Before I begin, I should probably admit I have prior interest in this book, as the author was my tutor on an MA in Writing. Not only am I unlikely to give her book a bad review, I am also conscious of writing on display. Reading Enlightenment, however, these shadowy motivations and self-conscious explanations have come to seem quite appropriate. For everyone in this novel has a doubtful past, strings being pulled. They are part of a world even more engaged in deal and double deal than book reviewing is.
The book begins with M, an American journalist who grew up in Istanbul during the Cold War. She never expected to go back. But when her first love – who betrayed her but whom she has never forgotten – is arrested in America on charges of terrorism, she unwillingly gives in to his wife Jeannie’s plea for help. Unwillingly, because Jeannie is the woman he betrayed her for.
Forced to confront buried truths and silenced emotions, M finds herself drawn into a past that will not go away, a darkness that must be enlightened. Here in Turkey, lies and truth are indistinguishable. M finds that the roots of her lover’s arrest go back to a murder that may never have happened, in Istanbul, a city that may never have existed the way she remembers it. How much of her own past will turn out to be a lie? How much of Jeannie’s life could have been her own?
Enlightenment goes deep into the tangled web woven between America and Turkey. For those who know either of the countries, the book will certainly have great interest, but for those who don’t it provides a fascinating insight as well as a compelling story. How to be an American? How to be a good American? These questions, that Jeannie faces as an innocent teenager in the 70s – more innocent, in the days before the internet, than a comparable teenager could be now – are just as relevant today. The subject is thoroughly contemporary, since Turkey is one of the hot topics of international politics, and Enlightenment is in great measure about how the history of the Cold War continues to impact on the country today. Frequently seen as a bridge or a buffer zone, Turkey continues to embody all the complexities of the relationships between modern and ancient, Islam and Christianity, East and West. Istanbul itself has one foot in Europe, the other in Asia. Maureen Freely knows Turkey well, and describes it with passion and clarity. But the insights in the novel could well apply to other instances of imperialism and ‘great game’ playing throughout the world.
Enlightenment is an intelligent, gripping political thriller; a literary spy novel that also has sound commercial potential. After a slow first few pages, the undertow of the mystery pulled me into the book, just as the protagonists are pulled under the suck of old stories, into the power of the ‘deep state’. I too, wanted to find the truth M searches for. I was compelled by the real emotions of Enlightenment’s cast of characters, fascinated by a plot that felt as believable as it was incredible – perhaps, like so much of what we hear on the news, believable because incredible. At times this feels not like a novel but like a shadowy chess game, where the reader is in the centre of the board and the pieces are moved by hands around them. Characters may or may not be what they believe themselves to be, what they assert themselves to be. The victim and the perpetrator are sometimes one and the same.
If you don’t usually read ‘political’ novels, don’t be put off – I began the novel knowing nothing about the Cold War, nevertheless, I found the mystery and the tension drew me in. (I still don’t know anything about the Cold War – but I now feel as if I do). The book returns over and over to certain themes: guilt, injustice, protection and control, innocence and asserted innocence. And it illuminates the fact that the past is never as far behind as you might like it to be. Time and again, flashpoints in Europe – a war springing up where one would, innocently, never have imagined it – prove that the undertow of the past is hard to resist. As is the power of a well-told story.
Enlightenment by Maureen Freely.
Marion Boyars Publishers
429 pp
9780714531410
Lovely review Ariadne. Sounds a really interesting and unusual mix of the personal and the political. No idea how to add this proper-like so I will link to the publisher interview we did with Marion Boyars Publishers here for the moment http://vulpeslibris.wordpress.com/2007/12/20/publisher-feature-marion-boyars/
Oh, good thinking Rosy. Hopefully it will also pick up through the tags.
I see how these subjects would be timely in view of current events, but I also like the idea of a person comparing a place to her memories. And helping the wife of a former lover would be difficult, so taken altogether, this book has a lot going for it. While it has the thriller aspect, it also takes a different angle & I would really like to see the outcome.
Thanks for this review, Ariadne – the book sounds like a must read to me. Have you read ‘Restless’ by William Boyd? I read that one a while ago and though it was set partly during WW2 and partly in the seventies, ‘Enlightenment’ sounds a lot like in some ways (especially the ‘everyone in this novel has a doubtful past, strings being pulled’ part). But despite (or because of) all the praise it has garnered, I was actually a bit disappointed in ‘Restless’ so I might like this one even better.
No, not read that one – but thanks for the suggestion!
i feel the exact same about this book… i actually couldn’t stop reading it after five pages.
“At times this feels not like a novel but like a shadowy chess game,” with no end in sight. In fact it’s more like entering a maze of mysteries out of which there is no getting out! It was difficult keeping track of the various twists in the plot most of which never got resolved. What started off as an intriguing plot line gradually ended up becoming an inextricable knot of intertwined conflicts. Perhaps, that wass. Freely’s intention; her way of showcasing the complex and covert nature of Turkish identity, but it became a trifle too dense and suffocating for someone like me qwho is not well conversant with Turkish History.
[...] 21, 2008 by Leena It was thanks to Ariadne’s review of Freely’s Enlightenment that I discovered The Other Rebecca, and although I’m usually not one for sequels and [...]