Sabahattin Ali (1907–1948)

A young clerk finds himself sharing an office with the self-effacing, Bartlebyish commercial translator Raif Effendi, visits him at home a couple of times when he's ill, and slowly gets to know and love him, but the two of them never really manage to talk. Then Raif becomes more seriously ill and entrusts a notebook to the narrator, which turns out to be an account of Raif's stay in Berlin sometime in the early 1920s.

He has been sent there to learn about the soap industry but actually show more spends his time discovering German literature and art. At an exhibition of modern art, he is captivated by a self-portrait by the artist Maria Puder (which he starts to think of as "Madonna in a fur coat") and goes back over and over again to look at it. The artist eventually notices him, of course, but when she asks him about his interest in the picture he is too shy to look her in the face, and doesn't register who she is until another occasion when they pass by chance in the street. When the two of them eventually do start talking to each other they never stop, falling into an intensive emotional friendship. Maria is very conscious that there's a strong "masculine" side to her own personality that is complemented by something "feminine" in Raif's, and both of them are afraid of the sort of power relationships that would be implied by a conventional love affair. And of course they do eventually end up in bed together and fate doesn't grant them the time to redefine the terms of their friendship to deal with the effects of that.

Lovely and sad and romantic, but subtle and funny as well - I think you'd have a hard time finding something to dislike in this delicate little book, unless you happen to be a power-crazed male politician... show less

4.5*

At his new job in Ankara, the narrator shares an office with the taciturn Raif Efendi. Raif’s meekness borders on the exasperating. He seems to delight in taking the brunt of his superiors’ unjust beratings, he is misunderstood by his wife and children and looked down upon by practically everybody else. However, the narrator cannot help feeling that behind this exterior, Raif harbours some secret, and he longs to discover more about his mysterious colleague’s past. When, at last, show more Raif takes him into his confidence, the narrator learns of a life-defining love affair, a passionate relationship with an independent, artistic young woman set against the backdrop of 1920s Berlin. This highly-charged, if unusual romance, shaped the man Raif is today.

More than 70 years after its original publication (in 1943), “Madonna in a Fur Coat” has become an unexpected hit with Turkish young adults who have adopted its protagonist, gentle Raif Efendi, as an unlikely symbol of resistance against the gender stereotypes promoted by President Erdoğan. (See here and here.)

Good for them, I say, and if this slim novella can bear the weight of a such a brave position it is, in part, a measure of its greatness. I tried, however, to approach this book without any preconceptions. And what did I find? A poignant portrait of a relationship, lyrically narrated (kudos in that respect to translators Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe). Also, all things considered, a moving, old-fashioned love story. I do not used the term “old-fashioned” in a disparaging sense: on the contrary, Sabahattan Ali’s work continues the Romantic tradition of novels about all-consuming, almost obsessive loves. It reminded me – in its emotional intensity, if not in the specifics – of books such as Goethe’s [b:The Sorrows of Young Werther|16640|The Sorrows of Young Werther|Johann Wolfgang von Goethe|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1386920896s/16640.jpg|746264], Dostoyevsky’s [b:White Nights|1772910|White Nights|Fyodor Dostoyevsky|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1450699039s/1772910.jpg|4111509] or Turgenev’s [b:First Love|3532|First Love|Ivan Turgenev|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1487439352s/3532.jpg|1948996]. In its belief in the possibility of two persons becoming one, “Madonna in a Fur Coat” is an antidote to our cynical times. Indeed, the tragedy at the heart of this novel is not that “Love” cannot or does not exist – if it didn’t, we could simply resign ourselves to its absence. The tragedy rather lies in the fact that the circumstances of life often conspire to thwart it. And that, too, is very Romantic.

The novel has another message to impart – don’t judge people by their appearances or books by their cover. The dullest, least striking person might be hiding a colourful history or a deep well of passion. And an unassuming novella, slated by its first critics, might, as in this case, become a cult classic and a radical manifesto. show less

