Kemal, Yasar

Average customer rating:

Not bad but not good either
Boys, Bandits, and Bestiality---a Brilliant Epic
Classic Yasar Kemal
A Very Rare Success
just imagine...

Salman the Solitary
Yasar Kemal , and Yashar Kemal
Manufacturer: Harvill Press
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

Literary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 1860463894

Book Description

Ismail Agha, a Kurd, treats the Turkish orphan Salman as his son and heir, the apple of his eye, until his wife gives him a son of his own. Then the green-eyed serpent jealousy enters the household and nobody's life is safe. Yet when the knives are drawn, none of the village gossips have correctly predicted who will be the victim.

Customer Reviews:

Not bad but not good either.......2007-05-09

I bought this book after travelling to Turkey several years ago and being told by everyone I met that Yashar Kemal was 'The greatest living Turkish writer' Believe me he isn't. The book is well written but is overshadowed by Yashar Kemal's own political agenda (leftist)that totaly misrepresents South Eastern Turkish culture. Kemal just gives us the usual nonsense to pander to the Western audience, Sunni sword weilding fanatics, Kurds and Armenians skipping and dancing together in perfect harmony yawn!

If you are looking for a book that represents Turkish culture then this isn't it, there are far better Turkish writers that Yashar kemal but unfortunately there works have not been translated.
(Ahmed Hamdi, Necip Fazil the list is endless)

By the way, if you do buy this book you will not need to buy any other or you will find as I have that pretty much all of Yashar Kemals novels are exactly the same.

Boys, Bandits, and Bestiality---a Brilliant Epic.......2003-09-11

Bubbling up, welling into the world from deep inside, this heady mixture of myth, legend, and Turkish folktale comes, not from tradition but from the fertile imagination of Yashar Kemal. As in his other books, the reader enters a world of flashing, flying colors, repeated images and metaphors, coppery mists, blood-dripping trees, violence, love, and jealousy. Lightning zigzags through the clouds ever more threateningly, the wind carries the scents of the mountain, bitter plants, thyme, pennyroyal, rocks, and eartth, boys dig for kingfishers, men shoot and devour herds of gazelles and spend years of their lives fighting with endless wastes full of thorny trees. Nothing is minimalist about Kemal. Perhaps we could call him a "maximalist"; he creates the maximum amount of atmosphere.

The depth of Kemal's characters comes obliquely, through the thick tissue of mythological repetition and slow transformation. Perhaps the weaving of a Turkish kilim, or traditional carpet, would not be a bad metaphor for how the story proceeds. The filips, the changes of direction and mood, are not found in dialogue between characters so much as in passages of gossip among unnamed villagers. SALMAN THE SOLITARY, while similar in style to the other Kemal novels I've read, seems less coherent, though fascinating nonetheless. Several stories are wound together like separate colors of a carpet. Young boys, with childish perceptions of events and childish appreciation of natural beauty, feature as always. Then, there is the story of the Kurdish Ismail Agha, his flight from war and massacre, and rebirth as a Cukurova landlord---the Cukurova being the nearly-mythological land where Kemal himself was born. Third, there is the legend of Halil Zalimoglu, a village youth from the mountains who labors for a rapacious Cukurova landlord for seven years, denying himself everything to save money. In the end, the landlord refuses to pay him. Zalimoglu's revenge follows. And fourth, in the title role, as it were, is the story of Salman, an abandoned green-eyed waif left to die by the roadside, saved by Ismail Agha during his refugee flight, and brought up in his household. Salman grows up a loner, a strangeling, obsessed with power and position. He is jealous of everyone, especially Ismail Agha's real son. He shoots eagles. The interplay of all these stories forms SALMAN THE SOLITARY which, as I said, at times seems to lack coherence.

