Continuing to make cosily unhurried progress on Pamuk's memoir of growing up in Istanbul. In contrast found myself rushing through Elif Shafak's The Bastard of Istanbul at a gallop, finishing it today. I think I understand Jamilah's enthusiasm for the novelist. She writes with verve, imagination, wit and heart, and does so in quite unpredictable ways. I really had little to no idea where she was leading me, but was happy to go there.
Given the humour of the opening segments of the novel and its almost relentlessly breezy tone the later head-on treatment of the sufferings of the Armenians in 1915 was sort of unexpected, yet seemed to work, as did the unveiling of the dark family secrets and their repercussions in the final stretch of the novel. It's as if Ms Shafak felt the need to ram these disparate worlds together as they present themselves in lived experience. But I must say that I suspect a close analysis of the novel, free of its narrative grip, might point to quite a few loose threads.
My guess is that this is the kind of writer whose fans will forgive almost everything. And, I suspect, rightly so.
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