The Palace of Dreams: A Novel

For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.Ismail Kadare's "The Palace of Dreams" is a book that reads like Kafka as influenced by the painter M.C. Escher with a bit of "1001 Arabian Nights" thrown in for good measure.Ismail Kadare is an Albanian poet and writer. He is also the winner of the first Man Booker International Prize in 2005 and was selected from a list of nominees that included Saul Bellow, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Naguib Mahfouz, Milan Kundera, and Gunter Grass. The Palace of Dreams is one of his best known, many say best, work."Palace of Dreams" is set some time in the 19th-century in an Islamic-ruled Ottoman Empire that includes the Balkans (including Kadare's native Albania). The Palace of the title is a mammoth office building where the dreams of everyone in the kingdom are submitted for analysis. It is a Byzantine bureaucracy whose complexity is matched only by the dark, complex hallways and byways of the building itself. The Sultanate considers the dreams of his subjects to contain clues to the future. Like an oracle of Delphi, dreams are interpreted to predict plots against the Sultan or threat to the Empire generally. The interpretation of dreams is a powerful tool used to run the Empire and control its citizens and as a result the Palace of Dreams is the most feared agency in existence.Into the Palace of Dreams steps a young new employee, Mark-Alem. Mark-Alem is a member of the Quprili family. The Quprilis are a powerful family of Albanian origin. For generations the family has produced high-ranking Viziers, the approximate equivalent of Cabinet Ministers, to the Sultan. Although a powerful family the Quprili's relationship over the years with various Sultans has been rocky and has been marked by purges and bitter in-fighting. The tenuous relationship between the Quprilis and the Sultan forms the backdrop of the story.After Mark-Alem makes his way through a maze of corridors he is taken on as an apprentice. He quickly moves from a clerical position, sorting dreams, to interpreting them. Kadare's writing is very powerful as he traces Mark-Alem's path as an employee on the fast-track. One can feel the job beginning to overwhelm Mark-Alem's thoughts and actions. What seemed as unreal to Mark-Alem as an apprentice now seems commonplace. In a certain sense Kadare portrays vividly one person's descent into a claustrophobic, mystical hell where dreams are more real than reality.At the same time renewed tensions between the Sultan and the Quprilis emerge. One specific dream involving a bridge in Albania built by the Quprilis hundreds of years ago quickly becomes the centerpiece of the plot. This same bridge played a critical role in an earlier Kadare novel, "The Three-Arched Bridge". Mark-Alem finds himself faced with analyzing this dream and the consequences of that interpretation drives the last third of the novel.Palace of Dreams has been doubly-translated, first from Albanian to French and then from French to English. Despite that it felt as if I were reading the book in its original language. Entering Palace of Dreams was like entering a dream itself, one that quickly turns into a nightmare. As I read the description of Mark-Alem wandering, lost, through the hallways of a dimly lit Palace of Dreams I could feel the increasing despair welling up in Mark-Alem. The credit for that must be attributed to Kadare but with a significant nod to the translators who kept the writing both fresh and as disturbing as it appears to have been intended.Kadare's The Palace of Dreams is well worth reading.L. Fleisig

The Palace of Dreams is a haunting allegory of power as a man from an influential family that is often at odds with the State finds himself working for the Palace of Dreams. There is danger, mystery, and a dark cloud hanging over his prominent family's head and Mark-Alem must navigate it all without losing his own.The coolest thing to me was the concept of the Palace of Dreams. Although it is, on paper, a bureaucratic institution, it was created to sift through the dreams of everyone in the Ottoman Empire. Why? Because Allah will occasionally send warnings of impending disaster to Earth as a dream. Except He doesn't care who has that dream, so every dream has to be analyzed!The allegory is very clear as the relationship between Mark-Alem's family and the State is defined throughout the book. It's a frightening picture of the power and fury of a totalitarian state and what can happen just on somebody's word.Ismail Kadare has been praised as one of the most important writers of our time and this book convinces me of the same. It's a quick read and a fascinating look at totalitarian regimes, power, and the consequences of both.

I put this book down in complete awe. I remember feeling the same when I put down Chronicle in Stone. Kadare is an amazing writer. The Palace of Dreams like most of Kadare's work is political. It talks about the "Tabir Sarail", a secret government agency under the watchful eyes of a totalitarian government that specializes in analyzing dreams of the citizens. The main character, Mark- Alem belongs to the influential Quprili family who have had their share of political trials and tribulations over the yeas. He is however not in the least bit interested in pursuing a political career. Ironically, he is sucked into the very political whirlpool he has always avoided and that his mother sought to protect him from over the years.Don't be fooled by the synopsis of the book, this is no fast paced thriller. Yet, Kadare manages to keep you interested the whole time with the calm narrative,mellifluous prose and of course what he does with the topic of dream analysis and interpretation. How he does this, I have absolutely no idea. The man is a genius,and although this might be impetuous of me to say considering I haven't read ALL his work, why on earth hasn't he received the Nobel prize yet??!!!

As a high school librarian, my students came to me with all kinds of requests. Senior year they had to do a literary criticism paper on a world author. My school had dozens of language minorities, so I had requests as varied as Liberian, Jamaican, Serbian, Polish, Vietnamese, Venezuelan, and Norwegian authors. One of my kids asked for an Albanian author. After some research, I found Ismail Kadare. I was so intrigued by the liner notes, that I read the book myself. It was really unlike any novel I had ever read, unique and incredibly interesting. It can be read, on the surface, as curious, provocative fiction, or dig a little deeper and tap into the political minefield of totalitarianism.

Les romans d'Ismail Kadaré captent avec finesse l'âme de l'Albanie, quel que soit le contexte historique dépeint. The Palace Of Dreams se situe pendant le régime d'Enver Hoxha, qui, même s'il n'est jamais mentionné, est omniprésent. Le contexte est à la fois abstrait et précis, dépouillé et très évocateur d'un monde que l'auteur a connu. Le personnage principal travaille dans un ministère qui répertorie et étudie les rêves que chacun fait, dans son sommeil. Ceux qui se rendent coupables de rêves suspects sont jetés en prison. Lorsqu'il prend conscience de la natuyre de son travail, le personnage principal est horrifié. Est-il le collaborateur d'un système abject ?Un excellent Kadaré, qui plonge au coeur de la folie d'un régime dictatorial.

This dystopian story from kadare surely stays high up there with Orwell masterpieces.

a great book

simple plot but writing style makes you feel you are there, descriptive and involving easy to read and enjoy for sure

Overall I was disappointed. The one idea of describing what it is to live in a totalitarian state did not justify the length of this book. Too many repetitions of the same descriptions. No developments of characters.Of course it showed the oppression of everything in a totalitarian state but there could have been some interesting subplots which might have shown the depth of character of the individuals. Their plight on many levels not just the one of being unfree and oppressed.For this lack of imagination the book became uninteresting to me. Even the writing in itself was repetitive and unimaginative.