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Masumiyet Müzesi
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1.       Abla
3648 posts
 14 Jul 2012 Sat 02:35 pm

 

I have a habit of keeping a book diary, writing a few words about every novel that I have read. This time I could maybe write here.

 

 

Masumiyet müzesi has been translated into Finnish by Tuula Kojo who is one of the trusted translators of Orhan Pamuk. The novel has been on my as-soon-as-possible list for a long time but the news in April actually made me open the 700-page book: Pamuk had opened Museum of Innocence in Istanbul. What kind of a novel needs a museum?

 

Orhan Pamuk was not a new acquaintance for me but with Mazumiyet müzesi he stepped into the area of literature that touches me the most: psychological realism which doesn’t ignore our social dimension. On the surface Mazumiyet müzesi is a story of an obsessed love but it also lightens the connection between our inner life and real world objects. (I never really understood collectors until I read this novel.) At the same time it is a description of Istanbul and an era when Turkey was looking for its future direction.

 

You seldom find such sensitivity in a novel. Pamuk opens his leading character’s mind like a surgeon, yet respecting his uniqueness, his right to feel like he feels. His descriptions of a man’s mind are so sharp and painful the reader finds herself examining her own mind the same way. In this he reminds me of the British Ian McEwan who has been on my favourites’ list for a long time.

 

The story is actually simple: Kemal, a rich heir and a businessman, falls in love with his distant relative, the 18-year-old Füsun. Even though he can’t make decisions when they are due this love devastates his life so that he abandons his fiancée and dedicates his life on seeking Füsun’s proximity, admiring everything that she has touched, no matter if it was a cigarette end or a china dog over her television set. Kemal collects everything that has to do with his sweetheart and finally ends up with an apartment full of consolation and memories, the museum of innocence.

 

Istanbul Museum of Innocence has a beautiful website:

 

http://www.masumiyetmuzesi.org/W3/Default.htm?sRefresh=True

 

If I had a chance to visit the museum I would look for the spirit of the novel, the atmosphere of Füsun’s modest home, the memory of one lost youth. Museum of Innocence has gained a lot of attention all over the world. It is an act of culture, a great attempt to bring the acchievement of literary art into another level of human experience.

 



Edited (7/14/2012) by Abla

Donkeyoaty, elenagabriela and gokuyum liked this message
2.       Abla
3648 posts
 10 Oct 2013 Thu 04:08 pm

Some thoughts after my visit to the Museum of Innocence at Galatasaray on October 8th.

 

I am one of those people who never collect anything. That is why the idea of gathering keepsakes or souvenirs was somewhat strange to me until I read Orhan Pamuk’s novel. The charming museum tells the same love story in an elegant way, and I cannot help seeing it as a part of this piece of art. Like another version or another voice.

 

 

The exhibition consists of small compositions each representing a passage of the book  -  and of an era of history at the same time. Those especially touching for me were

 

AŞK ACIMI YATIŞTIRACAK KÜÇÜK BİR UMUT İÇİN ‘to entertain a small hope that might allay my heartache’ with small pictures and items which during the time the lovers were separated helped Kemal not to lose his hope. What was in the middle of it? Horoscopes, of course!

 

ONA EVLENME TEKLİF EDECEKTİM ‘I was going to ask her to marry me’ with an old mirror and a basin with half-used beauty products on it.

 

KALKIP GİDEMEMEK ‘on being unable to stand up and leave’, a collection of things that Kemal used as an excuse not to leave Füsun’s house even if it was late.

 

BAZAN ‘sometimes’, tiny memories of coincidences which took place during the evenings Kemal spent with Füsun’s family. For eight whole years.

 

KÖPEKLER ‘the dogs’, a case full of cheap porcelain dogs  -  Kemal regularly snitched the small decorative dogs from above the TV set and replaced them with new ones, and no one ever made a number of it.

 

 

A paragraph of the novel describing flow of time is quoted on the wall in one of the exhibition halls. Go see it and cry.

thehandsom and elenagabriela liked this message
3.       Kelowna
375 posts
 10 Oct 2013 Thu 05:21 pm

I will agree with you this book was written extremely well. So well that I had could not like Kemal at all throughout the whole book. He showed himself to be not only very weak and obsessive, but a bit of a sick stocker too. He ruined Fusun´s life. He followed her and played the older Uncle who basically gave her candy ( freedom from her parents by letting her use his secret flat ) She eventually did loved him and was enthanced with him to the point of them sleeping together. May I mention the typical Turkish dog he was engaged to a society girl at the time. He was much older and wiser than her and to me it seemed almost a pedofile/incest act the way he won her over. No wonder in the end she drove a car into a brick wall and ended her life. He interferred with her life and succeed to make sure she was as unhappy as he was. One would think he killed what he loved and who loved him, another  point of view he destroyed what he could not have.

Story evoked the typical Turkish accepted  lifestyle where a guy can screw around but a girl is tainted if she sleeps with a man who does not become her husband.

 

I too have read many of Orhan Pamuk books but I also like Elif Shafak, her books also give great detail to the lives of Turkish people in a different perspective. You can find them in Turkish or English. I am not sure how many other languages they have been translated into yet.



Edited (10/10/2013) by Kelowna
Edited (10/10/2013) by Kelowna

4.       Abla
3648 posts
 10 Oct 2013 Thu 06:33 pm

Quote: Kelowna

Story evoked the typical Turkish accepted  lifestyle where a guy can screw around but a girl is tainted if she sleeps with a man who does not become her husband.

I wonder how you succeed to stick to the surface while there are so much deeper meanings in this story.

