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Kenneth Johnstone (translation). Original title: Prokleta Avlija
The novel is written in 1954. Ćamil, a wealthy young man of Smyrna living in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, is fascinated by the story of Džem, ill-fated brother of the Sultan Bajazet, who ruled Turkey in the fifteenth century. Ćamil, in his isolation, comes to believe that he is Džem, and that he shares his evil destiny: he is born to be a victim of the State. Because of his stories about Džem’s ambitions to overthrow his brother, Ćamil is arrested under suspicion of plotting against the Sultan. He is taken to a prison in Istanbul, where he tells his story, to Petar, a monk.
Construction takes up most of the book’s space: the central story of Džem as related by Ćamil lasts only a chapter or two. For the rest of the time the reader strips layer off layer, as one narrator passes him on the next. There is an interesting passage that helps to explain this method, at the moment when Ćamil starts narrating Džem’s story in the first person. “I” is a word, we are told, which fixes the position of the speaker in such a way that the exercise of will is no longer possible, and the speaker strength is exceeded – strength, presumably, to break out of the identification that all his past actions and thoughts force upon him when he uses the word. “I” is both a confession and an imprisonment. The fact that the novel passes the reader on from one narrator to the next rather suggests that the author is taking constant evasive action, lest he betray himself or his reader into the kind of “personal confession” which seals the fate of Ćamil. What exactly this game of form flirting with meaning signifies, must be left to the individual reader.
“The Devil’s Yard” is justified, as all symbolic and figurative novels must be, by the extent to which it touches the emotions. It is extremely moving. Fear, horror, despair, amusement at times – all these indicate that the threat of the meaning has been recognized.
E-Book Content
Devil's Yard
IVO ANDRIC
DEVIL'SD YARD
Translated by Kenneth Johnstone
GROVE PRESS, INC. NEW YORK
Copyright ©
1962
by Grove Press, Inc.
All Rights Reserved Original title: Prokleta Avlija Library of Congress Catalog Card Number:
62-16340
First Printing Manufactured in the United States of America
D It w as winte r. The sn ow had dri fte d all the way
to t he door s; it h ad diveste d all objects of their t rue f orm, imp osing on the m a single c olor an d s hape. Even the little gravey ar d had v anished under the li mitless white ; onl y the t allest cr osses showe d thei r tips ab ove the sn ow . Here the tr ace s of a p ath , t rodden int o the virg in snow ye ster day at Br other Pet ar 's funer al , were still visible. Tow ar d its en d the n arr ow p ath widene d ou t into a blurre d circle , an d t here t he snow h ad turne d reddis h like the cl ay s oil bene ath , s o th at t he circl e looke d like a raw woun d. Be yon d it w as all white ag ain , a s far as the hori zon , where all bec ame ob scure d in t he gray dese rt of the sky sti ll he avy wit h snow.
5
Ivo Andric
All this could be seen from the window of the cell where Brother Petar had lived. Here, the white of the world outside fused with the drowsy half-light within, and the silence harmonized with the soft ticking of the many clocks Brother Petar had repaired that were still working, only a few having yet run down. The quiet was broken only by the muted bickering of two friars in the adjoining cell, who were making an inventory of Brother Petar's belongings. Old Brother Mijo Josie muttered something unin telligible. It was an echo of his old squabbles with the late Brother Petar who, as "watchmaker, gunsmith, and mechanic of renown,"