A Few Words about Lekë Tasi’s Novel: Grabjani on Hills’ Edge
by Petro Zheji
While there are other literary testimonies written about the suffering of our people under communism, the novel Grabjani on Hills' Edge, a long narration in the form of a diary, offers something different.
The author himself is one of the characters described in the diary who suffers along with many others under unjust punishment at an inhuman internment camp that goes beyond any boundaries imaginable. The novel is a series of spine chilling episodes and scenes narrated with astonishing clarity and accuracy with every dreary color of Dante’s inferno. The author is not satisfied with an evidential description of events; he searches for and discovers in his long, deep and detailed political, philosophical and psychological analysis, the hidden roots driving the events he describes.
The author’s flowing, tranquil style, resembling the way a scientist in a lab patiently observes, bent over his microscope studying the viruses of a disease, enables the reader to understand, observe, touch, and join spiritually in everything.
The writer is practiced in the art of painting which, in my opinion, allows him to easily interpret in a picturesque, symmetric, prospective and colorful language all he focuses on with painful, heart wrenching descriptions, almost a “sick” curiosity, and with tireless awareness and a keen eye.
No one convicted thinks himself guilty, especially when entirely innocent in relation to Justice and God, but not according to the Injustice misgoverning the country, not according to the devil, “la bestia trionfante,” to whom is given (and still unknown for how long) an unlimited power.
The novel is full of poetic passages, evidence of a rare poetic virtuoso. The pain described wrenches inconsolable groans out of the Weltschmerz, not only on the social level, but on celestial and metaphysical levels as well.
A gallery of masterfully sculpted characters is shown to us in a frightening phantasmagoria. These characters interact day and night in an unequal duel with the devil while trying to save their own lives, moreover their eternal spirit. In the Bible, Christ says, “What value does winning even the entire world hold, if one must lose his spirit?”
It was difficult, almost impossible, to not let the heavenly spark be extinguished in that chaotic Hell where Evil and his over-zealous agents (security spies, provocateurs—in short, an entire army of human manure of this sort) weave a never-ending, wily, and unpredictable net, tirelessly setting cunning traps. This, especially, is one of the central themes of the novel on which the author concentrates.
His use of language, like a magic wand, changes mere words to poetic gold. His character’s presence and participation in all sufferings, conceivable and inconceivable, that his unfortunate internment friends are put through is almost superhuman, like that of a saint. It is so real and vivid, so deeply felt, so communicative, that after reading this novel, which reveals unheard of evidence of crimes committed under the guise of the law upon the defenseless victims and even of its catastrophic psychological consequences, you can no longer be indifferent or passive toward the Evil in the world, which Leopard calls with poetic terms, “il brutto Poter che ascoso, a comun danno impera…” You feel like something has moved or changed for the better in the depth of your soul. So great is the power of the spell bound through writing which is both convincing and purifying.
Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa
by Petro Zheji
While there are other literary testimonies written about the suffering of our people under communism, the novel Grabjani on Hills' Edge, a long narration in the form of a diary, offers something different.
The author himself is one of the characters described in the diary who suffers along with many others under unjust punishment at an inhuman internment camp that goes beyond any boundaries imaginable. The novel is a series of spine chilling episodes and scenes narrated with astonishing clarity and accuracy with every dreary color of Dante’s inferno. The author is not satisfied with an evidential description of events; he searches for and discovers in his long, deep and detailed political, philosophical and psychological analysis, the hidden roots driving the events he describes.
The author’s flowing, tranquil style, resembling the way a scientist in a lab patiently observes, bent over his microscope studying the viruses of a disease, enables the reader to understand, observe, touch, and join spiritually in everything.
The writer is practiced in the art of painting which, in my opinion, allows him to easily interpret in a picturesque, symmetric, prospective and colorful language all he focuses on with painful, heart wrenching descriptions, almost a “sick” curiosity, and with tireless awareness and a keen eye.
No one convicted thinks himself guilty, especially when entirely innocent in relation to Justice and God, but not according to the Injustice misgoverning the country, not according to the devil, “la bestia trionfante,” to whom is given (and still unknown for how long) an unlimited power.
The novel is full of poetic passages, evidence of a rare poetic virtuoso. The pain described wrenches inconsolable groans out of the Weltschmerz, not only on the social level, but on celestial and metaphysical levels as well.
A gallery of masterfully sculpted characters is shown to us in a frightening phantasmagoria. These characters interact day and night in an unequal duel with the devil while trying to save their own lives, moreover their eternal spirit. In the Bible, Christ says, “What value does winning even the entire world hold, if one must lose his spirit?”
It was difficult, almost impossible, to not let the heavenly spark be extinguished in that chaotic Hell where Evil and his over-zealous agents (security spies, provocateurs—in short, an entire army of human manure of this sort) weave a never-ending, wily, and unpredictable net, tirelessly setting cunning traps. This, especially, is one of the central themes of the novel on which the author concentrates.
His use of language, like a magic wand, changes mere words to poetic gold. His character’s presence and participation in all sufferings, conceivable and inconceivable, that his unfortunate internment friends are put through is almost superhuman, like that of a saint. It is so real and vivid, so deeply felt, so communicative, that after reading this novel, which reveals unheard of evidence of crimes committed under the guise of the law upon the defenseless victims and even of its catastrophic psychological consequences, you can no longer be indifferent or passive toward the Evil in the world, which Leopard calls with poetic terms, “il brutto Poter che ascoso, a comun danno impera…” You feel like something has moved or changed for the better in the depth of your soul. So great is the power of the spell bound through writing which is both convincing and purifying.
Translated from The Albanian by Hilda M. Xhepa
