Some of you may remember that a few months ago I subscribed to the Books that Matter boxes. It is a lovely feminist themed box each month – a well-chosen book with three themed gifts. The only reason I have let my subscription lapse is because I have so many books – and the danger with a feminist book box is that I get a book I have already got or read. In fact, that only happened once out of four boxes – so it could have been worse. The Bastard of Istanbul was in the third of my four boxes – and it was a book I was very pleased to receive because Elif Shafak is an author I have wanted to read for years. I heard her speak once at the Birmingham Literature festival (remember attending actual events in person!) and I loved the sound of her work. Now I am left wondering why I left it so long to read her.
The Bastard of Istanbul is a novel of modern Turkey – but with a beautiful, poignant acknowledgement of its history, and the different peoples who make up its population.
“That was the one thing about the rain that likened it to sorrow: You did your best to remain untouched, safe and dry, but if and when you failed, there came a point in which you started seeing the problem less in terms of drops than as an incessant gush, and thereby you decide you might as well get drenched.”
As the novel opens, a fiercely modern, rather rebellious young woman walks through a rainy Istanbul to an appointment at a clinic. When she arrives, she demands for all to hear, that she needs an abortion. She is nineteen and unmarried.
Twenty years later, Asya is also nineteen, growing up in a house full of women. The men of the Kazanci family all dying in their forties – succumbing to a mysterious family curse.
In this house of women there is Asya’s beautiful, mother Zeliha, who runs a tattoo parlour and still wears the short skirts of her rebellious youth; her sisters; the headscarf wearing Banu, a clairvoyant; who discovers secrets from her djinn, Feride, a hypochondriac obsessed with impending disaster and Ceveriye a high school teacher. The older generation made up of Asya’s grandmother Gülsüm and Petite-Ma – who had been the stepmother of Gülsüm’s husband. Aside from a succession of cats, the only male member of the family, Mustafa left for America years earlier to escape the family curse.
“It is so demanding to be born into a house full of women, where everyone loves you so overwhelmingly that they end up suffocating with their love; a house where you, as the only child, have to be more mature than all the adults around….
But the problem is that they want me to become everything they themselves couldn’t accomplish in life…..
As a result, I had to work my butt off to fulfill all their dreams at the same time.”
Asya – has a difficult relationship with her mother – and from a young age has called her Aunt Zeliha – in a house full of aunts it was easier for her, she little knows how this hurts her mother. She is a young woman full of questions about Turkey and the past. She listens to Johnny Cash and is a regular at the café Kundera, where regulars gather and discuss all kinds of political and philosophical questions. Here she meets up with an interesting group of intellectual acquaintances including an alcoholic cartoonist with whom she is having an affair.
In Arizona, Mustafa lives a quiet life with Rose, his wife, and his step-daughter Armanoush. Rose had previously been married to an Armenian-American man from San Francisco – so Armanoush has grown up dividing her time between the two families, in which life in very different. Her Armenia family is large, noisy and loving, and sometimes overwhelming. Now an online forum is teaching Armanoush all about the long Armenian/Turkish conflict, the reason for the resentments one side of her family still have for Turkish people. Armanoush feels that the only way she can really begin to develop an understanding of her heritage and her family’s past is to pay a visit to Istanbul. So, without the knowledge of either her San Francisco or her Arizona families – she arranges to pay a visit to her step-father’s family in Istanbul. The Kazanci women are delighted – and excitedly begin to prepare for their American visitor.
“There is no together anymore. Once a pomegranate breaks and all its seeds scatter in different directions, you cannot put it back together.”
I don’t want to say any more about the actual plot – but this novel delves deeper into the Armenian/Turkish past of Istanbul and both these families in such a clever and touching way. The novel becomes increasingly hard to put down as all the threads of past and present start to weave together. This is a novel with many layers, beautifully written, philosophical, and often lyrical. I loved it.
Such an attractive way of humanising a country’s history by telling it through a family’s story.
Yes it is, it’s such a beautiful story, well written and compellingly told.
Also being an admirer of Elif Shafak and her work it makes me happy that you liked this book so much. I appreciate how she lets me see the world in different ways through her characters. I’m also fascinated by her various portrayals of Istanbul which she has such a complicated relationship with.
Good to hear you’re an admirer of Shafak’s work. Turkey is such an ancient country with so much history, and I look forward to reading more by Shafak.
Elif Shafak is one of the readers I want to read very very soon (already talked to Santa to bring one of her books) 😀 After reading a book by Orhan Pamuk, a book I did not enjoy, I avoided Turkish writers … until one of my best friends told me she is in love with Shafak’s books! So I definitely want to try her stories!
I hope you get your Elif Shafak book for Christmas. 😁
I really want this to be the year I read Elif Shafak! This one sounds great.
This one was great, and now I want to read more by her. I have seen a lot of love for her most recent novel.
Sounds like such a beautiful book, Ali. It’s great when we get pushed to read books we wouldn’t normally do. Love those quotes…
Yes, a really lovely read actually, more so than I had probably expected.
I remember I liked it very much when I read it.
If you want to know more about the Armenian genocide, I recommend Peter Balakian’s memoir, Black Dog of Fate.
Oh great thank you for the recommendation. It’s a fascinating but brutal episode in history.
I’d never read anything by Elif Shafak until this year when her novel 10 minutes 28 seconds in this strange world was selected for our book club. It’s absolutely brilliant, especially the way she brings Istanbul alive by using all the senses in her descriptions.
It sounds like Bastard of Istanbul is one I would also enjoy so I shall put on my reading list
10 minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World sounds absolutely incredible, I remember reading about it earlier this year.
I heard her in interview about this new book and it was breathtaking. BofI is one I read when it was on the Women’s Prize list that year but, unfortunately, I’ve forgotten all the details…only that I enjoyed it enough to have expected to keep up with her work (but I haven’t done very well with that). Your subscription sounds amazing…I don’t think we’ve got such a thing in Canada.
I have ordered her latest book with some Christmas book vouchers. It does sound good. Subscriptions are always tempting aren’t they.
Well done. I have never heard of this book or this author, so all was very interesting.
Glad to be able to introduce you to a new author.
I’m probably out on a limb here, but I think I prefer Shafak’s work as a political and cultural commentator to her fiction. Nevertheless, this does sound very cleverly constructed. Her understanding of Turkey’s culture/history shines through from your review.
Ah right, well having heard her speak I can well imagine what an excellent commentator she would be.
I have a six month sub to Books That Matter. I received this book but have not read it yet. It sounds very good. I enjiyed your review. 🐧🎄🎁
Ooh brilliant, really hope you enjoy it as much as I did.
I do too😃
I enjoyed your review very much. Shafak has been on my “radar” since her Booker nomination for 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World. I didn’t realize she had written so many other things. I will definitely be checking her out, if not for this particular novel then for another!
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World is high on my wishlist. In fact considering how many book tokens I have had for Christmas, it may be purchased soon.