Elif Shafak's novel "The Bastard of Istanbul" is set in contemporary Istanbul with important scenes in Arizona 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 officialy 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".
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 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 in Turkish-Armenian relations and 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 sterotypes 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
