(I love getting to write the dotless ı in Turkish. When I’m done Irish on Duolingo, I might learn Turkish just because of that letter.)
Though his stories are often opaque, fragmentary and oddly plotted, they never fail to conjure up a mood that lingers in your mind for days.
Translators’ Afterword
Sometimes you don’t know what to say, and then the Translators’ Afterword says it for you. Most of what we have in this collection are odd little scenes with, from a plotting perspective, leave one saying So what? but from a mood perspective, give one a clear sense of Turkey from the 1930s to the 1950s. There are scenes of his neighbourhood, his island, fishermen, night watchmen, thieves, young boys in love (sometimes rather homo-erotically). There are a few stories just about fish, one from the fish’s perspective, one from a man watching a fish die. The stories skip lightly but at fairly earthy, concerned as they are with the minutiae of existence. If I were to pick a colour for this book, I’d pick a mundane sort of light brown, like soil a bit wet, but not drenched.
I don’t really mind reading no-plot little scenes, so I didn’t really mind reading A Useless Man, but a fair number of stories start with a few paragraphs that seem to have minimal consequence to the rest of the story. I guess they’re building the scene, but having to go back after a page or two because the transition to the actual story was so awkward, made me a sad and confused panda. Strangely, one needs focus for stories without traditional notions of plot, and I kept losing mine.
Line of awesome dotless ı’s: ıııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııııı.
A Useless Man: Selected Stories by Sait Faik Abasıyanık went on sale January 6, 2015.
I received a copy free from Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.