≡ PDF Free The Sound of Fishsteps Buket Uzuner 9789751408433 Books

The Sound of Fishsteps Buket Uzuner 9789751408433 Books

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The Sound of Fishsteps Buket Uzuner 9789751408433 Books

THE SOUND OF FISHSTEPS (originally published as BALIK İZLERİNİN SESİ) creates an apparently ideal situation in which eighty-eight of the world's most outstanding people are brought together by the United Nations to form an ideal community dedicated to the betterment of humankind. Being all of superior mental capacity, they believe that they can create a world that repudiates conventions of "normality" (with its attendant associations of conventionality, conformity and lack of independent thought).

The community seems so ideal that it seems to be both transhistorical and transcultural. Among the other members of the community are a person calling himself "Romain Gary," after the celebrated French writer; other members include Galileo Galelei. The story is narrated by Afife, a young Turkish girl from a mundane background; once she enters the community her behavior becomes abnormal.

As the narrative unfolds, so the community eventually discover what they perceive as a utopia, a place where restrictive conventions and behavioral defects such as monotony, surveillance and repression are unknown. Life seems idealistic, but all is not what it seems. Afife discovers at one point that this world has been penetrated by "the sound of fishsteps," reminding us of the significance of the phrase "fish out of water." Is the community as idealistic as it believes itself to be, or is it simply plucking people out of their chosen environments, historical as well as cultural, and putting them together in an unnatural world?

Told from a variety of narrative standpoints, Buket Uzuner's story prompts us to reflect on the ways in which cultural perceptions of "normality," and "exceptionality" are not necessarily reliable. Perhaps they are used to discriminate rather than distinguish people; to create communities of übermenschen. There have been historical precedents for this, most notably in Germany during the mid-twentieth century. As the narrative unfolds, so it takes on a dystopian quality reminiscent of Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES. Buket Uzuner eschews the violence characteristic of that novel, but her representation of that ideal world is just as uncomfortable.


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The Sound of Fishsteps Buket Uzuner 9789751408433 Books Reviews

THE SOUND OF FISHSTEPS (originally published as BALIK İZLERİNİN SESİ) creates an apparently ideal situation in which eighty-eight of the world's most outstanding people are brought together by the United Nations to form an ideal community dedicated to the betterment of humankind. Being all of superior mental capacity, they believe that they can create a world that repudiates conventions of "normality" (with its attendant associations of conventionality, conformity and lack of independent thought).

The community seems so ideal that it seems to be both transhistorical and transcultural. Among the other members of the community are a person calling himself "Romain Gary," after the celebrated French writer; other members include Galileo Galelei. The story is narrated by Afife, a young Turkish girl from a mundane background; once she enters the community her behavior becomes abnormal.

As the narrative unfolds, so the community eventually discover what they perceive as a utopia, a place where restrictive conventions and behavioral defects such as monotony, surveillance and repression are unknown. Life seems idealistic, but all is not what it seems. Afife discovers at one point that this world has been penetrated by "the sound of fishsteps," reminding us of the significance of the phrase "fish out of water." Is the community as idealistic as it believes itself to be, or is it simply plucking people out of their chosen environments, historical as well as cultural, and putting them together in an unnatural world?

Told from a variety of narrative standpoints, Buket Uzuner's story prompts us to reflect on the ways in which cultural perceptions of "normality," and "exceptionality" are not necessarily reliable. Perhaps they are used to discriminate rather than distinguish people; to create communities of übermenschen. There have been historical precedents for this, most notably in Germany during the mid-twentieth century. As the narrative unfolds, so it takes on a dystopian quality reminiscent of Golding's LORD OF THE FLIES. Buket Uzuner eschews the violence characteristic of that novel, but her representation of that ideal world is just as uncomfortable.