The Tartar Steppe - Dino Buzzati BOOK REVIEW
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- Опубліковано 28 вер 2024
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00:29 - Intro
01:00 - Housekeeping / Livestream announcements
01:23 - Buzzati
02:14 - The Story
02:35 - Sponsor
03:30 - The Story (continued)
06:59 - My Take
12:08 - A Novel about Solitude / Our Death's are ours.
13:32 - An Inspirational Source of Strength
17:36 - Yes, it sounds hopeless BUT...
18:30 - The Beautiful thing about this book
21:20 - My Definition of Satisfaction
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One of my favorite books. It literally changed my life. I decided to stop waiting the tartars in my life and putting it on hold
Great book. I read it as a student and saw it as a warning about getting sucked into routines and office life. 30 years of office life later I still love the book. Thanks for the video
I am a student right now and I just completed it . Amazing book. It has many lessons in it but the one message I get from it is about getting comfortable from your routine job. Drogo after the first 4 months rejected the offer of transfer because he got comfortable . It is amazing how 4 months turns into 2 years ,then 4 more years than 15 years.
Are you willing to change your office routine?
@@mohdtalha8558 Still at it mate. Good luck!
Good Italian books always prompt really in-depth philosophical discussion on life and meaning. Really interesting, Cliff!
Just finished this one, another book that I've read after your review. What an amazing book, I was really missing that feeling I've had in the final chapters, when your whole life passes through your eyes and you realize that glory will never come and we're all dying alone in spite of all the attempts of recognition. It's really a relief, in a certain way.
First heard of this book on your channel. Within the first few minutes, I was sold. Didn't finish the video, read the book, and now I'm back listening to your full review. Goddamn, this book was SO intense! Love your review. Dying to see the movie adaptation!
Excellent review as always. For whatever reason, I was reminded of Mann’s The Magic Mountain while reading this. There is this feeling of being trapped by your decisions - that they slowly wall you in.
Exactly like Mann's book, they don't see time moving, Drogo and Hans
This was so amazing to listen to and take the weight of! I definitely can say, with humbleness, that you are the main source in which I discover new books. Thank you for continuing doing your wonderful channel 💜
Just stumbled upon this video about one of my favorite books, if not my most favourite.
Being Italian, I first read this book during my adolescence and I read it multiple times again during my life.
I really rejoiced in seeing some non Italian speaker talk about this amazing book. I really enjoyed your review.
Salutations from Northern Italy 💙
For me, I am Italian, it's a kindof fun to hear a book review in English about and Italian book . It is a way to remark the differences between our cultures, and it is interesting anyway. Thanks
Ahhh crazy!!!
I've been a fan for about 6months and I picked this one up a few weeks ago!!
I am assimilate 🤓🧠
I tried to read this one and couldn’t get into it. I might give it another shot.
It was an influence on Waiting for the Barbarians by Coetze, which I loved.
Excellent review Cliff. I loved this existential novel, too.
I feel like I really needed to hear this review.
Another amazing review
Please do a myth of sisyphus review! That was my favourite book as a teen
Great review, been meaning to get to this one for a long time. Also you might want to check out Julien Gracq, The Opposing Shore (1951).
You sound very guru like when talking about this book, l loved this review and hope l 🤣 well will love this book.
There is no hope😔 cheers avid fan.
This book destroyed me. Time to get to work
I'm with you in that one. It's actually a beautiful book. I don't think it's sad at all. I actually think that if someone reads this and thinks it's sad, well, i have bad news for you...
Hi Cliff, did you say that when the Tartar attack finally came at the end, it wasn't an attack at all, they were just passing through?
No I was referring to the false alarm earlier in the novel.
Off topic but is that a copy of Gombtowicz's Diary on your bookshelf?
y'all
> opinion dismissed
Anche ''Il segreto del bosco vecchio'' è molto bello, anche se meno conosciuto. La scrittura di Buzzati è limpida ed essenziale.
Waiting for Godot; tried to watch it twice, but just hated it. All that babble, ugh! In my own life I have no problem with waiting and doing nothing, but listening to other people babble about their waiting is insufferable.
Nothing in Beckett is 'babble'. Everything is calculated, purposeful and intentional. I'm open to any diatribe against life, or list of complaints about anything, if only said/written as masterfully as Beckett.
