Birds without Wings [Tapa blanda]

BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS is a rare specimen in the genre of historical novels: a success. It is a compelling, readable, and historically credible tale of love and tragedy at the time of the Ottoman collapse in Turkey. Told from multiple points of view, with chapters narrated by the diverse cast of characters themselves and biographical segments on the career of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, this novel tells the story of how modern secular Turkey was forged out of the crucible of the Balkan Wars, World War I and the Greek War of Independence. The narrators are the ordinary men and women -- Christian and Muslim, Greek and Turk -- of a small village near Telmessos (now Fethiye) in southwestern Turkey. The stories they tell of war, loss and survival are fully human and utterly heartrending. I will not soon forget de Bernieres' sorrowful depiction of the cross-deportations of Greeks and Turks from lands they had inhabited for centuries. Neither will I forget the dignity and romance of characters like the aga Rustem Bey, his mistress Leyla Hanim and the village imam Abdulhamid Hodja.

If you're looking for old-fashioned storytelling with vibrant, lifelike characters who inhabit an artfully recreated historical world, I highly recommend Louis de Bernieres' BIRDS WITHOUT WINGS.

"Birds Without Wings" is an exceptionally beautiful novel that takes place during the waning period of the Ottoman Empire, in the small Anatolian town of Eskibahce. As the story opens, an ethnic mix of Turks, Armenians, and Greeks, both Muslims and Christians, are living side-by-side in a comfortable and relatively peaceful existence. But first the Franks, as the Ottomans call the Western Europeans, and then the Greeks invade their homeland. These events set off a cataclysmic chain of events that tear apart the lives of the residents of Eskibahce. The Sultan declares a holy war against the invaders. The Muslims are conscripted as soldiers and the Christians are sent into labor battalions. The Armenians are evacuated from the region in a death march. The Italians occupy Eskibahce. The Christians are forced to relocate to Greece. Throughout it all, the residents struggle to survive amidst the turmoil.

Although this novel does an exemplary job of bringing alive the history of Turkey, there is far more here than a recounting of historic events. Told in alternating voices, viewpoints, and time periods, this story is panoramic in scope as it follows more than a dozen principal characters and a large cast of secondary ones through a series of interrelated story lines.

There are the childhood friends Karatavuk and Mehmetcik, who are inseparable until war breaks out. At that point, Karatavuk becomes a soldier who participates in the hellish battle of Gallipoli, and Mehmetcik, who is forced into a labor battalion, later defects and becomes a brigand. There is the beautiful Christian girl Philothei, who is betrothed to Ibrahim the goatherd and whose death is foreshadowed at the start of the story. There is the landlord and town protector Rustem Bey, who casts out his adulterous wife and takes a mistress. There are Abdulhamid Hodja and Father Kristoforos, holy men who call each other infidels yet are good friends. Interspersed throughout the story are chapters on the life and career of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, who moves up the military ranks to win the fight for an independent Turkey. There are merchants and craftsmen, madmen and beggars, prostitutes and scholars. Each has a tale to tell. The main focus of the book is really the town of Eskibahce itself, rather than any one character.

De Bernieres provides a rich portrayal of his characters. The language is lyrical, and some of the vignettes have the cadence and color of folk tales. At times the story is painfully sad and sometimes it is humorous. It reflects the full spectrum of compassion and suffering, love and hatred, pride and shame, tolerance and persecution. It brings home the horrors of war and prejudice. Iskander the potter, who likes to quote proverbs, says, "Man is a bird without wings and a bird is a man without sorrows." Birds are present throughout the story. They sing throughout the night, carry letters to the dead, have their voices captured in clay whistles, and live in cages outside the entrance to many homes. The town residents are portrayed as wingless birds that are grounded in the reality of war and unable to flee the turmoil.

This is not a quick read, since it contains a lot of historical background and details about the forces that brought about the transformation of the Ottoman Empire into the Republic of Turkey. There are some Turkish words that are not defined and must be deduced within context (a short glossary would have helped). But the book tells a memorable and masterfully written set of stories that capture the heart and soul of the Turks. It is a powerful epic with an important message. Highly recommended.

Eileen Rieback

This is de Berniere's first new novel after the enormously successful `Captain Corelli's Mandolin'. Like Corelli, it's a long-ish historical novel set in the eastern Mediterreanean. Here we are taken from the 1890s to the 1920s in a small town on the coast of Anatolia on what, when the novel begins, is part of the Ottoman Empire but, by its close, has become Turkey.

It is, in many ways a less focused novel than Corelli where the narrative, though involving many characters, had a clear centre in Pelagia, her father and her two lovers. (The first of these lovers links the two novels as his mother Drosoula is a character in both.) This too has many characters, some of whom, the local aga Rustem Bey and his vivacious mistress Leyla Hanim, the young man Karatavuk who goes off to fight at Gallipoli and his Christian friend Mehmetcik, the local beauty Philothei and her lover Ibrahim, the imam Abdullamid Hodja and his wife Ayse; but there is much less in the way of a central connection. The result is sometimes more like a series of interwoven short stories than a novel but remains a very readable, often very beautiful and powerful narrative.

Much as in Corelli again, we begin with a picture of a community that is broadly speaking happy and harmonious - though not without its ugly side, as a horrible early episode involving Rustem Bey's adulterous wife along with a somewhat later manifestation of `the tyranny of honour' both manifest. In spite of these occasional horrors, the picture painted by the early chapters is one, striking and extremely salutary to our own nervous and distrustful times, of Muslims and Christians living side by side and getting along just splendidly. Then, again as in the earlier book, large historical events, war and ethnic cleansing, sweep these people up transforming and often destroying their lives.

Ethnic cleansing in particular is a central theme of the book: of the Turks from Greece in the nineteenth century, of the Greeks from Anatolia after the Great War and the genocidal forced matches inflicted on the Armenians in 1915. As Corelli, the result is a fascinating history lesson as well as a novel. Indeed many of its chapters consist exclusively of straightforward but marvellously readable historical narrative. I am certainly a lot more educated than I did about the history of both the Turkish and Greek peoples after having read it and I can think of few more enjoyable ways of getting such an education than reading this book - though `enjoyable' may not always be the right word given the appalling character of so many of the events it relates.