 

In my opinion it was Kemal´s inner life that was described in such an impressive manner. You don´t have to love his action but you can try to understand it. One way to recognize great art is to ask whether it manages to challenge your previous opinions. There are no good guys and bad guys, there is both selfishness and sincerity in every human being, also in Kemal and Füsun.

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5.       Kelowna
375 posts
 10 Oct 2013 Thu 07:10 pm

 

Quoting Abla

 

I wonder how you succeed to stick to the surface while there are so much deeper meanings in this story.

 

In my opinion it was Kemal´s inner life that was described in such an impressive manner. You don´t have to love his action but you can try to understand it. One way to recognize great art is to ask whether it manages to challenge your previous opinions. There are no good guys and bad guys, there is both selfishness and sincerity in every human being, also in Kemal and Füsun.

 

" but it also lightens the connection between our inner life and real world objects. (I never really understood collectors until I read this novel.)"

did you know serial killers also keep a collection of something from the person they killed

 

I don´t disagree that Orhan Pamuk is a good writer. I just disagree with this book. It was extremely long and so detailed that I could feel my nose hair growing as I tried to  take in what he wrote in every page. I do like the style of writing but I am saying the subject itself was nothing noble and very typical of an acceptable way of life for the priveledge boys in Turkey to play before marriage and some even after marriage.

The surface showed him to be a whiney indecisive person who was not only selfish to ensure his needs were met ( attention ) he also showed another darker side to himself by getting the young beautiful girl while he was engaged to be married to someone else. If you remember at the time he was bored with his life and used the apartment to get away from family and friends.When she was so enthralled and in love with him - he threw her away. She spent a good  time alone and suffered and realised the only hope for some sort of happiness was to marry a good local man. Whom she did. And when she did guess who started to appear in her life again spending as much time as he could with her family. He befriended her husband and sent him off on a dream and a mission to become a movie maker using his rich family money to fuel his desire and dream and to leave Fusun alone again so he could again stalk her. He ensured their marriage was an unhappy one because of his constant involvement in it. Believe me his actions were not of love but of a spoiled sick man.

So his motives were considered selfish. In the end he lost his prize toy and was alone with only years of memories. Maybe his friends should of shown him some compassion and sent him to a therapist instead and stopped his foolishness. If he really loved her he would of walked away and let her have a somewhat happy life instead of continuing to follow her like some dog....... and pissing on everything she was trying to value.

 



Edited (10/10/2013) by Kelowna
Edited (10/10/2013) by Kelowna

6.       thehandsom
7403 posts
 10 Oct 2013 Thu 08:06 pm

 

Quoting Abla

 

I wonder how you succeed to stick to the surface while there are so much deeper meanings in this story.

 

In my opinion it was Kemal´s inner life that was described in such an impressive manner. You don´t have to love his action but you can try to understand it. One way to recognize great art is to ask whether it manages to challenge your previous opinions. There are no good guys and bad guys, there is both selfishness and sincerity in every human being, also in Kemal and Füsun.

 

You have to be a book critic

Apart from challenging the previous opinions, Kemal is the character of everything in that love. Orhan Pamuk manages to make an extra twist in his book about Kemal: You pity him the entire book, you think how pathetic he is with his love. But in the last chapter, in the past page, he slaps people on the face: He was a happy person. Happier than many of us.  

7.       Kelowna
375 posts
 10 Oct 2013 Thu 08:58 pm

more about this book on this link

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-sundaymagazine/a-shrine-for-a-love-story/article3413869.ece#

Orhan Pamuk inaugurated his Masumiyet Muzesi or The Museum of Innocence in Istanbul on April 28. The Museum is inspired by his eponymous novel, published in 2008, the story of star-crossed lovers in the Istanbul of the 1970s and 1980s when Turkey experienced great social and political turmoil and a military coup. Through it all the Turkish bourgeoisie lived its comfortable and often profligate life, a society marked by custom, tradition and social taboos.

In the novel Kemal, a rich Istanbul playboy falls desperately in love with his distant cousin Fusun, a shop girl. Marriage is out of the question; the social gap is too wide. And Fusun has been tainted in that she has surrendered her virginity to Kemal knowing fully well he will never marry her.

Orhan Pamuk describes how Kemal collects his lover´s belongings and sets them up in his museum. It is a book about memory, lost, desperate love, obsession. But it also deals with the submission of women and the suppression of their social and political ambitions. The objects on display give the viewer a slice of Istanbul life and society during those turbulent times. The Museum is housed in Cukurcuma Street, in a tall, narrow building built in 1897.

Is The Museum of Innocence your most Proustian novel?

Black Book is also Proustian and in that sense I am also proud of The Black Book too. Perhaps it is Proustian. There is a lot about remembering. But compared to Proust I have a greater desire for painting social panoramas. If Proust is only about the Parisian aristocracy, I look at a bigger canvas. My hero Kemal is from the upper class but my Fusun is from the lower class and I always want to see the whole picture.

But so far as the joys of remembering goes, the Museum is more Proustian because the events take place from the mid 1970s to the late 1980s. I am more of less the same age as my characters so I don´t feel it is a historical novel. So it´s not too nostalgic or too Proustian — it is essentially a love story — it chronicles the story of an upper class Istanbul rich guy and his twice removed cousin, a shop girl.

Also it does not treat love as a sugary thing, does not put it on a pedestal but  looks at it as something that happens to us — just like traffic accidents  — a very humane thing. In that sense the novel explores what we do when we fall in love without sugarising it with the melodramatic tones of the pop songs of sitcoms although it does have a melodramatic Turkish, Hollywoodian-Bollywoodian end.

