Life Is a Caravanserai - June BOTM

[Diane]

https://www.goodreads.com/topic/show/...

[Kristel]

Emine Sevgi Özdamar is from Malatya, Turkey, born August 10, 1946, is a Turkish-German actress, director and author. She currently resides in Berlin. One of her most notable accomplishments is winning the 1991 Ingeborg Bachmann Prize. She was the first non-German to win the prize.

Pre Q 1. Have you read anything else by this author. Did you know about her before or is she a new to you author. What are you expecting from this book.

Questions were taken from Real Simple https://www.realsimple.com/work-life/.... I have no idea if they'll fit the book.

1
Book Club Questions About Plot
Which event in the story causes all the others?
Is this book based on a classic story, like from mythology, history, or literature? Why did the author choose that particular story to retell?
Was there a simple solution to the problems in the book? Why didn't the author let the characters use it?
What is the book's climactic scene? How did the author build up to it?
Does the book's ending resolve the plot? If it doesn't, do you think this was intentional? What else do you want to know?
2
Book Club Questions About Character
Why did the author choose to follow this protagonist and not another character in the story? Would the story have been different if it was told from another character's point of view?
Do you think the protagonist is a hero or a villain—or somewhere in between?
How does the main character change over the course of the book?
Does the protagonist experience a major revelation or period of growth? How does it change them?
Does this story have an antagonist or villain? What traits does this character reveal about the story's hero?
Are there any nontraditional "characters" in the book—such as animals, or even places that play a strong role in the story?
Other than the main character, is there another character you found compelling? Describe how the book might be different from their point of view.

3. Book Club Questions About Author Style
How would you describe the author's writing style? (Was it flowery and descriptive, or more succinctly written?)
If the book was written in first person, why do you think the author made that choice? How did that choice change the story, vs. having it in third person?
How does the author's writing style compare to other authors you have read?

4. Just-for-Fun Questions
If you were making this book into a movie or TV show, who would you cast in the lead roles?
Did this book remind you of any songs? Make a playlist as a group.
You are dropped into the world of this book for the day. How would you fare?
Which of the characters in the book do you most relate to? Which would you want to invite for dinner—and why?
If you could ask the author one question about this book or anything else, what would you ask?
Do you think this book deserves a place on the 1001 list? If so, why?

[George P.]

I finished reading Life is a Caravanserai a few days ago. I was able to get a copy by interlibrary loan thanks to the University of North Texas. I understand the publisher that brought out the English translation has gone out of business, and it can be difficult to find English translation copies. It's remarkable to me that she wrote the book in German, which she apparently did not start learning until her late teen years.
I enjoyed reading it and especially appreciated the humor and the look at different culture. I would consider it a coming-of-age type novel. It doesn't really have any plot except that the protagonist and her brother grow up and leave Turkey.

[Amanda]

Just received my copy today. Excited to get into it.

[Gail]

I had never heard of the author or the title, so for me this was another great introduction to unique literature through the 1001 list.

Book Club Questions About Plot

This is a coming of age story although not your usual one, so the plot follows the chronological timeline of the primary character's growing up.
It does dance through family history, legends and historical events often told by the characters so the chronology is not always forward looking but it is not confusing either for a book that has a vaguely stream of consciousness style.

2
Book Club Questions About Character

Largely this is a character driven book and the characters are seen through the eyes of the young main character and evolve as she matures and has different experiences of the world. As this is a fictionalized account of the author's growing up we also have her impressions of the world through miscommunications, fevers, simplified interpretations of what is not at all simple, coming of age hormones, and there is also the historical imprint of the times. The book starts after WWII, and Turkey is in the middle of more revolutionary change which started back at the beginning of that century with the Young Turks and is poorly helped along by crazy Americans who do not eat real food.

