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Passage to Ararat
Passage to Ararat (A Ruminator Find)
300 pages, Paperback
First published June 3, 1976
17 people are currently reading
674 people want to read
About the author
Michael J. Arlen
16 books5 followersMichael J. Arlen is an Anglo-Armenian writer and former television critic of the The New Yorker. The son of the prominent Anglo-Armenian writer, Michael Arlen. He is the author of Exiles and the critically acclaimed Passage to Ararat, both of which are autobiographical narratives of Arlen's Armenian ancestry. He is also the author of Living Room War, a book on the Vietnam War's portrayal and the social culture of America in the media in the USA.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews
February 17, 2009
Iread this book on the way to Armenia, my ancestral homeland, and as we came in for a landing over Yerevan, I looked out the window and realized I'd made my own passage to Ararat, and there it was, Mount Ararat, right outside my window. The story is highly moving and meaninful to anyone of Armenian origin, like myself, who has been born and grown up in the Diaspora, and who returns to Armenia, or wishes to do so.
November 11, 2010
NO SPOILERS!
I finished Passag To Ararat several days ago, I wanted to think a bit before writing a review. Recently I have read several books about the Armenian Genocide that Turkey continues to deny. For this reason alone people should be informed. When Hitler invaded Poland, he pointed out that nobody even remembered the Armenian Genocide! He must be proven wrong. People do remember; we must never forget. Forgetting is the step before repeating what we have promised will never happen again. All of the books reveal the same story, although each emphasizes different aspects. In my view this was one of the best b/c it thoroughly described the entire history of the Armenian people, starting 500 years before Christ. The author searches to discover who his Armenian father really was, and in the process discovers who he is himself. A reader learns what it is to be Armenian, both in the past and even today.
Through page 100: The author is trying to understand his heritage. He begins by tryining to understand his father, who is at this point dead. His father saw himself clearly as being ENGLISH, NOT Armenian. It is the vehemence with which he denied his Armenian heritage that in fact shows the strength of his Armenian ties. One only needs to shout unless when one feels insecure. The book is very much about the author's own need to discover his Armenian heritage. His wife clearly is the sounding board for all his questions and denials. She understands her husband very well. She says (page 87-88):
"...part of you claims to be this rational observer, and yet another part of you still seems to be trying to justify Armenians in Western terms - you know, that history we were all taught. Battles, generals, Crusades, Richard and Saladin and Robin Hood."
He replies: "That's not it at all."
She replies: "All right. But why do you care so much that they seem European?"
In many, many different ways the author has a very hard time accepting his Armenian background, just as his own father had difficulty accepting this. The author immerses himself in Armenian books of history, even when he is there in Erevan (Yerevan), Soviet Armenia. He is deluged in books. he cannot leave the hotel..... He doesn't dare meet the people. The result being that the reader is deluged in Armenian history. WE are given history going back to 500 B.C. the first Armenian kings of Nairi, Armenia under the Persians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, theRomans, the Armenian role in the Crusades. Did you know that in 301 A.D. Armenia was in fact the first nation in the world to officialy adopt Christianity as a state religion?! I didn't. There is alot of detailed history here, and I have a very hard time following. The more you know the easier this will be, but my knowledge is lacking. The writing demands that you know your history. If you don't, you must have access to Wikipedia and an atlas. In addition, it isn't always easy to find the nations/cities b/c the names have changed, others no longer exist. I am not saying it is bad, not at all. I am just telling you what you will be getting. This is not mentioned in any of the reviews I encountered....... That is why I want to point it out. Yes, it is also about the author and his discovery of what it is to be Armenian, but I did not know that it would be primarily history, history and more history, starting in ancient times. This is more history than memoir. It fits what I am searching for, but I didn't expect this.
I finished Passag To Ararat several days ago, I wanted to think a bit before writing a review. Recently I have read several books about the Armenian Genocide that Turkey continues to deny. For this reason alone people should be informed. When Hitler invaded Poland, he pointed out that nobody even remembered the Armenian Genocide! He must be proven wrong. People do remember; we must never forget. Forgetting is the step before repeating what we have promised will never happen again. All of the books reveal the same story, although each emphasizes different aspects. In my view this was one of the best b/c it thoroughly described the entire history of the Armenian people, starting 500 years before Christ. The author searches to discover who his Armenian father really was, and in the process discovers who he is himself. A reader learns what it is to be Armenian, both in the past and even today.
