Zowat een historische roman. Historisch in de betekenis van het opgraven van de fascistische gesneuvelden, de problematiek, de confrontaties met de lokale bevolking die weer triomfeert. Ook de corruptie bij het toekennen van de skeletten aan de families, die vaak betalen om hun geliefde terug te brengen...
De Generaal, de leider van het project, begint ijverig aan de opsporingen, maar beseft stilaan meer en meer dat hij niet veel betekent met de dode soldaten, ook niet als strateeg waar hij zonder ervaring over nadenkt. Hij wordt 20 jaar na de oorlog nog duidelijk vijandig bekeken: de fascist als weleer. Zijn vooroordelen tov Albanië en de bevolking botsen uiteindelijk kletterend en hij moet onder woedende druk van dorpsbewoners afdruipen met een zak op de rug met een skelet.... Uiteindelijk is hij maar een generaal dankzij het uniform.... Hij ontmoet nog een Duitse Generaal, met eenzelfde opdracht, die nog openlijk voor zijn corruptie uitkomt. Beschaamd zal hij terug vertrekken naar Italië.... ( )

A book that points to the complex repercussions of war on the people engaged in it as well as those who come in its wake. ( )

A beautifully written work that makes you feel for the character. Absolutely heart wrenching as you read of this Italian General's task to retrieve the dead bodies of his countrymen and the affects it has on him in this appropriately titled novel. ( )

As a previous reviewer has mentioned, this is a bleak, gray book, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it's a bad novel. It describes the travails of a post-Second World War Italian general charged with finding and recovering his country's war dead from Albania. The job, and the book, is a slog, but that might be by design: while the author avoids addressing the issue of fascism directly, his main character is clearly dealing with the impersonal, bureaucratic aspect of modern conflict. Permanence is also an important theme here: Kadere convincingly demonstrates how injustice and the human damage that it causes can survive decades, and even centuries. It's probably a cliché at this point to say that the dead don't always stay buried, but Kadere's decision to make this truism concrete is still an effective metaphor for personal histories as well as the history of nations. As others have noted, the parts of "The General of the Dead Army" that leaves the deepest impression are its descriptions of Albania's landscape, which is almost uniformly rough, barren, and, inhospitable. They give the book a certain bracing, poetic quality that keeps it descending into sheer miserablism and is, I think, conveyed rather well by the translation. I can't imagine that Albanian is too easy to translate from, but the language here seems natural and appropriately spare. As the general of the title slowly descends into alcoholism and illness, the book begins to drag -- again, perhaps, on purpose -- allowing the author can suggest, perhaps with some reason, that dealing with the aftermath's of war can be as arduous and as emotionally damaging as trench warfare itself. "The General of the Dead Army" is the only book by an Albanian author that I've ever read. Next time, however, I think that I'll pick a cheerier product of Albanian literature, if such a thing exists. ( )

Romanzo di un grigiore e disperazione pazzesco. Credo che sia un messaggio dell'autore nei confronti del proprio popolo nella speranza che escono dalla violenza in cui sono piombati per tornare agli albanesi di una volta. Onestamente l'ho finito giusto per non dire di avere abandonato un libro. Scarso e inconsistente. ( )