The Maze
- Book Review,
by Panos Karnezis
From Publishers Weekly
Karnezis's intelligent, lyrical first novel is a worthy follow-up to Little Infamies(2002), his darkly comic story collection set in a nameless Greek village. The novel takes place in 1922, after the Greek army's three-year "expedition" into Asia Minor abruptly ends in a rout by Turkish forces. A Greek brigade under the command of a morphine-addled old brigadier is retreating in disarray across the desert. Hopelessly lost, the tattered band marches in circles through the pitiless terrain, dragging its wounded and its ghosts along behind it. But just as the soldiers' hope-and the reader's tolerance for abject misery-runs out, they stumble across an isolated town unscathed by the war. It is here, in his grimly humorous and richly layered portrait of human frailty, that Karnezis shines. As in his short stories, he revels in the raucous human dramas of the residents' intertwining lives without romanticizing their antics. But the soldiers are still haunted by years of casual brutality and one collective act of unimaginable savagery. With their arrival, a creeping, toxic modernity is unleashed in the town. Virtue and humanity are increasingly regarded as unpredictable liabilities, and by the time the brigade pulls out, there's no one left in town who'd deny that it's "often healthier for the soul to believe a lie than to search for the truth.'" Despite a sluggish start, the novel is a grimly funny, subversive allegory of 20th-century history, in which the punishments for dreaming, loving or believing too fervently are swift and severe. Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From The Washington Post's Book World/washingtonpost.com
Panos Karnezis made a literary splash last year with Little Infamies, a collection of absorbing short stories set in a contemporary Greek village. The unsentimental and unsettling portraits of rural Greek life, drawn with a sharp eye for the telling detail, inspired comparisons to some of the most accomplished writers of the last two centuries, including Guy de Maupassant, Franz Kafka and Italo Calvino. But the work also raised the question of whether Karnezis was capable of writing only short fiction and not up to producing a novel as engrossing and original as his short stories.His second book, The Maze, is a novel set in the aftermath of the 1922 rout of the Greek army in Anatolia by the Turkish forces of Kemal Ataturk -- an event that Greeks everywhere still refer to as "the catastrophe." And it demonstrates that Karnezis's storytelling talents know no limits. He can hit the long ball as well as a line drive. Karnezis narrates the story of a lost Greek battalion separated from the main army during the long retreat across the Anatolian desert -- the "maze" of the title -- as it struggles to reach the sea. The similarities of the march to a fabled one of long ago are deliberate and acknowledged in the story. "Have you realised the parallels between your journey and that of Xenophon's Ten Thousand?" a washed-up journalist, who sees the battalion as his ticket to fame, asks the commanding officer, Brigadier Nestor. "The Anabasis? That was an extraordinary feat," the commander replies. "We are not worthy of such a comparison."Not by a long shot. Brigadier Nestor relies on morphine to suppress memories of a massacre that his battalion committed earlier in the conflict. His second-in-command, Maj. Porfirio, is a misguided communist furtively trying to undermine the morale of his own troops. Even the chaplain, Father Simeon, is deeply flawed, wavering in his faith and committing petty thefts that lead to tragedy.The battalion stumbles into an isolated Greek town whose denizens are no more worthy of redemption than the soldiers. They include a corrupt mayor, an envious schoolteacher, a cynical alcoholic journalist and a French courtesan who fled Paris after killing a lover.Using dark humor and revealing dialogue, Karnezis, like the best writers, shows not only the flaws of his characters but also other traits that inspire understanding and even compassion for them. "Virtue," Father Simeon frets, in one of the aphorisms that the author crafts so well. "What a rat. Try to catch it and it eludes you. Leave it alone and every night it comes round to chew your ears." Karnezis's inventive and striking prose style is especially remarkable since the author came late to writing, and English is not his native language. He was born in 1967 in Greece and went to Oxford in 1992 for a doctorate in engineering. He began writing four years later in English, he has said, as "a way of communicating my emotions and thoughts to my English friends." Yet Karnezis writes in his second language better than most authors do in their first. In The Maze, he takes the daring step of telling his story not from the point of view of one character but a whole slew of them, including the priest's dog, Caleb.Such occasional flights of fancy have led some critics to compare Karnezis to Gabriel García Márquez. But his literary roots are embedded in the literary soil of his native Greece. His short pieces echo Alexandros Papadiamantis, a master of the short story who wrote powerful tales of Greek village life in the late 19th century. If The Maze suggests anyone, it is the brilliant Greek novelist Stratis Myrivilis, a lesser-known contemporary of Nikos Kazantzakis, especially his war novel Life in the Tomb.Accomplished as it is, The Maze is not the fulfillment of Karnezis's promise as a writer. It is not the tour de force he's likely to produce one day, and the pacing is a little slow in the beginning. In addition, telling the story from several points of view, while drawing vivid vignettes of his characters, also slows the narrative drive and diminishes the full of power of his tale. It's also annoying that the book contains footnotes to explain such familiar mythological allusions as Midas, Daedalus, the Furies and the Sirens, but that may be the publisher's doing. Nevertheless, one thing remains certain: If Karnezis continues to grow as a writer, he is destined to make an important contribution to English literature. Reviewed by Nicholas GageCopyright 2004, The Washington Post Co. All Rights Reserved.
