Novel
The Wailing Mountain
Lelejska gora
Mihailo Lalić · 1957
Synopsis
In Montenegro, in 1942, when the partisan units have withdrawn towards Bosnia, a small group stays behind in a country held by the Italians and the Chetniks. Lado Tajović, one of their leaders, is hunted there like a wild animal. He looks for his comrade Niko Doselić, who has separated from the group and ended up surrendering, and suspects a certain Masnik of having betrayed him. Isolated, betrayed, Lado changes his appearance and way of life, until he finds himself facing the sole question of existing.
Context
Published in 1957, the novel was taken up again by its author, who gave in 1962 a fuller, reworked version. The Croatian Encyclopaedia sees in it the moment when the writer abandons his earlier manner and enriches the documentary material with hallucinatory tones. His obituary describes it as the odyssey of a hunted partisan leader, stripped of everything that civilisation had imposed on him and delivered over to bare existence. It was translated into English under the title The Wailing Mountain.
Who it is for
A novel of solitude and doubling, almost entirely within the consciousness of its hero; it demands patience.
Prizes and reception
It earned Lalić the first Njegoš Prize, and critics regard it as the best of his books.
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