”Mark-Alem pressed on, his mouth dry despite his attempts to reassure himself. After all, what did it really matter if he did get lost? He wasn’t on some vast plain or in a forest. He was merely inside the Palace. But still the thought of getting lost terrified him. How would he get through the night amid all these walls, these rooms, these cellars full of dreams and wild imaginings? He’d rather be on a frozen plain or in a forest infested with wolves. Yes, a thousand times rather!He hurried on faster. How long had he been walking now? Suddenly he thought he hear a noise in the distance. Perhaps it’s only an illusion, he told himself. Then, after a little while, the sound of voices burst out again, more clearly this time, though he still couldn’t tell what direction it came from.He went down another two or three steps and found himself in another corridor, which he deduced must be on the ground floor. The sound of voices faded for a few moments, then returned, nearer...Mark-Alem was practically running by now, his eyes fixed on the end of the corridor, where a faint square of light came in from outside. Please, God. let it be the back door! An empty, seemingly endless hallway can give a person a sense of disassociation.There are no signs directing people in the proper directions at the Palace of Dreams. Mark-Alem finds himself lost not only in the corridors of the Palace, but also in the hour upon hour day to day work of selecting and interpreting dreams. He is descended from a prominent family called the Quprilis. They have contributed generations of powerful men to the Balkan Empire.”For nearly four hundred years the Quprilis had seemed fated equally to glory and to misfortune. If its chronicles included great dignitaries, secretaries of state, governors, and prime ministers, they also told how just as many members of the family had been imprisoned or decapitated or had simply vanished.”There are very few powerful families in the history of humanity that have not found themselves on the losing side of a power struggle at one point or at several points in history. After a few messy decapitations or quarterings these families eventually rise from the ashes (sometimes those ashes are relatives) and find that eventually the state has need of their services again. Now Mark-Alem’s mother is a Quprilis which means it is not evident immediately to the people he meets that he is related to that family. He is timid enough that he does not offer that information readily. Of course when he is summoned to the Palace of Dreams to be offered a position they are very aware of who he is.He is assured he is the right sort of man.Instead of starting at the bottom he starts in the middle of the hierarchy. He moves up so quickly he barely has time to settle into one job before he is sent on to the next one. Given the nature of the job which is to select dreams and interpret those dreams with the most important ones being sent to the Sultan to help him make decisions about the course of action he will take in running the empire you would think there would be a long and arduous training regime. There is not, at least not for Mark-Alem, but as the plot advances we start to get inklings that he is a pawn in a much bigger, much more dangerous game. He is absolutely oblivious. He is paranoid and nervous, but doesn’t know exactly what he should be paranoid and nervous about. He is too worried about his workload and whether his interpretations of these dreams are correct. He wears out erasures writing what he thinks and then becoming paralyzed with doubt as to how his superiors would interpret his thoughts. Like any good bureaucrat he finds it is much safer to stifle any creativity and pass along the most bland, safest interpretations of the dreams he finds in his folder. Not that they need a reason to separate your head from your body, but certainly try not to hand it to them on a silver platter. The empire is ruled by dreams. Every dream, no matter how mundane, is required to be written down by every citizen in the realm. I think it only seems reasonable that if I were to have a steamy dream say about my neighbor’s wife that I would make a few changes like say make it two horses in a pasture or really spice it up and have a pig with a goat. My luck somehow that would mean I was secretly plotting the downfall of the empire. These dreams are collected and hauled to the Palace of Dreams where they start the cycle of elimination of those dreams that are deemed worthless or fabricated (mine)and those that are thought to be important are pushed up the chain for further interpretation. As Mark-Alem wanders around his work, usually trying to find a door and usually on the wrong floor to find it, he discovers that sometimes the dreamers are brought in for further questioning about a dream they submitted. The questioning must be rigorous because sometimes those dreamers leave in a black coffin. You're not paranoid if actually there are reasons to be paranoid.There is no sex in this book, barely a hint of desire. There