However, I do agree that some of her writerly anxieties make the book feel a bit contrived at times. I will not go into the Armenian question because a lot of people have already talked about it but as a person who lived all his life in Istanbul, I found her representation of Istanbul in the first chapter extremely stereotypical and I was very frustrated. Luckily, the remaining chapters were better.

I think since she wrote the book in English and had an international intended audience, she was anxious to give a picture of Istanbul in the first chapter that is recognizable to them by using stereotypes, but that ends up creating some minor yet (to me as someone from Istanbul) siginificant mistakes. Some of these from the first chapter:

- Zeliha is walking to her gyno appointment and passes through the old bazaar (kapali carsi) and her appointment is supposed to be in one of the richest neighborhoods in Istanbul. The thing is, the old bazaar is not in walking distance to any of the rich neighborhoods of Istanbul.

- When she arrives in the doctor’s office, it’s supposed to be 4 pm on Friday, and she starts hearing the Friday prayer from the mosques. Any muslim person would know that the Friday prayer is around 1pm, not after 4 pm.

- Again, when she is in the doctor’s office, she is hearing street vendors selling ‘tangerines’, but I know for a fact, that street vendors wouldn’t sell tangerines in the summer months. It would have been more authentic if she said something like tomatoes, cucumbers, or even plums.

There are also some more subjective stereotypes presented in the first chapter.

For example, when Zeliha is younger, they have a cleaning lady who is supposed to be Kurdish, but the way she and her daughter are presented is very stereotypical.

- Again, when Zeliha is in the doctor’s office, she presents three caricatures of women who are waiting for their appointment and she immediately assumes that the one with the headscarf is there because she is not able to conceive, AS IF, no secular woman has that problem, and AS IF, religious women never go to a gynocologist unless it’s because of infertility treatment.

Also, Zeliha’s portrayal in chapter 1 as a free-spirited woman in the late 80s (I am assuming that’s the setting of the first chapter) didn’t sound very convincing to me.

As I said above, I was ready to stop reading the book but the rest of the book turned out to be less stereotype-ridden than the first chapter. So, I continued reading. (Though I am sure, if I was familiar with Armenian American culture, I would recognize more stereotypes in chapter 2).

I am sure that if it wasn’t for the confrontational aspects (from the title, to the Armenian-Turkish background) nobody would have read it. Which makes you wonder….

Throughout the book she makes it very clear in more and less subtle ways that Armenians and Turks do have a lot in common, whether they like it or not, and that that might be a basis to continue from in learning to understand each other. I am not talking big things here. One obvious example that keeps coming back in the book is food. At Asya’s home for example, Armanoush finds out that she knows all the different dishes on the table from her own Armenian family. These dishes are a bridge between the two cultures in the book.

I did read Gilgamesh a couple of years ago and I enjoyed it a lot. I have the book somewhere in my boxes of books in Holland, but right now I have no idea where exactly! If I find it again, I will reread it.

There is another book about contemporary Armenia, Penelope by Goar Markosyan-Kasper. I have the book in Dutch translation, but I don’t know if it has been translated into English. It is very different in style and subject, set in the gloomy early 1990s, just after Armenia gained independence again. These were difficult years, war, the aftermath of a big earthquake, no gas or electricity, etc. I came across this book again while going through some boxes with my books at my parents’ in Holland. I will take it back with me for a reread. I remember that I didn’t really like the book when I read it the first time around, but maybe now it is different, now that I live in Armenia.

Another, yet again very different book that I have up for a reread is Ali and Nino by Kurban Said. This is a classic set in the beginning of the 20th century in the Caucasus region, mainly in Baku and Georgia. I loved this book when I first read it.

Both books will of course eventually be reviewed here on the blog.

Have you read the book Gilgamesh by Joan London? I finished the book just over a year ago, but I’m still thinking of Armenia … the music and the lay of the land, for instance:

(p. 156) Hagop’s eyes glittered, he seemed at ease, elated, as if he had come home. He clapped loudly as the music began. The sound curled up like smoke, Armenian music, familar to her now, as were the instruments that looked like weird root vegetables, the doudek, the kamanchar, the saz. Soon the men were dancing, whirling and clapping.

(p. 168) In the far distance was the black wall of the Caucasus. The turned back. Ahead were the light red mountains of Persia.

Anyway, I thought I’d mention the book to you, in case you haven’t heard of it yet. Joan London is the daughter of Jack London, who wrote Call of the Wild and White Fang.