Bosnian Chronicle by Ivo Andric

This is my 3rd book for the classic challenge. This is a book and author I was totally unfamiliar with but found very intriguing. It's not a true classic in the sense that it's not 19th century but I'm using my discretionary powers. Ivo Andric is a well-known Yugoslavian writer and before WWII served in the government and diplomatic corps. When Germany invaded Yugoslavia, he lived under house arrest in Belgrade and it was during this time that he wrote the trilogy to which Bosnian Chronicle belongs. The other 2 titles are The Bridge on the Drina and Miss. The 3 books were published in 1945 and made Andric a dominant figure in Yugoslav literature. In 1961, Andric was awarded the Nobel Prize for portraying the humanity and history of his country.

This book is set in Bosnia while still under Ottoman rule and during the Napoleonic era. It's told from the point of view of many characters but primarily from the point of view of the French Consul at that time posted in Travnik ( Andric's birthplace). It's thought that Andric gained access, in Paris, to the actual letters written by the French Consul to his superiors and became inspired to write this story. So the book might revolve around the French Consul but it also delves into the stories of the Austrian Consul, the reigningVizier, the various groups, ethnic and/or religious that constitute the people of Bosnia, as well as the Court of the Sultan. It's not a pretty story because there's many contending forces and people cannot or refuse to have much understanding of each other. Overlaid on this examination of Bosnian society or underpinning it is the difficult history of this part of the world. It has been a geographic crossroads of East and West and has suffered tremendous upheaval and violence as a result. That seems to be (and many reviewers agree) the point of the novel. I think the modern coming apart of Yugoslavia illustrates this very point; that this an area which has been ground down over a millenium and yet the people have endured. This endurance has sometimes come at a high price but you could say that about a lot of situations.

I found the writing straightforward and yet lyrical. The author has great feeling for the land itself as well as the people who inhabit the land. He also has a great feel for the out of place, the foreign, even the misfit, and how they suffer and gradually adapt to their surroundings even to the point of being unaware of their adaptation. The book spans the time of the arrival of the French Consul to the leaving of the French Consul, about 7 years. During that time, there's great changes in Europe but in Travnik things are more circular than linear and maybe that's the point. What looks like linear change, i.e. moving into the future in France, is more of the same in Travnik. Let's hope that the countries that constituted Yugoslavia can finally put the past behind them and move into a brighter future.