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mosalah314's review
5.0
A powerful sweeping narrative landscape. Bernieres' many chapters are like expert brushstrokes painting life in motion. The characters are developed intelligently, and all come across as very real. Lots of beautiful prose, and a lot of memorable moments. Bernieres really captures the nuances and the rich sublimity and texture of life, tragedy, love, and the human condition. Politically, it's great satire at times, and from start to finish very insightful and wise.
A great book. At times a bit slow, and frankly, rather daunting in its scope, but that's what you sign up for. This book requires, but also deserves patience. This is a book I fully intend to read a second, if not third, time. I predict the characters will stay with me for a long time--- the mark of a truly successful novel!
A great book. At times a bit slow, and frankly, rather daunting in its scope, but that's what you sign up for. This book requires, but also deserves patience. This is a book I fully intend to read a second, if not third, time. I predict the characters will stay with me for a long time--- the mark of a truly successful novel!
leslielu67's review
5.0
EVERYTHING this guy writes is fantastic and well-researched. This tells the story of the inhabitants of a small Ottoman town in Turkey, spanning from before WWI to the few years after it, as the new Turk state continues to battle new and old foes after the general armistace of 1918. The town's inhabitants include Christians, Muslims, Armenians and Greeks. Intervening chapters follow Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, as he rises through the Ottoman army and starts his political career. What I know of Turkey during WW1 was essentially through the movie Gallipoli, so this filled in so many gaps. Beautiful, brutal, funny and heartbreaking. Couple it with The Dust that Falls from Dreams, de Bernieres' wonderful story of Londoners during WW1, the fledgling (ha!) RAF, and the beginning of the breakdown of social class barriers brought on by the conflict.
k80bowman's review
4.0
This was a truly beautiful book. Not an easy read, though, not by far. And definitely more towards the epic end of things, but beautiful nonetheless. de Bernieres has an astounding vocabulary and an ability to select just the right word every time.
catherine888's review
4.0
This book was quite a challenge but it was rewarding! I found the second half really picked up and I sped through it.
jdintr's review
5.0
This book was recommended to me by a Turkish friend. I'm so glad I ordered it right away. It's a truly remarkable epic about one of Turkey's most fascinating regions.
Bernieres populates the village of Ehbahçe with a dozen interesting character. The village, like many in western Turkey in 1905, is a mix of Greek, Turkish, and Armenian families. There is little division. Everyone speaks Turkish. Those who can write, write out the words with Greek letters. The town has a priest and am imam, but the Muslims are perfectly willing to ask Christians to make a special plea to the icon of the virgin Mary on their behalf. Everyone is poor, save for Rüstem Bey, the aga or landlord.
The first half of the book contains deep insights into the culture of Eskibahçe. İ was fascinated by the caravan trip to Smyrna, where the merchants swapped stories as they traveled to the big city to trade. Burial rites. An honor killing. An affair is exposed.
A man named "Dog" shows up in the village, unable to speak, dressed in rags. He makes his home in the ancient graveyard, where there are still marble tombs of Phrygians from thousands of years ago. None of the residents can read the inscriptions on the tombs anymore, but they remain, silent testaments of the timelessness that informs life in the village. One sarcophagus has a hole drilled in the top and in the bottom, and the people, who believe it contains the bones of a saint, drop olive oil into the sarcophagus and collect it as it drains out, hoping the oil now has healing properties. These are deep insights into culture, and it makes me wonder how long Bernieres must have spent in Turkey to uncover traditions like these and use them to season this remarkable work.
Two connecting strands of the narrative are the story of Mustafa Kemal, the man destined to found the Turkish Republic and take for himself the surname "Atatürk," and the romance of İbrahim and Philothei, a Muslim and a Christian facing the thrills and perils of destiny.
In the second half of the book, history catches the residents of Eskibahçe. World War İ begins, and two friends sign up to fight: Karatavuk, a Muslim, is sent to the Gallipoli front, while his friend, Mehtmecik, a Greek is sent to a labor battalion (Greeks were not allowed to fight in the army, as the Ottoman government feared they would turn traitor as several Armenian regiments had done early in the war). The town's Armenian inhabitants are rounded up one night by a group of Kurdish irregulars and marched into the interior, never to be seen or heard from again. Later, as the end of World War İ segues into an invasion by Greece, poor, doomed İbrahim will serve in the forces that liberate then ravage then burn Smyrna.
