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by Suzanne Buchert
The
Bastard of Istanbul
“Whatever falls from the sky above, thou shall not curse it. That includes the rain.” These are the first lines of a most provocative Turkish novel, The Bastard of Istanbul, written by Elif Shafak. The book received positive reviews and was selling well and then she was put on trial in Turkey for “denigrating Turkishness” for this book. “Denigrating Turkishness” is a charge bandied about in Turkey quite a bit lately, having been leveled most famously perhaps at Orhan Pamuk, recent winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature. For Shafak, exploration of the treatment of Armenians by the Ottoman Turks at the beginning of the last century was reason enough for a group of right wing Turkish lawyers to call for charges to be brought against her. The Armenians charge of Genocide is hotly denied by many in Turkey. The official position is that there was a conflict which is akin to the saying massacre at Wounded Knee in South Dakota was the “Battle” of Wounded Knee. I first learned of this book through an excerpt in Google News about an award won by the author. Although the book was written in English, it was first published in Turkish, so I asked my friend, whose husband is Turkish, if they had heard of Shafak or of the book. They were interested and promised to watch for more information.. So interested was the husband, he acquired the book in Turkish and then purchased another copy in English when that became available. I was on the list of interested readers and not wanting to hold up those who followed me, I turned to it immediately and began. I have been told that the translation of the title was a poor one and the Turkish word in the title that was translated as Bastard hasn’t quite the same connotation as the word used in the original title. I thought that the word was apropos of the storyline and prepared the reader for the narrative of the intertwined lives portrayed in the book. While this book has obvious appeal to international readers, the story should also interest readers in this country not just due to the intriguing title, but also because some of the main characters live in the U.S. while having family ties to Turkey. It seems that the more we can know of other cultures other than our own, the better we make our way in the world without repeating the blunders of the past. I have read a couple of books by the better known (to me) Turkish author Orhan Pamuk and found him to be a writer to watch for. Now I really found myself liking Shafak’s book a lot. I wanted to find out what was going to happen with the wildly disparate members of the “Bastard”, Aysa’s family, and I especially wanted to see where the connection between Aysa and the American-Armenian Armanoush would lead. It wasn’t only the hatred of the Armenians toward the Turks and the denial of responsibility by many Turks for what had occurred when the Armenians were driven from Turkey that brought their lives together. There was something mysterious in the past that would affect them both in a personal way. Well, you’ll have to read the book to find out for yourself what goes on. In taking a look at web information on the author, I found several of her books that look pretty promising. “Pinan the Sufi”, the story of a hermaphrodite mystic sounds like a good place to start. Or maybe “The Saint of Insipient Insanities” described as “a comic and heartbreaking story” will cross my path at the book store. Either way, I will definitely add her name to my list of “authors to watch”. I add a note of thanks to my friends for giving me a chance to go to the head of the line, so to speak, on having access to this book. I hope my views aren’t too distant from theirs. I am finding that I am reading way too fast for just one review a month and have a double stack of books waiting for their turn. I did have a couple of books which had been on my shelf for quite a while that didn’t measure up and I am going to throw them in now so I can get rid of them with a clear conscience. “Red Sorghum” by Mo Yan is a Chinese novel which was subsequently made into a film in China. I started it twice and found it to be unrelentingly brutal. Life snuffed out at random in horrible detail is not something I want to read about for 200+ pages. I also tried “The Charterhouse of Parma” by Stendhal and after over 100 pages of plodding along after an unlikable character decided that I had better things to read calling out to me and moved on. I still have twinges of guilt over not finishing any book I start, brought on no doubt by my years of assigned reading in school. However, I consider it a personal breakthrough (and without professional help) to be able to toss aside those books that are really not for me. They may be fine for others, and let them have a go at them. Just thought I would mention, I just found an interesting web site www.abebooks.com, which helps find obscure out of print books! I have been attempting to locate a book that accompanied a clothing exhibit from the Kyoto Museum called “Japonism in Fashion”. This is the type of book purchased by a very select group of people to add to their collection of similar books and won’t be available until the owner is no longer holding the collection. Every so often I check Powell’s, Barnes and Noble, etc. and when I googled the title this time a book came up. I found a soft cover copy for the modest price of $85, got the go-ahead from daughter # 1, the costumer, and ordered that and a couple of others I had been looking out for over the last couple of years. And, I have been advanced a copy of “The Flea Palace” by Elif Shafak and I’m working on that. Keep reading!
Suzanne Buchert and her husband, Keith, own several restaurants.
sbuchert@hotmail.com
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