The Bastard of Istanbul

Elif Shafak's novel "The Bastard of Istanbul" is set in contemporary Istanbul with important scenes in Arizona and in San Francisco. The novel was written in English and published in the United States in 2006. Earlier, in 2003, the novel was published in Turkey where it resulted in a prosecution of the author that was subsequently dismissed. The book has several themes, some of which are important, but all of which are patched together. The book examines the relationship between Turks and Armenians particularly in 1915. Many people have concluded that the Turks practiced genocide of serious proportions on the Armenians. The Turks officially deny this. The novel shows modern day Turks and Armenians wrestling with their history and with the tragic earlier events. The book is also about two young women in their early 20s who are thrown together somehow and, who, like many people, struggle with with the illusive, ill-defined concept of personal identity. The book also is about the relationship between women and men as shown through the eyes of quirky, mostly appealing female characters, and much less sympathetic and largely absent men.

The plot of the book and the family structures are complex and tangled. There are two family groups. The first family is Turkish and located in Istanbul and consists of four sisters and no men. The men in the women's lives have died or disappeared in various ways. The sisters have a brother, Mustafa, who moved to the United States to study when he was 20 and who has remained in the United States, when the events of the book occur, at the age of 40. One of the sisters is mentally ill while another sister reads tarot cards and has clairvoyant powers, including two spirits which accompany and advise her. The sister that received the most attention is named Zeliha. Zeliha is a religious skeptic who dresses in short skirts and high heels. At the age of 19 she had a child out of wedlock, and she has never revealed the father. Her daughter is named Asya, who at the age of 20, is much like her mother in dress. Asya likes the music of Johnny Cash and reads French existentialists, particularly the wonderful book of Emmanuel Levinas, "Totality and Infinity". [[ASIN:9024722888 Totality and Infinity: An Essay on Exteriority (Martinus Nijhoff Philosophy Texts)]], which I read in my own graduate study of philosophy.

The second family centers on a young woman named Armanoush, or Amy for short. Amy is reserved and bookish and spends most of her time reading rather than trying to socialize with or appeal to young men. She is the daughter of an American woman, Rose, and an Armenian man from who Rose was subsequently divorced. For her second husband, Rose chooses a Turkish man, Mustafa, who has remained in America. Rose and Mustafa live a quiet, essentially contented life in Arizona. Amy's father and his extended Armenian family live in San Francisco and Amy spends her time between her father and his family and her mother and step-father Mustafa.

The two families and the two young women are awkwardly joined together in the story when Amy decides to travel to Istanbul, a decision she keeps from both parts of her family. She invites herself to stay with Mustafa's sisters and during the visit becomes close to Asya. When she makes this decision, the book almost seems to be moving in the direction of a work which will study an American woman's reaction to Islam and women. But the author and Amy assure the reader that this is not the case. The purpose of Amy's impulsive decision to travel to Istanbul is to explore Turkish-Armenian relations and also to further Amy's own quest to understand these sources of what she sees as her identity -- in the person of her Armenian father and his family and her Turkish step-father and his family whom she has never met. The four sisters take her in, and Asya asks them about the killings of Armenians in 1915. The sisters profess ignorance.

As the book progresses, Amy and the reader see more of Istanbul and of Turkish-Armenian history from various perspectives. This portion of Turkey's past is also combined with many secrets and hidden events of Asya's family which become exposed as the plot develops.

I found the book awkward, contrived, and poorly written. The history of the Turks and the Armenians is buried under a welter of other much weaker material and, for the most part, is not told well. The characters in the Istanbul family are eccentrics and largely stereotypical. They are described in a sentimental, syrupy manner with predictable attention to meals and indulgent portrayals of the family cats. The intellectual interests of the two young women, particularly Asya's delight in Johnny Cash and her reading of Levinas, are forced and mannered and have little to do with any threads of the book. The author overwrites, pounds home her points repeatedly, and shows more than usual narratorial omniscience in commenting on the actions of her characters and their motivations. While the author and Amy are narrowly correct in disclaiming "Islam and women" as the theme of the book and of Amy's trip to Istanbul, the theme of gender relationships dwarfs the stated theme of the book of Turkish-Armenian history. The family of women, and the two young girls, are shown as independent, thoughtful, vulnerable, and human. The men are absent, boors, vulgar, at a loss for what to do with themselves, and worse. The gender themes of the book have nothing to do with Turkish-Armenian relationships and history. These matters crossed the line of gender. The focus on gender stereotypes and of male conduct at the most offensive level detracts greatly from the book or from any serious understanding of a part of history that deserves to be studied and understood.

In general, when I read a novel I don't like, I rate it three stars on grounds that most books, including this one, have some worthwhile passages and that a rating of two stars or less is overkill. But I seriously disliked this novel. The plot is replete with coincidence, the writing is poor, and the gender bias offensive. Thus, with some reluctance, I departed from my usual practice in rating this book.