3. Book Club Questions About Author Style

The book has a very impressionistic style that also reflects what I believe is called a Cumulative Tale, with the most obvious example in my childhood being The House that Jack Built. This is the House that Jack built, this is the rat that ate the malt that lay in the house that Jack built... etc. Our MC collects prayers for the dead people she encounters or hears about and by the end of the book the MC's prayers for the dead take up more than a whole page.
We also meet people whose names are tagged with their essence such as "The Self Made Gentleman" or Aunt Sidika who felt little better than a son-in-law who has to live with his parents-in-law. This phrase follows Aunt Sidika throughout the book but it is also a mood that other people recognize and they will use the phrase as an idiom. We learn Turkish word usage, we hear wonderful Kurd or Turkish tales and poetry and we see the world often through the wide eyes of a non-judgmental girl who is excited by all sorts of man-made and natural phenomenon.
Further, the world she encounters and we read about is gritty, messy, full of poverty, crass words and sexual dangers. Plus she lives in a world that takes all of this more or less for granted. When some women comes to enquire about our MC's availability to marry, the grandmother wants to know why they didn't give her away as she would be one less mouth to feed and she was at a perfectly acceptable age for marriage (15). And this is a grandmother that loves the girl more demonstratively than her own mother does.

If you want to know why Germany has so many Turkish immigrants, this book is your answer.

I really enjoyed the book. I am not sure why it is on the list exactly but I am glad it is.

[Kristel]

pg 28, see references to the Patience Stone. This is a folklore tale. I recently read The Patience Stone (syngué sabour)(by Atiq Rahimi. This is an Afghanistan author.

In Persian folklore, Syngue Sabour is the name of a magical black stone, a patience stone, which absorbs the plight of those who confide in it. It is believed that the day it explodes, after having received too much hardship and pain, will be the day of the Apocalypse.

So this is early in the book and the author is using poetry, prose, folklore to weave us a story. It is autobiographical, memoir, and a coming of age.

In this section it seems to be referencing the imperialism of nations coming in to reap the natural resources (oil) and take it home. Using them and leaving nothing. The failure of leadership to care for the people and to kowtow to the foreigner.

[Rosemary]

I found this very interesting as it tells of a place and culture that I know very little about. The grandmother's folk tales provided a background, and then the real lives of the family and neighbours (at the family's many different addresses) acted out a constant stream of tragedy and comedy.

I felt that we were being whirled along just as the protagonist was whirled around and about in her life, sometimes by consequences of her actions but more often by the actions of her parents or other people around her. She did not kick against this or openly resent it in the way that I think a British or American teenager would have done even at that time, but she often seemed to have illnesses that were more or less psychosomatic.

Regarding the discussion questions, the questions about character seem to be the most relevant because this is very much a character-driven novel. It would have been a very different story if told by another character, or if not told in the first person.

[Kristel]

It wasn't plot driven. It was mostly characters and definitely a story of Women. I also see it as a story of Turkey told through the lives of women and I think it was culturally appropriate and wonder if women when together with each other talk so crudely. I suspect they do and I wonder what the role of farts is in Turkey culture. I expect it is. I know that food was accurate and I know that there are street cats in Istanbul.

[Amanda]

Read earlier this month and really enjoyed it and gave it 4 stars. The author's kind of flowy and languid style worked with the sense of the generations flowing into each other and flashback, and the way the narrator's present in Germany is defined by her and her family's journey in Turkey was well done.

I found all of the parts about her grandmother really compelling.

[Kristel]

4. Just-for-Fun Questions

You are dropped into the world of this book for the day. How would you fare? I suspect I would not fare well. It is so culturally different.
Which of the characters in the book do you most relate to? I liked the grandmother but not sure I can relate but I really liked the women relationships with each other
Which would you want to invite for dinner—and why? I would like them to invite me cause I really like their food.
If you could ask the author one question about this book or anything else, what would you ask? Do women really talk about farting and their boxes (vaginal) like it is depicted in this book?
Do you think this book deserves a place on the 1001 list? If so, why? Yes, I think it is very unique and descriptive of culture and women's lives and the structure of the book was pretty unique as well.

[[deleted user]]

Thanks to Gail I have actually managed to read this BOTM unfortunately it was not one that really engaged me, in the early stages I was really confused by what was happening to whom and by the time I was getting engaged we ran into endless repetition (prayers for the dead) that had me skim reading.

I appreciated seeing Turkish culture from a female perspective and think the book should be included on the list for that alone but I did find it to be a hot mess with not a lot of plot.

Just for fun - I am too culturally different to get on in this world, plus it would definitely be too hot for pale old zombie me.

I didn't really relate to any of the characters but if I had to choose I would go with the narrator.

One question for the author what's with all the praying for the dead?

While I didn't enjoy the book as a whole there are some super one liners in there and astute observations about men that I really appreciated.