The Forty Days of Musa Dagh - Franz Werfel

First published in 1933, 817 pages, originally written in German.
On the back cover of this book, it is written that this book is a masterpiece. I see this title refers to too many books, but in this case, I totally agree.
Gabriel Bagradian was born to a rich Armenian family in the village Yoghunoluk in the Ottoman Empire, near the mountain Musa Dagh (“mount of Moses”), but he moved to Paris, and lived there with his French wife and son. He served the army as an officer, but he enjoys living the life of a care-free intellectual. After his brother’s death he comes back to the family’s house in the Armenian village with his wife and son. But it turned out it was a very bad timing. It is during the World War I, and the Ottomans decided to deport the Armenians from their villages, claiming they are not loyal and pose a danger on the Ottoman Empire during the war. The Armenians are supposed to be moved to a new location in the eastern deserts, but most of them die on the long way there, walking by foot all day long, with hardly any food.
When information starts to reach the villages near the mountain, the villagers decide to go up the mountain and besieged there. They know they don’t have much chance against the Turkish army, but at least if they die, as would probably happen, they will die a quick death as free men, instead of slow death of starvation and exhaustion.
The story is fictional but it is based on true events. If it were a fictional story written at a later time, I would think it got inspired by the Jewish Holocaust in Europe, and the story of Massada. It was horrifying to read descriptions so familiar from witnesses of the events that took place just a few years after the book was published.
The story could have lapsed into the cliché of good against evil, heroes against cowards. But it doesn’t, and that’s the greatness of the story. It tells about ordinary people caught in a terrible time. Some of them are brave, some are not, some are generous and good-hearted and some are cruel, some petty and some can think of the big picture, and they all exist on all sides. The characters can change, behave one way at one moment, and another way other moment. It shows very well with the character of Juliette, Gabriel’s wife, a French woman from Paris who finds herself in the middle of this turmoil. The story shows her coping with these extreme circumstances in a very real and touching way.
The story also shows how people’s behavior change when torn from their natural surroundings to an isolated unnatural location and situation, how true nature of people comes out, what the change of game rules does to different people. In this aspect it reminded me of another book, “Lord of the Flies” by William Golding. This book does not necessary says that all the bad sides of human nature comes out at these circumstances. But certainly everyone are tested, characteristics that were hidden under society rules can now come out on one hand, and talents that weren’t necessary before can be found on the other hand, but the drastic change that this situation forces on people is sometimes hard to accept.
It is not an easy read, and it took me a while to read. But it is well worth it. I found the book very touching at times and it even made me cry at some of them. There are so many clever insights along the book, about being different, about identity, about being a minority, about cooperation with evil or trying to fight it. Too bad history is bound to repeat itself.