From Booklist
It's 1922 and the Greek expeditionary force in Asia Minor has been routed by the Turks. One brigade is lost in the desert. Unaware that an armistice has already been signed, they keep marching, searching for the sea and escape. Their leader is a morphine addict racked by guilt over a civilian massacre, frustrated by a communist pamphleteer and a thief in the ranks. When the soldiers stumble upon a threadbare town of Greek immigrants with an oppressed Muslim minority, suppressed tensions flare up, and neither the men nor the town will be the same again. The large but memorable cast includes reluctant and eager soldiers, a priest desperate for relevance, a corrupt mayor wooing a French courtesan, an unscrupulous war correspondent, and a servant couple whose love transcends religious differences. Though they're forced to navigate the unpredictable turns of politics, they struggle through personal mazes, too--crises of conscience and confidence, faith, and understanding. Karnezis' lean style is inspiring, his prognosis dour; he seems to have little hope we'll all find our way out together. Keir Graff
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved
Review
"Karnezis's storytelling talents know no limits...Using dark humor and revealing dialogue, Karnezis, like the best writers, shows not only the flaws of his characters but also other traits that inspire understanding and even compassion for them...Inventive and striking."--Nicholas Gage, The Washington Post
"Economy, well-crafted plots, intense quiddity, and resonance that emerges inevitably from the stuff of the story...The Maze succeeds because it imagines so exactingly the hope, struggle and eventual futility of its characters' lives [and] shows a truly talented writer finding his way into more expansive regions."--Sam Thompson, Times Literary Supplement
"Colorful cast [with] antic incidents and delicate shades of prose."--The New Yorker
"Accomplished...Karnezis dramatizes with remorseless clarity and dry humor."--The New York Times Book Review
Review
Praise for Little Infamies
"Unless lightning strikes or the earth opens up beneath him, Karnezis seems likely to take his place beside the masters of Eastern European storytelling . . . The Greek imagination has found a new, dark, witty avatar."--The Independent on Sunday
Book Description
"The bastard love child of 'M*A*S*H' and Shakespeare...Supple prose and perfectly tuned dialogue."--Philip Connors, Newsday
In the summer of 1922, the Greek army is in retreat from Asia Minor, leaving behind one lost brigade, wandering in the Anatolian desert under a seemingly inexpiable curse. There is the doomed army commander addicted to morphine; the chaplain who induces the commander to strike a bargain with God; the hooker with a heart of gold whom he wants to redeem; a foreign correspondent who can't file stories; a deserter lost and found, and a prize stallion bolted. A debut novel of ambition and charm, The Maze marks the emergence of a stunning young talent whom The New York Times has called "downright miraculous."
From the Back Cover
"The bastard love child of 'M*A*S*H' and Shakespeare...Supple prose and perfectly tuned dialogue."--Philip Connors, Newsday
In the summer of 1922, the Greek army is in retreat from Asia Minor, leaving behind one lost brigade, wandering in the Anatolian desert under a seemingly inexpiable curse. There is the doomed army commander addicted to morphine; the chaplain who induces the commander to strike a bargain with God; the hooker with a heart of gold whom he wants to redeem; a foreign correspondent who can't file stories; a deserter lost and found, and a prize stallion bolted. A debut novel of ambition and charm, The Maze marks the emergence of a stunning young talent whom The New York Times has called "downright miraculous."
"Karnezis's storytelling talents know no limits...Using dark humor and revealing dialogue, Karnezis, like the best writers, shows not only the flaws of his characters but also other traits that inspire understanding and even compassion for them...Inventive and striking."--Nicholas Gage, The Washington Post
"Economy, well-crafted plots, intense quiddity, and resonance that emerges inevitably from the stuff of the story...The Maze succeeds because it imagines so exactingly the hope, struggle and eventual futility of its characters' lives [and] shows a truly talented writer finding his way into more expansive regions."--Sam Thompson, Times Literary Supplement
"Colorful cast [with] antic incidents and delicate shades of prose."--The New Yorker
"Accomplished...Karnezis dramatizes with remorseless clarity and dry humor."--The New York Times Book Review
Panos Karnezis, author of Little Infamies (Picador, 2004), was born in Greece, moved to England as an engineer, and was awarded an MA in Creative Writing by the University of f0 East Anglia.
About the Author
Panos Karnezis, author of Little Infamies (Picador, 2004), was born in Greece, moved to England as an engineer, and was awarded an MA in Creative Writing by the University of East Anglia.
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