@@AleksandarBloom To me Godot is babble. I understand what Becket is doing, but I just don't need it personally. I don't share his world view. The things he is pointing at seem so obvious to me that the talk in the play becomes babble in my ears.
I feel one of the reasons tea is a superior drink than coffee is that tea drinkers don't feel the need to wave their cup in people's faces and comment on its provenance and taste. We are confident enough to just to drink and enjoy.
Christians have been waiting around for the 2nd coming of christ for about 2,000 years now, deluding themselves into thinking that that longed-for event will somehow give their lives some kind of meaning. That's about 730,000 days of "Any day now." I've never understood the attraction of eternal life, why anyone would want such a thing, or how our meaningless lives would suddenly acquire meaning by virtue of becoming never-ending. I can't imagine anything more hideous. If we want meaning in our lives, we've got to find it for ourselves by looking inside our own heads, each one of us, individually. It's not going to be magically conferred upon us by a nonexistent Big Sky Daddy, or by his putative son, or by an enemy army. Then, when our lives are over, they're over. That's not depressing, that's liberating.
Sounds like a good book, or at least one that I would agree with.
Most people get the meaning of eternity wrong. It doesn't mean more and more and more time. It means liberation from time. In this life you can't experience it, so there is no way of knowing what existence outside of time would be.
@@Liisa3139 Death is a liberation from time.
@@dorothysatterfield3699 "There is no way of knowing what existence outside of time would be." Science will never know everything about life or even about matter. Even at best we will just know a fraction of all that is.
I don't know how Science got in to the discussion, but I'll bite. Science does not concern itself with disproving assertions that are not disprovable. The fact that they are not disprovable does not prove that they are true. Here's a quote from Bertrand Russell regarding his famous floating teapot (copied from the Wikipedia page "Russell's teapot"):
"Many orthodox people speak as though it were the business of sceptics to disprove received dogmas rather than of dogmatists to prove them. This is, of course, a mistake. If I were to suggest that between the Earth and Mars there is a china teapot revolving about the sun in an elliptical orbit, nobody would be able to disprove my assertion provided I were careful to add that the teapot is too small to be revealed even by our most powerful telescopes. But if I were to go on to say that, since my assertion cannot be disproved, it is intolerable presumption on the part of human reason to doubt it, I should rightly be thought to be talking nonsense. If, however, the existence of such a teapot were affirmed in ancient books, taught as the sacred truth every Sunday, and instilled into the minds of children at school, hesitation to believe in its existence would become a mark of eccentricity and entitle the doubter to the attentions of the psychiatrist in an enlightened age or of the Inquisitor in an earlier time."
The idea of eternal life is a human construct. You're certainly free to believe in it if you are so inclined, and you're also free to make up anything you want about it.
What I want to know is this: Do you feel that a conviction that your life will somehow continue, even after your physical death, is necessary in order to give meaning to your life here and now? If you thought that death would end your existence forever, would you consider your life therefore meaningless?
@@dorothysatterfield3699 The problem of the materialistic world view is its hubris, lack of humility. That I don't share it as my personal world view means that science is not an authority in my life. It does not have the last word over me. Not sharing science as the ultimate authority is a liberation. In our everyday life science always claims to have the best answer. It is oppressive. But no person can claim more expertise about death than another. Science is also indifferent to the meaning of individual experience as if there was nothing fundamental beyond things that can be measured and proven. But life is only experienced on individual level; it is the individual experience that is fundamental in existential matters.
Wow, Clifford, this is a r e a l l y l o n g and b o r i n g review! ;) Saying the same thing for twenty-six minutes! Ha ha!
i’d still take a good stephen king book over this any day
Yet you can have both, ain’t you a lucky chappy.
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This IS one of the most beautiful books ever. Excellent review.
You should check this out, Christ Stopped At Eboli - Carlo Levi.
I finished reading the book a few hours ago... I had never cried so much reading the end of a novel. The last two paragraphs are so hurtful yet utterly beautiful
When Giovanni Drogo entered for the first time to the Fortress he was 21 years old, my same age so I guess the book hits different to people who are in someway like the main character.
Thanks bro for your video. This is one of the most beautiful novels ever written but somehow it doesn’t have the recognition it deserves.