Robin Friedman

I gave up before I got half way through.

Honestly, I think you probably have to be of Armenian or Turkish heritage to enjoy this book. To me, it was slow, badly written with characters that were mostly caricatures. Alot of them didn't even have names - they were just "the incredibly untalented poet", "the disolute cartoonist". Very little of either Armenian or Turkish culture came into the book, though - it was just the main characters relatives - none of whom were likable. The author also doesn't have a good sense of contemporary English language - "she donned a dress" - most people would say "she put on a dress"; "why don't you respond to me?" - most people would say "why don't you answer me?". Plus a lot of odd description - "saturnine smile" - what does this mean ?

The genocidal slaughter of Armenians by the Turkish government in the period 1915-22 is a historical fact. Few people other than Turkish nationalists and the present Turkish government would argue with this. That it is little talked about has something to do with its distance in time and also with the desire of many governments to avoid annoying a strategically important Middle Eastern country. Shafak's novel is an attempt to show that this tragic event resonates in the present. She fails miserably.

Technically, this is a terrible novel. Most of the characters exist only to act as mouthpieces for various points of view. This is particularly true of Amy, the young Armenian-American who goes to Istanbul in search of her roots, and along the way delivers a variety of speeches about the Armenian genocide that may as well have been lifted from newspaper editorials. Just to hammer home her talking points even more, the author has "scenes" set in a cyber chat room that consists of more stilted speechifying. Asya, the bastard of the title, is more symbol than character (more on that later), and secondary characters, such as the Turkish Kazanci sisters and Amy's various Armenian-American relatives, do little more than act in a colourful manner, which generally means forcing various foodstuffs on people. And the plot? There barely is one. Shafak trots out a busload of characters and then gives them little to do, hence we get a lot of parenthetical discussions of folklore, food, and customs, most of it no more insightful or revelatory than the average travel article. And the less said about using a character's imaginary djinn ally to fill in some historical and personal background, the better.

But Shafak's biggest error is her decision to shoehorn in a Symbolic Event which is meant to stand as a reflection of Turkey's denial of what it did to the Armenians. This event revolves around the mystery of who Asya's father is, and any astute reader should have the mystery solved at the halfway point. It's at that point I wanted to toss the book away because the symbolism was so obvious, so contrived, so clumsily handled, it makes the book feel like it was produced by a committee of creative writing students.

Yes, this novel is a comprehensive disaster, but Elif Shafak is not entirely without talent. She can write with energy and humor, and in the character of Zeliha, Asya's mother, she actually creates someone we want to follow and learn more about. For more current and interesting information on issues surrounding the Armenian genocide, check out Robert Fisk's columns online at the The Independent.

Read more of my reviews at Jettison Cocoon dot com.

I never got past the first chapter. The writing is that of an amateur.

I picked up this book because I enjoy books set in foreign countries. I enjoy learning about the sights, sounds and smells. However, I should have read the back cover to know what it's about. I was hoping it would be some sort of mystery, suspenseful thriller, but alas, I was sadly mistaken.
It is about a group of sisters in Istanbul and the one sister who is the rebel of them all. It follows her plight. I should have stopped reading the book but I kept thinking it would get better.
I cannot really tell you much about the author's writing style, because I really just kept thinking the plot would get better. She is very descriptive in her writing, which was not what I was looking for. Had I know better, I probably would have passed on this book. Unfortunately, I did read the whole thing. I would tell anyone, man or woman, that if you're looking for an action-packed read, this is not it.

Ms. Shafak has written another enjoyable, thought-provoking book. She creates a world peopled by some very interesting - if bizarre - women. There is a mystery created around the female characters that is quite enthralling. All of these fascinating women, as Shafak puts it, "....have been in the habit of savouring the cocoon of victimhood." There is despair in each of their lives which is best summed up by ""There is an afterlife and it's going to be worse than here," was the general opinion in the group. "So enjoy whatever time you have left.""
She does not quite handle the male characters so well, but they are not the focus of the book. Neither, to my mind, was "the Armenian issue" the main point of the book, yet it was this that caused all of the fuss. As a non-Turk, it is astonishing that the book's treatment of the Armenian genocide should have provoked such a strong reaction from the Turkish authorities. Their over-reaction clearly displayed just how much that ghost from their history continues to haunt them: "All these years, a harrowing remorse had been gnawing him inside, little by little, without disrupting his outer facade. But perhaps the fight between amnesia and remembering was finally over." The fight is not over yet for the Turkish or Armenian people, apparently.

An overstuffed TURKEY...the dialog is terrible...straight out of a political science text book...people just don't talk like this...

The plot line about the Armenia Genocide was good and very interesting but the rest of the plot was terrible. The main characters and most of the ancillary characters were unlikable.

"The Bastard Of Istanbul" generated a controversy. Its Turkish author, Elif Shafak, was put on trial a couple of years ago for "denigrating Turkishness"(her own words) because the novel contains many references to the Armenian Genocide in 1915. Charges were dropped later on.

