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L'indovina Di Istanbul (2011)

by Michael David Lukas(Favorite Author)

3.5 of 5 Votes: 2

ISBN

8830429988 (ISBN13: 9788830429987)

languge

English

genre

Historical Fiction

publisher

Longanesi

review 1: I have to admit that it was good but not great. I liked the idea for the story and the characters, but I agree with some of the other comments made here. The novel starts promising but fizzles out greatly towards the ending. It's as if the author ordered more meat for himself than he could chew. Also the author uses comparisons A LOT. 'a swirl of malevolent questions circled her bed like ravens', 'the enormity of the Sultan's question enveloped her like a cloud of gnats', he uses the 'like'-word nearly on every page. It became repetitive, and also irritating in the end. Like he was trying too hard to give the impression of this novel being poetic and magical. It really didn't need it that much. But what irritated me most as a person who lives part of the year in Istanbul i... mores that the author seems to have done his homework so poorly. I know this is a work of fiction, but sultan Abdülhamid is not the son of Ahmed IV, but the son of sultan Abdülmecid I, and his biological mother died young. Abdülhamid was raised by a barren concubine, a fact which you can even find on Wikipedia. And when a man became sultan he stopped shaving and grew a beard. Furthermore, the story places the sultan living in Topkapi Palace, where he never lived. It is a well-know fact that he lived in Yildiz Palace, in the second half of the 19th century the sultans abondoned the old Topkapi palace for new residences like Dolmabahçe and Yildiz. Also the author seems to have a strange geographical sense of the city. When the reverend walks downhill from Rumelihisari the author writes that he can see the villa where Eleonora lives in Besiktas, when this in fact is at least three villages still away. Furthermore, it really is impossible for Eleonora to see the Yeni Mosque and Galata Bridge from her window in Besiktas. When I read this out loud to my Turkish friends they laughed. And is X-ray vision one of Eleonora's hidden talents? Because he writes that she can identify om her room in Besiktas the spieces of bird that sits in the window sill of Kiz Kulesi, which is many, many miles away across the Bosphorus in the direction of the Marmara Sea. It is absolutely not my intention to be mean and trash this book, because I certainly liked parts of it, but maybe these mistakes can be mended in a future edition?
review 2: Gifted storytellers have the uncanny ability to make their readers imagine the unimaginable, to believe the unbelievable. With his debut novel Theo Oracle of Stamboul, Michael David Lukas proves himself to be one such storyteller. The year 1977 finds the Ottoman Empire in the throes of demise. Already having lost much of his once great power the Sultan Abdulhamid II is unsure of both friend and foe. Meanwhile, in the town of Constanta on the Black Sea a baby girl is born to a Jewish carpet merchant. The child, Eleonora Cohen, grows to be a remarkable girl; possessing a keen intellect and a mysterious gift for dealing with animals. When she is a mere eight years old she stows away on the ship her father is taking to Stamboul. It is there that her life and some say her gift of prophecy will be fulfilled. Though an unexpected turn of events Eleonora is invited to the court of the Sultan and the course of history may never be the same. The novel is filled with the remarkable sights and sounds of Turkey in the late 1800’s, and is combined with the essence and magic of the Tales of One Thousand and One Nights, The Oracle of Stamboul is a spellbinding blend of magical realism and historical fiction. less

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