Through page 100: The author is trying to understand his heritage. He begins by tryining to understand his father, who is at this point dead. His father saw himself clearly as being ENGLISH, NOT Armenian. It is the vehemence with which he denied his Armenian heritage that in fact shows the strength of his Armenian ties. One only needs to shout unless when one feels insecure. The book is very much about the author's own need to discover his Armenian heritage. His wife clearly is the sounding board for all his questions and denials. She understands her husband very well. She says (page 87-88):
"...part of you claims to be this rational observer, and yet another part of you still seems to be trying to justify Armenians in Western terms - you know, that history we were all taught. Battles, generals, Crusades, Richard and Saladin and Robin Hood."
He replies: "That's not it at all."
She replies: "All right. But why do you care so much that they seem European?"
In many, many different ways the author has a very hard time accepting his Armenian background, just as his own father had difficulty accepting this. The author immerses himself in Armenian books of history, even when he is there in Erevan (Yerevan), Soviet Armenia. He is deluged in books. he cannot leave the hotel..... He doesn't dare meet the people. The result being that the reader is deluged in Armenian history. WE are given history going back to 500 B.C. the first Armenian kings of Nairi, Armenia under the Persians, the Babylonians, the Greeks, theRomans, the Armenian role in the Crusades. Did you know that in 301 A.D. Armenia was in fact the first nation in the world to officialy adopt Christianity as a state religion?! I didn't. There is alot of detailed history here, and I have a very hard time following. The more you know the easier this will be, but my knowledge is lacking. The writing demands that you know your history. If you don't, you must have access to Wikipedia and an atlas. In addition, it isn't always easy to find the nations/cities b/c the names have changed, others no longer exist. I am not saying it is bad, not at all. I am just telling you what you will be getting. This is not mentioned in any of the reviews I encountered....... That is why I want to point it out. Yes, it is also about the author and his discovery of what it is to be Armenian, but I did not know that it would be primarily history, history and more history, starting in ancient times. This is more history than memoir. It fits what I am searching for, but I didn't expect this.
December 19, 2012
This is a book about an Armenian who never identified himself as one, and how he makes a journey back to his homeland to discover more about his roots.
I expected to read a book that would tell me more about Armenia, a country I scarcely know anything about. Instead, the writer actually mostly talks about the Turks and the abolitions of the Armenians and the mass massacres that had occured during their deportation during the end of the 19th centruy and the beginning of the 20th.
Honestly, I had to endure a lot of whining, self pity and remorse if I wanted to finish the book.
To quote his wife: "Obviously, everybody has different standards of tolerance and justice." I totally agree with that. All my sympathies to the Armenians and to any lost lives or tortured souls, as no person would approve of that; but I just can't help feeling that there might have been a lot of exaggeration.
I felt that it was more of a piece of hate literature (mainly against the Turks and partially against Muslims), than an account on Armenia and its history. It didn't spark my interest in Armenia as much as it did in Turkey. Nonetheless, I might need to read something else on Armenia written by someone on more neutral grounds to get a clearer idea on this notion.
On the other hand, I did not like the account concerning the Kurdish women who wanted to kill the Armenians "in order they might gain that merit in Allah's eyes that comes from killing a Christian." Another account mentions that Talaat Pacha said to Morgenthau not to bother himself with the Armenians because they are Christians and he was a Jew!!
I happen to come accross the extract below which I have copeied and provided a link for. If the accounts mentioned above are true, and if the Turks justified the massacres because the Armenians were Christian besides whatever else reasons they had; they by no means represent Muslims or Islam.
I have copied the following paragraphs from this link: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/on...
"In 628 AD, a delegation from St. Catherine's Monastery came to Prophet Muhammed and requested his protection. He responded by granting them a charter of rights, which I reproduce below in its entirety. St. Catherine's Monastery is located at the foot of Mt. Sinai and is the world's oldest monastery. It possess a huge collection of Christian manuscripts, second only to the Vatican, and is a world heritage site. It also boasts the oldest collection of Christian icons. It is a treasure house of Christian history that has remained safe for 1,400 years under Muslim protection."
The Promise to St. Catherine:
"This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)."
I expected to read a book that would tell me more about Armenia, a country I scarcely know anything about. Instead, the writer actually mostly talks about the Turks and the abolitions of the Armenians and the mass massacres that had occured during their deportation during the end of the 19th centruy and the beginning of the 20th.
Honestly, I had to endure a lot of whining, self pity and remorse if I wanted to finish the book.
