The Sound of Fishsteps
Last week, I finished reading Buket Uzuner's The Sound of Fishsteps. Written in 1993, the book follows the story of Afife, a 20 year old Turkish special who gets invited by a UN-like organization to come to Scandinavia with 88 other world nationals to engage in a sort of eternal symposium. While there, she meets Romain Gary, Cervantes, Anais Nin, etc., all people who know that they really are or are connected to these famous people. Afife herself is Afife Piri, descendant of Piri Reis, the famous seaman whose astonishingly accurate world map c. 16th century lies in Topkapi Palace. Eventually, the specials as they call themselves come to realize that the normals think they are all insane and have actually lured them there to lock them up in a mental institute and normalize them. The rest of the book details their escape, the revelation of one of the hospital staff as Gengiz Khan (or Attila the Hun or someone), and the love affair between Afife and Romain.
Although the story is intrinsically interesting, I found the style rather stultifying. I don't know if this was the translation or what, but it seemed rather uneven and ... smothering. Despite the brevity of length, the story seemed to move very slowly. Some of the elements that bothered most were also the most clever elements; for example, the various presentations the specials gave including Romain's "As If..." lecture. One element I did love was the tiny diatribe about the special who refused to engage in the game called "breathing" when in "reality" you don't need to.
I've only read 2 of Uzuner's books: this one and Long White Cloud but in style they differ from each other as if from different authors. Either that or she developed considerably within the years she wrote the both of them. Still, it was interesting novella.
Although the story is intrinsically interesting, I found the style rather stultifying. I don't know if this was the translation or what, but it seemed rather uneven and ... smothering. Despite the brevity of length, the story seemed to move very slowly. Some of the elements that bothered most were also the most clever elements; for example, the various presentations the specials gave including Romain's "As If..." lecture. One element I did love was the tiny diatribe about the special who refused to engage in the game called "breathing" when in "reality" you don't need to.
I've only read 2 of Uzuner's books: this one and Long White Cloud but in style they differ from each other as if from different authors. Either that or she developed considerably within the years she wrote the both of them. Still, it was interesting novella.