This story tells of the lives of a poor peasant family struggling through epic challenges to survive and get ahead in a mid-century Turkish village. The family makes an annual trek over a mountain pass to the cotton fields where they hope to have a good enough harvest to improve their lives. But everything seems to be against them: village families fight among each other for advantage; corrupt village leaders play them off to get a profitable deal from the landowners; different generations within the family fight for respect and attention; the land, the weather, even the spirits, seem to exist just to make things harder. And the final result from their labours is disappointment. (This book is the first of a trilogy, so maybe things will get better in the future.)
The story has the feel of an epic struggle against fate and the elements, but told within the personal details of peasant life. Ali is a heroic and sympathetic character. He tries to build up his family’s position by taking on enormous tasks and facing overwhelming risks. Inspired by his mother, he pushes on against a raging storm (his mother rages against her fate like Lear in the storm). He tries to help his village and the lying braggart Old Halil, although they don’t return his support. Ali is a good soul who would be a good friend, although he is beaten down by bad luck time after time.
While his story is unrelenting struggle, it is not unending misery. The family cares for each other, even while they play out their personal issues. Ali resents his mother, but over and over he risks his life and his family’s future to look after her. Ali’s wife makes his favourite foods even though she has only what she can carry on her back. His kids play and sing, but they also have their ideas about how they can support the family. Occasionally, it seems that things are going their way, and they can take a break. Then their life appears almost idyllic, loving and rich.
The concrete details of their environment and their lives make the story real and relatable. The smells in the wind, the sparkle of a stubble field, the offerings hanging from a holy tree seem to come from first-hand knowledge, and they place a reader in the scene. They give insight into what the characters are seeing and feeling, and help a Canadian urban reader empathize with them on their journey over the Turkish mountains.
This makes the struggle of a traditional family in the modern world more poignant. Things don’t work the way they used to, and a corrupt modern political and economic system undermines them as much as their struggles against nature. They face their epic struggle yearly, and the village leaders aligned with the modern Turkish state of the 1950s exploit them for their labour or send them off to the army. The villagers know they need to organize to protect themselves, but they are stuck in their atomized families, each one struggling alone to survive.
Perhaps this conflict is the key theme that Yashar Kemal wants to point to in the novel – the need for traditional Turkish peasantry to organize together instead of fighting alone among themselves. He shows that it will not be easy – their attempts flounder twice in the novel, and the village leader is shown trying to buy off each family individually – but it seems to be the only way that the families will get ahead in a market economy that does not support them.
Although set in a culture and place that I know nothing about, the story and the characters are interesting enough that I want to read the rest of the trilogy. ( )