  One thing that struck me hugely: Kemal does not understand why he has fallen in love with this woman. He is not just obsessed but truly, deeply in love and he feels physical pain as a result. How did you feel when you were writing this?

An ordinary reader would pity poor Kemal because he is suffering so much, especially towards the end. But in the beginning he is such an egoist and his love for Fusun is an excuse to suppress her; a very typical thing, actually, for the non-Western world where the more a man loves a woman the more he wants to suppress her and to possess her. The novel is a novel of love but it also explores love in a society where men and women do not come together very easily, where sex outside of marriage is problematical and there is very little space for negotiation for the lovers. And this is not an unusual thing. I sometimes think, the world is seven billion people but just one billion of them meet before marriage. For the rest, it is arranged marriages.

For an Indian reader, this book speaks volumes and you have captured here in such voluminous and sometimes excruciating detail, what no Indian writer has been able to do equally successfully: hold up a mirror to our own society as much as to yours because in many ways how Indian society looks at women is very similar. You might be very upper class and yet the whole virginity issue is central to marriage as is the class and in India, the caste issue.

The upper classes of most of the non-western world legitimise their power and wealth saying to their people “Oh, we aren´t like you. We are westernised and European and we are civilised because we have Western education and we wear western clothes.”

But then faced with criticism from Europe over human rights or free speech they say “Oh but we are not like you because we are Indian or Chinese, we have old traditions, different measurements and our culture is different. We are ancient civilisations so our societies have to be seen and measured differently.”

The bourgeoisies in emerging countries say that the centre of the world is shifting and that is true. But then if that is the case these societies should no longer blame the west for their troubles. If the centre is shifting there should be new ground for us to criticise our culture, institutions, governments in a rational way without falling into the trap of Orientalism.

But if the centre is shifting, there is what we have received from the Enlightenment, in terms of values or a broad framework within which society should evolve: The whole notion of the individual at the centre of society. But at the same time society is conscious of justice for all education, emancipation etc. Should that also then not shift to the emerging countries?

Of course, provided what we call the values of the Enlightenment are the values of all humanity. We should defend our local cultures but also embrace values such as free speech, democracy, feminism, respect for minorities. And in that sense the Museum of Innocence is as feminist as a man in Turkey can be! So many of the details in the book are from my experience of Turkey of the late 1970s to the mid 1980s — a woman driving a car is a sign of modernity but also for the woman a sign of freedom — even though she may be driving her father´s or husband´s car! But when women drove cars they were jeered at or ogled in the streets by men. My mother did that and she felt abused and angry and she was upset with all the “moustachioed men”, she said, who were rude to her. I have transposed my mother´s experiences to Fusun who takes driving lessons and feels insulted by the derisive and condescending attitude of the instructor. All that speaks of a society´s attitude to women.

The way Kemal and also Fusun´s husband manipulates her desire to become a movie star is also a reflection of that. When modernity emerges men desire women who are successful and who have a social place in the world but once this success becomes more than expected, then all these anxieties and insecurities emerge in the men.  Their reaction to Fusun is to get close to her and soon as that happens, they wish to control her.

Tell me about the actual physical Museum; the writing of the book and the simultaneous idea of the Museum. I think you had the title first, you started with that and then you went about buying the building, is that right?

It is an architectural building in whose attic Kemal spent the last years of his life. It´s not as if I wrote a successful novel and then said let me turn it into a museum. No, I conceived, thought of, imagined both the novel and the museum together. I began thinking of this novel in the mid 1990s, when I said to myself, I´ll buy a house and imagine a family living there and then chronicle their stories, their daily lives from the kitchen to their street lives, what they do or say and how they live; how they make money, the tempo and tenor of their lives — how they talk, think when they watch TV or listen to the radio.

So I thought I would collect the objects of their ordinary lives and weave these into my story and also write about the making of the museum within the novel. I don´t know why I did this. A bit ambitious you could say… a djinn entered … but art and literature is like that. You follow your own impulses and I followed my inner footsteps. Of course I also wanted to be a painter at the beginning of my career and a part of that early ambition also crept into the making of this Museum.

Which of the objects you have described have particular significance? Did you use objects to convey particular details about Turkey that are part of the subterranean atmosphere of the book but are not immediately apparent?

Yes. Take the example of the quince grater. I was writing about the 1980 coup in Turkey and although it does not directly affect the lives of my characters, it is certainly there in the background. The question was how to express this repression, this feeling of oppression, which even the upper class bourgeoisie feels when faced with the brutality of the army. I found I could convey that through this object, an ordinary household quince grater.

Kemal has taken to pilfering objects from Fusun´s house; anything she has touched or handled gives him relief. He has just stolen the quince grater and he is on his way home in his car driven by his faithful chauffeur. He has stayed out beyond curfew hours and is racing back home when he is stopped. And every one in Turkey knows that in the middle of the night the army stops you, searches you and you feel guilty even if you are completely innocent. You have to be nice to them, please them and that is what my character Kemal — a lovelorn, rather confused character — faces. So the coup enters into the narrative obliquely, almost sideways through anodyne, ordinary things.

And so you kept on adding to the collection as you continued to write the book?

Yes but I also kept on buying objects thinking these would take the story this way or that. But that did not happen and the objects are in the Museum but not in the story. At other times I liked some objects so much that I made the story go there. For instance downstairs there is a photograph of Kemal´s father with his military friends having a picnic and drinking and smoking on the grass.

First I found the photograph, then I wove these young men into the novel. But you do not necessarily notice that. Because I realised, as I was making this museum and writing the novel, that when we read a book there are so many hundreds, thousands, of details in a book and those details begin to fade away from our minds. What are left are emotions and strong impressions.