To quote his wife: "Obviously, everybody has different standards of tolerance and justice." I totally agree with that. All my sympathies to the Armenians and to any lost lives or tortured souls, as no person would approve of that; but I just can't help feeling that there might have been a lot of exaggeration.
I felt that it was more of a piece of hate literature (mainly against the Turks and partially against Muslims), than an account on Armenia and its history. It didn't spark my interest in Armenia as much as it did in Turkey. Nonetheless, I might need to read something else on Armenia written by someone on more neutral grounds to get a clearer idea on this notion.
On the other hand, I did not like the account concerning the Kurdish women who wanted to kill the Armenians "in order they might gain that merit in Allah's eyes that comes from killing a Christian." Another account mentions that Talaat Pacha said to Morgenthau not to bother himself with the Armenians because they are Christians and he was a Jew!!
I happen to come accross the extract below which I have copeied and provided a link for. If the accounts mentioned above are true, and if the Turks justified the massacres because the Armenians were Christian besides whatever else reasons they had; they by no means represent Muslims or Islam.
I have copied the following paragraphs from this link: http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/on...
"In 628 AD, a delegation from St. Catherine's Monastery came to Prophet Muhammed and requested his protection. He responded by granting them a charter of rights, which I reproduce below in its entirety. St. Catherine's Monastery is located at the foot of Mt. Sinai and is the world's oldest monastery. It possess a huge collection of Christian manuscripts, second only to the Vatican, and is a world heritage site. It also boasts the oldest collection of Christian icons. It is a treasure house of Christian history that has remained safe for 1,400 years under Muslim protection."
The Promise to St. Catherine:
"This is a message from Muhammad ibn Abdullah, as a covenant to those who adopt Christianity, near and far, we are with them. Verily I, the servants, the helpers, and my followers defend them, because Christians are my citizens; and by Allah! I hold out against anything that displeases them. No compulsion is to be on them. Neither are their judges to be removed from their jobs nor their monks from their monasteries. No one is to destroy a house of their religion, to damage it, or to carry anything from it to the Muslims' houses. Should anyone take any of these, he would spoil God's covenant and disobey His Prophet. Verily, they are my allies and have my secure charter against all that they hate. No one is to force them to travel or to oblige them to fight. The Muslims are to fight for them. If a female Christian is married to a Muslim, it is not to take place without her approval. She is not to be prevented from visiting her church to pray. Their churches are to be respected. They are neither to be prevented from repairing them nor the sacredness of their covenants. No one of the nation (Muslims) is to disobey the covenant till the Last Day (end of the world)."
January 1, 2018
Getting to Know Me
In THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN, Carlos Castaneda takes forever to realize that what he is going to learn is not the pharmacopia of Yaqui Indians. We, the readers, get pretty darn fed up with his obtuse wonderings about "what the heck is going on here ?" Castaneda used this literary device to introduce what turned out to be a very long series of books about other ways of seeing the world. I felt somewhat the same about the style in PASSAGE TO ARARAT, though as far as honesty goes, I would put all my money on Arlen, rather than Castaneda. After finishing Arlen's short, but hard-hitting book, I still felt that he had somehow graded, planed, hammered, and sandpapered my emotions into accepting the transition from "I don't give a damn about the past. I didn't really love my father or understand him. I can't identify with Armenians." to feeling Armenian, to feeling outraged about the early 20th century genocide of "his" people. He wrote of this transition as a result of a trip he took to Soviet Armenia in the 1970s. I like how he wrote about Armenia and the people he met there. I even like how he wrote about Istanbul, which he visited afterwards. But I could hardly believe in that gradual transition. I still do feel that it is a literary device to make a "story" out of this work, and I feel that such a device wasn't necessary. I am not Armenian, but as a Jew I can feel pain when I think of genocide, the many other genocides that sit right in front of us----Native Americans, the Middle Passage, Cambodians, Tasmanians, Rwandans, Darfur---you can add your own. How can a man (a literary man who deals naturally in expressing feelings, ideas, longings, and the pain of the human soul) say that the genocide of Armenians meant little to him ? Maybe we don't want to confront our own past, OK, but do I have to be African to mourn the 800,000 dead Rwandans ? If I am not Cambodian, can I never feel shock and sadness at what was done by the Khmer Rouge ? Where are our American Indian brothers and sisters ?---I ask you in God's name.
Other than this comment, I can only say that this is a fine book about Armenia as it was in the 1970s. You get a lot of well-written, easily-digestible Armenian history, up to and including many pages on the genocide. How long is there going to be an argument about "whether it occurred or not ?" What, did a million people just up and commit suicide ? There is very little about the Soviet aspect of being in the Soviet Union, which since 1991 is beside the point now. I see there is an updated edition, which I did not have. It is also a fine book about changes of heart, even if I still do doubt it could have been that sequenced.
