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.

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

We all have our personal Fort Bastiani. It is the job we took “just for a year.” It is the relationship we are “not quite ready to leave.” It is the dream we put off until “next month.” We convince ourselves that the great battle—the promotion, the novel, the move, the love—is just beyond the next dune. Just one more shift. Just one more season. You have probably never stood on a cold,

This is the novel’s brutal thesis: