Cages on Opposite Shores: A Novel (Interlink World Fiction) [Paperback]

Janset Berkok Shami (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: March 1998

Set in Istanbul, this novel tells the story of Meral, a modern-day Turkish woman searching for identity and renewal after leaving her husband of 11 years and realizing for the first time her part-Armenian heritage.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

The ferry that plies the Bosporus between the Asian and European shores of Turkey is the physical and metaphoric nexus of Shami's first novel, set in modern Istanbul. En route to meet the lawyer who is handling her divorce, Meral Demiray pauses to read from her deceased mother's diary, a painful account of Armenian heritage that reappears throughout Shami's novel. On the ferry, Meral encounters Dr. Zeki, whose loneliness overwhelms her own and she agrees to visit him. After one awkward visit to Dr. Zeki and his reclusive brother-in-law Orhan, Meral retreats to ``normal life,'' organizing exhibitions with the ladies of the Fine Arts Committee. But the haunted lonely men on the other shore compel Meral to return to them, to purge the trappings of her position in society in favor of more basic values, to confront her own personal history and demons. In so doing, her vulnerability rekindles a desire for human contact that Orhan has shunned for a decade and a course of civilized afternoon teas turns into a revelation of trust, altruism and self-discovery. The affirmative power of this work is graced with subtlety and simplicity.

Copyright 1995 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Interlink Pub Group Inc (March 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1566561574
• ISBN-13: 978-1566561570
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.3 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.9 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,670,075 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skillful fusion of ethical and aesthetic principles, June 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cages on Opposite Shores: A Novel (Emerging Voices New International Fiction) (Hardcover)

Cages on Opposite Shores By Janset Berkok Shami

There are many kinds of "cages" in Janset Berkok Shami's novel. Some of them are whole houses, or simply rooms--spaces which can be prisons, cozy retreats or cordial meeting places, depending on the occupants' state of mind. Other "cages" are the social or ethnic compartments into which society divides its members, often with tragic consequences. Still others--those which seem to concern the author most--are the psychological barriers which human beings erect around themselves out of selfishness or out of pain, shame and desperation.

Born in Turkey of Circassian descent, Janset Berkok Shami is a long-time resident of Jordan. During the 90's, she has published over 20 short stories in American and other literary journals, most of them about Jordanians, Circassians and Palestinians. However, for Cages on Opposite Shores, her first novel, she chose to return to her native Istanbul, though not to her Circassian roots. Instead, the historical past, which impinges on the novel's present, is the massacre and expulsion of Armenians which took place in Turkey during World War I.

Meral, the main character, is a modern woman in transition--in the process of getting divorced, coming to terms with the death of her mother who had always kept her at a distance, and feeling alternately attached and detached from her friends. Meral "did not miss her old life. But something stopped her from moving into her future. She was not given a key to her future, because she did not have the key of her past" (p.62). Caged in an indeterminate present, Meral discovers her mother's diaries which reveal her grandmother's Armenian identity, and how her grandmother's suffering had affected her mother's upbringing and, inversely, her own. Knowledge, however, is not enough. Meral has to reach out to others with her newly found understanding.

Today, in the West, finding one's roots and "identity politics" are fashionable, but Shami gives deeper meaning to these concepts than simply celebrating difference. The roots she traces are first and foremost emotional--feelings that can be experienced by any human being rather than being the exclusive property of one ethnic group. Although it is not mentioned, the story can be understood as a statement on the tragic consequences of the conflict that persists in Turkey with the Kurds, and among national or ethnic groups in the former socialist countries.

The real achievement of this novel is its skillful fusion of ethical and aesthetic principles, of past and present and of the physical and emotional worlds in which the characters moved. At times, Shami's prose approximates the simultaneous lightness and depth found in poetry. Her ability to create powerful images, with few words, is also reminiscent of poetry. Istanbul, divided by the Straits of Bosphorus into a European and Asian part, embodies the separations enforced on the lives of many of the novel's characters. Like the cages, "the opposite shore" is both a geographical location, to be reached by ferry, and a state of mind. Personification of the material world intensifies the moods of the characters. In the vibrant reality created by Shami's pen, mirrors frown, houses are "frightened of life," the carrots on the banquet table are confident, while the prunes are introverted; meanwhile, Meral's thoughts float about like "unusually patterned tiny seahorses."

This is a novel about time and space, about separation and reconciliation. It is about many things but, above all, it is an affirmation of the power of compassion, and a warning of the consequences should this human feeling be neglected. It is a subtle challenge to probe beyond the surface and open the doors of the cages.

By Sally Bland

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skillful fusion of ethical and aesthetic principles, June 1, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Cages on Opposite Shores: A Novel (Interlink World Fiction) (Paperback)

Cages on Opposite Shores By Janset Berkok Shami

There are many kinds of "cages" in Janset Berkok Shami's novel. Some of them are whole houses, or simply rooms--spaces which can be prisons, cozy retreats or cordial meeting places, depending on the occupants' state of mind. Other "cages" are the social or ethnic compartments into which society divides its members, often with tragic consequences. Still others--those which seem to concern the author most--are the psychological barriers which human beings erect around themselves out of selfishness or out of pain, shame and desperation.

Born in Turkey of Circassian descent, Janset Berkok Shami is a long-time resident of Jordan. During the 90's, she has published over 20 short stories in American and other literary journals, most of them about Jordanians, Circassians and Palestinians. However, for Cages on Opposite Shores, her first novel, she chose to return to her native Istanbul, though not to her Circassian roots. Instead, the historical past, which impinges on the novel's present, is the massacre and expulsion of Armenians which took place in Turkey during World War I.

Meral, the main character, is a modern woman in transition--in the process of getting divorced, coming to terms with the death of her mother who had always kept her at a distance, and feeling alternately attached and detached from her friends. Meral "did not miss her old life. But something stopped her from moving into her future. She was not given a key to her future, because she did not have the key of her past" (p.62). Caged in an indeterminate present, Meral discovers her mother's diaries which reveal her grandmother's Armenian identity, and how her grandmother's suffering had affected her mother's upbringing and, inversely, her own. Knowledge, however, is not enough. Meral has to reach out to others with her newly found understanding.

Today, in the West, finding one's roots and "identity politics" are fashionable, but Shami gives deeper meaning to these concepts than simply celebrating difference. The roots she traces are first and foremost emotional--feelings that can be experienced by any human being rather than being the exclusive property of one ethnic group. Although it is not mentioned, the story can be understood as a statement on the tragic consequences of the conflict that persists in Turkey with the Kurds, and among national or ethnic groups in the former socialist countries.

The real achievement of this novel is its skillful fusion of ethical and aesthetic principles, of past and present and of the physical and emotional worlds in which the characters moved. At times, Shami's prose approximates the simultaneous lightness and depth found in poetry. Her ability to create powerful images, with few words, is also reminiscent of poetry. Istanbul, divided by the Straits of Bosphorus into a European and Asian part, embodies the separations enforced on the lives of many of the novel's characters. Like the cages, "the opposite shore" is both a geographical location, to be reached by ferry, and a state of mind. Personification of the material world intensifies the moods of the characters. In the vibrant reality created by Shami's pen, mirrors frown, houses are "frightened of life," the carrots on the banquet table are confident, while the prunes are introverted; meanwhile, Meral's thoughts float about like "unusually patterned tiny seahorses."

This is a novel about time and space, about separation and reconciliation. It is about many things but, above all, it is an affirmation of the power of compassion, and a warning of the consequences should this human feeling be neglected. It is a subtle challenge to probe beyond the surface and open the doors of the cages.

By Sally Bland