Cleveland Plain Dealer, OH
Feb 4 2006

Politically charged novel talks Turkey

Sunday, February 04, 2007
Lenora Inez Brown

Lately, Turkish writers have found themselves in the maelstrom. When
Orhan Pamuk received the Nobel Prize for Literature, he earned his
country’s ire speaking out against the 1915 Armenian genocide. Then,
Elif Shafak became Turkey’s first fiction writer to be charged under
Article 301 of the Turkish Penal Code.

Her crime? A character in her novel "The Bastard of Istanbul" calls
the Turks "butchers." Indicted for "insulting Turkishness," Shafak
was acquitted in September, dodging a three-year prison sentence.

But does Shafak’s tale – a best seller in Turkey before the
controversy – withstand the political uproar?

"The Bastard" is Asya, a young Turkish woman with an
Armenian-American counterpart named Armanoush. Shafak’s second novel
in English begins weakly; its florid passages suggesting a discomfort
with language. But once the story moves to the United States, a flat,
from-the-hip prose begins to jump off the page. Shafak maintains this
bright style, even when the novel returns to contemporary Turkey and
a house full of women and food. It made me rethink those first
chapters narrated by a non-observant Muslim named Zeliha on her way
to have an abortion. Perhaps their tone matches the overwrought state
of a 19-year-old girl, who changes course and decides to give birth
to Asya, who resumes the narrative, 19 years later.

Yes, time passes quickly. With one page turn, years, even decades,
fly by and narrators change. It takes a long time to accept this
convention, and the story races ahead, daring us to catch up. But the
device also makes a significant statement about history and time’s
inability to diminish emotional pain. For those who suffer exile or
forced removal, time does not pass. Instead, the present and the past
commingle.

At times, Shafak’s simple, blunt descriptions paint vivid pictures
that fill the mind and lift the narrative. At others, her approach is
confusing. Asya’s Auntie Banu reveals the novel’s great twist through
a vision – leaving unclear what is real and what isn’t, throwing into
question the novel’s central argument that the once-healthy
relationships between Turks and Armenians have been forgotten.

The Armenian genocide finds an obvious metaphor in the bastard child,
indicting everyone who looks away from the source of Asya’s story. In
this world, ignoring what happened long ago is simply easier, whether
political or personal.

Shafak’s eventual revelation of Asya’s father is oddly
anti-climactic, but the author is shrewd about the Turkish-Armenian
question. "Some among the Armenians in the diaspora would never want
the Turks to recognize the genocide," one Armenian-American character
observes. "If they do so, they’ll pull the rug out from under our
feet and take the strongest bond that unites us. Just like the Turks
have been in the habit of denying their wrongdoing, the Armenians
have been in the habit of savoring the cocoon of victimhood."

Clearly, the words of 34-year-old Shafak can sting. But her world of
make-believe does more to explain the Armenian situation than most;
it’s a fiction worth reading.

Brown is a professor at DePaul University in Chicago.