Birds Without Wings
Louis de Bernieres
Vintage Books. First published 2004.
After being overwhelmed by the sweet brilliance of 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin', and then a bit disappointed by 'The Troublesome Offspring of Cardinal Guzman', I find this de Bernieres book - the third I have read - once again lovely, perhaps more so even that the first. Once again the book is populated by a large number of very human characters, simple and complex, good, bad and ugly, black and white, but mostly different shades of grey, each with his or her completely believable idiosyncrasies. Once again the writing style is detailed and descriptive, open-eyed, unapologetic and unashamed, non-judgmental and non-manipulative. And once again, the narration is linear and straightforward. Unlike as in 'The Troublesome Offspring...' de Bernieres makes no attempt at magic realism in this book. This much-abused writing style could perhaps have pushed it into more rarefied literary company, but would probably have made it less easily comprehensible to me. I was reminded very much of the books of John Steinbeck, such as 'Cannery Row'.
The story is set in the same part of the world as 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin'. While that book followed the vicissitudes of the populace of one of the Greek islands in the Aegean Sea before, during, and after World War II, this one moves its location a bit further east in geography, into Anatolia, what is now the Turkish mainland, and a bit further back in history, before, during, and after World War I. The narrative follows the sad but inevitable disintegration of a rather primitive and contradictory, but fully functional and largely peaceful village community, as the modern state of Turkey rises from the ruins of the Ottoman empire.
The Anatolian coastal village of Eskibahce is populated, almost half and half, by Greek Orthodox Christians and Muslims (probably Sunni). There are also Armenians, Jews and other identities in the mix. But despite distinct religious and cultural practices, at the beginning of the story's timeline the groups are almost inseparably integrated. [Such social groupings are probably the norm in most parts of the world, and are, of course, not at all unfamiliar in India. Just today (23 Nov 2014) T. M. Krishna wrote the following in his column in The Hindu. 'Recently a friend of mine from a fishing village said: "My mother, who is a Hindu, finds peace only if she spends at least three hours in the Dargah, and every Muslim fisherman prays to the goddess before venturing into the sea and the whole village worships Mary." '] By the early part of the twentieth century, however, the influence of European-style nationalism and colonialism started making inroads into such a world view. It was disruptive in the extreme, pitting friend against childhood friend, and tearing lovers apart. World War I, which in that part of the world was a response to and a consequence of the decay of the six-century old Ottoman empire, exacerbated the effects and brought events to a sharp focus. Massacres, genocides, mass displacements of populations happened all around - Armenians driven out of Anatolia, Muslims out of Greek regions, Christians out of Turkish regions, and so on. The book details these effects on the individuals of the village - Iskander the Muslim potter, his son, his son's Christian friend, the friend's father, his daughter, the priest and the mullah, Rustam Bey the landlord and rich man of the village, his wife, his mistress, and a host of other characters, all so well and so sympathetically - but never sentimentally - portrayed that we feel for and along with each one of them. The horrors are lightly described, but the descriptions make us think, without revulsion, and contemplate the way history - any national history - appears to be one long tale of violent and mostly unjustifiable, unnecessary challenge, and equally stupid and horrific response. 'Where does it all begin?' asks De Bernieres. 'History has no beginnings, for everything that happens becomes the cause or pretext for what occurs afterwards, and this chain of cause and pretext stretches back to the paleolithic age, when the first Cain of one tribe murdered the first Abel of another. All war is fratricide, and there is therefore an infinite chain of blame that winds its circuitous route back and forth across the path and under the feet of of every people and every nation, so that a people who are the victims of one time become the victimisers a generation later, and newly liberated nations resort immediately to the means of their former oppressors. The triple contagions of nationalism, utopianism and religious absolutism effervesce together into an acid that corrodes the moral metal of the race, and it shamelessly and even proudly performs deeds that it would deem vile if they were done by the other'.