The Turkish world of Kemal's books differs considerably from the Turkey we see from the outside world. Perhaps Kemal's Turkey is a continuation on the printed page of the Ottoman Turkey that was an incredible melange of peoples, languages, tribes, and cities, a vibrant civilization that produced a great culture. Such a civilization, based on an imperial system, could not easily be turned into a nation state. For political and administrative reasons, then, Turkey re-invented itself as a monolingual, mono-ethnic state. How far the two images---one in fiction, one in newspapers and history books---have reconciled, I don't know. Perhaps Kemal's image bears elements of wishful thinking, perhaps not. In any case, this novel, like his others, presents a colorful, violent world where men wrest their lives in struggles with the land and each other, a novel well worth reading, a novel that opens worlds undreamt of in quiet New England towns by the sea.

Classic Yasar Kemal.......2002-01-13

A good story told vividly, old world setting, unusual people, customs and surroundings. His writing is like a bright painting. Even though translation, which done by no other than Y. Kemal's recently departed dear Thilda who did almost all of his translations, inevitably costs some of the luster of the language and depth of expression, it is still haunting. The setting is his beloved Cukurova. People, a mosaic of the Anatolia he dreams, Turcomans, Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, Circassians, and all who have called it home, their customs, rituals, and fears and conflicts parade in the book. What may not be too obvious to someone not familiar is that, he draws a picture of the landscape that is about a century old almost. Early days of the Republic, institutions and culture in transition, melting pot of the Empire slowly in reverse, turmoils and tragedies of World War I still quite fresh. A theme that comes up quite often in Kemal's books, and gets a little old. He seems to have been stuck in a certain time period. The book is pleasant to read. His style of mixing time slices and simple, non-analytic prose relying more on painting of scenes and people is quite powerful. Some of those scenes tend to be rather violent and uncut, remiscent of the "Koylu" writers movement that was so popular in Turkey in the 50s and 60s. Like many of his works, this book also reflects the rich texture and traditions of Anatolia. Y. Kemal is certainly one of the greatest story tellers of our time. Recommended read.

A Very Rare Success.......2000-10-11

Superb story.Kemal's style is poetic .He is definitely one of the greatest writers of all times

just imagine..........2000-08-30

just imagine you are almost dead. someone finds you and flames the hopes in you to be a part of a family. here in this story, salman is the little boy found by Ismail -a father of a family escaping from russian soldiers in the eastern part of turkey-. Salman sees Ismail as his new father figure, and by the time Ismail's wife gives birth to a new child, Salman's love to Ismail turns to hatred that will lead to destruction... Yasar Kemal, not only known well in his home country -Turkey-, a writer who has lots of books translated into so many languages. One you will never regret to know.

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Anatolian Tales
Anatolian Tales
Anatolian Tales

Anatolian Tales
Yasar Kemal
Manufacturer: Writers & Readers Publishing
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books

General | Short Stories | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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ASIN: 0906495997

Customer Reviews:

Anatolian Tales.......2001-07-04

This collection of short stories seems to vividly capture the essence of life in rural Turkey. It is a dog's life, often times brutal and tragic. Yet, each tale has a veiled moral that reflects the good nature of the people.

I am living in Turkey at the moment and I see things that seem so unjust, so inhumane on a daily basis. And yet, I personally experience such warmth and goodness from most people. This book helped me to see deeper into what is goes on around me. I think I now understand why most people have a can't do attitude.

One of my Turkish friends put it as gently as she could, that Kemal is considered a Communist. The lady who recommended the book said her maid, who is a Kurd, was thrilled to see she was reading it.

Anatolian Tales.......2000-04-17

Yasar Kemal is one of the best Turkish novel writers. Perhaps he is the most known writer around Europe as a Turkish writer. Anatolian Tales is Yasar Kemal's one of the best books. In this book there are three stories which are written in an interesting way.These three stories passes around the main land of Turkey in Anatolia. They are tales. There are some writings explaining the tradition in the time of Ottoman Empire in Anatolia. I think this book is a "must read" for Turkish people and all others who are interested in beautiful lands of Anatolia...

