Standing Again by Dhimitër Xhuvani: How to stand up when life puts you down?

This is going to be the review of a book that unfortunately can only be found in the original language, Albanian. In my opinion, many of the excellent works of Albanian authors of the previous century have been left, forgotten, untranslated and isolated. One of the reasons, at least from my perspective, is the heavy socio-realism background, forced into these books by the communist regime of the dictator Enver Hoxha.

I read Standing Again (“Përsëri në këmbë”) during my junior high school days, probably in seventh grade. It was one of those summers, when I used to live with my grandparents, who needed someone to help them in daily chores. They didn’t have a TV, so I spent my free time buried into the magical worlds of books (not necessarily age appropriate). Standing Again, was one of my favorites.

The main character, Din Hyka, ends up losing both of his legs (knees down, if I remember correctly) in a freak train accident. What follows for the young man is a dark time of deep depression, suicidal thoughts, refusal to leave the bed and rather, just waiting to die. I think the author does a great job depicting the heavy mood, the mental battlefield, the scary darkness, I could feel it taking over my room.

Living in a third world country, with little advances in modern medicine, he has very little space to work with. He probably could get a wheelchair, but even that he refuses. Initially, he avoids meeting people, eats only when forced by extreme biological needs and spirals down into desperation.

However, in a twist of mind, he takes a deep look into himself. Being a skilled engineer, a vision of building his own wooden prosthetic legs appears. He goes to work. Imagine the fine tuning that goes into making individualized artificial legs and add to that the lack of proper materials and professional help.  Dino goes day after day, practicing, standing, moving slowly. Exuberating mental and physical pain jumps at you from the pages of the book. Dino succeeds into getting to move, although very limited, particularly in speed.

He finds new meaning in life, opening a used engineering parts shop. He collects everything he can find, cleans parts up, repairing them, sorting them out properly. In a triumphant moment, he becomes the nation’s hero when a national factory falls out of function due to a technical problem that no one seems to be able to put their finger too. Dino, the passionate young engineer, comes up with the solution. He figures out the problem, has the spare parts needed and puts the factory right back to work. Standing up has meanings that echo beyond the life of an individual.

To conclude, Dhimitër Xhuvani does a masterful depiction of the mental battlefield that Dino goes through, mostly by using an inner monologue style, with a very simple, direct language. He implies the importance of taking one step at a time (in Dino’s case, literally) and doing the best one can, in the position he is put on. I think these are some curing step that apply to todays’ man as well./*54745756836*/