Warm and Fuzzy

Remarkably Bright Creatures is a warm and fuzzy mystery. Contradiction in terms, you say?  Not if you’re Shelby Van Pelt and can pull it off. I enjoyed the book because it’s warm and fuzzy, it’s witty, original and quirky. I also enjoyed it because its main protagonist is a 70- year-old woman. There are very few books, movies or series about people over 70. Remarkably Bright Creatures is one of the very few. Besides, it treats its protagonist with respect, without stereotyping or pidgeon-holing her.

Tova Sullivan, 70, has recently lost her husband of over 45 years. The couple’s only son, Erik, disappeared about thirty years ago when he was eighteen, and was never found. The police concluded that he had committed suicide, although his parents disagreed because he was a happy and thriving teenager.

At this stage in her life Tova works a part-time job at nights as the cleaner of an aquarium in Sowell Bay. Although her friends try their best to convince her not to, – she doesn’t need the money, and she’s too old to be on her feet and do physical labor – Tova likes to keep busy. It takes her mind off her loneliness, grief and obsession with the mystery of her son’s disappearance.

At her job she befriends Marcellus, the remarkably bright Pacific octopus, who is an expert at escaping his tank, wandering around the aquarium and collecting coins, earrings and other objects visitors drop in the halls. Marcellus understands human speech, is observant and notices and figures out a lot of things that humans don’t, or can’t be bothered to.

The second storyline is about Cameron, a thirty-year-old ne’er-do-well, whom his mother abandoned when he was 9, and who’s never met his father. Although remarkably bright in some ways, Cameron can never hold down a job or a relationship. He travels from his native California to Sowell Bay in search of his father. When Tova injures her foot, Cameron is hired as the night cleaner and meets Marcellus.

Some chapters are narrated by Marcellus, the most lovable and smart character of the book, who has keen observations about humans and their weird behaviour.

“Humans are the only species who subvert truth for their own entertainment. They call them jokes. Sometimes puns.”

“Why can humans not use their millions of words to simply tell one another what they desire?”

Shelby Van Pelt adds a number of other characters to the mix. Among them are Tova’s gossiping friends, the store owner who has a crush on Tova, Cameron’s love interests and his aunt who raised him. All characters are lovable and kind, and Van Pelt does a great job portraying both their capabilities and idiosyncrasies convincingly. The tone is humorous and light, and the mystery leads the reader by the nose.

Through casual conversations and remarks, gradual revelations are made about the past, but the main catalyst and hero of the day is Marcellus, who despite his limited physical abilities is able to help his friend. “Secrets are everywhere. Some humans are crammed full of them. How do they not explode? It seems to be a hallmark of the human species: abysmal communication skills.”

Although unrealistic and far-fetched in some respects, Remarkably Bright Creatures truthfully portrays the issues the elderly face in the final stages of their lives. But despite its serious themes it is an entertaining, funny and feel-good page-turner and a pleasure to read.

Unrelenting Humor

The main power of Elif Shafak in The Bastard of Istanbul lies in her unique and omnipresent humor.  From the funny titles of the chapters (Cinnamon, Garbanzo Beans, Vanilla, Roasted Hazelnuts), to the hilarious names of the cats (Pasha the Third, Sultan the Fifth), facetious nicknames of characters (The Dipsomaniac Cartoonist, The Closeted Gay Columnist), to the abundance of witty lines: (the namesake of the novel calls her mom auntie, “Asya auntifies her mom to keep her at a distance. ‘What an unpardonable injustice on the part of Allah to create a daughter far less beautiful than her own mother, ’” the humor rarely lets up.

The story’s scope is vast. It is heavily populated, spans continents and centuries. The Kazanci family, composed of seven women: four sisters, their mother, their grandmother and Asya, the illegitimate daughter of one of the sisters, live in one household in Istanbul. The only brother of the four sisters, Mustafa, lives in Arizona. He is married to an American divorcee, who has a daughter, Armanoush, from her first marriage to an Armenian man who lives in San Francisco with his extended Armenian family.

Complicated? Hang in tight.

Asya, a nineteen-year-old nihilist rebellious young woman, is full of anger towards her smothering caring extended family in general, and her mother in particular, for not telling her who her father is. Armanoush, who’s been very close with her Armenian paternal grandmother, a survivor of the Armenian genocide in Turkey, wants to see the house her grandmother was born in, and find out more about the details of her family’s past. So she picks up and goes to Istanbul and stays with her step-father, Mustafa’s family.

Asya is under strict instructions from her whole family to be nice to Armanoush, her step-cousin. She grudgingly obeys. But it takes no time for the two girls, of approximately the same age, to strike a deep friendship despite their diametrically opposite temperaments. One thing follows another, and gradually light is shed on historical events, dark secrets are revealed, and unexpected developments occur.

Elif Shafak talks about the Armenian Genocide in The Bastard of Istanbul. Because of that she was prosecuted in 2006 for “insulting Turkishness”, a charge that might have landed her in prison for three years. But the charges were eventually dropped.

The novel explores various attitudes about the historical deportations and massacre of 1.5 million Armenians in 1915. The Armenian view is that it was a genocide and the government of Turkey has to apologize and pay restitutions. The Turkish views differ. Some have no idea and are not interested. Some claim that Armenians killed Turks too, so Turkey has nothing to apologize for. Some say whatever happened in the past is not our fault. Let’s move on to the future. And others say we have to examine the issue and resolve it before we can move on.

Alongside these conflicting political views, Shafak also explores the similarities between the two cultures. The family relationships and gatherings, the overbearing aunts and grandparents, and the cuisines of the Turkish Kazancis in Istanbul are practically interchangeable with those of the Armenian  Chakhmakhchians in San Francisco.