The proverb from which Bernieres takes his title states, "Men are birds without wings, and birds are men without sorrows." There are sorrows aplenty as the book closes in on its conclusion with the historic population exchange that expelled all Christians from Turkey, whether they spoke any Greek or not, and which accepted Muslims from Greece in return. But there are such great joys in reading this book, too: the richness of the characters, the warmth with which insights on Turkish culture are revealed, and the vivid setting of Eskibahçe and its near environs.
During the Greco-Turk War (1919-22) the town is spared from the worst of the atrocities by an occupation of Italian soldiers. This is an echo of Bernieres's most famous book, Corelli's Mandolin, but I haven't read that work--about a romance between an Italian soldier and a Greek islander--so I'm not sure if any characters are recurring.
The only bad people in the book are the few who cannot accept a multi ethnic village--those who feel that it must only be Greek or Turkish. Over everything, as in epics like The Iliad, is Fate, the shaper of History, which has these wonderful characters firmly in its grasp.
Bernieres populates the village of Ehbahçe with a dozen interesting character. The village, like many in western Turkey in 1905, is a mix of Greek, Turkish, and Armenian families. There is little division. Everyone speaks Turkish. Those who can write, write out the words with Greek letters. The town has a priest and am imam, but the Muslims are perfectly willing to ask Christians to make a special plea to the icon of the virgin Mary on their behalf. Everyone is poor, save for Rüstem Bey, the aga or landlord.
The first half of the book contains deep insights into the culture of Eskibahçe. İ was fascinated by the caravan trip to Smyrna, where the merchants swapped stories as they traveled to the big city to trade. Burial rites. An honor killing. An affair is exposed.
A man named "Dog" shows up in the village, unable to speak, dressed in rags. He makes his home in the ancient graveyard, where there are still marble tombs of Phrygians from thousands of years ago. None of the residents can read the inscriptions on the tombs anymore, but they remain, silent testaments of the timelessness that informs life in the village. One sarcophagus has a hole drilled in the top and in the bottom, and the people, who believe it contains the bones of a saint, drop olive oil into the sarcophagus and collect it as it drains out, hoping the oil now has healing properties. These are deep insights into culture, and it makes me wonder how long Bernieres must have spent in Turkey to uncover traditions like these and use them to season this remarkable work.
Two connecting strands of the narrative are the story of Mustafa Kemal, the man destined to found the Turkish Republic and take for himself the surname "Atatürk," and the romance of İbrahim and Philothei, a Muslim and a Christian facing the thrills and perils of destiny.
In the second half of the book, history catches the residents of Eskibahçe. World War İ begins, and two friends sign up to fight: Karatavuk, a Muslim, is sent to the Gallipoli front, while his friend, Mehtmecik, a Greek is sent to a labor battalion (Greeks were not allowed to fight in the army, as the Ottoman government feared they would turn traitor as several Armenian regiments had done early in the war). The town's Armenian inhabitants are rounded up one night by a group of Kurdish irregulars and marched into the interior, never to be seen or heard from again. Later, as the end of World War İ segues into an invasion by Greece, poor, doomed İbrahim will serve in the forces that liberate then ravage then burn Smyrna.
The proverb from which Bernieres takes his title states, "Men are birds without wings, and birds are men without sorrows." There are sorrows aplenty as the book closes in on its conclusion with the historic population exchange that expelled all Christians from Turkey, whether they spoke any Greek or not, and which accepted Muslims from Greece in return. But there are such great joys in reading this book, too: the richness of the characters, the warmth with which insights on Turkish culture are revealed, and the vivid setting of Eskibahçe and its near environs.
During the Greco-Turk War (1919-22) the town is spared from the worst of the atrocities by an occupation of Italian soldiers. This is an echo of Bernieres's most famous book, Corelli's Mandolin, but I haven't read that work--about a romance between an Italian soldier and a Greek islander--so I'm not sure if any characters are recurring.
The only bad people in the book are the few who cannot accept a multi ethnic village--those who feel that it must only be Greek or Turkish. Over everything, as in epics like The Iliad, is Fate, the shaper of History, which has these wonderful characters firmly in its grasp.
scarletohhara's review
4.0
More like a 3.5. well written book narrating the story of Turkey and rise of Ataturk with focus on people in one village and how lives are uprooted because of mindless religious hatred.
gjmaupin's review
4.0
Mighty fine work again from de Bernieres - upsetting how contemporary but distant but not this feels (and is).
hattiefrankie's review
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.5
jolie3467's review
challenging
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.75