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The Tartar Steppe (Paperback)
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- Publisher: Canongate Books Ltd
- Published: 05 April 2007
- Format: Paperback 265 pages
- See: Full bibliographic data
- Categories: Contemporary Fiction
- ISBN 13: 9781841959283 ISBN 10: 1841959286
- Sales rank: 37,684
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Our reviews for The Tartar Steppe
The Tartar Steppe
Dino Buzzati's The Tartar Steppe is a compelling and ultimately very moving story of a wasted life. Giovanni Drogo is a young army officer who is posted to Fort Bastiani, a remote and almost forgotten outpost that looks out over the desert and mountains of the steppe and onto the barren reaches of the Northern Kingdom. There is a vague possibility that acrimonious relations with the Northern Kingdom could, at any time, descend into war. There is an even vaguer chance that if war were to come it would arrive over the inhospitable steppe.
Whilst younger officers, like Drogo, keep their spirits up with constant chatter about the possibility of such an attack, the older officers know better. They have spent a lifetime waiting, they've succumbed to many a false hope but, in their hearts, they know that no-one will attack, certainly not over the steppe, and that their chance to prove themselves as valiant soldiers has slowly died over the course of many years pointlessly waiting for something to happen.
Drogo is astute enough to see this. As soon as he arrives at the Fort he asks to be posted somewhere else, but is persuaded to stay for a few months. Those months turn into years. The years quickly turn into a lifetime. Haunting and beautiful, The Tartar Steppe, first published in Italy in 1945, is a timeless, forgotten masterpiece.
by Mark ThwaiteRating:
