Scan barcode
A review by studeronomy
Dictionary of the Khazars (M) by Milorad Pavić
4.0
This is the first Serbian-language novel I've ever read, and it resembles the work of authors I know from Eastern Europe (including many writers in Yiddish) as well as Southern Europe, South America, and the Caribbean. A few names jump immediately to mind: Borges, Eco, Calvino, Marquez, Carpentier, Nabokov, and Marlon James. Two terms jump to mind: "magical realism" (a term we typically use when the author is situated in a post-colonial context) and "puzzle fiction" (when the author structures their narrative to be "solved" or otherwise interacted with).
Writers of "magical realism" or "puzzle fiction" generally come from nations that were either directly colonized by or vassal states on the periphery of massive, transnational empires during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When we talk about magical realism, we talk about an experience of reality that seems "magical" because it describes the world from a perspective of alterity, of being oppressed, or of simply being ignored by the world at large. That is the perspective of a lot of the Slavic world, particularly in former Yugoslavia. (The author, Milorad Pavić, is ethnically Serbian, but the novel was written at a time when Serbian identity was complicated by the project of multinational Yugoslavia. It is perhaps best understood as a "Balkans" novel.)
All that to say, if you enjoy magical realism, this is a book for you. If you enjoy puzzle fiction, this is a book for you.
Pavić's many plots are dispersed across alphabetically-organized entries in three separate "dictionaries": one Greek and Orthodox Christian, one Arab and Islamic, and one Hebrew and Jewish. These are the three religions tolerated in the ancient nation of the Khazars, a historical group who inhabited southeast Europe and who left no written record (this fact is the source of much of the "magic" of the novel's magical realism). Pavić uses the Khazars as a springboard for gorgeous meditations on the nature of language and history. He tells many fantastical stories based on actual, historical persons. Each story weaves in and out of the other, as characters appear, recur, and interact over a period of 1,500 years.
And so Dictionary of the Khazars isn't a traditional novel but rather a thousand little episodes, vignettes, and tangents. My favorite moment was the torture of Methodius, during which he reflects at length on the fact that Homer and the prophet Elijah were contemporaries and that both had roundabout connections to the city of Sidon. I also loved Pavić's meditations on verbs and nouns (at one point, an angel speaks without nouns “…because nouns are for God and verbs for man”). Conversely, I didn’t find all the "dream" stuff especially original and compelling, which is too bad, because dreams are a major part of the novel.
Because the novel is so thick with wild tales and beautiful turns of phrase, it is often difficult to remember the details of each story, character, and meditation. This is a *very* dense book. It is deliberately non-linear and the narrator actually encourages you to jump around. Between the novel's unusual format, its fragmented plotlines, and Pavić's constant (and original) aphorisms about...well, pretty much all of human existence, it is too easy to skim and skip whole sections. Perhaps that’s a feature rather than a bug, but it was sometimes a little frustrating.
Like much great magical realism, Dictionary of the Khazars is about the burdens, beauty, and meaning of history. In one story, a Khazar envoy is tattooed with the history of the Khazars, and his tattoo must be reinscribed with each new development and revision of Khazar history. The process is painful. "He passed away, because his skin inscribed with the Khazar history began to itch terribly. The itch was unbearable, and it was with relief that he died, glad to be finally cleansed of history."
Writers of "magical realism" or "puzzle fiction" generally come from nations that were either directly colonized by or vassal states on the periphery of massive, transnational empires during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. When we talk about magical realism, we talk about an experience of reality that seems "magical" because it describes the world from a perspective of alterity, of being oppressed, or of simply being ignored by the world at large. That is the perspective of a lot of the Slavic world, particularly in former Yugoslavia. (The author, Milorad Pavić, is ethnically Serbian, but the novel was written at a time when Serbian identity was complicated by the project of multinational Yugoslavia. It is perhaps best understood as a "Balkans" novel.)
All that to say, if you enjoy magical realism, this is a book for you. If you enjoy puzzle fiction, this is a book for you.
Pavić's many plots are dispersed across alphabetically-organized entries in three separate "dictionaries": one Greek and Orthodox Christian, one Arab and Islamic, and one Hebrew and Jewish. These are the three religions tolerated in the ancient nation of the Khazars, a historical group who inhabited southeast Europe and who left no written record (this fact is the source of much of the "magic" of the novel's magical realism). Pavić uses the Khazars as a springboard for gorgeous meditations on the nature of language and history. He tells many fantastical stories based on actual, historical persons. Each story weaves in and out of the other, as characters appear, recur, and interact over a period of 1,500 years.
And so Dictionary of the Khazars isn't a traditional novel but rather a thousand little episodes, vignettes, and tangents. My favorite moment was the torture of Methodius, during which he reflects at length on the fact that Homer and the prophet Elijah were contemporaries and that both had roundabout connections to the city of Sidon. I also loved Pavić's meditations on verbs and nouns (at one point, an angel speaks without nouns “…because nouns are for God and verbs for man”). Conversely, I didn’t find all the "dream" stuff especially original and compelling, which is too bad, because dreams are a major part of the novel.
Because the novel is so thick with wild tales and beautiful turns of phrase, it is often difficult to remember the details of each story, character, and meditation. This is a *very* dense book. It is deliberately non-linear and the narrator actually encourages you to jump around. Between the novel's unusual format, its fragmented plotlines, and Pavić's constant (and original) aphorisms about...well, pretty much all of human existence, it is too easy to skim and skip whole sections. Perhaps that’s a feature rather than a bug, but it was sometimes a little frustrating.
Like much great magical realism, Dictionary of the Khazars is about the burdens, beauty, and meaning of history. In one story, a Khazar envoy is tattooed with the history of the Khazars, and his tattoo must be reinscribed with each new development and revision of Khazar history. The process is painful. "He passed away, because his skin inscribed with the Khazar history began to itch terribly. The itch was unbearable, and it was with relief that he died, glad to be finally cleansed of history."