One of the poems I learned as a child that has stayed with me is Percy Bysshe Shelley's "Ozymandias." You may recall that it describes a once imposing statue of a revered ruler.
"My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!"
Nothing besides remains.
Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.
King Tsongor gets what that fabled monarch did not — an opportunity to see the evil his bigger than life existence has wrought. He must weigh the harm done against the fleeting pleasures of having gotten his own way.
I have one criticism of Gaude's book. It is being promoted as an African novel, perhaps in a bow to multiculturialism. Though some of the descriptions of the variety of warriors who participate in the carnage, and some of the geography, is from the continent, The Death of King Tsongor is not an African novel. It doesn't bear any resemblance to a particular African culture. And, in its translation into English, at least, the people described are quite Eruropean.
The novel is an insightful examination of the human heart. In this time of at least partly imperial war, we would do well to heed what Gaude has to say.
What's the art?
A detail from a statue of Ramses II.
Note: This entry also appeared at Silver Rights.
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