Abasıyanık is identified as one of the giants of Turkish literature, a master of short stories. I have to admit I was long curious about him and found the stories (there are about three dozen in the book) varied enormously…from one I just gave up on it was so difficult to follow to several that moved me quite a bit. All in all, nevertheless, I have to say I was disappointed. He has a unique voice that surfaces irregularly: some stories are told in a “straightforward” manner and some are so oblique and so symbolic that I had difficulty. I won’t go so far as to say that you have to be Turkish to “get” them (or at least some of them), but there is no doubt in my mind that I missed more than I understood in too many of them. I have never been to Turkey, don’t know enough about life there or the culture and although the references in the writing aren’t clear, I have the distinct feeling that much depends on a sympathetic knowledge for the power in these stories. ( )

Sait Faik Abasiyanik is a well-known and beloved author in Turkey, but this collection could be difficult reading at times. I am sure a lot of that was due to the fact that I’m not very familiar with the culture of the time (early-mid 20th c. Turkey), but the stories have also been described as random and occasionally surreal. The first story in this collection started off promising enough–a nicely described portrait of a man living a simple but contented life who finds himself at loose ends after his mother dies. However, several of the stories after that seemed very random and occasionally confusing. The prose was also tense and choppy. The collection is organized in chronological order, and at first, I didn’t like the writing style. Later on, however, the writing was much smoother. I started to enjoy the stories more with “Who Cares?” and “On Spoon Island”, which had more development and an arc compared to the earlier ones. Still, I was sometimes confused about what had happened. This wasn’t due to the writing being especially confusing–it was more of me wondering “Why are people behaving this way? Is this…normal?” and wondering about the background of some things that were described but not explained.

Some of the more enjoyable stories, like the first one, are detailed character portraits. The title story is about an isolated man who follows the same routine every day. Other stories had a quixotic or humorous but not comic feel. “Who Cares?” is about a woman who is attempting to deal with her dead husband’s body, which is stuck in their isolated house. “I Just Don’t Know Why I Keep Doing These Things” finds the narrator accused of stealing the prayer beads of a coffee house patron. He didn’t steal them but keeps taunting the man anyway. The author spent his life in the family home on an island, and many of the stories are about fishermen, fish and islands. Two of the best are “Sinagrit Baba”, which is told from the fish’s point of view, and “Death of the Dulger”, about a dying fish. There are also a number of stories capturing a slowly vanishing lifestyle, what with encroaching modernism and Western influences. One of my favorite stories was “The Last Birds”, a lovely and lyrical tale about the declining bird population on the island. This collection wasn’t difficult to read but I never felt the urge to pick it up, as with some collections. ( )

(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. ( )