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37 of 38 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Funny, sad, absorbing, and a great piece of history, 23 Feb 2006
This is a truly great novel. It is set in Western Turkey in the early 20th century and concerns the events surrounding the first world war, the break-up and eventual dissolution of the Ottoman empire, and the effect that this has on the everyday inhabitants of a small town. The story opens in Eskibahce and we are drawn into daily life through a series of anecdotes and tales told through the eyes of its various inhabitants. As the book progresses, the scene is cut more frequently to the historical events that are taking place, and as the book reaches its climax, we find ourselves totally engrossed in the war: the geopolitical struggles, the nationalist politics, the struggle between Greeks and Turks, and life in the trenches at Gallipoli. The book achieves a superb balance between its gripping description of the history and politics of the time, and its equally gripping personal dramas being played out in this context. It explains the great tragedy that results ultimately in the deportation of the Turkish Greeks, with its attendant destruction of whole communities, the terrible consequences to individuals, and even the break-up of individual families. To call this an "historical novel" is to understate the quality of the story-telling. There is some wonderful narrative here: the book creates its own folklore, marvellous tales, funny stories, sad stories, shocking stories, all embedded in this steam-rollering march of historical inevitability. We also meet some marvelous characters, who become like old friends as they come back time and again to contribute their little piece of the story. And here is another beautifully-executed technique - the stories overlap, as told by different people and seen from different points of view. In the mind of the reader is built a much richer experience of events when seen from so many different angles. It's one of those books that is satisfying and interesting right from the outset. You know you are not going to be disappointed. It's just as well because it is 625 pages long! However, it's original, it's intelligent, it's informative, and it's one of those books that you must not miss.
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23 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A marvel of a book, 14 Aug 2006
The first thing that strikes you is the wonderful prose, which, while completely natural and unforced, is poetic and descriptive.
The story, mostly told at a leisurely pace, is about a mixed Muslim-Christian community in Eskibaçe, a small hill-side town in western Turkey during the period from about 1881 to 1922, that is from the last years of the Ottoman Empire to the period after the First World War, when the Ottoman Empire had collapsed and modern Turkey was ethnically cleansed of its Greek-Christian population. We learn a great deal about the history of the region, (for instance about the little-known origin of the Turkish hatred for the Armenians), and the chapters about the villagers are interspersed with 22 chapters describing the rise of the nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal, somewhat irritatingly and unnecessarily written in the historic present, with the narrative (compressed where the narrative about the villagers is expansive) sometimes being far from clear. I think, in fact, that the novel would have been even better if the account of manoeuverings and intrigues of Turkish and international politics, overlong in the last third of the book, had been left out.
The early chapters describe the two communities living peaceably together, occasionally intermarrying, their children playing together, the imam and the priest being colleagues. It is a society with superstitious beliefs in each community, but with a large cast of characters who are painted with affection and humour - quite especially so the local Aga or village leader, Rustem Bey. There is, however, a darker side, too: an adulterous wife is stoned nearly to death; there is an honour killing of a Muslim girl who has become pregnant by a Christian; in one scene a crowd is excited when a usually respected Armenian member of the community is kicked nearly to death by a drunken Christian; in another, a group of drunken Alevis (Shi'ites) maltreat a Greek schoolmaster in a similar fashion. Even so, there is much more love than there is hate in this village, and much grief in the course of the story because of it.
Half-way through this long book, Turkey enters the First World war. Sketching the historical background to this, De Bernières shows a picture for which few western readers, brought up on the story of the Bulgarian Atrocities wrought in 1875 by the savage Turks, will be prepared. He presents the tolerant Ottoman Empire as having been the victim of a prolonged and little-reported `holocaust' (his word) going back to 1822, in which Turks had been sadistically massacred or driven out of their homes by generations of Balkan nationalists.
And now that the war has started, the horrors multiply: the Armenian inhabitants of Eskibaçe are cruelly deported, the local governor arranging for their fiercest enemies, Kurdish tribesmen, to escort them. The deportees included the doctors and pharmacists of the area, and there is noone left to help the villagers in their sicknesses and diseases. One of the simple young men from the village fights in the Gallipoli campaign, and his memories of this killing field, vivid and even poetic, are among the highlights of the book.
The end of the First World War ends with the break-up of the Ottoman Empire, and parts of Turkey proper being occupied by the victorious powers. In Eskibaçe it all begins quite pleasantly. The Italians are occupying the region, to forestall the ambition of the Greeks to create a Greater Greece, and a platoon of Italian soldiers arrives in the village and establishes good relations with the Muslim villagers. (The author of Captain Corelli's Mandolin is as fond of the Italians as he is of the Turks.) The Italians would have done so with the Greek villagers as well, had not the local Orthodox priest furiously ordered his perplexed but obedient flock to have nothing to do with Catholic heretics.
