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İstanbul Bir Masaldı
In his unique and lyrical style, Mario Levi captures the city of Istanbul and its storied past with a rare intimacy and humor.
A major work of contemporary Turkish literature, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale tells the stories of three generations of a Jewish family from the 1920s to the 1980s. Istanbul is their only home, and yet they live in a state of alienation, isolating themselves from the world around them. As witness, observer, and protagonist, the narrator—at once inside and outside of his story—records their many tales, as well as those of their friends and neighbors, creating an expansive mosaic of characters, each doing their best to survive the twentieth century.
A major work of contemporary Turkish literature, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale tells the stories of three generations of a Jewish family from the 1920s to the 1980s. Istanbul is their only home, and yet they live in a state of alienation, isolating themselves from the world around them. As witness, observer, and protagonist, the narrator—at once inside and outside of his story—records their many tales, as well as those of their friends and neighbors, creating an expansive mosaic of characters, each doing their best to survive the twentieth century.
741 pages
First published January 1, 1999
25 people are currently reading
559 people want to read
About the author
Mario Levi
33 books53 followersMario Levi was born in 1957 in Istanbul. He graduated from Saint Michel High School in 1975, from Istanbul University the Faculty of Literature French Language and Literature Department in 1980. His first articles were published in the newspaper "Şalom". These were followed by his other articles in the publication organs like "Cumhuriyet", "Stüdyo İmge", "Milliyet Sanat", "Gösteri", "Argos", "Gergedan", "Varlık".
His first published book is called "Jacques Brel: A Lonely Man" (1986). This book is a novelized version of his university graduation thesis. His first story book “Not Being Able to Go to a City" was published in 1990. This book having autobiographic qualities is like an account of the writer with both his loves, his childhood and pre-teen years. The book won the Haldun Taner Story Prize of the year. His second story book, "Madame Floridis May not Return" published in 1991, includes the people of Istanbul who have difficulty in adapting to the minority group and the society. In 1992, his first novel called “Our Best Love Story" was published. Then a long silence took place. His 800-page novel, "Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale", published in 1999, is the story of a Jewish family who lived in Istanbul between the 1920s and 1980s. The heroes of other minorities of the city are also seen in this novel.
Mario Levi, in addition to being a writer, was also a French teacher, an importer, a journalist, a radio programmer and a copywriter. He gave lectures at Yeditepe University. He also taught creative writing to the people who have set their hearts on trying to express their thoughts.
His first published book is called "Jacques Brel: A Lonely Man" (1986). This book is a novelized version of his university graduation thesis. His first story book “Not Being Able to Go to a City" was published in 1990. This book having autobiographic qualities is like an account of the writer with both his loves, his childhood and pre-teen years. The book won the Haldun Taner Story Prize of the year. His second story book, "Madame Floridis May not Return" published in 1991, includes the people of Istanbul who have difficulty in adapting to the minority group and the society. In 1992, his first novel called “Our Best Love Story" was published. Then a long silence took place. His 800-page novel, "Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale", published in 1999, is the story of a Jewish family who lived in Istanbul between the 1920s and 1980s. The heroes of other minorities of the city are also seen in this novel.
Mario Levi, in addition to being a writer, was also a French teacher, an importer, a journalist, a radio programmer and a copywriter. He gave lectures at Yeditepe University. He also taught creative writing to the people who have set their hearts on trying to express their thoughts.
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Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews
July 26, 2012
From my review in the Times Literary Supplement:
"With its telescoping of time, its complex changeability of voice, its fractured and prismatic storylines, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale clearly belongs to the extended tradition of modernism. “Starlings”, the novel’s first short (but also, according to the author’s foreword, most important) section, devotes several pages to a character catalogue strongly reminiscent of Faulkner’s strange but engaging Appendix to The Sound and the Fury, while the near-omniscience of the first person and the episodic narrative both recall another long work set in a cultural crossroads, Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. It is from French writers, however, that Levi (a student and translator of French literature) apparently draws his most immediate influences: the pages-long paragraphs filled with digressions and broken by strings of ellipses might be properties lifted directly from Céline.
It is perhaps telling that Levi’s characters “in their adolescence … consumed madeleines secretly for fear of being caught” because despite the template, Levi is no misanthrope, and the unblinking self-consciousness of his sentimentality is far more Proustian than Célinian. Blending manners and patterns borrowed from Proust and his anti-Semitic rival – both of whom were very much of their country, but nonetheless had justifiable claims to outsider status – the author posts an important stylistic clue to the complex mix of cultures and customs, alternately welcoming and hostile, that saturates the lives of his Istanbullus."
