The Gaze [Paperback]

Elif Shafak (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 1, 2006

“An enchanting combination of compassion and cruelty…Elif Shafak is the best author to come out of Turkey in the last decade.”—Orhan Pamuk

A new title from the author of The Flea Palace, shortlisted for the Independent Prize for Foreign Fiction and chosen for Waterstone’s 2005 Summer Reading promotion.

In her prize-wining novel, The Gaze, Shafak explores the subject of body image and desirability. An overweight woman and her lover, a dwarf, are sick of being stared at wherever they go, and decide to reverse roles. The man goes out wearing make up, and the woman draws a moustache on her face.

The couple deal with the gaze of passers by in different ways. The woman wants to hide away from the world, while the man meets them head on, even compiling his own ‘Dictionary of the Gaze’ to show the powerful effects a simple look can have.

The narrative of The Gaze is intertwined with the dwarf’s dictionary entries and the story of a bizarre freak-show organized in Istanbul in the 1880s as Shafak explores the damage which can be done by our simple desire to look at other people.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Originally published in Turkey in 1999 to wide acclaim, this screwball love story is Shafak's third novel. (Her fifth, The Saint of Incipient Insanities, was published here in 2004.) Loosely organized around a neurotic obese woman and a feisty dwarf, it teems with parallel plots and digressions, freely leaping from modern apartment living in Istanbul to a 19th-century Turkish freak show and fur hunts in 17th-century Siberia. Shafak's prose (ably translated by Freely) follows a humorous, idiosyncratic course, seizing on arresting visual details, such as "a house the color of salted green almonds" and dispensing oddly charming aphorisms: "Love is a corset." (She adds: "In order to understand the value of this you have to be exceedingly fat.") At one moment, a faceless newborn's features are etched on by an anxious aunt; at another, a shipwrecked Russian sailor surprises a shaman in flagrante delicto with an oversized sable. The early parts of the novel can feel maddeningly unfocused for a book about the power of the stare. Later pages home in on an unexpected emotional trauma, and the atmosphere of fantastical levity clears to reveal an urgent, human pain. Shafak probes the many ironies of appearance and perception with entertaining and affecting results. (Oct.)
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Review

Beautifully evoked The Times Original and compelling TLS Plays with ideas of beauty and ugliness like they're Rubik's cubes -- Helen Oyeyemi Entertaining and affecting Publishers' Weekly Elif Shafak is the best author to come out of Turkey in the last decade -- Orhan Pamuk --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 252 pages
• Publisher: Marion Boyars Publishers Ltd (July 1, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0714531219
• ISBN-13: 978-0714531212
• Product Dimensions: 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #828,791 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Elif Shafak was born in Strasbourg, France, in 1971. She is an award-winning novelist and the most widely read female writer in Turkey. Critics have acclaimed her as one of the most distinctive voices in contemporary literature in both Turkish and English. Her novels include The Bastard of Istanbul and her recent memoir, Black Milk. Her books have been translated into more than thirty languages. She is married with two children, and divides her time between London and Istanbul. Her website is at www.elifshafak.com.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars A very good book wasted by an incapable taranslator, July 20, 2009

By 

Retigi (Canada) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Gaze (Paperback)

The English translation of this book is incredibly bad. Here is a very simple example:
In the original text it says:
... with 50 cannon salute ... (in Turkish: 50 pare top atisiyla)

And here is the translated version:
... with 50 tosses of the ball ....
(in Turkish "cannon" and "ball" are homophonic words. Unfortunately, not being aware of this fact, the translator made up a new sentence which does not even convey the meaning of the preceding sentences.)

The translated text contains lots of such errors. If you had read this wonderful book of Elif Safak, and had not liked it, be sure that it is just because of these awkward translation errors.

5 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars captivating gaze, October 10, 2007

By 

Guillermo Chantada (Buenos Aires, Argentina) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gaze (Paperback)

This is a wonderful book, probably the best one I have read of Elif Shafak. This is a very well written story with parallel stories in different time that interdigitate to make the whole message stronger. It deals with how other people sees us and the effects that seeing, being seen and not seen and not being seen have in our lives. Secrets that we all have and how they impact on our wish to be seen and be seen are also wonderfully depicted in this novel. If you wish to expore this excellent contemporary Turkish novelist, The Gaze is a good start.

1 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars A terrible book, January 23, 2011

By 

Pauline Aksungur (Adana, Turkey) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Gaze (Paperback)

This is probably the worst book that I ever had the misfortune of buying. After attempting to read it, I ended up throwing it in the garbage. The author seems to be telling several uncontacted stories at the same time. It is not until far into the book that she finally lets you know that the lover of the fat woman is a dwarf. Until then we only know this because we read the back of the book. The worst of all is the comparison of her writing to Orhan Pamuk's. That is a grave insult to him.