is one moment where he passes a house where he knows two pretty sisters live and Mark-Alem might have felt a twitch or tingle, but other than that it seems as if the terror of his daily life is all consuming. There is talk at the end of the book of an arranged married, but Mark-Alem is about as interested in the details as he is in catalogued Elephant stool samples. Ismail Kadare was in Albanian politics during the communist rule in the 1970s. He wrote a satirical poem in 1975 that came to the attention of the government and he was punished by not being able to publish for three years. In 1977 he publishes a book called The Great Winter that is flattering to Enver Hoxha, the Communist leader of Albania. Kadare later said that the book was the price of his freedom. In 1980 when the Palace of Dreams is published the book is immediately banned. Not a big surprise, dictatorships tend to not appreciate books that are Orwellian or Kafkaesque in nature. It seems to me that Kadare was fairly politically astute. He managed to be critical without getting himself killed. It also helps to be Albania’s most celebrated writer. In 1990 he applied for asylum in France. Ismail Kadare: dissident against a dictatorship or did he collude to survive? Both I do believe and brilliantly in my opinion.This book is the English translation of the French translation of the Albanian version. Yeah, I know, scary isn’t it? I don’t read Albanian and I unfortunately do not read French so I have no clue how much this story has been sifted and strained and blended and fluffed. I will say after I got over my initial shock at what the publishers had done to me, (I mean seriously the publisher couldn’t find an Albanian intellectual that has a solid command of English?)I found myself as nervous, paranoid, and as frustrated as Mark-Alem in trying to figure out what really was going on. This book is certainly a blatant condemnation of the Albanian government trying to control everything, granted they couldn’t figure out how to control their subject’s dreams, but if they could have they would. This is must read for those fans of Franz Kafka and George Orwell.
The Palace of Dream, by Ismail KadareIf Kafka's The Castle and Orwell's 1984 got freaky with it and had a baby the result would be Kadare's The Palace of Dreams. Karade is an Albanian and I would argue that the Palace of Dreams belongs to the long and productive tradition of subversive communist literature that cleverly disguises its critique in a novel about the fantastic. Karade's subversion isn't so disguised; it kind of hits in the face, but he's Albanian and not a Russian and he lives in France, but the novel is of this type. The Palace of Dreams is a monolithic government agency that feels like it comes out of Orwell or the movie Brazil. The agency's mission is to gather and interpret the dreams of all the citizens. The protagonist, Mark-Alem, gets assigned to a mid-level position in Selection. The job of Selection is to to choose the dreams that are worthy of Interpretation from those that are garbage. Mark-Alem starts at a mid-level position because his family is second in the land only to the Sultan (the book is set in the Ottoman Empire, but this time period is of little consequence). The Palace itself feels like Kafka's The Castle. It is a labyrinth in which Mark-Alem is constantly lost and he winds up turning corners to find himself face to face with busy bureaucrats and big desks. As he spends his time in Selection more of the Palace is revealed. It is by design mysterious. Everyone works at their position but few know to what end. It is revealed to him that there is a Master Dream that is of interest to the Sultan. The Master Dream has something to do with major political events, such as assassinations and wars and has existed and interpreted for hundreds of years. After more of the Palace is revealed, Mark-Alem goes to work one day and finds himself promoted into the division of Interpretation. In Interpretation he reads several dreams and in particular one he choose earlier from Selection to be interpreted. Little of the dream is discussed, but it has to do with a bridge, a raging bull, and a fire. In a nut shell, the story follows the life of Mark-Alem as a bureaucrat in the Palace. He works, he has coffee breaks, he files papers, and he discusses his work with his family (despite the fact that he is supposed to be secretive). Underlying the Palace and the prose is a tension. Everyone works, but because they do not know to what end and because they are forced to be secretive, everyone is paranoid and second guesses their selections and interpretations. Then one day it all changes. His family is raided by the secret Police. Their servants are killed and his Uncle is arrested. Mark-Alem feels his family may know why, but he is left in the dark. He goes to work the next day and the Palace is a buzz in whispered gossip. The bureaucrats all talk of what happened to Mark-Alem's family. The next day there is retaliation. Mark-Alem's family, second in