Saludos from Chile
Ok sold. Just bought it.
Yo Cliff! You should read The Death of Ivan Ilyich by Leo Tolstoy. It’s super short and I feel like it goes with the themes that you addressed in this video.
Great recommendation
Mario Vargas Llosa's The Feast of the Goat also uses waiting as a key element to telling the story, but it is a totally different kind of waiting, one in which the tension just keeps accumulating as there is a waiting for the assassination of the dictator Rafael Trujillo, The Goat. Some 400+ pages of waiting - worth the Nobel prize for sure.
I actually have that book as well as War at the End of the World, also by Llosa. Have you read both? Which do you recommend reading first? I loved 100 Years of Solitude by GGM, and I hear War at the End of the World is similar but better.
@@matthewjameson8809 No, I haven't read War at the End of the World. There is so much still unread...I liked 100 Years of Solitude. I think I have read it twice, but very long time ago. I have been thinking about reading it again, now that I'm approaching pension in a few years. As for GGM I have always liked his short books a lot. Right now I'm reading his No One Writes to the Colonel. One of my GGM favorites. It is about this retired colonel who is waiting for a letter confirming that he will get the pension from his military service. He has been waiting for it for years. Yeah, waiting waiting :D
@@Liisa3139 LOL I still have to read No one Writes to The Colonel, but first I'm probably going to read Chronicle of a Death Fortold, as a close friend recommended it to me. I'm currently reading the Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I'll probably read Feast of The Goat afterwards
I opened UA-cam yesterday looking to see if the new review was out, but it turns out I was a day early! Thank you so much for reviewing this wonderful and really beautifully written Italian novel! Keep it up!
I just completed the book. My heart breaks when Drogo was ordered to leave the fort when War is just going to start. His last moments in strange room on starnge bed was giving chills.
Great book.I am a student and young right now so I am grateful I read this book at this stage in my life.
Sorry I deleted my comment by mistake while editing it... You should read as well Kaputt and la Peau (la Pelle ) of Curzio Malaparte. This italian writer will give you an insight and surrealist view of the second Word war. His writing is beautiful I think. I read it when I was a teen and I'm still thinking that it is one of the best read I had! He owned the famous Malaparte villa "in Capri " where Goddard movie "le Mépris "was shooted.
Kaputt and The Skin (which I slightly prefer) are available from NYRB Classics.
@@morbidswither3051 he is the Italian "Louis Ferdinand Celine" !
One of the books almost everyone in Italy has read. And there's a reason for that. It's gorgeous. There's even a movie with max Von Sydow, Gassman, Noiret, produced in the 70s and filmed in the Iran desert.
Just watched the movie, absolutely masterful, some great acting but especially a highlight is the cinematography, when people talk about ‘every frame a painting’, this is the film that truly embodies it. The quiet methodical shots that just are in awe of the landscape or the meticulously crafted sets and use of shadows. And it isn’t ‘slow’ either, its just a very sober film to watch. Idk might sound pretentious but it really struck me, felt like a stage play in terms of the scenes
Been waiting what feels like years for this review - nice - this was Nassim Taleb's favourite book until he read The Opposing Shore by Gracq. I think the themes are really similar.
Yeah, The Opposing Shore, and I’ll add The Radetzky March by Joseph Roth.
@@morbidswither3051 Yeah loved that one too
Man, wish I could find a cheaper version of this book here in Colombia, been looking forward to reading it for a long time. Currently reading Children of Midnight, a true rollercoaster which of course I recommend to you, and everyone!
Well, the pdf is on libgen and the epub on z-library. And Dino Buzzati is dead for a long time, I'm sure he won't mind if you don't pay for his work.
@@Gonorrheagorgonzola hahaha good point, I'm just very lazy about reading on digital
@@jnbfilm56 yeah same for me honestly. Plus I enjoy growing my book shelf way too much.
Great review! Sounds like an interesting book. It reminds me of Waiting for Gadot. And Cliff remarks about hope towards the end of the video reminded me of a character's line in the anime 'Samurai Champloo', Kariya: "Only hope can give rise to the emotion we call despair, but it is nearly impossible for man to live without hope. So i guess that leaves man with no choice but to walk around with despair as his companion." ... Cliff's discussion on imaterialized expectations also reminded me of the journey the characters in Samurai Champloo.
