Il Deserto Dei Tartari Libro Review

If you pick up this book, you will recognize yourself in Drogo. You will look at the "desert" in your own life—the procrastination, the safe stagnation, the fear of choosing—and you will feel a jolt of terror.

Drogo watches his youth evaporate in the dust. He watches his friends grow old and leave. He watches the walls crumble. And yet, he cannot leave. Because leaving would mean admitting that the wait was for nothing.

If you enjoyed this, check out our post on “The Myth of Sisyphus” and why we choose our own boulders. il deserto dei tartari libro

You have probably never stood on a cold, gray rampart staring at a dust horizon. You have probably never worn the uniform of a frontier garrison. And yet, if you read Dino Buzzati’s 1940 masterpiece, Il deserto dei tartari (The Tartar Steppe), you will feel an uncomfortable, intimate chill. Because Buzzati isn’t really writing about a military fort. He is writing about your life.

The Fortress of Our Own Making: Why Dino Buzzati’s “The Tartar Steppe” Haunts You Forever If you pick up this book, you will

This is the novel’s brutal thesis:

What makes The Tartar Steppe devastating is not action or tragedy. It is quiet desperation . Buzzati writes with the cold clarity of a Kafka and the lyrical dread of a Poe. He watches his friends grow old and leave

And that, dear reader, is the trap.