By Milorad Pavic.
Begun 26 Oct 2006; finished 08 Nov.
The subtitle of this book is A Lexicon Novel in 100,000 Words - A Dictionary of the Dictionaries on the Khazar Question. Apart from being written in a encyclopedic format, it is actually split into three “mini-dictionaries” or -books; each have unique topic-entries, and some topics span all three mini-books, which each book has its own explanation of. And there are two versions of the Dictionary, a male and a female, purportedly identical except for one key passage.
I read the male version about 3 years ago, cover-to-cover as a novel; this time I read the female version as I would an encyclopaedia, skipping around the entries following the cross-references across all mini-books. I must say, it made a lot more sense to read it this way than as a novel — I was reading the common entries together before they faded from memory, and the connections between the three sub-books became very obvious. So if you end up reading this, I highly recommend reading it as an encyclopedia, not as a novel.
Briefly: the Dictionary is about the Khazar civilization that dwelt in Central Asia in the 8-9th century. Read the rest of this entry »