In THE TEACHINGS OF DON JUAN, Carlos Castaneda takes forever to realize that what he is going to learn is not the pharmacopia of Yaqui Indians. We, the readers, get pretty darn fed up with his obtuse wonderings about "what the heck is going on here ?" Castaneda used this literary device to introduce what turned out to be a very long series of books about other ways of seeing the world. I felt somewhat the same about the style in PASSAGE TO ARARAT, though as far as honesty goes, I would put all my money on Arlen, rather than Castaneda. After finishing Arlen's short, but hard-hitting book, I still felt that he had somehow graded, planed, hammered, and sandpapered my emotions into accepting the transition from "I don't give a damn about the past. I didn't really love my father or understand him. I can't identify with Armenians." to feeling Armenian, to feeling outraged about the early 20th century genocide of "his" people. He wrote of this transition as a result of a trip he took to Soviet Armenia in the 1970s. I like how he wrote about Armenia and the people he met there. I even like how he wrote about Istanbul, which he visited afterwards. But I could hardly believe in that gradual transition. I still do feel that it is a literary device to make a "story" out of this work, and I feel that such a device wasn't necessary. I am not Armenian, but as a Jew I can feel pain when I think of genocide, the many other genocides that sit right in front of us----Native Americans, the Middle Passage, Cambodians, Tasmanians, Rwandans, Darfur---you can add your own. How can a man (a literary man who deals naturally in expressing feelings, ideas, longings, and the pain of the human soul) say that the genocide of Armenians meant little to him ? Maybe we don't want to confront our own past, OK, but do I have to be African to mourn the 800,000 dead Rwandans ? If I am not Cambodian, can I never feel shock and sadness at what was done by the Khmer Rouge ? Where are our American Indian brothers and sisters ?---I ask you in God's name.
Other than this comment, I can only say that this is a fine book about Armenia as it was in the 1970s. You get a lot of well-written, easily-digestible Armenian history, up to and including many pages on the genocide. How long is there going to be an argument about "whether it occurred or not ?" What, did a million people just up and commit suicide ? There is very little about the Soviet aspect of being in the Soviet Union, which since 1991 is beside the point now. I see there is an updated edition, which I did not have. It is also a fine book about changes of heart, even if I still do doubt it could have been that sequenced.
May 8, 2011
I am so engrossed in this book I cannot put it down.I haven't expected I would like it this much, the writing is beautiful, the story is capturing.
July 15, 2013
The one book that urged me to visit Armenia! I found myself in a somewhat similar situation to the author. I'm half Armenian and hadn't had a very profound connection with the culture. After reading this book I went to Armenia with my dad and had a wonderful experience. Was it well written? Doesn't really matter because the impact it had on me was profound. This is how I judge a book.
January 16, 2011
I don't know much about the Armenians except that they were massacred (twice in short order, it turns out, once under a sultan in 1896 and then again under the Young Turks in 1916). Of course their history goes much farther back than that. This was also the story of Michael Arlen searching for an understanding of his father who was a novelist in the 1920s. While some of those moments were touching, I actually preferred the slightly drier historical sections. While Arlen was in Armenia he was often petulant and prone to anger. He was rude to his hosts and seemed to spend his time trying to goad them into arguments. I also wonder about his assessment of the Armenians self-hatred. His theory is that the Armenians, unlike say the Jews and the Holocaust for example, don't have any sort of national recognition for their past suffering; they never had a Nuremberg or an Auschwitz to release their anger, so they turn it towards themselves. I don't know how true this is, but on some level, it makes sense. This is the same reason we encourage people who've been victimized by crime to seek justice, it gives them an external release for their pain. This book was published in the 1970s. I wish there was an update as to what happened in Armenia after the fall of the USSR.
July 5, 2012
While reading the beginning of the book, I wasn't very excited about the story. I'm a grandson of Armenian Genocide survivors myself, and the idea of anyone covering it and not talking about it I'm not a fan of. As I kept reading, however, I started realizing that the ignorance was more of a way to save his sanity rather than just to forget and ignore. I wish I could review more, but I'd rather not spoil anything. Enjoy it. It turns out to be a good read after a while, and it has a sweet after-taste.
