Orhan's Inheritance in Around the World

Apr 09, 2015 Andrea rated it really liked it · review of another edition

Shelves: challenge, fiction-foreign-locale

"THEY FOUND HIM inside one of seventeen cauldrons in the courtyard, steeping in an indigo dye two shades darker than the summer sky."

With one of the most startling opening lines I think I've ever read, this debut novel by Aline Ohanesian immediately captured my attention, and managed to maintain it through a story of the Armenian genocide, to the end.

In the present day, Orhan Türkoğlu, the young Turkish manager of his grandfather's successful kilim business, goes to the USA to find out why his g "THEY FOUND HIM inside one of seventeen cauldrons in the courtyard, steeping in an indigo dye two shades darker than the summer sky."

With one of the most startling opening lines I think I've ever read, this debut novel by Aline Ohanesian immediately captured my attention, and managed to maintain it through a story of the Armenian genocide, to the end.

In the present day, Orhan Türkoğlu, the young Turkish manager of his grandfather's successful kilim business, goes to the USA to find out why his grandfather has left the family home to a stranger in his will. The stranger is Seda Melkonian, an intellectually sharp but reticent woman seeing out her twilight years in a care facility for aged Armenians, from where the past is impossible to escape. While Seda is only too willing to sign over her rights to the property, she is much less forthcoming in giving Orhan the answers to his questions.

Ohanesian takes us back to WWI, where the childhood friendship between Kemal and Lucine is beginning to turn into something more, before they are separated by the Armenian 'deportations' from Turkey into the Syrian desert. The circumstances of the deportees become increasingly more desperate, and the narrative necessarily more graphic, as the journey progresses. One passage that stopped me in my tracks concerned a woman giving birth by the side of the road, with the Turkish gendarmes impatiently urging her to get on with it. They soon tire of waiting and take action to resolve the matter, and get the deportees marching again.

This is a novel of love, loss and family secrets. It taught me a lot about the Armenian genocide. Towards the end I felt it ran out of steam, with the big secret revealed in just a few paragraphs (and not really very explicitly), so I probably would have preferred it to be a bit longer.

ORHAN MAKES HIS way back to the sea of mauve and green that is the reception area. Sitting down, he sinks so deep into one of the couches that he swears he can suddenly feel the weight of a century’s worth of deception and longing bearing down on his shoulders.

That's kind of how I felt at the end, too, but in a good, more informed way.
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Apr 08, 2015 Lilisa rated it it was amazing

Shelves: favorites, historical-fiction, turkiye, around-the-world-2015, 2015, armenia

Moving between modern-day Turkey and early 20th century, Orhan’s Inheritance is a story of how the past influences the present and future; it’s about “how we choose to listen and which words we choose to speak…” Orhan Turkoglu’s grandfather has just died and he’s headed home – to the village of Karod, on the outskirts of the city of Sivas in Turkey. Fielding a range of emotions, Orhan is about to experience even further turmoil – through his will, his grandfather Kemal has created a family storm ...more

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Nov 30, 2017 Daisy rated it it was amazing

Shelves: la-hollywood, armenia, turkey, aroundtheworld2017

"I like succulents as much as tulips, but you don't see me planting both in the same patch of land." (Hairig)

All of life... is a story within a story; how we choose to listen and which words we choose to speak makes all the difference.

"Do good and throw it into the sea..." ...more

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