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.
And that, dear reader, is the trap.
But that terror is a gift. Because unlike Drogo, you are not fictional. You can still abandon the fortress. You can still walk into the desert today , without waiting for an enemy that may never come. il deserto dei tartari libro
The Fortress of Our Own Making: Why Dino Buzzati’s “The Tartar Steppe” Haunts You Forever
If you pick up this book, you will recognize yourself in Drogo. You will look at the "desert" in your own life—the procrastination, the safe stagnation, the fear of choosing—and you will feel a jolt of terror. You have probably never stood on a cold,
If you enjoyed this, check out our post on “The Myth of Sisyphus” and why we choose our own boulders.
This is the novel’s brutal thesis:
Drogo watches his youth evaporate in the dust. He watches his friends grow old and leave. He watches the walls crumble. And yet, he cannot leave. Because leaving would mean admitting that the wait was for nothing.