So when people first visit the museum they exclaim over objects: ‘Oh, Kemal´s this or Fusun´s that…” but after a while they drop that and they pay more attention to the atmosphere. This is very similar to reading and remembering novels. After the first 100 pages or so we remember less of the details but more of the sensations. In a way this museum is not an illustration of the story but the illustration of those sensations.

I see that in the Museum you have the invitation card for Kemal and Fusun´s engagement party or the letters from Kemal´s company Sat Sat or the bottles of Meltem fruit drinks. Did you have these objects specially made?

Of course. And we specially printed movie tickets, restaurant menus but we also found other restaurant menus of that era and we mean to continue to collect and archive this kind of ephemera. We used a lot of what Marcel Duchamp called “readymades”. Something that was really used in the quotidian and which in the book you can identify with one or other character. There were times like some brands or objects, which the novel mentions and which actually do not exist.

In order to produce them I went to artists and worked with them. Meltem soda, for instance, did not exist. But other fruit sodas did. In 1966 Coca-Cola entered the Turkish market and this also produced a series of Turkish-made sodas and I remember in those days most of the advertising for such products was done by European models. Now of course almost 90 per cent of the advertising uses Turkish models.

Coming to your heroine Fusun, she has a kind of utter, shimmering beauty. We know she has long legs and a slim waist but we do not know what she really looks like …

The mystery of Fusun is in her silence. In the end the book asks the question: was it a suicide or an accident? Or was it that she had no talent for driving and it was just a car accident or did the accident happen because she wanted to be in films and was imitating Grace Kelly in “To Catch a Thief” and stuck her elbow too far out of the window? So, for me, Fusun is a means to see our whole culture. Her inner life, her anger, her silence is important for me.

This is also enhanced by my attempt to write about sophisticated way of communication between lovers — not through words but through looks, through gestures, through signs and symbols and it was hard for me to do that.

The atmosphere of the book is not that of lovers negotiating their love in a democratic way. It is the more powerful Kemal, her family and her husband on one side who are curtailing that dialogue while towards the end of the book she herself begins to emerge.

Fusun´s anger is due to the fact that she can never confront the man who very subtly in a manipulative manner has suppressed her.  He promises her things and then those things are not realised. He wants her to be famous but then he is afraid of what happens if she becomes too famous.

On the other hand her way to success also can be only through the energy and success of that man. 

Indelible imprints

It´s a sunny day in Istanbul and a mild breeze gently ruffles the leaves in Istiklal Square. I make my way cautiously down the steep uneven road that leads to Orhan Pamuk´s Museum of Innocence. Masumiyat Musezi. It´s the same word in Urdu, Persian and Turkish. “Masumiyet? You mean the same word exists in India too? How wonderful,” Pamuk exclaims.

The 1897 building occupies the intersection of Cukurcuma Avenue and Dalgic Street. It has two entrances, one giving out on the avenue, the other on the tiny street that branches off it. The number on the Cukurcuma side is 24. But in Dalgic Street it is 2. 

There is an error in the book. Fusun writes to Kemal inviting him for dinner at the address Dalgic Street 24. Pamuk has obviously mixed up the two street numbers. I point it out to him as we sit chatting in the attic of the narrow, three-storeyed building painted a dull crimson. “How could that happen? It´s a mistake. Is it really that way in the English version? I must check that out,” he says visibly flustered. “No one seems to have noticed it before.”

The building is gawky, top heavy with a narrow trunk that supports overhanging balconies and picture windows. “When Pamuk bought the building, this area of town was so run down, there were drunken street fights here every night. The area has become slightly more upmarket. But, in the rains, it is dreadful because the water comes rushing downhill and we can get flooded within minutes. It´s not a particularly beautiful part of the city. Modest families. There were many speakeasies here before, flea markets and junk shops. This place has been cleaned up considerably and many foreigners, mainly French, live here,” says Zain, owner of the corner antique store.

The museum is laid out in chapters – and contains 83 vitrines – one for each chapter that follow the progression of the book. Fusun´s yellow stiletto and her flowery print dress occupy pride of place as does a large wall display of the 4,213 stubs; the cigarette she is supposed to have smoked and which her lover, Kemal, assiduously squirrels away.

The top floor attic, a tiny space letting in some lovely morning light, is taken up by the bed where Kemal sleeps during the last days of his life, his suitcase and the red tricycle both he and Fusun rode as children in years of bygone innocence. This floor also houses Pamuk´s handwritten manuscripts with his bold, almost florid, hand leaving an indelible imprint not just on the page but also on the inner eye. The wooden vitrines are beautifully arranged with bibelots, glass objects, jewellery, snapshots, paintings, trinkets, cinema tickets, restaurant menus (both fake and real) giving a vivid picture of Istanbul. The Museum of Innocence is an ode to Pamuk´s love for his city.

8.       alameda
3499 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 03:36 am

I don´t think the objective of the book is to make Kemal a hero, or anyone to admire. I too have read just about all of Pamuk´s books, and I have very much enjoyed reading them. Is he a great writer or not? I don´t know, I just find them good reads. 

Quoting Kelowna

I will agree with you this book was written extremely well. So well that I had could not like Kemal at all throughout the whole book. He showed himself to be not only very weak and obsessive, but a bit of a sick stocker too. He ruined Fusun´s life. He followed her and played the older Uncle who basically gave her candy ( freedom from her parents by letting her use his secret flat ) She eventually did loved him and was enthanced with him to the point of them sleeping together. May I mention the typical Turkish dog he was engaged to a society girl at the time. He was much older and wiser than her and to me it seemed almost a pedofile/incest act the way he won her over. No wonder in the end she drove a car into a brick wall and ended her life. He interferred with her life and succeed to make sure she was as unhappy as he was. One would think he killed what he loved and who loved him, another  point of view he destroyed what he could not have.

