The Three-Arched Bridge
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The Three Arched Bridge (Albanian: Ura me tri harqe) is a 1978 novel by Albanian author Ismail Kadare. The story concerns a very old Albanian legend written in verses, the "Legjenda e Rozafes". The book differs from the original legend, as the legend calls for a castle that is being built, not a bridge.[1]
Plot
The book is a political parable that describes the construction of an important bridge on the Via Egnatia in Albanian territory in the Balkans from 1377–1378, shortly before the occupation by the Ottoman Empire began.[2][3]
Told by an Albanian Catholic monk, Gjon (a name used by Northern Albanians who were mostly Catholic prior to Turkish invasions), the story of the bridge, as seen by Gjon is filled with prissy, unhappy bureaucrats, who take the events at face value without ever trying to understand the larger forces at work. Both the river Ujana e Keqe and the bridge itself are major characters in the book, and they undergo significant transformations.
One of the startling events of the book is when a "volunteer" is immured inside the bridge in order to make a "sacrifice" to the river. The man's face is captured in the plaster that surrounds him, as unforgettable as it is horrifying. Though clearly a punishment for the crime of sabotage against the bridge, as Gjon recounts this event, it is less an act of vengeance than it is a true sacrifice. But more than that, it becomes a symbol for the ignorance of and squabbling among tiny Albanian principalities and their fight amongst one another, in front of a major threat.[4]
The New York Times called the novel "an utterly captivating yarn: strange, vivid, ominous, macabre and wise."[2]
See also
- Albanian literature
- Rozafa Castle
External links
- Review for The Three Arched Bridge
References
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- The General of the Dead Army (1963)
- The Siege (1970)
- Chronicle in Stone (1971)
- The Great Winter (1977)
- Twilight of the Eastern Gods (1978)
- The Traitor's Niche (1978)
- The Three-Arched Bridge (1978)
- Broken April (1980)
- The Ghost Rider (1980)
- The File on H. (1981)
- The Palace of Dreams (1981)
- The Concert (1988)
- The Blinding Order (1991)
- The Pyramid (1992)
- Spiritus (1996)
- Elegy for Kosovo (1998)
- Spring Flowers, Spring Frost (2000)
- Agamemnon's Daughter (2003)
- The Successor (2003)
- The Fall of the Stone City (2008)
- A Girl in Exile (2009)
- The Doll (2015)
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