A Tartar Desert Book Review?

On the recommendation of Taleb, I read the Tartar Desert. The novel is not long, just a few hundred thousand words. It can be read quickly. But the desolation of it, almost through the ages of time and space.

"The Desert of the Tartar" has little plot and little conflict of events and characters' psychology. In this respect, it is hardly a typical novel. The sense of absurdity presented in this work may be only slightly weaker than Waiting for Godot. Many books have to have some experience and experience before they can really have some understanding. It is like learning from a junior high school history book that there is a great book called Waiting for Godot, which tells the story of two tramps waiting for Godot under a tree. There is no plot, just two people get up, sit down, smell boots, talk nonsense, and wait for Godot, who doesn't show up at the end of the play. When the play ended, no one knew who Gordo was, what he did, or why he wasn't there. I was like, this is bullshit. It's a classic. Now I think "Waiting for Godot" is really thorough. "The Tartar Desert" tells a similar story, and its absurdity is also the absurdity of reality. After graduating from military school, Drogo, a young officer, is sent to a remote military base, Fort Bashani, to defend the country from possible Tatars invading from the desert border. The desert is not a pleasant place, and it takes at least a few days to get from the city to the fortress. The area around the fort was barren, devoid of any of the prosperity that a man of his age could aspire to. He had found a way out of the fort in four months. At the last moment, however, Drogo looked at the desert through the hospital window, and something made him decide to stay. The beauty of the fortress, the anticipation of the invaders, and the battle with the Tartars were his reasons for persisting. The whole atmosphere in the fortress was full of anticipation, and he kept his eyes on the horizon, waiting for some great event, such as an enemy attack. He was so focused that he occasionally mistook an animal appearing on the edge of the desert for an incoming enemy. Not surprisingly, Drogo has been waiting to defend the fortress ever since, repeatedly delaying the start of his new city life. Thirty-five years of pure waiting for the thought that one day the attacker would finally emerge over a distant mountain that no one had ever climbed and make him famous.

At the end of the novel, what Drogo has been waiting for all his life finally happens -- the Tatars invade, but he dies in a roadside tavern. He missed it. Perhaps "Waiting for Godot" and "The Desert of the Tartar" together constitute more than half the truth of life. Full of hope, waiting for some fantasy to come true. In the pursuit of this illusion, the process becomes the end, and the pursuit becomes the basis for survival. At the end of life, the dream finally dissolves, or the dream comes true, but has nothing to do with oneself. At the beginning of Waiting for Godot. The tramp was full of hope, but Gordo didn't show up on the first day. The next day they continued to hope, but at last Gordo did not come. They were so disappointed that they tried to hang themselves, but when they pulled the belt to hang themselves, it broke, and they could not die, so they had to wait without hope. In Greek mythology, Sisyphus worked his whole life like an indefatigable party member. No one knows what he did, but at least he looked like a hero. Morceau in Camus's The Outsiders, who ends up shooting some Arabs, does something. Drogo, on the other hand, had a clear purpose in life, vowed to benefit society and achieve great achievements, but he never even saw the enemy in his whole life. Finally, he was chased out of the castle because he was ill. Is this kind of misalignment with fate really a small probability event? Taleb wanted to ask the same question. It also makes one wonder, who and where in the desert is waiting for what?