A novel set in Travnik during the late revolution Napoleonic period. It chronicles the life of the French Consul in a small town in Bosnia during the time period when the Ottomans were allied with the French and attempting to modernize their antiquated army and administrative structure.
It basically looks at the enormous gulf in world views between the locals and the Western European mentality as represented by the Austrian Consuls and French Consul. There is even a huge gulf between the Ottoman administrators and the local population, including the very conservative Muslims.
Some insights that he offers:
- the folding back into your religious community as a form of resistance and cultural survival strategy
- backwardness, self-imposed isolation and conservatism as a form of passive resistance to occupation
- the fragmented identities divided by religion as the main challenge to building a modern Bosnia as a country, even then; the need for a Bosnian identity that transcends religious identity or tribe - here he even predicts the violence and conflict that in fact arose after the "super identity" of Yugoslavia collapsed
For me, a bit of a slow read. Too much internal dissection and monologue of the characters' thoughts and feelings. Very 19th C in style.
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