But the Italians do not stay long. They are recalled by their government in 1919, soon after the Greeks have landed in Smyrna higher up the coast, and a new war had broken out between Greece and Turkey. The atrocities committed by both sides in this war are horrific and culminate in the revenge of the Turks on the Greeks and the Armenians when they recapture Smyrna.
The war was brought to an end with the treaty of Lausanne in 1922 by which Greece and Turkey `exchanged' their Christian and Muslim populations. The Christian villagers of Eskibaçe knew nothing about this treaty until the day before they had to leave their ancestral homes in one of the most heart-breaking scenes in the book, with the Muslim population wailing to see their Christian friends depart, and some of them even escorting them to their embarkation point at Telmessos and helping them to carry their loads.
I have two very minor criticisms of this quite magnificent, humane and moving book. We could have done with a glossary of Turkish words at the end; and the map on the inside cover is grossly inadequate, though it is understandable that it does not show Eskibaçe, for the name of this village is fictitious, perhaps to protect the beautiful real place, near Telmessos (now Fethiyeh), from a flood of tourists who have read the book. In vain: for the place has been identified as Kayaköy, and tourists are pouring in to see what had become a ghost-village after the Greeks had been driven out: in actual fact Kayaköe (or Karmylassos, to give it its Greek name) had been predominantly Greek.
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15 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"All wars are fratricide . . . ", 15 Dec 2006
This quote from Birds Without Wings sets the book's tone. "All men are brothers" is a theme weary from overuse. Yet de Bernieres manages to portray it in a novel fashion within an unexpected environment. In school most of us learned of "the Sick Man of Europe" - the Ottoman Empire that once wrapped the Eastern Mediterranean and the Black Sea. "Corrupt" was the word usually applied. Throughout the 19th Century the Empire was chipped away by rising nationalist forces. Within the Empire's core, however, de Bernieres portrays a land of ethnic mix, kept stable by a tolerance for neighbours. The dominant Muslims appeal to the Orthodox Christians' Mary for aid. The Christians, in turn, recite prayers while prostrating in the Muslim fashion. A Greek teacher writes letters - in Turkish, but written in Greek script. All these elements are skillfully woven in this masterpiece of fictional history.
Yet, as de Bernieres chronicles, this tightly integrated society, typified by a village on Turkey's southwest coast - Eskibahce, was shattered. Riven by hostilities, broken up and rendered a pitiful remnant - why did this idyllic situation fail? Not Ottoman "corruption" but the forces of "European Civilization" intruded on these people's lives in devastating ways. To the people of Eskibahce, all Europeans are the mysterious "Franks". There are German Franks, French Franks, British Franks, even Australian Franks - all Christian, but as Eskibahce will learn, not the Christians they are familiar with. Whatever else these Franks are, they intrude on the Ottoman society and politics. The Empires built in Europe during the 19th Century, chipping at the Ottoman hegemony have now erupted into a Great War. Eskibahce's sons go off to fight, but the demands of war prove greater than simply acquiring cannon fodder. "It was an age when everybody wanted an empire", de Bernieres writes, undertaken with no thought to the cost.
De Bernieres uses a full stage of characters to weave his story of two decades of tumult and change. Few are admirable, but all intensely human - birds without wings. Rustem Bey, a Muslim landlord, travels in search of a replacement "wife" to portray the ways of Ottoman cities. A Muslim boy - inevitably - is stationed in Gallipoli. Through his eyes we are given an uncompromising picture of war's horrors. And its lighter moments. Philothei, a beautiful baby, becomes lovelier with maturity. It's symptomatic of the author's sense of irony that her beauty brings demands to veil her face - even though she's Christian. All the women then adopt the veil to pretend beauty. A potter saves needed money to buy a gun - for what purpose? One figure, however, pervades this story - Mustapha Kamal. He will change the Ottoman Empire into the nation of Turkey. In so doing, everything Eskibahce represents is swept away with devastating results.
With a string of excellent writings to his credit, de Bernieres has here produced a masterpiece. It takes immense skill to create a continuum from so many and varied parts, yet he achieves it admirably. "Where does it all begin?", he asks. The book is a response to the query, but not an answer. War, the great destroyer, has many causes and unexpected results. The Ottoman Empire is transformed into Turkey, a more easily identified entity - a whole derived from parts. In Eskibahce, the effect is schism, disaffection and dispersal, leavened by compassion and generosity. Are there winners, or merely survivors? [stephen a. haines - Ottawa, Canada]
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