Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer :: Alkibiades

Award-winning, lauded, widely read and praised: without exaggeration La Superba and Grand Hotel Europe, the two previous major novels by Dutch author Ilja Leonard Pfeijffer, are considered among the best literature of the past decade. In both books the writer performs himself, meandering through the streets of a continent that lives on largely faded glory. That should be clear Alkibiades, Pfeijffer’s most recent publication, explores a completely different register as a historical novel. Although the predicate ‘masterpiece’ is also appropriate here.

Does Pfeijffer escape from the current social debate by turning to the genre of the historical novel? He encapsulates himself for the themes that touch the world today, in order to shelter himself in the seclusion of the Greek heyday from the latent duty for an artist in the year 21^ste century to make his or her work resonate with contemporary issues? By no means! although Alkibiades Set around the fifth century before the beginning of our era, it is a book that focuses on themes that could hardly be more relevant in times when autocrats and despots are democratically elected: the operation of power, the volatile dynamics that affect “the will.” of the people” continues, rhetoric as a political instrument.

Throughout his unusual and much-discussed life, the historical Alkibiades changed owners several times to save his life. Although the lines of force in the Peloponnesian War, in which Athens faced Sparta, seemed to allow little room for maneuver, this strategist successively sided with the Athenian, Spartan and Persian sides, ultimately rejoining the Athenians as the most loyal of all fighters. What prompted this multiple metamorphosis? Untempered hunger for expanding his sphere of influence, in short, your pure lust for power? Or did Alcibiades, even by turning away from Athens for a long time, serve the cause of democracy and therefore freedom?

Alkibiades himself claims the latter in an extensive autobiography in the form of a speech that he wrote as an exile before returning to his homeland. At least that is the approach of this book. There are no authentic sources that suggest the existence of such a document, in short Pfeijffer invented the entire concept, although he packed this fictitious biography with excellently documented facts. On the basis of the truth he, as it were, puts together a psychology, a state of mind of which it will never be possible to determine whether it affects who Alcibiades really was and what he essentially aimed to achieve.

Does this make the novel seem to be floating around in historically accurate waters quite casually? Certainly not, and this is because by choosing Alkibiades as narrator, Pfeijffer generates a manifestly subjective perspective on historical reality. This cunning politician, from whom the reader discovers the historical reality, writes an apology with a very clear motive, namely to regain the favor of the Athenian people (who had apostatized him). Under the guise of definitively unveiling the unshakable reality, the reader realizes that Alcibiades’ voice speaks with a clear purpose in mind. If he targets demagogues, totalitarian regimes and aristocratic takeovers, is he himself blameless, this chameleon who is said to have deceived everything and everyone, supposedly for the greater honor and glory of Athens?

In some more reflective passages, Pfeijffer meditates on how democracy is being eroded by rogue figures who turn the people against the elite for personal gain. Rarely does the fifth century BC come so close to today’s era… However, these philosophically tinted passages serve mainly as interludes in a novel that is strongly narratively driven and holds the reader’s attention for almost 800 pages with blood-curdling thriller allure – that’s how damn well this book is written. After all, anyone who does not know Alcibiades’s life will have worked hard to find out the outcome until the last pages.

What is particularly impressive is that Pfeijffer does not use modern stylistic devices, but on the contrary uses an archaic, authentic-looking narrative style, based on an idiom that refers directly to ancient texts. In terms of narrative rhythm it is a child of our time, but in terms of imagery and location it is indebted to the cradle of literature as we know it today: with Alkibiades Pfeijffer seemingly effortlessly draws a line from the past to the present.

Insofar as Pfeijffer still had anything to prove, with this novel he not only lived up to, but outright surpassed everything one could expect from him: Alkibiades tells about today using old tools and about the past with contemporary panache. A hell of a novel? Rather call it a literary monument.