There are three or four major fictional threads in story, interwoven with historical events. Karavatuk and Mehmetcik are two boys, Muslim and Christian respectively, who grow up unaware of any difference, until the war sends the former to Gallipoli as the part of the Ottoman army (where he experiences trench warfare in all its brutal horror), and the latter to a forced labour camp. When they meet many years later, Karavatuk tragically and unwittingly becomes responsible for the death of his friend.
Philothei is a lovely Christian girl. She and Ibrahim, the goatherd, are childhood sweethearts. By the time they reach adolescence, and it's time for their families to think of the marriage they have all been looking forward to, the war and the other events intrude. Christians are deported to Greece, in terrible symmetry with Muslims in Greece deported to Turkey, and the two innocent lovers are destined for separation. Unable to acquiesce quietly in their fate, Philothei dies and Ibrahim goes mad.
The story of Rustam Bey is perhaps the most moving of all. He is the richest man in the village, a feudal lord, respected and well thought of by all his tenants and by the rest of the villagers. He does not hesitate to help the Christians, just as much as he does the Muslims. He takes a young wife, whom he loves, but who is unfaithful to him. But when he discovers her infidelity, he kills her lover, drags her to the village maidan, and, in keeping with the tenets of sharia law, invites all and sundry to stone her to death. In this medieval punishment, everyone present, Christian and Muslim, starts to participate, until the village maulvi (of all people) rescues her and takes her home. A few months later, Rustam Bey makes a beautifully described trip to Istanbul in search of a Circassian mistress. [During the 18th and 19th centuries, girls from Circassia were reputed the most beautiful of all, and much sought after as harem inmates. However, if the Wikipedia entry on this subject is to be believed, there is a touch of 'Orientalism' in this description by de Bernieres of Rustam Bey's choice. That is to say, while it is true that Europeans thought that Circassian girls were preferred by everyone for such purposes, and apparently sought them out for their own uses as well, this notion was not prevalent among the native residents of Anatolia and among the Lords of the Ottoman empire.] Bey eventually finds a girl of his choice, Leyla, who is actually Greek, but pretends to be Circassian. He brings her home to Eskibhace, and over time, they grow to love and cherish one another - until the war and its aftermath induces a sudden longing in Leyla to run away to the newly formed nation of Greece, leaving behind a bewildered, lonely and grieving Rustam Bey.
Running through the book as a narrative thread apart from these and other personal stories is the factual account of the rise of Kemal Ataturk, the maker of modern, secular, socialist Turkey from the core Anatolian regions of the empire. Ataturk is a well known historical figure. The way he drew 'the tides of men' into his hands, invented a new nation, and almost single-handedly created it, probably inspired post-colonial nation builders such as Nehru. India, of course, moved from being a British colony with a notionally secular government to being a sovereign democratic republic with an uneasily egalitarian and secular dispensation, while Turkey moved from being a Muslim empire to a secular democracy. However the displacement of large populations in opposite, religiously determined directions, with all the attendant inhuman ghastliness, accompanied the birth of both countries. We may note, as an aside, that present-day Turkey, at the beginning of the 21st century, is ruled by a political party that is avowedly anti-secular. And the colour of the polity in India has only a few months ago turned a distinctly Hindu saffron.
De Bernieres has a fluid and easy writing style, with an almost Wodehousian command over the language. An example: '[Rustam Bey] once had entertained hopes that their marriage might become more than the usual formal dance of strangers that only grows into something better with the slow passage of time and the mutual concern for children.' And another: 'He had that sense of personal superiority that automatically puts people's backs up.' There are many obscure words he uses precisely and well, some of these are not even found in many dictionaries. A few examples: 'These immanitious [very strong] men were capable of carrying pianos single-handedly on their necks.' 'All this mommoxity and foorfaraw [confusion and disorder] were compressed into a street [in Istanbul] no more than three paces wide.' 'He makes phatic observations [expressions that only a social purpose, and not one of communication] about the weather and the state of the sea...' 'She finds priests and imams equally otiose [serving no practical purpose or use].' '... he arrived fresh each morning despite his long nocturnal bouts of crapulence [great intemperance, especially drinking].'
All in all, a wonderful book, worth several long and lingering reads.