This book destroyed me. Especially being the mid-20s age as the protagonist.
What you said about living in the moment reminds me of John Keats' quote 'O for a Life of Sensations rather than of Thoughts!'
He shows thinking as sth bad, but that's a simplification ofc.
And I was thinking what it would be like if u never once thought but were instead immersed in that way for the whole of your life, not thinking about anything, not even death, would that be a perfect life or a life worth living.
Great book, it reminded me of the song “The day that never comes” by Metallica
One of my best reads ever! It’s stayed with me for decades. Glad you enjoyed it and help more people get to know about it!
Buzzati has also some short stories that, although not that good, they’re worth reading.
Interesting how you perceived the heart of the book to be Solitude. For me it's the human inability to fully enjoy "the moment" and rather live in the constant hope of something better. The scene in which he meets once again with the girl he could have married, and they both know deep inside that it's just too late for them to be together...that is for me the most tragic scene of the book and one of the most tragic I have ever read, simply because it's realistic. That is the point of the book: showing through an imaginary-kafkian scenery one of the TRUEST dangers in human life - let the moment slip, waste your life. One of my personal favorite books, too underrated as well.
Thanks for this. Yes. ITALIANS are way warmer than the French. You can read his short stories too. I will give you a name in a minute.
sounds like my kind of book. Camus-esqe. The review reminded me of Townes Van Zandt's' song "Wait'n Around To Die"
I first head of this title from Nassim Taleb's recommended literature
I'm definitely going to check this one out.
His short story, The Falling Girl, was the short story that got me into full-time reading back in 2010 📕
And if anyone wants to read it there is a PDF if you just google The Falling Girl Dino Buzzati 📕
@@ericw3038 Appreciate the recommendation kind sir. Looking for that skyscraper as we speak.
I agree that it reads like a cautionary tale, yet leaves you with enough hope that you can use it as fuel. It's a great book.
Great choice, and comments, as usual.
Buzzati is one of my favorite Italians, along with Landolfi and , of course, Calvino. I suggest reading Sessanta racconti, Il segreto del Bosco Vecchio or La famosa invasione degli orsi in Sicilia, for instance (and if you are a Spanish speaker, like me, It seems to me it's advisable to make the minuscule effort required to read him in the original; his Italian is crystal clear; but, in any case, do read him).
Better than food man, for sure. But that coffee.. 😀
Waiting for the Barbarians by Coetzee is very similar. Very!
definitely can hear the absurdism themes coming out in this review, going to read this book and dive deep into camus soon
Read this when I was a teen. Loved it, as everything I''ve read from Buzzati. The film adaptation by Valerio Zurlini is worth watching.
Great review, Cliff. I think this novel inspired the best and most profound in you. I imagine the novel will do the same for many readers.
Thank you for inspiring me/us to read more. Please read - journey to the east by hermann hesse.
“After years of waiting nothing came”
although I just ate a fish sandwich while watching this, this channel is better than food. I'm super critical of books and tastes (for which is the proverb says there is no accounting), and I think I'm more critical the more affection I have for something and affinity with that, but in the end it's all just gravy. this is excellent gravy for a fish sandwich!
You can never go wrong with fish sandwiches
One of my favourite. ❤
Great book and great review
Some of what you say in this review reminds me of Norman Mailer's The Naked and the Dead, especially the part about how most soldiers never achieve the military glory they want. The idea that war is the opposite of how it is depicted in movies, all mundane chores, waiting, and pointless death, is a crucial theme.
Happy to hear that someone else knows of that book. I don’t see a lot of people talking about it.
@@Hitithardify I found one person who reviewed it on booktube and he said he hated it because it didn't portray the soldiers as heroes and he thought it didn't have enough action; I think he missed the whole point of the book. I've heard other people say it's too long so they couldn't finish it and otherwise Mailer seems to be the new victim on the cancel culture chopping block. Sadly I think the 21st century is all about dumbing down our culture to even lower levels than it was before.
