Omer Pasha Latas: Marshal to the Sultan

If you are a writer, or aspire to be one, you cannot ignore this masterpiece. The English translation may be whatever it is, beneath it all lies a treasure trove of character that brings to life a man and his times in a way that is unparalleled. Don’t just read this book four or five times, study it. Imbibe it. Let it swirl its subtle way through your veins.

A. was the great Yugoslavian writer who raised the sufferings and frustrations of his own disjointed country and heritage to heights of world literature. Born in Bosnia, he devoted his writing career to magnificent chronicles of a land that for centuries had been the battleground for ethnic and religious wars of attrition: Turks against Serbs, Serbs against Croats, Croats against Bosniaks, Muslims against Christians, Christians against Jews, Catholics against Orthodox. During his lifetime it seemed that the creation of the state of Yugoslavia had finally reconciled these age-old hatreds. But--as the reader might remember-- the collapse in the early 1990s of Yugoslavia into brutal civil war and reciprocal ethnic cleansings revived and sadly confirmed the old traumas. A. devoted his two great masterpieces ("The Bridge on the Drina" and "Bosnian Chronicle" to imaginative chronicles of the centuries before Yugoslavia. So does "Omer Pasha Latas," a late and seemingly unfinished novel that, in my opinion, is impressive and interesting but does not reach the quality of his two masterpieces. The novel starts out in 1850 with the arrival in Sarajevo of the Christian renegade Omer Pasha (a historical figure), marshal of the the Sultan in Istanbul, sent to break with all the brutality he needs and to which he is temperamentally inclined the power of the landed aristocracy of Bosnia. But after he has a first, inconclusive encounter with a stolidly evasive village headman (one of the most magnificent sections of the book), we hear relatively little about his mission, its obstacles, its success or failure. Instead the reader is treated to a sort of portrait gallery of Omer's higher officers, his wife, some military judges, two influential managers of his large household, a portrait painter of his daughter etc. This is a motley crew of misfits, losers, manipulators, opportunists, and adventurers whose stories make up the the bulk of the novel. Only at the very end does A. return in rather perfunctory fashion to the Pasha's mission and his eventual withdrawal. There is something uneven, unfinished about the layout of the plot. Still, the portrait gallery contains some memorable characters and scenes (together with some episodes that strike me as overly melodramatic). What these characters all have in common is their rootlessness, imposed or self-chosen. They are Hungarians, Rumanians, Bosniaks, Serbs, Croats, Turks, Austrians, Montenegrins etc. Whether stranded as the debris of their own former dreams (like the painter), or riding the wave of success (like Omer), they all ultimately suffer the same fate: a life of not so splendid isolation that inevitably turns their dreams into the hells of excruciating unfulfillment. There is Omer’s hysterically raging wife, the lecher in self-destructive pursuit of his game, the rich man in fear of starvation, the brilliant judge who knows no joy of life, the obsessive yes-man who becomes an annoying joke, and several others. In spite of some fine portraits and very fine writing, the monochrome darkness of these episodes ultimately had a somewhat numbing effect on me. For those wanting to get to know A., the two novels mentioned above would be better starting points. For those who know A., this is certainly a valuable addition. P.S. And now to the totally misleading cover painting. NYRB should be embarrassed. This cover might be appropriate for a book about or by Lawrence of Arabia, not for a book about a Turkish marshal in 1850. Shame. Shame.

Omer Pasha Latas by Nobel Prize winner Ivo Andrić is set during the nineteenth-century Sarajevo, a place where both Muslims and Christians live, harboring uneasy feelings toward one another and resentment for the Ottoman rule.While I didn’t find a common plot in this story, other than the actions of Omer and his troops, I found the story quite engaging. This book is about characters, rather than plot, which fit perfectly.For instance, Andrić's most prominent character is Omer Pasha Latas, a sexual deviant and a turncoat. This quote sums up how horrible Omer Pasha Latas was to Bosnia and the Ottoman Empire as a whole: “Yes, killing and lechery! Because everything in this house is infected with foul, profane lechery: timber and stone and every last rag; bread and water and air are infected with it; and lechery kills, it must kill, for it’s the same as death, unnatural, shameful. Gossip is the order of the day: an invisible web of intrigue, slander, whispering and, particularly malicious gossip was constantly being woven, tangled, untangled and woven anew.”But Andrić doesn’t stop there. Another haunting picture is of a man only briefly mentioned. It is Osman, the town fool. He went crazy for never finding his love, a stranger.Then there’s my favorite character of them all: Saida Hanuma, a character well ahead of her time. Saida Hanuma is a refreshing take on women. Andrić is one of the only male writers of his time (I know of) who actually gives women a three-dimensional image.Saida Hanuma is strong and clever, yet too trusting. It's with this trusting she falls into traps. She is quite possibly one of my favorite female characters of all time. Here are two quotes that really explain what she went through:“As though it had a hundred paws, it was tearing through the thick branches in which she was hidden, breaking them, maddened by the desire to reach her, naked and defenseless, to tell her to pieces and devour her.”“These men would never grasp the simple truth that the female being sitting before then, attracting them so irresistibly, was not here for them, and was not merely what they saw and desired: she was a whole, complex person, with specific characteristics and needs, and her own soul, at the end of the day. No one asked her what she thought and felt, what she believed, what she expected from life, they simply stretched out their hands toward her throat and waist, as if drowning.”Andrić’s novel is well worth the read. It exposes readers to a classical world not often taught in history classes (at least the classes I took in high school or college). It is the other side of the world. The world of the Ottomans and their power. This power destroyed lives and towns. It was unstoppable. Everyone should learn about this. I highly suggest this!

This is a frustrating book, because it could quite easily have been a masterpiece. Instead, after 150 pages that set the scene perfectly... nothing. I believe Andric died before completing the work, which is a shame. I would characterise this more as a series of character vignettes than a story, but it is worth reading for those vignettes alone.