Yet they seem to be more intent on preserving their status within the hierarchy of the camp - and, more importantly, the court back home - than on winning the war. As soon as it looks like they have to retreat, they begin to do their best to make sure they distance themselves from the Pasha in charge. Like jackals and hyenas they circle their wounded overlord and look for some advantage that will serve them when they are home and off the cursed plains of Albania.
Kadare does a great job in describing the chaos of battle through the eyes of the Pasha as he sends wave after wave of men to crash against the walls of the castle, and we realize that he has no idea of what is happening at the walls. While it looks like the Turkish army is making advances, the reality is that they aren't able to breach the wall and are repulsed time after time until they are no longer able to sustain the siege. While you'd think in a book written by an Albanian we would be feeling a great deal of joy that the author's historical countrymen were able to repulse their invader, we can't help feeling sorry for the Pasha. Kadare has taken great pains to ensure that the people on both sides of the wall are shown as human beings, not monsters. We've spent far too much time among the Turkish soldiers to not have formed genuine attachments to people like the Chronicler.
Somehow Kadare is even able to inject a little humor into the proceedings as well, for he has a fine sense of the ridiculous on top of everything else. Some of the scenes of camp life - the gossip between the soldiers for instance - are very funny, but also a little sad. Here you realize these are just simple men taken from their farms to fight in a war they don't really understand.
The Siege takes you into the heart of war at its most intense and finds something quite extraordinary within the human beings on both sides of the conflict. While there is nothing pretty in the surroundings, there is a haunting beauty in the depiction of men who won't surrender to brutality or fear in spite of the ease which those around them are doing so. When you finish reading the book, you cannot help feel regret. Regret for all the lives lost and for the fact that men insist upon trying to kill each other for things as trivial as power and glory.
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