In this early work, Kadare s theme is the absurdity of war. The general of the title is an Italian, sent by his government to Albania to repatriate the remains of Italian troops killed there during the war, twenty years earlier. Accompanied by a priest who is also an Italian army colonel, he travels Albania in search of the bones of his countrymen. Ironically, he meets a German general who is engaged upon an identical mission, and their conversations bring out into the open the extent of their horror and guilt, made worse ...
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In this early work, Kadare s theme is the absurdity of war. The general of the title is an Italian, sent by his government to Albania to repatriate the remains of Italian troops killed there during the war, twenty years earlier. Accompanied by a priest who is also an Italian army colonel, he travels Albania in search of the bones of his countrymen. Ironically, he meets a German general who is engaged upon an identical mission, and their conversations bring out into the open the extent of their horror and guilt, made worse by their present task. As they descend from the callous trivialities of their business, past and present, to the suffering of the past and their own self-disgust, the author gives us glimpses of the lives of the people whose graves they are unearthing. Kadare s early work shows the same mastery and acute intelligence that characterise his later fiction.
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