Memed, My Hawk

Yashar Kemal died only recently, on February 28, at the age of 91. Both his many amateur fans as well as hosts of professional critics felt that he had deserved the Nobel price for literature. The decisions made by the Nobel judges are politically driven and arcane, sometimes to the point of incomprehensibility. Numerous far inferior writers were awarded the prize during Kemal’s long career. Memed, My Hawk, Kemal’s most famous work, was first published in 1955. It is an intense, intricately woven, often emotional yarn set among the remote villages, forests and mountains of Southwest Turkey a century or so ago. Its inhabitants, a largely illiterate and ignorant peasantry, still live under an ancient feudal system dominated by corrupt and brutal local tyrants. Their sentiments are swept backwards and forwards by irrational waves of gossip, piety, superstition, rumor, lies and obfuscation. It is a fast paced, gripping and suspenseful story. Yet underlying it is a profound meditation on good and evil and their impact on a society. Good characters and bad characters emerge within the labyrinthine plot. Some are brave and some poltroonish. Some combine these characteristics or switch between them. A few triumph, a greater number perish. In the impoverished and isolated communities of that era, life and death existed in close parallel. Often they intertwined, as did good and evil. The erratic and unexpected twists and turns of each defined the lives of the peasant villagers. These forces also etched the fate of the story’s hero, Slim Memed, an idealistic and heroic young man driven into the mountains and a life of brigandry by the savage cruelty of a mendacious local chieftain. Memed, My Hawk has come to be regarded as a classic. I doubt that it is possible to define precisely what constitutes a classic novel. But I also believe that few who read this book will not find it belongs in that rarified category.

This book is certainly an exhilarating page-turner! But not merely this: Lush descriptions of the Turkish countryside as it existed at the time, a cast of characters Tolstoyan in their sweep, and, above all, an epic story of a downtrodden hero---In short, the book is a Romance. It is not, though, the simple-minded, pat story that one sometimes associates with this term. It is a Romance in the sense that War and Peace and Don Quixote are Romances. The author goes to some pains in the introduction to explain why he has written this sort of book, instead of something dry and dispiriting as many of the works of, say, V. S .Naipaul are. If I could sum up these arguments, it would be that such a work as Memed, My Hawk touches on what is written in every human heart. And it does. It is ribald, comic, sad, distressing, heartbreaking---all the emotions, which, blended together, make up a human life. It is also, of course, more specifically, about a particular human named Memed, who embodies these traits in an heroic fashion. - I don't think that it belittles this book a jot to compare it to the movie Braveheart. I found myself reminded of this cinematic work more than anything else throughout the book---There are so many thematic and plot similarities. Let's put it this way, if you love Braveheart, you will love this book. But also, if you love War and Peace or Don Quixote, you will love this book. And I say, good and well, let's have the old pathos and lyricism back that made literature what it is. Let's not leave it to the dry hacks who warn us, like so many bloodless Jeremiahs, of the perils of following our hearts. Let's let literature be literature! ---But never mind me. Let's let Kemal have the last word:"No matter how limited a man's field of vision, his imagination knows no bounds. A man who has never been outside his village of Deyirmenoluk can still create a whole imaginary world that can reach as far as the stars. Without travelling, a man can penetrate to the other end of the world. Even without much imagination the place where he dwells can become different in his dreams, a true paradise." P.77So, go. Read and Dream!

Thanx to the reviewer who identified the film version with/by Peter Ustinov (but an absurd British Hollywoodization). Yes, Memed reads like a script for a film by Sergei Eisenstein--but a very, very good book, as has been vigorously noted, in a poetic yet naturalistic style redolent of East European writers. It is a tribute to the forebearance of Turkey's ruling elites that the book not only was allowed publication in 1955 (during the cold war), but also was allowed critical acclaim. So vigorous a denunciation of a country's large landowners could not have been published in England or the U.S.A. in the 1950s (in 19c English lit., the bad guys are almost always the noisy working class; in this regard, read David Lodge's Nice Work). Yes, Orhan Pamul, Turkey's Nobel lauriate and a fellow Istanbulite, presents a different style and milieu, that of the sophisticated, urban intelligensia in witty and philosophical and naughty interplay.

I cdnt stop turning the pages!!! Even tho I was on a beach vacation, I stayed in the room, sleepless and hungry and kept reading. Just cdnt put the book aside! Omggggggggg! I lived in another world for 4 days. It was amazing. Already purchased two more for my close friends.

This is a beautiful tale illustrating the harsh life in Turkey under a system of servitude. The narrative carries you along in a clear style that perfectly suits the tale of rebellion and heroism it narrates. I rate very few books and items, but this is one I recommend to anyone interested in Turkey.

Besides a universal mystery story that draws you in and makes you reluctant to put it down, it gives an intimate view into the everyday workings of the rural Turkish Culture. The title, which has rich meaning in that culture but is not well understood by or inherently attractive to Westerners, should be translated into English words that will indicate the excitement inside for readers regardless of their cultural origin.

It is a mistake , I think, to write this novel off, or at least to diminish its significance by seeing it as little more than a "Boys Own Paper" adventure story. Without question it is a rattling good tale that translates into compelling reading in English. However, it is much more than this. It is a narrative of heroes and villains, rarely complex characters, but they grow convincingly from the world which has produced them - a world of poverty, cruelty, oppression and fear, but also one of loyalty, friendship and often confusion. Memed is driven from his home by the local tyrant Abdi Aghar; it is this confrontation which gives the many incidents that make up the novel its drive and coherence.The physical world with all its many challenges is at the heart of the story. Despite the occasional references to the powers that reside in Ankara, it is this narrow and forbidding world that dominates the lives of the characters and ground the events in a really convincing reality. It is true that the women characters are somewhat, though far from entirely, passive. They are the products of a society far removed from our own. I cannot begin to judge how influential the book has been, as I have to admit that this is the first Turkish novel I have written. It's certainly made me want to read more of Yashar Kemal's books and more recent Turkish writing. I would recommend this novel whole-heartedly to a wide range of readers; it offers us not only a great plot, but insights into our deepest feelings: love, anger, violence, friendship as well as political corruption and oppression.

Obviously who ever wrote the review on the back didn't actually read the book, or some editor changed imprisoned to murder. Anyway I'm not telling you what happened to her in the end it will spoil it for you, but this back page is misleading. That said, Yashar Kemal can't half write. If you love adventure books, you will love this. It is a masterpiece and I'm a fussy sod when it comes to reading, so take my word for it, this is probably one of the best books I've read, and definitely worth time out from your life to read.

super fast,thanks

An extraordinary masterpiece.If ever an author should have won the Nobel Prize for Literature, it was Yashar Kemal.But, after all, the Nobel committee ignored Thomas Hardy, Chekhov, Henry James, Joseph Conrad, Henrik Ibsen, Tolstoy - to name only a few.A roll of honour - Yashar Kemal deserves his place on it.

A wonderful moving story! A must read!