Alamut
by Vladimir Bartol
Published by North Atlantic Books
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Reviewed by Muhammed Hassanali
Hasan ibn Sabbah an intellectual, Islamist, and teacher and keeper of the fortress of Alamut, is carrying out his plan to influence the region in 11th century Persia. He does this by training an elite force of assassins that eventually cripples the most powerful empire of the day. The assassins are neither mercenaries nor soldiers but believers. Their training consists of not only military subjects but also science, literature and a radical version of Islam. Another aspect of life at Alamut comprises of the harem girls who pose as houris (virgins of paradise).
The novel’s emotional sparks are generated not through narration or dialogue, but in the unspoken, subtle interstices of the spoken exchanges between the characters. It is the emotional affects – involuntary facial expressions, glances, blushes, body language, suppressed emotions – that express far more than their words can ever do.
This fictional account is drawn from “Old Man of the Mountain” from The Travels of Marco Polo and from anti-Ismaili sources hostile to Hasan ibn Sabbah’s interpretation of Islam – the only sources that Bartol had access to in the 1930s.
The narrative is a great read – imaginative and erudite. A well-told tale set in an exotic place and time with universally recognizable characters that have ambitions, dreams and imperfections like our own. One of the novel’s strength is its absence of an omniscience author. The characters carry the story and readers find their allegiance shifting and becoming ambivalent.
At an interpretative level, it recounts what it would take for a small cohesive group to battle a large lumbering one. Parallels to this can be found during the author’s life with Mussolini or Hitler. Is it a coincidence that Alamut, or the Eagle’s Nest, is also the name Hitler gave his Alpine retreat at Berchtesgaden? Contemporary readers today can draw parallels to bin Laden and the 9/11 tragedy.
A work of literature is not intended to convey facts, but to provide readers with the complexity and ambiguity of life itself, and with the means of discovering deeper truths about ourselves. Alamut does all of this.
Armchair Interviewer says: An oriental tapestry rich with exotic detail and universally recognizable characters.