The book was written in English originally. The story interweaves past and present, Turkish, Armenian and American backgrounds. Many characters are depicted, the Kazanci family in Istanbul and the Tchakhmakhchian family, of Armenian origins, in the USA. Through the younger generations in the persons of Asya (Turkish) and Armanoush (Armenian American) we are taken back and forth in a sequence of names, places and events which will ultimately reveal a connection between the two extended families and a terrible, long-ago buried secret will be discovered.

This is an intricated story with many relevant characters and the tale is revealed almost entirely through the feminine side of each family, mothers, daughters, granddaughters and so on. To be more specific would unavoidably involve spoilers. Generally speaking however I would add a few comments:

Something negative:
. I thought some characters were underdeveloped with main reference to the Armenian/American side of the family, whereas the author seemed to concentrate on other, less important -to me- details.
. Some connections were a bit tricky to... keep track of given that there are so many characters described.
. I did not entirely appreciate the fact that some relevant aspects of the story were revealed to us -the readers- by Banu's djinns (Banu being one of Asya's aunts, a religious clairvoyant) but they were not shared later on with the main characters.

Having said that, here comes the positive:
. This book is reminiscent, in part, of some Latin American narrative tradition (the great Gabriel Garcia Marquez comes to mind) where magic merges with reality -magic realism- I am not comparing Shafak with Marquez, it goes without saying, but I read almost all of his books and would always find myself being pulled into his storytelling as in a vortex. To a lesser degree, this has happened similarly with this book.
. I loved the blending of so many characters and cultures, some of them spiced up by life events, others less flavoured. Mentioning different foods is almost inevitable as every chapter has a herb/spice/fruit title, each aromatic quality finding the relevant niche within.
. Foods (although not described in full) blend in turn with poetry or native songs. The narrative is sometimes bold but very effective. Some situations are peppered with humour, mostly sardonic, often caustic, some others are sprinkled with harrowing melancholy, a yearning for the past, for the roots. A search for the sense of belonging. It is all projected with great intensity through both sides of the story.
And the eternal questions lingers: is it better "to know or not to know"?

It all comes together, perhaps disjointedly at times, but beautifully, with an original quality.

"The Bastard Of Istanbul" is a strong title but it is not just about "the bastard", in this case Asya who has never known her father. Bearing in mind the controversy, the author seems to have "stepped on some toes". It is only natural that curiosity is piqued about her personal circumstances for the subject chosen as the main historical background for this novel. The Armenian Genocide is, to many, an open wound to this day. My standardly average level of information may not, in this case, make me fully "equipped" for a more knowledgeable opinion, but I have to say that, strictly speaking about the book, the main message I perceived is one of positivity, of hopeful integration, not forgetting or denying the past but looking at it respectfully, for a better present and future. Various characters are given a voice from both Turkish and Armenian perspectives. I felt as if a stretching hand was reaching out, trying to build an imaginary starting-over bridge through the new generations, represented by Asya and Armanoush. Commendable try for what still seems to be an unresolved and painful issue.
The result in my opinion is a fascinating and, to a degree, almost mystical novel. Engrossing until the shocking end (unrelated to the historical events).

I just received this book and read it at once. its the story of a turkish family and an armenian family that are intertwined. The young woman, Armanoush travels to Turkey to find her Armenian identity and answers to the questions she has had about the Armenian genocide. Its a funny book too, the use of the word odar (non-armenian) and it's connotations are reflective of all of our cultures and attitudes toward outsiders.

It reminded me a lot of Rise the Euphrates, another really good book that discusses the identity of the Armenian Diaspora and the generational effects of genocide. As stated in that book: there is an archetypal pattern in which the first generation denies, the second generation forgets and the third generation rediscovers the event.

The complexities of this book didn't hit me until after I finished the novel. The role of women in this book was not what i would have expected, mini-skirts, profanity and a nose-rings never fit into the persona of the Istanbulite woman that I was aware of, but by the end of the novel I understood. Not meeting the standards of social convention, the character Zeliha, reaches some sort of freedom in her exile, which happens to women all over the globe. It also explores the role of men in Istanbul society, although certainly not to the extent as it does women. I really liked how the author had woven fortune telling and a sort of mysticism into the story line, because that has so much to do with most societies, not to mention Turkish and Armenian cultures (coffee cup fortunes can rule one's life if they are done well). The author also handled the question of the Armenian genocide with blunt delicacy, through the eyes of the older women in their silence, but as well through the slightly defensive eyes of Ayse. I thought the online cafe discussion was pretty good. The ideas of survival and human nature are exemplified in the main characters.

This book is an important one. The affection displayed toward Armanoush by both the Turkish and Armenian families is significant. There are too many characters and the connections were a little frustrating to decipher, but the basic question of identity and the wish to belong exist in all of us, regardless of ethnic background and this point is brought home in the book.