Story evoked the typical Turkish accepted  lifestyle where a guy can screw around but a girl is tainted if she sleeps with a man who does not become her husband.

 

I too have read many of Orhan Pamuk books but I also like Elif Shafak, her books also give great detail to the lives of Turkish people in a different perspective. You can find them in Turkish or English. I am not sure how many other languages they have been translated into yet.

 

 

9.       elenagabriela
2040 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 09:21 am

Reading the books of Orhan Pamuk I felt myself somewhere in the middle between real, fantastic and mystic; page after page I felt the soul of one town, I felt its rythm; I loved, hated and dreamt with characters; I was in the middle of history...I dont think Orhan Pamuk wanted us to agree with his books, to love his characters; he just expressed his inner world, shared it with us and I think is  fantastic; with every books I discover new qualities of his papers (and I regret still I cant read with full of understanding his books in Turkish....ama gün gelir...)

10.       MarioninTurkey
6124 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 12:05 pm

 

Quoting Kelowna

I too have read many of Orhan Pamuk books but I also like Elif Shafak, her books also give great detail to the lives of Turkish people in a different perspective. You can find them in Turkish or English. I am not sure how many other languages they have been translated into yet.

 

 I´m with you -- I far prefer Elif Şafak to Orhan Pamuk. Better still is Ahmet Ümit ...

11.       MarioninTurkey
6124 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 12:06 pm

 

Quoting thehandsom

 

 

You have to be a book critic

 

 No, that´s me. Do you read mine every week in Sunday´s Zaman??  They´re on the arts and culture page.

 

 

12.       elenagabriela
2040 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 12:11 pm

 

Quoting MarioninTurkey

 

 

 I´m with you -- I far prefer Elif Şafak to Orhan Pamuk. Better still is Ahmet Ümit ...

 

what about Ayşe Kulin - I discovered her books 2 years ago and I love them - even if I read them in turkish (with dictionary`s help sometimes)

13.       MarioninTurkey
6124 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 02:03 pm

 

Quoting elenagabriela

 

 

what about Ayşe Kulin - I discovered her books 2 years ago and I love them - even if I read them in turkish (with dictionary`s help sometimes)

 

 Yes, also Selçuk Altan. But they tend to be a bit hit and miss, compared with Elif Şafak who, with Aşk (Forty Rules of Love) and İskender (Honour) has really found her voice.

 

14.       thehandsom
7403 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 05:23 pm

I completely disagree with you about Elif Safak Orhan Pamuk comparison. Orhan Pamuk has more subtance and the stories are very well crafted. Simply because Orhan Pamuk is a hard worker. He spends huge amount of time crafting his novels. He said that he spent 10 years with masumiyet muzesi. He even had to research about history of museums to have a better knowledge about them. 

Elif Safak spent only 6 months with Iskender. I think she was much much better in Pinhan and Bastard of Istanbul. Infact, Pinhan was the best for me.

 



Edited (10/11/2013) by thehandsom
Edited (10/11/2013) by thehandsom

15.       Kelowna
375 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 06:30 pm

 

Quoting thehandsom

I completely disagree with you about Elif Safak Orhan Pamuk comparision. Orhan Pamuk has more subtance and the story is very well crafted, Simply because Orhan Pamuk is a hard worker. He spends huge amount of time crafting his novels. He said that he spent 10 years with masumiyet muzesi. He even had to research about history of museums to have a better knowledge about them. 

Elif Safak spent only 6 months with Iskender. I think she was much much better in Pinhan and Bastard of Istanbul. Infact, Pinhan was the best for me.

 

A good writer is a talented gift and it  is not always necessary to spend 10 years on research. Nor is it someone who  has studied writing or literature. I happen to like Elif Shafak and suggest you  to read a few of her other books - The Flea Palace was a a great book about an old apartment building in Istanbul - it gave both the strength and weakness of each family/person who lived in the building.

The forty Rules of Love that combined  Rumi was another heart touching and thought evoking book.

Honour is her latest book which is being delivered to me ( hopefully today ) I will let you know about that one when I have read it.

The Bastard of Istanbul was another great book which brought  attention to Armenian history in Istanbul on top of other delicate subjects like incest again

Every writer has their own rhythm style. Her writing is active you are moving about as if it was part of your own day whereas with Pamuk you will begin to resent what you read because it is full of air................ long winded like a fart {#emotions_dlg.puking}. I am not saying he does not appeal to me as a writer I have read his other books . Just that particular book was horrible, over written and long winded.

 

 



Edited (10/11/2013) by Kelowna

Adam25 liked this message
16.       thehandsom
7403 posts
 11 Oct 2013 Fri 11:59 pm

Lol

I dont want to speculate how hallow Orhan Pamuk is.  Obviously he is a hollow as all other nobel winners like Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hamingway etc..

I think Elif Safak should read more in my opinion and should spend more time with crafting the story. She seems like she HAS TO write a new book every 6 months!! The latest book I have read from her was Iskender and the plot seemed very obvious in the middle of the book!! I bet it was the same for many Turks. Because she did not spend enough time researching about the topic she is writing about, the life of a young man-Iskender- in London was quite superficial and almost imaginary. 

I think she is quite good at writing about religious and mystical part of our ´past culture´!!

17.       Kelowna
375 posts
 12 Oct 2013 Sat 05:44 pm

 

Quoting thehandsom

I think Elif Safak should read more in my opinion and should spend more time with crafting the story. She seems like she HAS TO write a new book every 6 months!! 

