The Times (London)
July 17, 2004, Saturday
Legends of little men
by Maureen Freely
BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS
BY LOUIS DE BERNIERES
Secker & Warburg
£17.99; 640pp
ISBN 0 436 20549 1
£14.39 (p&p £2.25)
0870 1608080
During the Ottoman Empire -before the Turks called themselves Turks
-Istanbul and the Aegean coast of Anatolia were as Christian as they
were Muslim. The populations of Crete, the Aegean Islands, and large
parts of the Greek mainland were similarly mixed. The Treaty of
Laus-anne changed all that: almost overnight, the Christians of
Anatolia and most Muslim Greeks were forced from their homes and
dispatched across the border.
On paper, the population exchange made sense. It came at the end of a
war that had seen the Greeks invade Anatolia and the Turks push them
into the sea. There was a strong desire to prevent a sequel -and to
end the massacres, death marches and mass expulsions that had ravaged
both Christian and Muslim communities throughout the region for many
decades. On the ground, though, the story was rather different.
Thousands of peaceful fishing and farming communities were abruptly
ripped asunder and millions made homeless. Eighty years later, their
descendants still carry the memory of what Louis de Bernieres (below)
calls their “absolute destitution and sense of injustice” -as anyone
familiar with the area will know.
He dedicates Birds Without Wings to these forgotten millions and also
to his maternal grandfather, who was wounded at Gallipoli. It is, in
effect, two novels for the price of one. The first is a long and
meandering tale set in a village in hills behind the town now known
as Fethiye. Floating above it and swooping down at brutally regular
intervals to destroy its peace is a second, leaner tale about Mustafa
Kemal, the intrepid Salonica-born soldier-hero who went on to found
the Turkish Republic.
Holding it all together is the mournful, all-knowing narrator that
won this author’s previous books so many devoted readers. His
characters do not just speak: they asseverate. When they asseverate
out of turn, he is quick to put them in their place. Thus, when
Leonidas the schoolteacher attends a meeting of a clandestine society
aiming to restore to Greece all the lands lost to the Ottomans, de
Bernieres is quick to remind us that his dreams are “predicated on
the absolute belief” that his own people are superior to all others
and that “such people, even those as insignificant as Leonidas, are
the motor of history, which is finally nothing but a sorry edifice
constructed from hacked flesh in the name of great ideas”.
He’s right, of couse. Which is why he gets away with it. Well, we’ll
see. It is never clear where the truth about Mustafa Kemal ends and
the embroidery begins.
His Turkish spelling is eccentric and makes you wonder how carefully
he’s checked his facts. Although his account of the Great Game seems
judicious and even handed (he saves his most righteous rage for Lloyd
George), he deviates from both Greek and Turkish official history in
ways that could be controversial. If he’s thinking of visiting either
country in the near future, he should pack dark glasses.
Although his account of Gallipoli is inspired -rarely has the ugly
face of war been so lovingly described -his heart belongs to the
smaller canvas, and his portrayal of sleepy, multi-ethnic village
life before, during, and after the First World War is a magnificent
achievement. Here the sonorous narrator pulls back for long stretches
to let the characters describe the complex web of friendships,
passions, betrayals and heroic acts that bind together its
inhabitants.
They judge themselves by their own standards, which means we must
suspend ours. So the first time we meet Rustem Bey, the village
landlord, he is saving a Greek woman from the town gossips. The
second time we meet him, he is inviting a crowd to stone Tamara, his
unfaithful wife, to death. It may be the penalty laid down by Sharia,
but it is the imam who stops the stoning, shames Rustem Bey, and
saves Tamara’s life. In a village that serves more than one god,
there is always more than one right way of doing things.
That life without blind faith is difficult is clear from the
chequered careers of Levon the Armenian apothecary, Ali the
Snowbringer, Leyla the concubine, Ibrahim the Mad, and Iskandar the
Potter and his son Karatavuk, who ends up fighting with Mustafa Kemal
at Gallipoli. All make terrible mistakes and some are driven by
bigotry. But because they know each other first as neighbours, they
sometimes rise above themselves, and their most generous acts are on
behalf of those marked as enemies. Until one day, when a group of
statesmen gather together to sign a peace treaty. If you’re going to
a beach anywhere on the Aegean this summer, and want to know a bit
more about the local history, read this book and weep.