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the complete review - fiction

Life's Good, Brother

by
Nâzım Hikmet

general information | review summaries | our review | links | about the author

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Our Assessment:

B+ : interesting -- both stylistically and as a glimpse of those times

See our review for fuller assessment.

  From the Reviews:

• "Although reflective of the turbulent era, the back-and-forth structure weakens narrative cohesion, especially considering how little there is to distinguish the inner lives of the characters. However, many graceful gems outweigh the faults, making it worth the time." - Publishers Weekly
  
  
• "Das Buch, jetzt wieder aufgelegt, ist ein Jahrhundertbuch." - Stefan Weidner, Die Zeit

Please note that these ratings solely represent the complete review's biased interpretation and subjective opinion of the actual reviews and do not claim to accurately reflect or represent the views of the reviewers. Similarly the illustrative quotes chosen here are merely those the complete review subjectively believes represent the tenor and judgment of the review as a whole. We acknowledge (and remind and warn you) that they may, in fact, be entirely unrepresentative of the actual reviews by any other measure.

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The complete review's Review:

       Nâzım Hikmet is best known as a poet, with even works such as his epic novel Human Landscapes from My Country written in verse; the posthumously published Life's Good, Brother is the closest to a traditional work of prose fiction he published. Even so, it is stylistically and formally strikingly inventive -- and, clearly autobiographical, also of considerable interest as a personal document.
       The central figure in the novel is the Hikmet-like young Communist Ahmet Kadri, and the basic structure of the novel finds him back in Turkey, in Izmir, in 1925, after some time studying in Moscow: the authorities are after him ("The arrests have begun"; two Ahmet Kadris from Istanbul have been questioned) and after being bitten by a dog Ahmet must also wait out the incubation period, to see if he might have contracted rabies. The novel centers on his life in this limbo, hidden away in a hut, counting the days -- many of the short chapter-titles keeping track of time the way he does: 'The Sixth Line' etc. (as he marks each day with a chalk line). This idea of marking time with a crude line on the back of the door also comes up in other situations, with the novel eventually also including these -- chapters such as 'Lines at the Istanbul Police Headquarters'.
       Where the narrative focuses on Ahmet it often shifts -- disorientingly -- rapidly and often between first and third person perspectives. In some paragraphs the perspective shifts back and forth between I and he sentence by sentence; elsewhere it is more consistent -- but rarely entirely so. It's an unusual technique -- and, like a camera-perspective that shifts from exterior to through-the-eyes-of-the-character, one that takes some getting used to.
       In addition, the story focuses only partly on the 1925-present, as Ahmet's account is both reminiscence, such as of his time in Moscow, as well as a look ahead to future events. A significant secondary storyline follows Ismail, who takes care of Ahmet while they wait to see if he does indeed have rabies, and Ismail's later years in jail and the wife he finds.
       Though written in the 1960s, much of the novel has the feel of 1920s expressionism -- especially the Moscow scenes. In this time or revolutionary fervor, both love and ideology play significant roles in Ahmet's life; relationships -- romantic and ideological -- are close but there's also a sense of fatalism, given what's possibly in store for many of those he is close to. (Ahmet also briefly stands watch over Lenin's open coffin, even glimpsing Krupskaya.)
       Life's Good, Brother is an exile's novel, and a look back, Hikmet reflecting on his life's path -- and finding:

Not books or word-of-mouth propaganda or my social condition brought me where I am. Anatolia brought me where I am. The Anatolia I had seen only on the surface, from the outside. My heart brought me where I am. That's how it is ...

My guests haven't aged. They're still the age they were when I last saw them.

- M.A.Orthofer, 5 January 2014

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Links:

• Persea publicity page
• Suhrkamp publicity page

• Body
• Deutschlandfunk (German)
• ForeWord Reviews
• Hurriyet Daily News
• Publishers Weekly
• Die Zeit (German)

• Nâzım Hikmet at books and writers

• See Index of Turkish literature

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About the Author:

       Turkish author Nâzım Hikmet was born in 1902 and died in Soviet exile in 1963.

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© 2014 the complete review

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