I think she is quite good at writing about religious and mystical part of our ´past culture´!!

Both writers have their own unique style of writing and both writers basically have become internationally writers giving readers a glimpse into Turkishness.

Show me where she has written 2 books in one year and I will show you Orhan Pamuk has done the same thing

 

Darkness and Light (1979)
  Cevdet Bey and His Sons (1982)
 The Silent House (1983)
The White Castle (1985)
The Black Book (1 990 )
The Secret Face ( 1992 ) movie Gizli Yuz
The New Life ( 1994 )
Other Colors: Essays and a Story ( 1999 )
Snow ( 2002 )
Istanbul: Memories and the City ( 2003 ) Where´s the 10 years of reading and study for this book????
My Father´s Suitcase (2007)
The Museum of Innocence (2008)
Manzaradan Parçalar ( 2010 )
Fragments of the Landscape ( 2010 )
The Naive and the Sentimental Novelist (2011)
The Innocence of Objects (2012)

Elif also did the same that year

  •  Kâğıt Helva,  2010
  •  Firarperest,  2010

 

 

 



Edited (10/12/2013) by Kelowna

18.       alameda
3499 posts
 13 Oct 2013 Sun 03:54 am

I liked Love in the Time of Cholera, but Marquez´ 100 years of silence left me cold. I guess I´ll have to read Elif Safak now....Have you ever read anything by Isabel Allende? I read her Zorro, Inez of my Soul, Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia. I love a good book that takes me on a journy, and has accurate historic information.  Ms Allennde did a lot of research when she wrote the above mentioned books. 
I have yet to read Ms. Safak, how is her historic information/research? I love Yasar Kemal and would like to read more of him, but I haven´t found many of his books translated.  

Quoting thehandsom

Lol

I dont want to speculate how hallow Orhan Pamuk is.  Obviously he is a hollow as all other nobel winners like Garcia Marquez, Ernest Hamingway etc..

I think Elif Safak should read more in my opinion and should spend more time with crafting the story. She seems like she HAS TO write a new book every 6 months!! The latest book I have read from her was Iskender and the plot seemed very obvious in the middle of the book!! I bet it was the same for many Turks. Because she did not spend enough time researching about the topic she is writing about, the life of a young man-Iskender- in London was quite superficial and almost imaginary. 

I think she is quite good at writing about religious and mystical part of our ´past culture´!!

 

 



Edited (10/13/2013) by alameda [spelling]

19.       Kelowna
375 posts
 13 Oct 2013 Sun 04:24 am

you might also like Mary Lee Settle - Turkish Reflections which is an excellent read about Turkey in the late 70´s and her return to Turkey much later.

20.       alameda
3499 posts
 13 Oct 2013 Sun 10:17 am

I´ll have to check it out sometime. In Amazon´s blurb on it is interesting to read "Mary Settle offers us an intimate portrait of a Turkey rarely seen-a land where the cutting of a tree is a crime," Obviously times have changed. 

Quoting Kelowna

you might also like Mary Lee Settle - Turkish Reflections which is an excellent read about Turkey in the late 70´s and her return to Turkey much later.

 

 

21.       Kelowna
375 posts
 13 Oct 2013 Sun 05:35 pm

 

Quoting alameda

I´ll have to check it out sometime. In Amazon´s blurb on it is interesting to read "Mary Settle offers us an intimate portrait of a Turkey rarely seen-a land where the cutting of a tree is a crime," Obviously times have changed. 

 

 

 

some other suggestions are

Blood Tie  again Mary Lee Settle - In ways reminiscent of "The Ugly American", "Blood Tie" explores the lives of a group of expatriates and reveals the impacts they have on the Turks living in a small coastal community along the Aegean. Settle does a beautiful and poignant job of immersing the reader in the landscape and lives of the characters. The story is believable and accurate. Her writing transported me back the town on which the setting is based. Excellent reading for those seeking to understand social transformations taking place in Turkey in recent decades.

Birds Without Wings -BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS is a rare specimen in the genre of historical novels: a success. It is a compelling, readable, and historically credible tale of love and tragedy at the time of the Ottoman collapse in Turkey. Told from multiple points of view, with chapters narrated by the diverse cast of characters themselves and biographical segments on the career of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, this novel tells the story of how modern secular Turkey was forged out of the crucible of the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greek War of Independence. The narrators are the ordinary men and women -- Christian and Muslim, Greek and Turk -- of a small village near Telmessos (now Fethiye) in southwestern Turkey. The stories they tell of war, loss and survival are fully human and utterly heartrending. I will not soon forget de Bernieres´ sorrowful depiction of the cross-deportations of Greeks and Turks from lands they had inhabited for centuries. Neither will I forget the dignity and romance of characters like the aga Rustem Bey, his mistress Leyla Hanim and the village imam Abdulhamid Hodja.

Anatolian Days & Nights: A Love Affair with Turkey -  write vividly about their journeys through a one of the world s most vibrant countries. The landscape and people slip beneath your skin until you are no longer sure whether you´ve become a part of Turkey or whether Turkey has become a part of you. As a frequent visitor to Turkey, I applaud Stocke and Brenner for skillfully weaving a tale that leaves me yearning to return

 

Have a happy reading day to all {#emotions_dlg.flowers}

Henry liked this message
22.       alameda
3499 posts
 14 Oct 2013 Mon 03:52 am

Well, based on your suggestion, I have ordered Blood Tie, Turkish Reflections, Bastard of Istanbul and Birds without Wings...I am anxiously awaiting delivery of the books. I need some new reading material. 

