Omer Pasha Latas: Marshal to the Sultan Kindle Edition

If you are a writer, or aspire to be one, you cannot ignore this masterpiece. The English translation may be whatever it is, beneath it all lies a treasure trove of character that brings to life a man and his times in a way that is unparalleled. Don’t just read this book four or five times, study it. Imbibe it. Let it swirl its subtle way through your veins.

A. was the great Yugoslavian writer who raised the sufferings and frustrations of his own disjointed country and heritage to heights of world literature. Born in Bosnia, he devoted his writing career to magnificent chronicles of a land that for centuries had been the battleground for ethnic and religious wars of attrition: Turks against Serbs, Serbs against Croats, Croats against Bosniaks, Muslims against Christians, Christians against Jews, Catholics against Orthodox. During his lifetime it seemed that the creation of the state of Yugoslavia had finally reconciled these age-old hatreds. But--as the reader might remember-- the collapse in the early 1990s of Yugoslavia into brutal civil war and reciprocal ethnic cleansings revived and sadly confirmed the old traumas. A. devoted his two great masterpieces ("The Bridge on the Drina" and "Bosnian Chronicle" to imaginative chronicles of the centuries before Yugoslavia. So does "Omer Pasha Latas," a late and seemingly unfinished novel that, in my opinion, is impressive and interesting but does not reach the quality of his two masterpieces. The novel starts out in 1850 with the arrival in Sarajevo of the Christian renegade Omer Pasha (a historical figure), marshal of the the Sultan in Istanbul, sent to break with all the brutality he needs and to which he is temperamentally inclined the power of the landed aristocracy of Bosnia. But after he has a first, inconclusive encounter with a stolidly evasive village headman (one of the most magnificent sections of the book), we hear relatively little about his mission, its obstacles, its success or failure. Instead the reader is treated to a sort of portrait gallery of Omer's higher officers, his wife, some military judges, two influential managers of his large household, a portrait painter of his daughter etc. This is a motley crew of misfits, losers, manipulators, opportunists, and adventurers whose stories make up the the bulk of the novel. Only at the very end does A. return in rather perfunctory fashion to the Pasha's mission and his eventual withdrawal. There is something uneven, unfinished about the layout of the plot. Still, the portrait gallery contains some memorable characters and scenes (together with some episodes that strike me as overly melodramatic). What these characters all have in common is their rootlessness, imposed or self-chosen. They are Hungarians, Rumanians, Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats, Turks, Austrians, Montenegrins etc. Whether stranded as the debris of their own former dreams (like the painter), or riding the wave of success (like Omer), they all ultimately suffer the same fate: a life of not so splendid isolation that inevitably turns their dreams into the hells of excruciating unfulfillment. There is Omer’s hysterically raging wife, the lecher in self-destructive pursuit of his game, the rich man in fear of starvation, the brilliant judge who knows no joy of life, the obsessive yes-man who becomes an annoying joke, and several others. In spite of some fine portraits and very fine writing, the monochrome darkness of these episodes ultimately had a somewhat numbing effect on me. For those wanting to get to know A., the two novels mentioned above would be better starting points. For those who know A., this is certainly a valuable addition. P.S. And now to the totally misleading cover painting. NYRB should be embarrassed. This cover might be appropriate for a book about or by Lawrence of Arabia, not for a book about a Turkish marshal in 1850. Shame. Shame.

At first I thought the long descriptions of the characters in this book were laborious, but then I began to see them as a description of the anatomy of power. Safely written about historical figures in the previous century, is the author really describing people he came across in his work as a diplomat for a communist government? Or does it apply to any government?We see the powerful and those that surround them, the sycophants who survive by being loyal, the useless and incompetent, those who live only to satisfy their own desires, the hard workers who are very effective at maintaining their own power, and the frustrated and exploited women around them. I've read a number of reviews and I'm wondering if I'm the only person who gets this. Take for example, the scene in which a Consul General, out of sheer frustration, writes his thoughts about Omer Pasha, only to burn the paper afterward: "...ever more people consider him a dangerous liar and heartless cynic who respects neither himself nor others. But that doesn't bother him. He doesn't give it a thought. I've never seen a man so indifferent to what others think and say about him. The main and only important thing for him is that at all times, and with each individual, he achieves what he needs, through lies, the truth, threats or direct moral or physical pressure. ...I know all this, and I can see it, but tomorrow or the next day I shall watch his composed face and listen to his serious talk, both lively and convincing as God's own truth. And, in defending myself to myself from the hypnotic effect of his words and appearance, I'll whisper "He's lying! Can't you see he's lying?" Do we recognize this character today?Omer Pasha Latas announces with his arrival in Sarajevo that he is going to enforce reforms that will modernize the country and make everyone better off. When he and his army leaves the local people are poorer and more abused than ever. Sadly the story is all too familiar in any historical setting.

This is a frustrating book, because it could quite easily have been a masterpiece. Instead, after 150 pages that set the scene perfectly... nothing. I believe Andric died before completing the work, which is a shame. I would characterise this more as a series of character vignettes than a story, but it is worth reading for those vignettes alone.