Castle of the Assassins

death

Author's name: Vladimir Bartol

What have you done with Hassan al-Sabah, Vladimir Bartol? And what luminous fictional world have you painted in this pitch-black hue of history? And how did the story of the Ismaili leader turn into an epic in which the breath of great Greek mythology blends with the poetry, stories, and hot, blazing blood of Muslims?

It is a single question that appears with three heads united by a strict unity, just as the elements of this complex novel have united to form a literary entity full of beauty and uniqueness. From questions of emotion and authentic human tendencies to man’s confusion and his painful, burning obsessions, all the way to what is hidden in the soul and searches relentlessly for words that will grant it an eye, the novel “Alamut” or “The Castle of the Assassins” stands as a great literary edifice that rests on the rocks of talent, keen sense, and a wise, mastermind.

They are stones from which abundant, inexhaustible water gushes forth, pouring its greatest streams into our modern times. Thus, the present is an echo of the past, and the past is a mask for the present and the conflicts and wars raging within it, whose tool is man and whose last concern is man.