No One Writes to The Colonol is a short, poignant tale about a retired Colonel and his long suffering wife. They survive in the claws of poverty and mourning yet are in the possession of a desirable fighting cockerel which belonged to their their son who has recently died ‘off screen’ in a nameless war. With both character’s old and practically unemployable, they must spend their days trying to support one another, bickering about how best to profit from the bird and holding out for a long overdue and supposed compensation letter that the colonel believes to have been promised him for his service. It serves for a melancholy novelette that brushes the heart strings but is a little short to have anything more of an impact. ( )

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I don’t relish the role of literary iconoclast, but I found this novella decidedly underwhelming. If this is representative of the writer’s oeuvre, then once again I have to question how the Nobel committee arrive at their decisions – perhaps in years gone by, they have modelled themselves on FIFA. The only virtue I have identified for this book so far is that it was very short.

The basic premise is simple. A retired colonel and his wife are living in deep poverty, waiting patiently (but in vain) for the delivery of a letter confirming the colonel’s pension. They struggle through each day, with their meagre savings diminished further, barely stretching to cover the basic staples for survival. Their neighbour, a doctor, tries to help as far as his own limited means allow, and shares his newspapers with them. The colonel pores over these, reading every word of every article, partially as a means of filling in time, but also scanning them for news of when his pension, now some fifteen years overdue, might be conferred. We gradually learn that there is a harsh regime governing the country, and that the colonel had served faithfully many years in the past. Details are sparse, however.

Basically nothing happens. Of course, I appreciate that the lack of action is deliberate, designed to help the reader feel some semblance of the lethargy and despair that the colonel and his ageing wife felt. Well it worked. With each new page I felt a further dose of taedium vitae, and it was only through an unusual effort of will that I managed to persevere through to the end ( )

Fakir insanların büyük hayalleri vardır, bu kitap bize bunu çok iyi bir şekilde kanıtlıyor. ( )