Ismail Kadare - The General of the Dead Army

Twenty years after the end of World War Two, a General is sent from Italy to Albania to find and bring back the bodies of the soldiers killed there. He leaves with a fanfare, carrying with him the hopes and expectations of hundreds of people whose sons, husbands and fathers died, and never came home. In particular the General hopes to find Colonel X, a senior soldier whose body was never found, and whose wealthy and influential family want it returned.

Travelling with the General is a priest and the two form a bond which is more than professional, but not quite friendly. Their world views clash, as the General approaches the task with a mechanical eye - a professional job that needs to be done, and measured out in lists of names, measurements of skeltons and careful identifications. 

But the land itself is full of ghosts. The official international trip is hardly welcomed by the peasants who fought off the fascist invaders, and the long days, the difficult terrain and the tension take their toll on the General who begins to fantasise as his stress develops, that the dead soldiers are an army of his own, manouvering on some old battlefield. The priest questions him - does he think it would have been better if he had led them? Its a poignant question because the General clearly does think so. The reality of war is not something he really knows - though the diaries and stories he hears of the dead soldiers teach him that the war, and the Italian troops, were not the brave heroes of his imagination.

Into this tangle of emotions and stress comes and added problem. A German general is here too. Removing their own bones. Inevitably the two clash. But really want causes the General to finally break down, and indeed brings out his contempt for the host nation and its people, his failure to really understand the nature of his task, and the impact upon the Albanians who were the victims, is the reality of the work. Despite the pomp and circumstance of his initial journey, there's little glory or thanks here.

Its a terrific novel, which says alot about Albania in the post war period, and its attitude to its "fascist" enemies of the past.