There’s no shortage of mesmerizing and beautiful, but not always positive, descriptions of Istanbul. “…it is densely dark in Istanbul. Whether along the grimy, narrow streets snaking the oldest quarters, in the modern apartment buildings cramming the newly built districts, or throughout the fancy suburbs, people are fast asleep. All but some. Some Istanbulites have, as usual, awakened earlier than others. The imams…the simit vendors…the bakers…most of them get only a few hours of sleep…the cleaning ladies…of all ages, get up early to take at least two or three different buses to arrive at the houses of the well-off, where they will scrub, clean, and polish all day long…It is dawn now. The city is a gummy, almost gelatinous entity at this moment, an amorphous shape half-liquid, half-solid.”

Something that could be confusing for the uninitiated is the plethora of unfamiliar Turkish and Armenian names. However, Shafak’s characters are recognizable by their distinct and often colorful personalities. For example it’s impossible to confuse Asya’s four aunts: the tattoo-artist in high heels and miniskirt, Auntie Zeliha, the didactic high-school history teacher, Auntie Cevriye, the schizophrenic Auntie Feride who “had a problem with making eye-contact. She was more comfortable talking to objects…she addressed her words to Zeliha’s plate,” and the headscarf-wearing Auntie Banu, the fortune teller who carries two djinns on her shoulders, good one on the right, bad one on the left.

But what is constant and delightful throughout this densely populated novel full of heavy themes is Shafak’s unrelenting humor. Even at funerals and abortions.

Thank you Dad

Both my mom and my dad’s family were divided by the “Iron Curtain” between the former Soviet Union and Iran. My dad, his brother and one of his sisters happened to be in Iran, his other three sisters happened to be in Armenia when it was decided by Iran and the Soviet Union that no one was allowed to cross their border any more.

Thus the members of the family were doomed to stay apart and only communicate through letters for the rest of their lives. The letters at times contained photographs. Every time my dad got a letter, he would read it to us, reminisce of the person writing it, remind us of who was who, and if there were pictures, showed them to us, repeated the name(s) of the person(s) in them, and their relationship with us.

At the time it seemed like another one of dad’s old-fashioned antiques we had to sit through and nod. Here we go again, I would think, so what? When am I ever going to meet these people anyway? Why is he wasting my time?

We immigrated to Canada. My dad passed away. So did, one by one, his sisters in Armenia. My children grew up. The Soviet Union fell apart, and a friend and I decided to visit Armenia, the land of our ancestors. Dad had brought his sisters’ letters and pictures to Canada with him. And I, in turn had kept them. I went through them, reviewed who was who, took letters with as many different addresses that I could find, and set off.

After the first few days of sightseeing in Armenia, I split from my friend, rented a taxi and went to find my relatives in Yerevan.

The first address turned out to be an apartment, which had been sold recently. This we found out after knocking on the door, not getting an answer, and the taxi driver advising me to ask the neighbors. They, in turn, didn’t know where the owners had moved to. They guessed they had gone abroad.

There was no answer at the second address, and no neighbors were home so we could make inquiries.

The third address was an apartment that bore a plaque with one of my aunts’ names: “Amalia Nikoghossian”. Although I knew aunt Amalia had passed away years ago, –dad was inconsolable when he got the news– I thought a member of the family had to be living in the apartment to still have kept my aunt’s name on the door. Delighted I rang the bell.

“Who is it?” Came an angry woman’s voice from behind the closed door.

“My name is Nora,” I started with an excited voice. “I am the daughter of Gaaregin, Amalia’s brother. I have come from Canada…”

“What do you want?” came the brusque reply.

“I’d like to find my cousins,” I said in the most conciliatory voice I could muster. “Are you by any chance, Valentina?” I knew that to be aunt Amalia’s only step-daughter’s name. Dad had said it a thousand times. Thank you dad, I thought.

After talking behind the closed door for a few minutes, Valentina opened the door a crack, but kept the chain on. I finally saw her face, which surprised me. I knew she was an epidemiologist, and didn’t expect her to look so scared. So broken. So… unhinged.

I put on my brightest smile and told her as much as possible about myself, our family, my dad and his practice of teaching us his sisters’ and their children’s names. I told her that her picture, as well as the pictures of my other relatives had always been sitting on the mantle in our living room as I grew up…

Eventually she unlocked the chain and opened the door. I paid the driver who looked at the two of us dubiously and whispered to me, “Do you want me to wait here for you?”

“Thank you, I’ll be fine,” I whispered back.

Valentina gradually opened up to me and told me her story. She had to nurse her step-mother, my aunt, for the last two years of her life. With her father deceased and no nursing homes, she was the only one left to care for Amalia, who was bed-bound.

“It broke my back, and my spirit,” she said. “I lost my mental balance and couldn’t work anymore. I took early retirement, and had to be treated for years for my back.”

After she felt comfortable with me, she called Nelly, another one of my cousins. “Guess who’s sitting in my apartment right now!” she asked Nelly mischievously.

 

Nelly was as delighted to hear my voice on the phone as I was to hear hers. She invited me to her house and promised to gather the whole family.

And so it was that I met my three cousins, their surviving husbands, their sons, daughters, and grandchildren. With the exception of the grandchildren, who were mostly born after my dad passed away, I had seen the pictures of the people I met and knew their names. They, in turn had seen pictures of me and my family. Thank you dad. I was astonished to see the photograph of my parents’ wedding on the wall of Nelly’s apartment.

That evening we became family at first sight. 

That was 18 years ago. With the encouragement and/or insistence of various cousins and their children, I reached out to the cousins who had left Armenia and lived in other countries. We’ve travelled long distances to meet each other, have arranged to meet again and even travel together. I have visited Armenia four more times, the last one only weeks ago. With every visit the relationships grow warmer, the ties stronger and the bonds deeper.

Thank you dad.