The fact that his grand moment of glory never comes I think qualifies it as a tragedy, but I don't think it can be considered completely of his own doing. He's at points very interested in transferring to the city where there are more opportunities than at the fort. While not a guarantee the city might have allowed him to find some other measure of societal success. He is unable ultimately to transfer because he is betrayed. The mundanity of the betrayal, its lack of drama, I think in a way makes it far worse. As does his seeming lack of will to fight it. I agree with you that life is given meaning almost arbitrarily and a measure of success doesn't have to be derived from society but from within, and the book definitely suggests that in the end.
It's not hard though to feel sickened that, although Drogo tries at what seems like some threshold, to pivot, the world doesn't allow this, and so he will die childless, with no legacy, a footnote, a phantom only in the memory of the soldiers at the fort, estranged from his own family, having impacted the world in such a minimal way. He almost has something wonderful, but time is not on his side. The world around him is almost maliciously, cruelly apathetic, even when he begs it.
It's a little hard to feel hopeful given that, even though Drogo remains defiant. You have to think about it a little to derive the more hopeful aspects of it. But I think what it does demonstrate at the very least, besides dispelling the illusions of societal values and pressure like you pointed out, is show that there can be a kind of meaning and glory in anything. You touched on that too I guess. Even though, for Drogo, life, on the horizon, never seemed to occur, from the outside looking in, it's pretty remarkable the book is able to glorify his loss of agency and forced compromise as he fights a different battle from what he imagined inside his own mind.
Being from Italy, it's so nice to see a book by an italian writer featured on one of my favorite channel. I also strongly suggest Buzzati's short novels, so full of mistery and surrealism... Such a magnificent and yet underrated author. :)
Only just come across your channel because of this book . I read the tartare steppe about a month ago it was recommend by the outlaw bookseller . I thought this book was excellent,a truly thought provoking read, it made me think about life in a different way a profoundly moving experience . Enjoyed your review 👍🏻
I finished this book a few days ago, it is really great! Sometimes I felt bored but I think it is part of the message, you(we) have to understand this boredom and do something about it. Anyway, the more I think about the story more I like the book.
2 short stories And Yet They Are Knocking at Your Door and Seven Floors. Bizarre stories. Terrific. Very different. Spooky with a lot of foreboding, really. Thanks a lot for your terrific review.
Hi, I just wanted to comment and say I found this off of your recent short advertisement. I'll have to pick it up, seems interesting. Thanks!
Adore the honesty and outpourings of your thoughts and views on this beautiful book. What you say is how I feel but I can't quite put it into words. Thanking you so much for this channel which I always lean into for insights and recommendations. Without a doubt, one of the very best out there!
Great video as always! Life is never dull when there are a thousand books to read. Can I suggest The Lost Weekend by Charles Jackson? In my eyes the best alcoholic novel ever put to paper.
The themes explored are fascinating (and depressing). But the writing style never gripped me at all.
I finished the book only a few weeks ago and I was thinking I’d love it if you’d did a review…thanks so much for this!
I love this book! It's a book about the inutility of making plans. All good books are about that.
That was a fuckin' terrific review! I’m living that book right now.
Really like your reviews. Would be curious to see uncut review
Team Half Dome! 💯
"The day that neves comes.. "
Fantastic book and great review!
Yes. Do. The. Stranger !
great video
Excellent review!!!!!
I love that book
Mine too!!
My girlfriend's husband is in the Army, and it really is just another job for most of them.
J M Coetzee = Coot-Sea or Coot- zee-a, might help your pronunciation. BTW, any plans to review any of his books? The one everyone talks about is Disgrace. My own preference is Waiting for the Barbarians.
My favourite was "Youth"
@@bijumohan9460 ''Youth'' is superb! Absolutely his best book! But also ''Boyhood'', ''Foe'', 'Waiting for barbarians'' and ''Disgrace' are very interesting and well written.
Such a great video - love that you interject some contemplation/philosophy of your own
any book reviews for a 15yo? i don’t like anything new i am more interested in the old and find it fascinated, i am tired of this new generation I don’t believe in anything they believe in, I am different ? u may say… anyways fill me with old books by “old” i mean medieval or something older or 1900s, u know what i mean.
Herman Hesse's books are great, Narcissus and Goldmund, Demian, Siddharta and Steppen Wolf.
Omfg...with the ridgewallet b.s.
Goodreads always recommends this to me. Honestly why I avoided it.
Hi cliff!! Big fan of u