Anatolian Tales.......2000-04-17

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Gut geflunkert, Zilo. ( Ab 10. J.).
Yasar Kemal
Manufacturer: Pro Juventute
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3715204648

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Gelbe Hitze.
Yasar Kemal
Manufacturer: Dtv
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3423109335

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UT, Nr.97, Die Ararat Legende
Yasar Kemal
Manufacturer: Unionsverlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3293200974

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The unending story
Truly Wonderful

The Undying Grass
Kemal Yasar
Manufacturer: HarperCollins Publishers
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

Contemporary | General | Literature & Fiction | Subjects | Books
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Customer Reviews:

The unending story.......2003-10-07

I readily confess that I've only read this, the third volume of a 3 part series. So, of course, I might have missed a lot of the nuances I could have picked up if I'd read things in order. However, it is the author's responsibility to make each book understandable in itself, not dependent on prior volumes. But don't anticipate my comments---I am not going to say that this novel is incomprehensible. THE UNDYING GRASS is a part of Yashar Kemal's giant body of work and in it we see many of the same elements at work: sympathetic treatment of Turkey's working people, depiction of feudal injustice, the tragic results of ignorance, man's struggle with nature, and the natural world of the Chukurova, that semi-legendary (as presented in Kemal's work) area in southern Anatolia where most of his stories take place. The time, as usual, is a little vague. In the background are American jet planes taking off from Incirlik airbase, Mercedes Benz', mention of Red China and even Fidel Castro---so it has to be the 1960s--- but nothing whatsoever of the modern world penetrates the lives of our characters, who seem stuck in the early Ataturk era.

What I will say is that every author has a bad day, maybe makes an unfortunate collection of choices. Perhaps this novel represents one of those times. It is too long, it is too slow. I felt that having developed these characters over two previous novels, Kemal did not want to drop them, but did not know what to do with them. Their thoughts, feelings, and actions are repeated over and over. Memedik wants to kill the Muhtar, but how many shadows does he fear, how many slashes of his willow knife in the air do we see ? Old Meryemdje survives in the village by herself, wishing for company, plotting to catch a rooster while Omer the orphan has been sent to kill her for reasons the reader of this third volume cannot readily understand. Long Ali regrets leaving his mother back in the mountain village---he regrets and regrets and regrets, but does nothing. Tashbash, the martyr-saint, very Christ-like, it seemed to me, goes up and down in villagers' estimation like a yo-yo. Points are not only made, they are hammered home. Everything is drawn out; steel green flies gather countless times, the saint is beaten and then revered and then beaten again, clouds of mosquitoes plague the cotton-picking villagers in the endless plain again and again, eagles (hope or fate or the possibility of redemption) soar overhead in almost every chapter. No, I'm sorry. Kemal has written some excellent novels and I've reviewed them too. This one should have been cut by a lot. It isn't one of his best.

Truly Wonderful.......1999-12-06

A fitting and devastating finale to his trilogy. Kemal explores in "The Wind from the Plain" series the goodness, evil, and drive for self-destruction that is immanent in all humanity. In his analysis and hilarious tales of man's constant need for deification and iconoclasm, Kemal has shown that if anyone deserves to be one of the greatest writers from Turkey and the Middle East, he is the one.

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UT, Nr.2, Memed, mein Falke
Yasar Kemal
Manufacturer: Unionsverlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 3293200028

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Der Baum des Narren. Mein Leben.
Yasar Kemal , Alain. Bosquet , and Altan. Gokalp
Manufacturer: Unionsverlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback
ASIN: 3293201326

Average customer rating:

Die Ameiseninsel.
Yasar Kemal
Manufacturer: Unionsverlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Hardcover

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3293002803

Average customer rating:

If I could only find it in English translation ...

UT, Nr.45, Auch die Vögel sind fort
Yasar Kemal
Manufacturer: Unionsverlag
ProductGroup: Book
Binding: Paperback

All German Books | German | Foreign Language Books | Specialty Stores | Books
ASIN: 3293200451

Customer Reviews:

If I could only find it in English translation ..........2007-04-14

I picked up this marvelous little book in Turkey (in German) and have read it three or four times. Not being a native German speaker, I may have missed important allusions when Turkish concepts could not be translated perfectly in easily readable German. Consequently, I have been hoping to find a good English translation, but like so many other fine Middle Eastern (and Eastern European) books this seems to be only available readily in German. Still searching, and will always search.

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