Tiszta szívből elítélem, ha egy fülszöveg afféle megállapításokkal szűkíti az olvasatokat, mint amilyen az itt előcitált „a török Nagy Gatsby”, de el kell ismernem, van alapja a párhuzamnak. Ugyanaz a közvetett elbeszélő, ugyanaz a pszichologizáló hajlam, és itt is mintha egy elveszett nemzedékről mondana memento morit a szerző – csak épp a kontinens más. Ali elbeszélője is már-már fitzgeraldi (bár annál lényegesen csóróbb) kallódó értelmiségi, show more aki jobb híján egy ankarai bankban vállal munkát, ahol megismerkedik a rejtélyes, hallgatag-szomorú Raif effendivel, akinek, ezt húsz oldal után nagyobb összegbe le mertem volna fogadni (bár úriember biztosra nem fogad), nagy titok húzza a lelkét. Kettejük kapcsolata egyre inkább elmélyül, és végül egy úgynevezett „megtalált kéziratban*” kulminál, amelyben lehullik a lepel a titokról, ami nem más, mint a titkok titka: egy nagy, pusztító szerelem. Meglepően nyugati ízű regény – formája is nyugati prózákat idéz, javarészt Berlinben bonyolódik, de az ankarai fejezetek is játszódhatnának akár Madridban vagy Miskolcon, annyira kevés és áttételes bennük a keleties jelleg. A messzi földről érkezett, tapasztalatlan Raif és a merész, tobzódóan individuális Maria (ő a címben szereplő „prémkabátos Madonna”) szerelme értelmezhető lenne akár úgy is, mint Törökország és Nyugat románcának analógiája, ahol szegény törökök ki vannak szolgáltatva annak a delejes vonzerőnek, ami a modern és csillogó nyugatiakból árad – de ez már olyan ordas belemagyarázás lenne, hogy inkább elhessegettem a gondolatot. A lényeg, hogy pofás sztori ez: kicsit nyers, kicsit harsány, de szépen ragadja meg az emberi lélek azon sajátosságát, hogy néha a látszólagos magabiztosság és a nyugalom felszíne alatt ott ásít benne a kétségbeesés szakadéka.

* Megjegyzem, ebben (is) Fitzgerald módszerét finomabbnak érzem: ott az elbeszélő voyeurként szemléli a voltaképpeni cselekményt, ami rajta kívül zajlik és fokozatosan bomlik ki, Ali viszont egyszer csak előránt az asztalfiókból egy ukkmukkfukk kéziratot, hogy nesze, olvasó, lakjál jól vele, ebbe' van a titok. show less

In MADONNA IN A FUR COAT, Sabahattin Ali tells a melodramatic version of the familiar love and loss story. What makes this novel interesting, however, is the characterization of the two lovers that reverses traditional gender roles. Raif is docile and nurturing, while Maria is assertive and outgoing. She picks up on these traits immediately by telling Raif that “there is something about you that makes me think of a young girl” while characterizing herself “like a man in many other show more ways.” While this motif may seem mundane, one needs to place it in the context of the Middle East where strict gender roles are important features of the culture.

Ali tells the story almost entirely in one long flashback. The narrator is an unemployed young man who gets a job at a commercial factory in Ankara with the help of an abrasive former classmate. He befriends Raif Efendi, a shy introvert, who works translating documents between German and Turkish. Raif reads a lot, supports a household full of lazy unappreciative relatives, and ironically seems to the narrator to have little to recommend him as an interesting acquaintance. “He was, I thought, too timid ever to dare explore his soul, let alone express it. He had, I thought, no more life inside him than a plant.” The plot reveals itself when Raif suffers a life-threatening illness and asks his friend to retrieve and destroy a personal notebook from his desk at the factory. The bulk of the novel represents the narrator’s reading of this manuscript, which is a memoir of a period Raif spent in Berlin during the 20’s.

Demonstrating little ambition, Raif’s father decides to send him to Berlin to learn new methods he could employ in the family’s soap-making business. Instead, Raif spends most of his time learning German, reading, going to museums, and exploring Berlin. On one of his visits to a museum, he becomes infatuated with the portrait of a woman in a fur coat, later to see her on the street. He follows her to her work as a nightclub singer. The two strike up a platonic relationship that blossoms into love. With promises to reunite, the two split up with Maria going to Prague and Raif back to Turkey. The pair eventually lose contact but we are left with the knowledge that they may have had a child from their union. Since Maria was part Jewish, one is left wondering whether her disappearance had something to do with the Holocaust.

Ali develops some much-traveled love story themes in his novel, including the roles that fate and missed opportunities play, the compromises lovers make, and the intensity of love and loss. The psychological makeups of the principal characters are key strengths of the novel. However, Ali’s failures to more fully flesh out the intriguing settings of depression-era Germany and Turkey during Ataturk’s secularization initiatives seems to be a missed opportunity. The plot is intriguing, but it loses much of its potential for suspense with the flashback structure prematurely revealimg most of the affair’s outcome. The narrator’s insight at the novel’s conclusion exposes much about Ali’s thematic intention: “It is, perhaps, easier to dismiss a man whose face gives no indication of an inner life. And what a pity that is: a dash of curiosity is all it takes to stumble upon treasures we never expected.” show less