September 10, 2016
Merhum Bahar Öcal çevirmişti, onu okumuştum. Kitabın önüne bu notu atmasam ben niye bu kitabı okudum ki diye düşünür bulamazdım. 70'li yıllarda ülkemizdeki Ermenilere bakıyordu. Erzurum'da o yıllarda olan bir linçten bahsetmişti sanırım, hâlâ ara sıra aklıma gelir ürperirim, doğru muydu acaba bu iddia diyerek.
July 6, 2017
A great history lesson of all things great in Armenian history. In trying to relate to his Armenian heritage the well known author explores the history of the Armenians trying to find a connection beyond the genocide. This involves analysis of all the amazing Armenian achievements. We supplied 40000 horses for the Persian kings over 2500 years ago every year. Armenia was known for producing the best horses. The last Armenian king King Levon/Leo tried to negotiate the end of the 100 year war with the English king on behalf of his friend the French king in the 1300's. The Armenians have been recognised for helping the crusaders in the 1100's. SO much to be proud of.
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July 13, 2016Light reading, unexceptional although that's not the way most read it on release. The book's press spoke of it as a revelation for assimilated third or fourth generation American-Armenians.
August 25, 2018
تاریخچه ارمنستان , اختلافات بین ارمنی های مقیم ترکیه با ترکها و علل و چگونگی کشتار و نسل کشی ارمنیان تو سط دولت عثمانی و ترکها
January 25, 2018
A wonderful, profound book. I recommend it highly.
August 8, 2017
“It’s a dangerous business,” writes Clark Blaise in this book’s introduction, “going into the underworld of history and ethnicity to discover one’s father, yet it seems one peculiar duty in our time of identity politics.” The observation is an apt one with which to begin Michael J. Arlen’s elegiac memoir, Passage to Ararat, winner of the National Book Award in 1975. The author undertook the memoir against his better judgment, uncertain of his feelings about the family’s shrouded and all but unknown Armenian ancestry.
Arlen, who in his long career has written numerous books and was television critic for the New Yorker, makes a journey to the source of his father’s heritage to confront his patrimony, and the silence of an Armenian past—a past of exile, of atrocities and mass murder committed against the Armenian people, 1.5 million, between 1915 and 1922.
Arlen’s story is both memoir of that search and a detailed history of the Armenian people. Micheal J. Arlen was born in 1930 into a privileged life of villas and French boarding schools and upper crust life in Manhattan. His mother was the Countess Atalanta Mercati of Greece, and his father, the celebrated author of the 1920s, Michael Arlen, born Dikran Kouyoumdjian in Bulgaria. The elder Arlen is portrayed here not as the memoir’s subject (that takes place in the younger Arlen’s separate memoir, Exiles), but as its inciting incident. The father’s silence turns out to be the motive for the son to uncover its source, seeking the historical facts that brought about that silence.
Read more of this review at LitStack, http://litstack.com/litstack-recs-pas...
August 27, 2015
The main reason I rated it 3 stars instead of 4 is that it has a lot of history presented in a way that's more like an history text book rather than a novel ... not all of it, but quite a bit of it, and being a person who's always had a struggle with the intellectual area of History as a 'subject'... I had a harder time getting through it. However, that being said, being part Armenian and having had my grandpa's entire family 'escape' the massacres - I know first hand, the frustration of the massacres not being acknowledged -either because of a complete denial that it ever happened or lack of knowledge and also I can also understand why so many who escaped to America (including my Grandpa) wanted to 'forget' the bad stuff that happened and just ' be American'. I really hope that this book would encourage people to want to check out more books about/written by Armenians who have gone through and survived the terrible atrocities that occurred to the Armenians during those years wrapped around 1915.
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January 22, 2016Going on a personal identity binge again, I finally decided to read this book to see what this book contained that actually made my mother read it years ago. Most of its contents are bits of the fabric and history of Armenian life that I grew up hearing so little was new or of a revelatory factor. However, I still found this book immensely interesting and if nothing else re-hearing this history, though gruesome always, was somehow soothing. Arlen mentions within the pages many times that Armenians constantly go over our history which seemed not only to confound him but also enrage him at times, though this restating of history is for nothing other than to remind ourselves it happened and to find solace that though so many died and so much was lost that the Armenian spirit and tenacity lives on no matter how dwindled.
February 28, 2017
It's easy to see why Arlen's exploration of his Armenian heritage won the National Book Award in 1976. Although it won in the category of Contemporary Affairs, Passage to Ararat is so much more than that. Although much of the focus is on Arlen s trip in the early 1970s to the Armenian Soviet Republic and the history of Armenia, the book is as much memoir as history and exploration of father-son relations as travelogue. Not only is it a near exemplary success in each of those areas, it is exceptionally written. This is one of those rare books you not only look forward to reading again in the future, but regret having waited so long to pick up.
