SOURCE: Eder, Richard. “A Tomb of One's Own.” Los Angeles Times Book Review (28 April 1996): 2.

In the following review of The Pyramid, Eder contends that “Kadare is a supreme fictional interpreter of the psychology and physiognomy of oppression.”

When he became Egypt's pharaoh 4,600 years ago, Cheops hinted to his scandalized courtiers that he, unlike his predecessors, might not build a pyramid. It is the opening irony in Ismail Kadare's mordant political parable (Cheops' Great Pyramid is 480 feet high and covers 12 acres). Only the opening one, though.

The Pyramid is an iron mille-feuille: multilayered, finely honed and lethal. Advance from Page 1 to Page 16, for example. Cheops having been persuaded to change his mind, his architects are in a storm of agonizing calculations. Nothing so huge has ever been built and every proposed variant implies an entire refiguring. Outside the palace there has not been a word spoken nor a shovelful...