Bliss
A Novel
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3.6 • 19 Ratings
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
An international bestseller, this lyrical and moving tale juxtaposes the traditional and modern in Turkey and draws attention to human rights violations against women in the Middle East.
Fifteen-year-old Meryem lives in a rural village in Eastern Anatolia, Turkey. Her simple, conventional way of life changes dramatically after her uncle, a sheikh in a dervish order, rapes her?and condemns her to death for shaming the family. Asked to carry out the "honor killing" is his son Cemal, a commando in the Turkish army.
So begins a long, mystifying voyage for Meryem as her shell-shocked cousin ushers her to the shining metropolis of Istanbul where another troubled soul, the Harvard-educated professor Irfan, embarks on his own journey of transformation?one that catapults him into the heart of Meryem and Cemal's conflict. The crossed paths and interwoven destinies of these three characters makes for an affecting, by turns brutal and life-affirming portrayal of traditional and modern-day Turkey that no reader will soon forget.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The paths of three characters converge to illustrate, perhaps too patly, the conflicts of contemporary Turkey. Raped by her uncle, the sheikh, 15-year-old villager Meryem has shamed her family. To save the family name, Cemal, the sheikh's son, a soldier home from his tour fighting Kurds in the Gabar Mountains, is ordered by his father to take Meryem to Istanbul and to murder her. When Cemal and Meryem reach Istanbul, they are shocked by the cosmopolitan city, full of women wearing low-cut blouses and children who disobey their parents. Cemal falters at the moment of decision and, instead of murdering Meryem, travels with her to the seaside, where they encounter Irfan, a successful Istanbul professor who, plagued by insomnia and anxiety, has fled his cushy life to set sail in the Aegean Sea. Irfan offers them jobs on his boat and forges a tenuous mentorship with Meryem, but Cemal, whose psychological torment is richly captured early in the book, is soon reduced to a glowering presence. Livaneli, a former exile who was elected to Turkey's Parliament in 2002, takes great pains to reveal his country's complex culture, but the result often reads like a cautionary fable. Readers should prepare themselves for heavy-handed allegory.
Customer Reviews
Masterpiece
Very well written! The story is so strong that pulls you right with the first sentences! Highly recommend!
A must read.
It's a masterpiece! Highly recommended.