(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie)
(Originally posted at A Progressive on the Prairie)
August 14, 2021
Read this then watch Atom Egoyan’s Calendar.
August 15, 2016
I like this memoir of Michael J Arlen's rediscovering his Armenian heritage and Armenia's past and contemporary history (into the Soviet era). Motivated by his father's secrecy about the family's Armenian roots, Arlen visits there, a guest of the Cultural Committee, to read histories, to meet residents, to explore the city and countryside. Eventually, he loses his academic detachment to feel deeply his kinship with the country and its people. And, he discovers what it meant to be Armenian when history, politics, and other countries' indifference allowed Armenia and its inhabitants to be cruelly suppressed.
May 20, 2012
The first half of this book nearly killed me. The sheer tonnage of angst--I felt like I was reading the diary of a teenage girl. "Honey, how does it feel to be in Armenia?" "I DON'T KNOW I'M ANGRY I'M DEPRESSED I HATE MY FATHER!" Maybe I don't understand because I'm not a persecuted minority (I don't think we get to count Mormon, do we?), but is was almost unpalatable. Luckily he makes up for it in the end (mostly--the ending itself is a bit too much for my taste). Basically this book is a mix between a travelogue and a history book. He gives a great overview of the Armenian people starting from their very beginnings and ending with the Turkish massacres in the early 1900s.
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April 23, 2013I chose this book because i really wanted to read about some kind of armenian book. So i went out and picked this. Its about a boy that never reviled his true armenian side. His dad never wanted him to know he's armenian but when his dad passed away he was kinda happy about it. After a month he started getting more interested in his actual nationality. He traveled to yerevan and been to like many gatherings that he's been to. He actually really enjoyed it. I recommend this book to any one to wants to learn how kids feel when they dont know their true side or true color, till they fight for it.
July 17, 2010
Very good read about an Armenian who never identified himself as such searching for the identity of his father the Armenian and what it means to be Armenian in general.
Very powerful for one who never identified with any race or nationality. And yet I cannot help but feel even now, that it is better not to be Armenian or Turk... to be is enough. We must all love.
Very powerful for one who never identified with any race or nationality. And yet I cannot help but feel even now, that it is better not to be Armenian or Turk... to be is enough. We must all love.
October 5, 2013
Interesting journey that the author takes to his homeland of Armenia. The interpersonal conflict between the author and other key figures in the story was helpful, as was the internal dialogue regarding Armenian self-identity and making meaning of the first holocaust perpetrated by the Turks over a period of roughly 20 yrs. A good reminder to treat minorities well wherever you may live.
May 4, 2010
A young man discovers more about his Armenian heritage. I had heard about the Turkish genocide of the Armenians. He explores his feelings about being Armenian and the son of an Armenian British American who never discussed the history of the Armenians.
August 22, 2007
Great book for anyone who wants to learn more about their Armenian roots or just wants to familiarize themselves with the Armenian culture.
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December 23, 2016
Michael Arlen Junior travelled to Armenia in search of his family's roots and wrote this book about this journey through places, history and understanding.
May 3, 2016
A sad disovery of the past... things that should not happen and sadly no one speak about...
January 12, 2017
An engaging account of a man's exploration of his ethnic origin, as well as the history of Armenia and Armenians.
August 9, 2017
It moves some very deep Armenian feelings and makes you ponder over things you haven't though of before.
June 5, 2025
This was fine. It was a great overview of Armenia and their history of genocides by Turkey. It’s very thorough in its history and also gives a nice description of Soviet Armenia.
It comes up a little short as a memoir. Much of the history reads almost like a history textbook—effective for relaying information but not for keeping an audience engaged. It is not without narrative, but the narrative seldom blends with the history. There is also something a little unsettling about the narrator. He has strange outbursts of anger that are never really developed. Still, the narrative segments are the most enjoyable parts of the book.
I would reccomend this for people interested in learning about Armenian history.
It comes up a little short as a memoir. Much of the history reads almost like a history textbook—effective for relaying information but not for keeping an audience engaged. It is not without narrative, but the narrative seldom blends with the history. There is also something a little unsettling about the narrator. He has strange outbursts of anger that are never really developed. Still, the narrative segments are the most enjoyable parts of the book.
I would reccomend this for people interested in learning about Armenian history.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 40 reviews