Born free, but are everywhere in chains

The little Anatolian town of Eskibahce at the turn of the 20th century is home to an eclectic group of people—the local Muslim Ottomans who learn the Koran without understanding Arabic, Greek Christians who have lived in Turkey for so many generations they no longer speak Greek, as well as foreigners such as Armenians. The Ottomans pray in their mosques but see no harm in asking their Christian neighbours to petition the Virgin Mary for them when extra help is needed. The Greeks and Turks have lived together for so long and intermarriages have happened in so many generations that many are related in some way, and get along well as neighbours or even lifelong friends.

The Muslim boy Ibrahim has been following the exquisitely beautiful Christian girl Philothei around since they were children. On the hill where they gather wild herbs, their childhood friends Memetcik and Karatavuk call each other on bird whistles made by Karatavuk's father, the potter Iskander. When the recruiters come, Karatavuk volunteers in place of his father and takes the reader to the war at Gallipoli where he recounts first-hand the horrors of trench warfare. The descriptions of the dead and the dying are graphic and laced with horror, but there’s also a very human element shown in the soldiers’ unexpected interactions with their enemies.

So many of the characters are well-developed and memorable, for instance the Muslim landlord, Rustem Bey, disillusioned by an unfaithful wife and yet, due to a ‘wavering in his heart’, unwilling to divorce her. There’s Lila Hanim (not her real name), a Circassian mistress who seduces Rustem Bey and gives him much but not all that he needs. There’s Abdulhamid Hodja, the local imam, who lovingly grooms his pride and joy--a beautiful horse called Nilufer, and collects marauding turtles from his fields to release elsewhere. His Christian counterpart, Father Kristoforos, harangues the Italian occupying forces with fire-and-brimstone lectures in butchered liturgical Greek, while Rustem Bey befriends the Italian lieutenant in French. Even a minor character like the Armenian merchant George P. Theodorou proves delightful, with an entire chapter devoted to his death, told in slow-mo first-person viewpoint (bizarre in theory but so full of black humor and works so remarkably well it’s probably one of the best written chapters in the whole book). Another memorable minor character is the foul-mouthed Fikret, whose motto is “I don’t give a shi*; I’m from Pera.” It has to be read in context to be appreciated.

While the author’s forte appears to be black humour, the more intimate relationships are handled very well. Most involving are those concerning Rustem Bey and his wife and mistress, between Abdulhamid Hodja and his wife Ayse, between Ibrahim and the innocent Philothei, between Memetcik and Karatavuk, as well as friendships between the mothers (Polyxeni and Ayse), and the mutual respect of the imam and priest.

The author interleaves the narrative of Eskibahce's inhabitants with a biography of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk (the founder of modern Turkey), giving a bigger picture behind the small-town goings-on. Although it’s necessary to understand the events leading up to the WWI and the final days of the Ottoman Empire, it has to be said that Mustafa Kemal is by no means a sympathetic character and his life is not presented in such a way as to make it easy (let alone enjoyable) reading. Moreover, the placement of the chapters disrupts the narrative flow of the other stories and the much more involving lives of the inhabitants of Eskibahce. In fact, I resented so much having to wade through minutiae of Ataturk's military life that I often merely scanned his chapters to get a gist of where he was and to make sure that it didn’t concern any Eskibahce residents. No doubt a genuine history buff would do more justice to these biographical chapters, but this reader could not help but wonder if the novel would have garnered more readership if the historical chapters were taken out and Ataturk's biography reduced to the minimum required. It would certainly have resulted in a much less hefty book and reduced the time commitment to a more acceptable one.

It is Karatavuk who spells out the theme of the novel in the longest epilogue (six chapters) I have ever come across. Perhaps the protracted ending reflects the author’s unwillingness to part with his lovingly-drawn creations.

“For birds with wings nothing changes; they fly where they will and they know nothing about borders, and their quarrels are very small. But we are always confined to earth, no matter how much we climb to the high places and flap our arms. Because we cannot fly, we are condemned to do things that do not agree with us. Because we have no wings we are pushed into struggles and abominations that we did not seek, and then, after all that, the years go by, the mountains are leveled, the valleys rise, the rivers are blocked by sand and the cliffs fall into the sea.”

Man is a bird without wings, and so is never truly free. We are swept up in wars not of our own making, forced apart from our loved ones, uprooted from the only home we know to trudge to a distant place where we’re not wanted and will never be accepted. That, basically, is the story of much of mankind, for those who lived or are still living in interesting times. And after all that suffering, the world moves inexorably on. Plus ca change, plus c’est la meme chose. Perhaps the author is intimating that we’ll never learn. Perhaps he’s right.

Recommended, but with reservations (see cons).