Have you ever heard of Lesley Blanch? She wrote The Wilder Shores of Love, about four English women, Isabel Burton, Lady Jane Digby, Isabelle Eberhardt, and Aimée du Buc de Rivéry, a cousin of Josephine, The Sabres of Paradise: Conquest and Vengeance in the Caucasus (a biography of Imam Shamyl and history of Imperialist Russian rule in early 19th century Georgia and the Caucasus) I was amazed to find the conflict in that area appears to have been going on so long. It´ like today´s problems are an outgrowth of the ones in Ms. Blanch´s book. 
Ms. Blanch is an interesting woman in her own right. She lived to the age of 103, passing away recently in 2007.

Quoting Kelowna

 

 

some other suggestions are

Blood Tie  again Mary Lee Settle - In ways reminiscent of "The Ugly American", "Blood Tie" explores the lives of a group of expatriates and reveals the impacts they have on the Turks living in a small coastal community along the Aegean. Settle does a beautiful and poignant job of immersing the reader in the landscape and lives of the characters. The story is believable and accurate. Her writing transported me back the town on which the setting is based. Excellent reading for those seeking to understand social transformations taking place in Turkey in recent decades.

Birds Without Wings -BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS is a rare specimen in the genre of historical novels: a success. It is a compelling, readable, and historically credible tale of love and tragedy at the time of the Ottoman collapse in Turkey. Told from multiple points of view, with chapters narrated by the diverse cast of characters themselves and biographical segments on the career of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, this novel tells the story of how modern secular Turkey was forged out of the crucible of the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greek War of Independence. The narrators are the ordinary men and women -- Christian and Muslim, Greek and Turk -- of a small village near Telmessos (now Fethiye) in southwestern Turkey. The stories they tell of war, loss and survival are fully human and utterly heartrending. I will not soon forget de Bernieres´ sorrowful depiction of the cross-deportations of Greeks and Turks from lands they had inhabited for centuries. Neither will I forget the dignity and romance of characters like the aga Rustem Bey, his mistress Leyla Hanim and the village imam Abdulhamid Hodja.

Anatolian Days & Nights: A Love Affair with Turkey -  write vividly about their journeys through a one of the world s most vibrant countries. The landscape and people slip beneath your skin until you are no longer sure whether you´ve become a part of Turkey or whether Turkey has become a part of you. As a frequent visitor to Turkey, I applaud Stocke and Brenner for skillfully weaving a tale that leaves me yearning to return

 

Have a happy reading day to all {#emotions_dlg.flowers}

 

 

23.       alameda
3499 posts
 14 Oct 2013 Mon 03:57 am

I found you, but I don´t see book reviews. You have one on Kurban Bayram. I don´t read Today´s Zaman often, but will check on your column now.

 

Quoting MarioninTurkey

 

 

 No, that´s me. Do you read mine every week in Sunday´s Zaman??  They´re on the arts and culture page.

 

 

 

 



Edited (10/14/2013) by alameda [correct information]

24.       Elisabeth
5732 posts
 14 Oct 2013 Mon 05:01 am

 

Quoting Kelowna

 

 

some other suggestions are

Blood Tie  again Mary Lee Settle - In ways reminiscent of "The Ugly American", "Blood Tie" explores the lives of a group of expatriates and reveals the impacts they have on the Turks living in a small coastal community along the Aegean. Settle does a beautiful and poignant job of immersing the reader in the landscape and lives of the characters. The story is believable and accurate. Her writing transported me back the town on which the setting is based. Excellent reading for those seeking to understand social transformations taking place in Turkey in recent decades.

Birds Without Wings -BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS is a rare specimen in the genre of historical novels: a success. It is a compelling, readable, and historically credible tale of love and tragedy at the time of the Ottoman collapse in Turkey. Told from multiple points of view, with chapters narrated by the diverse cast of characters themselves and biographical segments on the career of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, this novel tells the story of how modern secular Turkey was forged out of the crucible of the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greek War of Independence. The narrators are the ordinary men and women -- Christian and Muslim, Greek and Turk -- of a small village near Telmessos (now Fethiye) in southwestern Turkey. The stories they tell of war, loss and survival are fully human and utterly heartrending. I will not soon forget de Bernieres´ sorrowful depiction of the cross-deportations of Greeks and Turks from lands they had inhabited for centuries. Neither will I forget the dignity and romance of characters like the aga Rustem Bey, his mistress Leyla Hanim and the village imam Abdulhamid Hodja.

Anatolian Days & Nights: A Love Affair with Turkey -  write vividly about their journeys through a one of the world s most vibrant countries. The landscape and people slip beneath your skin until you are no longer sure whether you´ve become a part of Turkey or whether Turkey has become a part of you. As a frequent visitor to Turkey, I applaud Stocke and Brenner for skillfully weaving a tale that leaves me yearning to return

 

Have a happy reading day to all {#emotions_dlg.flowers}

 

I read blood tie and birds without wings (actually read that one twice since...SOOOOO GOOD!)  I also recommend Forty Thorns by Judy Ayyildiz.  The story is actually about Ms. Ayyildiz´s mother in law who lived through the Balkin Wars and WWI and it´s aftermath...very interesting.

alameda liked this message
25.       alameda
3499 posts
 14 Oct 2013 Mon 09:37 am

Well now I´m on pins & needles waiting for the books to arrive. I´ve met quite a few people from the period of Birds without Wings, but at the time I didn´t realize their history. Now in retrospect, reading things like this helps me understand them. Most are gone now, but I was lucky enough to have met more than a few. 

