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Orhan's Inheritance

Aline Ohanesian

Start date: December 1, 2017

Finish date: December 31, 2017

Discussion: Around Europe 2017

Why we're reading this: Winner of the Around Europe December read
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Around Europe 2017

* Orhan’s Inheritance - *spoilers allowed* December 2017
By Dianne · 51 posts · 28 views

last updated Dec 12, 2017 09:19PM

* December 2017 - Turkey, Cyprus, Armenia Currently Reading
By Lauren · 12 posts · 28 views

last updated Dec 23, 2017 09:09AM

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What Members Thought

Dec 07, 2017 Joey Anderson rated it liked it · review of another edition

I was expecting a much better novel as the subject matter was the Armenian genocide of 1915, but it did not happen. The novel seems to have several failures: the structure, the central character, and the absence of competing world views.

To say the least, I was disappointed.

The novelist develops two settings: one from 1990 in a nursing home in Los Angeles where Seda, a survivor of the genocide, and one from 1915 in Karod, Turkey where the genocide begins where Lucine (now Seda) resides. Due to th I was expecting a much better novel as the subject matter was the Armenian genocide of 1915, but it did not happen. The novel seems to have several failures: the structure, the central character, and the absence of competing world views.

To say the least, I was disappointed.

The novelist develops two settings: one from 1990 in a nursing home in Los Angeles where Seda, a survivor of the genocide, and one from 1915 in Karod, Turkey where the genocide begins where Lucine (now Seda) resides. Due to the seventy-five year gap in time, the two periods do not coalesce into one narrative; the central character is two different characters, not one. When Lucine, a young woman of 15 is rescued by Fatma, she transforms herself into Seda and relinquishes her past life. The time from 1915 to 1990 is either sketchy or summarized, so what happens to Lucine/Seda is unrealized.

I believe the novel would have been better if the structure would have elicited Seda’s memory instead of setting up a distinct past. Too much information is missing in the 75-year gap from her life and that of the other characters.

The central character of Lucine/Seda only works for the issue of survival, but the novel seems disjointed in that in 1990 all she wants to do is forget. Other Armenians want the horrible event to be recognized and remembered (which makes memory a more appropriate structure), but Seda does not seem concerned with remembering.

What’s is going to be? Should we remember it or relive it?

The other characters either lack verisimilitude (Orhan, Fatma, Mustafa (Orhan’s father) or are underdeveloped. When Orhan really discovers his inheritance, that his family line is not what he has always believed it was, he has quite a nonchalant attitude towards it. I would expect if I discovered that my lineage was completely different than what I had always believed it to be, I would have been thrown through a loop.

What is really missing is a competing view. Why did the Turks want to exterminate the Armenians? That view is never developed and the only answer we get is that it was a time of war. Why they did it is as important as the fact that they carried out this monstrous act.

This review errs on the side that I make it sound as if the novel is quite bad, but it is not. There are events that are horrible to read and makes us sympathetic to Lucine and her family. There are events that are startling and deserve more development, but are left to the reader’s imagination (never a good strategy).

I always wanted to know why Kemal never came back to Lucine if he loved her so much.

I feel guilty for saying so, but the novel has great subject matter, but poor execution. The novel has great possibilities, but never delivers.
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Dec 12, 2017 Erika rated it really liked it

Shelves: fiction-general

Harrowing. Well done but very hard in places. What people can do to each other and to children is heartbreaking.

The Armenian genocide gets such short shrift in US high school and college history classes. It is a travesty.

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