the nation, has retaliated in assignations and political moves. Mark-Alem finds him again promoted, but his time into a directors position. As a director he has the access to research what has happened. He discovers that the dream he Selected and Interpreted was a part of the Master Dream and predicted a power struggle between his family and the Sultan. His family would gain power at the cost of his Uncle's life. Mark-Alem wonders if he were planted by his family to Select and Interpret the Master Dream. He wonders if it was a coincidence that he is now a man in power or that if he were set up to be handed the Master Dream and raised to Interpret it as such. He wonders and he waits, for he knows one day the secret police will come and take him. Until that time he continues to work.Ismail Karade said that he wanted to create “vision of hell.” I would say that he succeeded. Mark-Alem's life is directionless, mundane, and worst all he waits in ignorance of a when horrible future will catch up to him. I think that having the knowledge that the future will be 'bad' but not knowing when or how is one of the worst feelings of all time. It creates anticipation and expectation and these feelings are often more powerful than the reality itself. At the same time, Mark-Alem's life is mundane and pointless. He is not waiting for death by living an exciting fun life, he is waiting for death by barely getting by in isolation and paranoia. It is a hell, a very modern and distinct vision. The only critique I could offer is that this reality of hell is present, but that the emotion behind those feelings isn't well captured. The book is not character driven, but setting driven. But I don't consider this a bad thing, but a good choice. The setting, The Palace of Dreams is ultra cool. The prose is quick and fun. Together those elements make this a fun book to read. The result is that Karade captures a modern hell in a fun way, and that makes this a really great book.
What do You think about The Palace Of Dreams (1998)?
the premise of this book - a mysterious government branch that spies on its citizens through their dreams - is an interesting one, and one that leads to many questions about the nature of government. not only is one struck by the absurdity of the concept of prosecuting people for their subconscious thoughts, but also by the way the narrator of the book seems largely unmoved by the disturbing things he has seen while working there. you'd think that seeing coffins being carried out of his place of work and hearing stories of torture, he'd want to do something about it, or at the very least leave, but he just stays on as a cog in the wheel and seems to float higher and higher within the ranks without giving much thought to the forces that are pushing him up the ladder. at the same time, the book hints at the sorts of dubious dealings that go on behind the scenes between individuals that have larger ramifications for the country as a whole- something i'm sure is the case in any type of government. it seems that with enough money and a big enough name, one can buy influence. the fairly ordinary narrator has clearly been planted in his job for reasons he cannot even fully understand, and spends most of his days in a sort of fog, trying to catch glimpses of what is really happening around him from deep within the government machine.
—Kavita
In this spare novel Ismail Kadare creates a metaphor for the police state. A young distaff scion of a family powerful enough to rival the leaders of Ottoman Empire is given a job in the Palace of Dreams. Here, a huge machinery gathers the dreams from around the Empire. It copies, sorts, interprets, sifts and archives them.Just as a thought police thrives on rumor and innuendo, so does the Palace. The power struggles of the mighty, are not discussed or understood even among the intimates of the participants, but are palpable throughout the empire and very keenly felt at the Palace of Dreams. Kadare demonstrates how the fear of the unknown paralyzes bystanders and how participants keep everyone in the dark.While this book is over 15 years old, I had not heard of it or its author. I found it through an Amazon reviewer whose interests run parallel to mine. This book (and perhaps the author-I'll have to read more Kadare) should be on academic reading lists along with the works of George Orwell and Aldous Huxley.
—Louise
Kitabı bitirince birkaç dakika sindirmek için öylece durdum. Son dönemde okuduğum açık ara en iyi kitap. Kadare'yle ilk buluşmamız ama anlaşılan son olmayacak. Türkçeye çevrilen eserlerini de okumak istiyorum. Şu an içinde yaşadığımız totaliter rejim kitaptakine ne kadar da benziyor. Tek fark kitaptaki rejimde insanların rüyaları kontrol ediliyor. Becerebilseler şu an onu da yaparlardı herhalde. Sıradan halkın göremediği güç dengeleri, o kapalı kapılar ardında gerçekte neler oluyor, hangi güç odakları hep şekil değiştiriyor ama hep var olabiliyor hepsi bu kitapta. Topu topu 190 sayfa ama bitmesin diye üç günde okudum. Okuyun, okutun.
—Fulya İçöz
