An embarrassment of riches from a trip to the used bookstore. Very excited to read several in here that I had been looking for for a while! #europacollective
An embarrassment of riches from a trip to the used bookstore. Very excited to read several in here that I had been looking for for a while! #europacollective
A man in the present day is visited by the ghosts of his ancestors and their associates, who detail their political and personal dramas in the declining days of the Ottoman Empire. In the first 75 pages, this mostly looks like a guy watching his great grandfather‘s first wife experience sexual awakening... but the book quickly expands and becomes an absorbing and compelling set of intertwining tales. The ‘ghost‘ framing is interesting; it‘s >>
“When he reached the age of twenty-four, his father decided he should marry. Naturally, when the Sultan said, ‘How is your dear son, Pasha, apparently he hasn‘t married yet, the young should be made to marry,‘ it played an important role in the making of this decision; the Sultan believed that unmarried people were more dangerous, and he was correct in this belief.”