Monday, July 07, 2014

Turkish Tensions


Ran a finger down the shelves of the MIL's books to try to find something palatable. The MIL is a voracious reader. She likes classics both old world and contemporary. Her books can be shared with the man, but I prefer something less cerebral and literary. Anyway, I should be reading something off my usual gore and fantasy. Found Orhan Pamuk's 1983 'Silent House'. (Reviews here, here and here.)

The summary at the back of the book already bored me to tears. Lovely venue of a former fishing village of Cennethisar in Istanbul that has been turned into a resort town. The stories of a family that inhabit an old mansion there, their rise and fall in fortunes, their trials and tribulations, inter-generational issues, traditions versus modernity, the sorts. UGGGGH. Three siblings FarukNilgün and Metin, doing their annual summer visit of their 90-year-old grandmother Fatma in the mansion by the sea. The old lady lives alone with her dwarf servant and deceased husband's illegitimate son, 55-year-old Recep. But there was something about right-wing nationalists in Turkey, and the fact that Orhan Pamuk wrote this against of domestic censorship and a contentious period in Turkish history, made it totally worthwhile to at least understand the author's intentions. Took a deep breath and decided to scan it fast and finish it in the hour before sunset. 

Years on, this novel is still so poignant in the light of Middle East tensions and revolutions. Reading about what's happening in Turkey may also shed light in trying to understand the people's feelings. Also, there's too much going-on between Israel and Palestine. I can't say tensions renewed because it has always been so historically. They trade places of victim and aggressor till the lines are blurred, and these tensions depend on the current issue of the month, and right now, is the treatment of dead teenagers both Palestine and Israeli, and both sides are triggering air raids, and clearly the side better equipped militarily has upper hand. But are all these human lives worth it? Civilians want peace. Two days ago, even a random watch of an old 2007 'Law & Order: Criminal Intent' S6E16 titled '30'  brought up plenty of food for thought.

I don't want to talk about what the story is. The genre isn't something I'm fond of. But I'm very impressed with the narrative. Every chapter has a long title and is written in first person narrative. It's very good writing and presentation of the characters' different viewpoints of complicated and complex issues, taking us back into the past and drawing on the present realities. Metaphors abound.

My hand reaches out like a silent cat and turns on the light, I touch the cold iron bars of the bed, but the cold iron only leaves me in a cold winter night: where am I? Sometimes you can't even tell anymore. If a person can live in the same house for seventy years and still be confused, then this thing that we call life, and imagine we have use dup, must be such a strange and incomprehensible thing that no one can even know what their own life is. You stand there waiting and on it goes from place to place, no one knows why, and as it goes, you have many thoughts about where it's been and where it's headed; then just as you speak these strange thoughts, which aren't right or wrong, and lead to no conclusion, you look, and the journey ends here, Fatma, okay, this is where you get off! First one foot, then the other, I get out of the carriage. I take two steps, then step back and look at the carriage. Was this the thing that brought us here, swaying all the way? Well, I guess that was it. So at the end that's how I'll think: that was it, it wasn't the most pleasant trip, I didn't understand a thing, but I still want to start it all over again. But one is not allowed! Come on, they say, we're here now, on the other side, you can't get back on again. 
~ An extract from the final chapter titled 'Fatma Finds Consolation in Holding a Book'.

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