Few books fascinate like Ivo Andric's translated doctoral dissertation. The nobel winning author, iron curtain straddling diplomat and patriot of an emergent state used his doctoral dissertation to explore the literary tradition which arguably culminates in Andric himself.

Andric's writing has a clarity and a fullness rarely found in historical works, even while writing himself on every page. In a cultural history of a nation whose largest population today is Islamic, all things Islamic are either ignored or treated as foreign. For Andric, Bosnian culture is Christian - whether Orthodox, Catholic, or Patarin - and western. For Andric, each component of Bosnian culture, whether his own Catholicism, the mostly forgotten Patarins, or the puzzling Orthodox, are rivalrous but awkward siblings, tied with each other even while they struggle. The Islamic element is an unrelated intruder. This one of the clearest explications of confusion I have read.

Despite Andric's close embrace of the Christian tradition, he continually focuses on the influence of the Islamic religion and Ottoman state through the repression and isolation of the Christian and western in Bosnia. He also incorporates a short discussion of Bosnian language poetry written in the Arabic alphabet, though quickly discusses any expression by Bosnians in Turkish, Persian or Arabic, the dominant cultural languages of the Ottoman empire. Andric's academic analysis of the way the divisions and conflicts between the Catholic and Patarin religions weakened Bosnia and eased the way for the Turkish invasion lays out many of the themes that would later dominate his narratives. His analysis is filled with little moments of recognition, primed and just waiting to carry the weight of a fuller story. Written in the language of the academy, Andric's prose openly displays both sides of the patriotism/chauvanism coin that so haunts both Bosnia and Andric's literature.

Even as Andric chronicles the tragical history of passions in his homeland, he adds his own passion to the mix, almost self-consciously choosing to extend the tragedy while hoping he will not. For a writer who often seems to stand above the fray, this book is a revealing and edifying peek into both his tradition and his soul - two things which may really be one. ( )