There were some well-written parts and phrases ("he felt the last circle of life draw in around him") but a lot of it felt allegorical almost to the point of Animal Farm, eg the scene with Maria, the bureaucratic army scenes etc unfolded pretty much how I expected from the beginning of the scene.

Drogo is flat and uninspiring in much of the middle of the book- but in the last few chapters he recovers some of his dignity (in his attempt to assert his agency, and his death). I liked how this was reflected in the form of the novel, which started with him as the focal character, then fell away from him in the middle to take a broad view of all the fort's inhabitants, then zoomed in on him again towards the end.

I've been thinking about Angustina and I feel like the foiling between him and Drogo shapes my understanding of the novel. While Drogo's passiveness leads him to accept his fate despite how he grows frustrated about it, Angustina is selectively passive - and even that passivity is a form of assertion. I'm thinking of that scene in which when they're climbing up the mountains, the officers repeatedly point out how unsuitable Angustina's boots are, but he barely replies to them at all. Sure he's passive, but in his passiveness he is asserting himself and what he likes. Same thing with his earlier determination to stay at the fort when the rest of his comrades depart. Significantly, unlike Drogo et al who just suck it (no matter how much they complain about it), Angustina is willing to be active when he feels it's important - eg disobeying his superior to play cards and spite the northerners. Imo the most important non-Drogo character.

Therefore how he gets a beautiful death (even mythicised with the fairy dream, in which he floats off to heaven while smirking with his typical passive-assertive attitude) that is "true to himself, and with great style indeed", in contrast to Drogo's bleak death, makes sense. Yes the ending on first glance does not seem bleak - he stands in uniform, he "smiles" even - the image of the uniform echoing the idea of a stylish death true to yourself, since he has been a military man his entire life. But the meaninglessness military life has been associated with through the novel (for the reader, but not in Drogo's mind) suggests that this peace is something he has constructed for himself. And although he imagines a mysterious "she" who has come to watch him die, "there is no one to see him", as the novel's last sentence (now back to omniscient perspective) tells us. Hence a gap between protagonist and outside reader - even in a meaningless existence one can construct one's own meaning, but from the outside this meaning is delusional. If we take the existentialist conclusion that all existence is meaningless, then this implies that all our construction is delusional too. The only way out is to dgaf about the outside reader - Drogo is always riddled by doubt about his own path and jealousy over his peers, but Angustina is secure in his own path and goes down it even though it pisses off his superiors. So he never questions the meaning he has constructed for himself, and is therefore content in dying.

My lingering question is who the "she" who comes with "silent step" in the last paragraph is or represents. Maria? His mother? Death? Angustina who is the dream is described as wearing a "dress"?