The Maze

Rating:
Summary: A Fantastic Debut Novel --- Keep an Eye on Karnezis!
Review: At the end of the Greco-Turkish War, one Greek brigade wanders lost in the Anatolian desert. Led by Brigadier Nestor, the soldiers hope they are marching toward the sea and the end of their disastrous tour of duty. The war is over, but the men in Panos Karnezis's debut novel, THE MAZE, must battle on.

Brigadier Nestor, an aging career soldier still devastated by his wife's death a year earlier, has become addicted to morphine and Greek mythology. His second-in-command, Chief of Staff Major Porfirio, while appearing to be a model soldier, is keeping a treasonous secret. The company priest, Father Simeon, imagines himself the Apostle of All Anatolians, but in fact is just a thief. And the rest of the brigade is not fairing too well either. Subsisting almost entirely on cornmeal, their morale is low and things are growing stranger the longer they wander.

It seems though that the luck of the brigade is finally changing. First, a Greek pilot crashes from the sky bringing hope that perhaps they are being searched for. Then, following a runaway horse, they come across a quiet village virtually untouched by the war. The inhabitants and tales of the village are just as interesting and complicated as those of the brigade. The mayor is about to marry the madame of the brothel, the church is overrun with rats and the Turkish Muslim quarter is surrounded by an open sewer. This village does not offer the comforts the brigade had longed for. Brigadier Nestor still hopes to lead the men to the sea and escape, and the mayor knows the way. But before they can leave they must all contend with a desperate war correspondent and one final act of violence that permanently scars the village. This act oddly reflects another moment of violence that haunts the brigade and lies just beneath the surface of all they do.

The brigade may finally escape the maze of the Anatolian desert, but each man is forever marred not only by the war but by what has happened since the war ended. The worst casualties may have nothing to do with battle.

Karnezis's debut novel is fantastic. Unlike many war novels, the violence is something that exists for the most part in the margins, coloring the actions of the characters in a subtle and complex way. This story is really about the emotional effects of the war --- feelings of desperation, loneliness, anger, dissatisfaction and, literally and figuratively, wandering lost in the war's aftermath.

Karnezis's writing style is clear and straightforward but without the coldness of, say, a Hemingway novel. The ideas, characters and situations are touched with something so unique that it seems to verge on magical realism, although nothing magical ever takes place. The characters are all realistically flawed. Several are actually quite mad but they remain sympathetic.

THE MAZE offers an interesting commentary on war and aggression and its effects on individuals and communities. This is a recommendable novel and Karnezis is an author to keep an eye on.

--- Reviewed by Sarah Rachel Egelman

Rating:
Summary: So-So Debut Novel
Review: I read this for my book group, and like the other seven members who read it, found it to be a floridly written and somewhat interesting work that never seems to go anywhere. Part One of the book finds a Greek army unit wandering lost in the Anatolian desert at the tail end of the Greco-Turkish war of 1919-22. (One of the book's minor flaws is that other than a three sentence prologue, it doesn't give the reader any context for what the Greek army is doing in Turkey.) In any event, we meet only a few members of this dispirited unit, who are wandering in circles in the desert in their attempt to evade the Turkish army and make it to the sea, where they will be evacuated. At the head of this ship of fools is Brigadier Nestor, who hides from the world in his books of ancient mythology and vials of morphine. Meanwhile, Major Porfirio, the number two in command, wages a secret Communist propaganda campaign to little effect. Then there is the priest, who left his small parish to pursue his vision of being Apostle to the Anatolians, and is slowly going mad. The bulk of the wandering is shown through their eyes, although a Corporal, the Medic, and a downed pilot also play minor roles. For these first 140 pages, not a lot happens. The unit wanders a few miles a day, they start running low on food and water, and that's about it.

Part Two begins in a local village, and introduces its cast of stock characters. There's the buffoonish mayor who's literally gotten fat off his office. His fiancee, the sophisticated foreign courtesan stuck in this dreary backwater. The schoolmaster, and the shopkeeper, neither of whom make much of an impression, an alcoholic newspaper correspondent, and finally a maidservant and a gardener who emerge as the only two people to really find happiness. The Greek soldiers manage to make it our of the desert and arrive at this town, shaking up the established order. Which makes it sound more exciting than it actually isómake no mistake, this is a slow novel. Events do build up to a fairly tragic climax which never feels fully paid off or legitimate, or even climactic, and the brief epilogue ends things on much more of a whimper than a bang. The overall effect one walks away with is that Karnezis has stiched together a series of unsubtle character studies revolving around the frailty and pitfalls of belief and what it takes to be happy in life.

The writing is a bit of a mixed bag, which at times is very atmospheric, and at times too baroque and overdone. In the same vein, some of the similes are quite nice, but they frequently misfire and occur far too often. Although, it has to be acknowledged that it's quite impressive writing for someone who is writing in their second language. Characters rarely feel alive, and few have distinct voices. There are some nice moments of humor mixed in, gentle comic touches that provide a welcome change from the general defeated tone. Also scattered in are references to Greek mythology, which are footnoted and laboriously explained. There are no doubt, a number of biblical references mixed in as well, but as someone who never read the Bible, they passed me by. On the whole, it's not bad, just not that great, and I would hesitate to recommend it to others.

Rating:
Summary: to see the sea
Review: one feels the desert's choke.....the town's hope, yet the sea does not deliver. a good easy read..if you put it down and pick it back up....latter...you will not miss a beat.

Rating:
Summary: Five stars with quibbles
Review: This is the story of a lost Greek brigade in the Anatolian steppe at the end of WWI, presumably about to be routed (or at least rerouted) by Ataturk's resurgent Turkish army (see previous review.) This would be a five star book if it weren't for the intrusive footnotes which interrupt the text to explain an array of quite well known Greek myths, and a slightly offputting, Garcia-Marquesan distance between the author and his characters. Otherwise, a thoughtful book with impressive historical and psychological resonance.