Quoting Elisabeth

 

 

I read blood tie and birds without wings (actually read that one twice since...SOOOOO GOOD!)  I also recommend Forty Thorns by Judy Ayyildiz.  The story is actually about Ms. Ayyildiz´s mother in law who lived through the Balkin Wars and WWI and it´s aftermath...very interesting.

 

 

26.       MarioninTurkey
6124 posts
 24 Oct 2013 Thu 12:04 pm

 

Quoting Elisabeth

 

 

I read blood tie and birds without wings (actually read that one twice since...SOOOOO GOOD!)  I also recommend Forty Thorns by Judy Ayyildiz.  The story is actually about Ms. Ayyildiz´s mother in law who lived through the Balkin Wars and WWI and it´s aftermath...very interesting.

 Hi - yes I definitely recommend this true story. Judy has a great understanding of Turkey, plus she is a wonderful story teller.

 

 

 

27.       MarioninTurkey
6124 posts
 24 Oct 2013 Thu 12:07 pm

 

Quoting alameda

I found you, but I don´t see book reviews. You have one on Kurban Bayram. I don´t read Today´s Zaman often, but will check on your column now.

 

 

 

 

 hi - the link you put up is for the columnist Charlotte McPherson.

 

I´m on the Arts and Culture page, every Sunday. Last week the article was entitled "Once Upon a Time, There Was and There Was Not" and it was about Ahmet Ümit´s "A Tale Within a Tale."

Preview: next sunday will be about the first female candidate for president of Afghanistan - her book is "The Favored Daughter"

28.       Kelowna
375 posts
 02 Nov 2013 Sat 05:41 pm

I have finished reading  Elif Shafak´s newest book Honor

Twin girls growing up in a small  village in Turkey, it tells how their lives change and differ when one leaves the village and one remains. It touches on many subjects including forced/arranged marriages , domestic violence, the disgrace of having girls, and of honor killing, cheating husbands, and the trials and tribulations of moving into a foreign country and trying to fit in.  It is very reflective and digs deep into all charactors, leaves you with a great understanding of their faults, thoughts and traits and yet you still want to care for them. Well worth the read.

 



Edited (11/2/2013) by Kelowna
Edited (11/2/2013) by Kelowna

29.       alameda
3499 posts
 18 Nov 2013 Mon 10:08 pm

I finished Bastard of Istanbul, and am now reading Birds without Wings. I much prefer the authorship of Birds without Wings to that of the Bastard of Istanbul.  Perhaps it was the translation?  The language style in Birds is exquisite. I think Ms.Şafak needs to mature as an author. 

As I have spent most of my live in California, and the NYC area, both have very large diaspora Armenian population, I heard about the terrible Turks long before I ever met a Turk, so much so in fact that I had taken the "Genocide" issue to be a matter of uncontested fact & I was terrified of Turks, as I was under the impression they were some sort of heartless blood thirsty monsters. I thought it was an uncontested fact.


It was only after meeting a few Turkish people, who seemed to be very nice and pleasant people, that I started questioning the matter.  After actually doing some historic research of my own, I came to different opinions on the matter.  It is sad so  many horrific events happened to everyone at that time. 

From my experience I´ve found the Armenians quite closed minded regarding the matter. There is no discussion, and it can be dangerous to express any divergent opinion, or thoughts on the matter.  I know from experience.  Old friends became very hateful towards me if I questioned the matter. 

Given that background, I think Ms. Şafak has captured the situation very well. Her description of the American Armenian attitude is, sadly, accurate. Also, her take on the Turks perception is accurate as well.  

War is Hell, over 40 million people died from the Great Influenza epidemic in 1918, which most probably was a result of the war. It was the first time troops could be flown from the trenches to home, carrying the disease around the world is short time. 

I´m a third of the way through Birds without Wings and recognize the sadness experienced by the disruption of a diverse community. I know if all of any of the many ethnic groups I live with were to leave en mass, it would be tragic and sad. I´ve met many people who were living in parts of the former Ottoman territories, who relocated. It was sad to feel their sorrow. I had a friend from Tunis, who was from an Italian background, who had to join the Italian army during WWII. he longed go to back to Tunis, but he never could. His family had lived there for generations. 

Why can´t we get along?

Quoting Elisabeth

 

 

I read blood tie and birds without wings (actually read that one twice since...SOOOOO GOOD!)  I also recommend Forty Thorns by Judy Ayyildiz.  The story is actually about Ms. Ayyildiz´s mother in law who lived through the Balkin Wars and WWI and it´s aftermath...very interesting.

 

 

Elisabeth liked this message
30.       Elisabeth
5732 posts
 19 Nov 2013 Tue 03:17 am

Birds Without Wings made me cry A LOT!!!  The author did a wonderful job of conveying the deep sadness of ALL people during that time period.  My husband´s Grandmother lived to be 105.  She would tell us stories of life during World War I.  Most of her stories were so similar to what was described in Birds...It truely was a brilliantly told novel.

 

You may also like Captain Correlli´s Mandolin which was by the same author.

31.       alameda
3499 posts
 20 Nov 2013 Wed 05:51 am

I am amazed at the amount of research he must have done to write it. It is very sad. I´m half way through it now and am finding it hard to put down. I´m recommending it to a few friends. 

Quoting Elisabeth

Birds Without Wings made me cry A LOT!!!  The author did a wonderful job of conveying the deep sadness of ALL people during that time period.  My husband´s Grandmother lived to be 105.  She would tell us stories of life during World War I.  Most of her stories were so similar to what was described in Birds...It truely was a brilliantly told novel.

 

You may also like Captain Correlli´s Mandolin which was by the same author.

 

 

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