Broken Dreams in the Balkans

The Palace of Dreams

by Ismail Kadare

William Morrow and Company, 1993

With the explosion of Latin American literature in the latter half of this century, authors such as Borges and Cortazar, Marquez and Puig have become household names for many Northern Americans. Their work brings into stark focus the social and intellectual conditions in countries with often brutally oppressive regimes.

Recently, it could be said, similar acclaim has emerged for writers from former Eastern European bloc countries. Names such as Kundera, Pavic, and Kadare have become more familiar to Western ears, and are strangely reminiscent of Latin American novels in their depictions of brutal political repression and the concurrent intellectual resistance. Although they draw upon strong and diverse national literary traditions, writers such Ismail Kadare can be considered part of a distinctively Eastern European group of writers finally gaining the international recognition they deserve.

The Palace of Dreams, Ismail Kadare's most recent work to be published in English, exemplifies these thoughtful, sometimes poetic, intellectual allegories for a life in a totalitarian state. Despite the occasional awkward or forced speculation on the alienation and mayhem caused by cruel, inept bureaucracy, the novel generally succeeds in creating an interesting and often engrossing tale.

The novel's hero, Mark-Alem, is a member of an elite family within an imagined later-day Ottoman Empire. As a Quprili, he is given the special opportunity of working at the secret Palace of Dreams, known to all as the Tabir Sarrail. The palace functions as a "pillar of the state." Here the dreams of all of the citizens of the empire are brought and interpreted, in the hopes of finding within them a "signal [sent] to the earth" by Allah. Omens in the forms of dreams are sought because "the interpretation of that dream, fallen like a stray spark into the brain of one out of millions of sleepers, may help to save the country or its Sovereign from disaster." Every week, a Master-Dream is sent to the Sultan, supposedly containing information crucial to the governing of the empire. The dynamics of the Palace are as mysterious as they are irrefutable, inducing terrible power struggles with no clear resolution. Mark-Alem's family has long been at odds with the institution, however, and so his appointments to the more important divisions, Selection, and later Interpretation, are hoped to provide him with valuable information with which to save his own life as well as ensure the fortunes of his family.

The process of understanding what dreams represent and what import their meanings may have upon life is the major practical and philosophical question that Mark-Alem must face. Yet as he attempts to evaluate this unreal world, he slowly drifts away from the one he had been a part of. "How tedious, grasping, and confined this world seemed in comparison with the one he now served," he reflects on his first day off. Here Kadare explores not only the immense, controlling structure of the state, but also its influence on those who participate in it, conscious of their collaboration. And although his musings can become wearisome, (he observes that for others, "life is a bed of roses" in comparison with his own burdens), these brief passages are redeemed by the sincere yearnings for an ethnic and national heritage to which he can return.

As Mark-Alem digs deeper into the history and subconscious of the nation through its dreams of the past several centuries, he uncovers a strong personal and historical connection with the fate of his country and native land, Albania. One night at a dinner with his family he hears for the first time his family's legendary epic song. He is struck by how the "words and voice alike might as easily have come from the mouth of dead as of the living." The music of the strange boxlike instrument the musicians carry is akin to "the hollow...inside his own chest."

The song of his homeland brings him into direct confrontation with his role within the Palace of Dreams as well as within his family, forcing him to examine his existence in the world of the living and the dead. He attempts to reconcile the seductive world of dream and elusive power with his duty to the living and the conscious dreams of freedom they hold closest to their hearts. The strength of Kadare's allegory lies in such careful examination of the individual search for resolution.