Turkish novelist explores a nation trapped between Islam and Modernity

    O.Z. Livaneli is a member of the Turkish Parliament, a musician and composer, and now, a novelist. I am not qualified to comment on how he handles those first three jobs, but he is a natural talent as a writer of fiction. His novel is entitled "Bliss".

   In this tale of modern Turkey, a teenage girl is raped by her uncle, then escorted by a male cousin to Istanbul, where it is hoped he will be able to quietly murder her before returning home. In their backward little village, it is assumed that a woman dishonors her family when she is raped, and that the only way to wipe out the dishonor is for the woman to disappear through suicide or murder. Unfortunately, Meryem rejects the suicide idea and her cousin Cemal, a troubled veteran of the war against the Kurdish PKK guerillas, proves unreliable as a murderer.

   Meanwhile, a wealthy Professor in Istanbul falls prey to a mysterious midlife crisis and abandons his wife and their life of privilege to rent a sailboat and explore the beautiful Ionian coast of Turkey while also exploring his own mind. When the three characters finally meet, Livaneli is able to use their interaction as another way of exploring the realities of modern Turkey. 

   I spent a year in Turkey once, but I was only two years old when that year ended. So for me, this novel was a first real glimpse of a nation caught between the static centuries of Ottoman despotism and a modern world without rules that borders on anarchy.  Islam is everywhere in the story, but it wears many guises. One guise is the nightmarishly misogynistic mask of the Islam practiced in the home village of Meryem and Cemal, the bearded face of a trusted religious leader capable of raping a friendless young relative then arranging her murder to hide the evidence.  Another face of Islam is the wise and compassionate one of an elderly Imam in Istanbul who counsels Cemal that he has done well to refuse his own father's commands, as Islam is above all a religion of compassion towards the weak, the hopeless, and the oppressed. Such a religion he explains, can only tolerate violence in their defense.

   There are such beautiful nuances in this tale. The Professor is wise enough to understand that his nation's history involves many currents- where many versions of Islam contend with the sensuality of any Mediterranean culture and a sort of trashy, television-centered worship of materialism that is very familiar to any resident of the USA.  The awe-inspiring edifices of ancient Byzantium and the ornate palaces of the Sultans survive side-by-side shabby farmhouses and the flimsy shacks of shanty towns. Beautiful coastal towns with orange groves are swallowed up by condos for wealthy tourists or Turkish soap opera or soccer stars.

   Livaneli's tale may not be a literary achievement of the first order. But for an American reader, it's not a problem. .  The facts are seamlessly woven into the lives of people we come to care about.  His vibrant tour of a lively place that most of us are not even aware will repay any reader for a few hour's time spent absorbing it. Try something different!  Different is good.