of direction, adopts the fortress’s mission as his own. He never gets the glory he expected, but he does eventually find his purpose. The tragedy is that as soon as he grasps it, it slips away.
And yet the winds of time were blowing. Paying no heed to humanity, they swept back and forth around the world and laid waste to beautiful things.
And that is what I think Buzzati’s real message here is: You should never lose hope, but you shouldn’t let hope be your justification for indecision.
Currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov (Part Three) by Fyodor Dostoevsky
Currently listening to:
Current inbox: 5 items that need doing – and I can’t find the motivation to begin even one of them
Signal Intent 