Silent House,
by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Robert Finn
Published by Knopf (2012)
Rating: ****
Perhaps one of Pamuk’s most politically-charged works, Silent House is a really, really good read. The novel takes place against the backdrop of the military coup of 1980, and provides an opportunity to understand the relationship between Turkey’s political and military establishment through the experience of the common-man.
The plot is this. The Darvinoglu family gathers for its annual reunion at the crumbling ancestral mansion in the resort town of Cennethisar, near Istanbul. Into the mix of clashing personalities, gossip, plans and barely buried grudges that are usually part of such reunions, this book adds debates over religion, Turkey’s divided feelings about belonging to Europe or the Middle East, and hints of the looming coup. The national schism is dramatically personified in Hasan, the illegitimate teenage grandson of the family patriarch, Selahattin. Frustrated by his poverty and flunking out of school, Hasan tries to curry favour with an ultra-nationalist vigilante group, while at the same time stalking Nilgün, the beautiful, cheerful, communist-leaning granddaughter.
The book explores Turkey like none of Pamuk’s other works do – by providing insight into how families operate in such a confusing atmosphere. It provides explanations to thought patterns of the right-wing and the extremists, as well as to the understanding of Turkish culture that the centrists and the left-wing holds.
What is particularly enjoyable is the writing style, with each of the characters in the Darvinoglu family getting their own first-person perspective, which allows you to shift between the experiences of each of them individually, and the family as a collective.
This is a good book. There’s no more commentary I would like to offer. It is insightful, engaging, and fast – and worth reading.
Tejas Rao 