Portrait of a Turkish Family

This is a story worth telling. Not many have lived through such tumultuous times in their homelands and survived with enough sanity to tell the tale. I have read many stories around the world wars by Europeans. But there are so few such stories from the non-European perspective. I found the language and narration a bit hard to get into at times. It lacked flow in many places. But the subject matter made the writing flaws almost insignificant.It was easy to sympathize with the author in most places. The only part I failed to understand was why his family believed he had become emotionally distant a long time ago. He describes his mother's hardness when dealing with impossible loss. He comes across as a sensitive enough child to understand that his mother's loss was tremendous and perhaps most sad. But he doesn't describe how exactly he became distant from his family later on. He seemed to try hard to give her security, but she still craves for some of the love that she lost in the war. Why did he fall short? These aspects were never explored in the book.The novel, however, offers excellent views into the lives of sheltered women in Muslim Turkey. Hiding them from the world left them ignorant and vulnerable in hard times when the men were no longer around to "protect them". It was heart breaking at times to see these proud upper-class women who were never taught anything besides rudimentary household skills come to terms with their new reality.

The author describes his and his family’s life, emotions, surroundings, and the events very clearly and helps you visualize everything and feel the emotions. Written with a very clear language and is very interesting to read.

I loved his way with description. His early childhood was idyllic and what happened afterwards, the antithesis. But the family was very close even if there was great disappointment in one another. A beautiful story of a time in history in Turkey that is so pivotal.

I love Turkey and this is a fascinating tale of its recent history, but the reader has to accept that it is written in English by a man for whom this is his second language. He demonstrates great mastery of English, but it is heavily overwritten, using three adjectives or adverbs where one or none would suffice. Once you get used to his heavy style, it is a very interesting true story and I would recommend it to anybody who is interested in Turkey.

This books starts out as boring as its title. It's a middle class Turkish family in the early 1900s. They squabble with relatives and have a comfortable life selling carpets. But WWI begins and each of them is literally ruined by the deprivation and horror they survive (or not). I'll never forget the description of the battle of Gallipoli in northern Turkey. What a horrible, pointless mess! It's quite a good book but harrowing.

This book is more an autobiography than I expected. Although it progresses through Turkish history and involvement in the war, I personally was looking for a few more facts. Nevertheless, it makes for interesting reading and the author has a style of writing that makes you want to read every word to the end.

Well written, historically valuable, and very sad. What World War I was actually like for people, even a privileged family with some connections to power, in Ottoman Turkey. We know that Europe suffered terrible during The Great War. So did the rest of the world.

I bought this book because I had just returned from traveling in Turkey and wanted to understand the enormous historical and cultural shifts that occurred here from the perspective of a family. This book ws informative but was more oriented toward the insular family situation rather than presenting a wider historical perspective.I did enjoy the book and recommend it as more of a family saga than an historical novel.I would give it 3 1/2 stars if I knew how to do a half star.

I found this book in the library when I was looking for background reading prior to a trip to Istanbul and north west Turkey. I enjoyed it so much I decided to buy it. It gives a great insight into the dying days of the Ottoman Empire as well as the personal story of a family and a way of life torn apart by the first World War. The writing is simple and direct and the author has the gift of making you feel as though you were there. Sometimes it is a little hard to follow and you feel as though bits have been missed out which would have helped to make sense of the narrative, but then it is a personal memoir so you have to forgive a few inconsistencies. Recommended for anyone interested in Turkey.

A book that is really moving canot be blamed for being depressing- I think this is an unfair criticism of an unusually lucid and honest account of someone's early life written in beautiful prose. Some of the events that happened were tragic- but this adds to the poignancy of the whole. I did not feel depressed at the end- just amazed that anyone could write such a book.

I have read this book before, many years ago. It is a powerful and emotional story of how one family's misfortunes affects their lives. It also relates an interesting social history. Whilst very sad, it is very moving and a story that has stayed in my head and my heart over the years.

The characters in the book are brought to life through the tragic events of the First World War.We learn how the population suffered and how ill prepared the army was to go into war.It's a story of survival and the love of a son.Based on historic facts and touches on the rise of Ataturk and the changes that he brought in.I enjoyed the relationships between the characters and their survival against the odds.

I struggled to finish this but it was a book club selection. It seemed to drag on and on.