"With its telescoping of time, its complex changeability of voice, its fractured and prismatic storylines, Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale clearly belongs to the extended tradition of modernism. “Starlings”, the novel’s first short (but also, according to the author’s foreword, most important) section, devotes several pages to a character catalogue strongly reminiscent of Faulkner’s strange but engaging Appendix to The Sound and the Fury, while the near-omniscience of the first person and the episodic narrative both recall another long work set in a cultural crossroads, Durrell’s Alexandria Quartet. It is from French writers, however, that Levi (a student and translator of French literature) apparently draws his most immediate influences: the pages-long paragraphs filled with digressions and broken by strings of ellipses might be properties lifted directly from Céline.
It is perhaps telling that Levi’s characters “in their adolescence … consumed madeleines secretly for fear of being caught” because despite the template, Levi is no misanthrope, and the unblinking self-consciousness of his sentimentality is far more Proustian than Célinian. Blending manners and patterns borrowed from Proust and his anti-Semitic rival – both of whom were very much of their country, but nonetheless had justifiable claims to outsider status – the author posts an important stylistic clue to the complex mix of cultures and customs, alternately welcoming and hostile, that saturates the lives of his Istanbullus."
March 26, 2020
çok farklı bi kitap ama okumasamiydim diye düşünmeden gecemiyorum:)
July 20, 2016
Read my New York Journal of Books review first. Additional remarks that appeared in a different and now defunct publication begin with the next paragraph.
Jewish-Turkish fiction writer Mario Levi's first book to be published in English, his 800 page (Turkish edition) 1999 novel Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale , is a challenging but ultimately worthwhile read that provides a unique view of Turkey's Jewish community. The publication of the 664 page English translation last month by Dalkey Archive Press has been greeted with near silence by this country's literary community.
This article is an addendum to my New York Journal of Books review of the novel which readers should read first. If after reading my review you decide to read the book, a decision in view of the book's dense and difficult prose that I can only endorse for readers whose verbal SAT or GRE scores place them in the 90th percentile or higher, come back to this article in a month or two when you've finished reading the book. If my review convinces you not to undertake so daunting a read but you are nonetheless curious about the book this article will give you the Cliff Notes version.
As I mentioned in my review the novel has a very large cast of characters. If there is one character who is a kind of linch-pin to whom the other characters are connected that character would be Monsieur Jacques. He was born at the turn of the previous century and entered adulthood at the end of World War One and the birth of the Turkish Republic as did his older brother Nesim, Nesim's wife Rachael, Monsieur Jacques' wife Madam Roza, her sister Madam Estreya, a Ladino speaking and Istanbul raised Ashkenazi woman named Olga who is like a sibling to Jacques and Nesim and whose father Moses Bronstein immigrated to Istanbul from Riga by way of Odessa and Alexandria, the narrator's Uncle Kirkor who was Monsieur Jacques' closest confidant, Uncle Kirkor's wife Ani, and the narrator's Aunt Tilda. Their generation was the first to be educated in French and they enjoyed an unprecedented level of urbanity, worldliness, sophistication, and in some cases decadence.
Towards the end of this non-linear novel we learn that Monsieur Jacques' grandfather Yasef founded the family business after apprenticing under an Armenian carpet weaver and subsequently starting his own carpet business. Yasef's son and Monsieur Jacques' father Avram switched the business from carpets to textiles. Avram's wife was Madam Perla who survived her husband and went blind in her old age.
Her oldest son Nesim lived and studied in Vienna where he became fluent in German. After World War One, and perhaps after seeing how his Muslim countrymen had treated their Christian compatriots, Nesim decided that a western democracy would be a safer place to raise a Jewish family, and moved to France. Two decades later when France is occupied by Nazi Germany a Turkish consular official advises Nesim to return to Turkey with his family. But Nesim tragically believed that his Turkish passport and fluent German would spare him, his wife and three daughters from deportation. The family's domestic servant hides their youngest daughter Ginette in a convent, and the rest of the family are deported to Auschwitz. Nesim's friend Henry Moscowitch, a Spanish Communist who had fled to France after the Spanish Civil War, was also deported and is the only one of the group to survive the concentration camps. After the war he takes custody of Ginette from the convent and returns her to her relatives in Istanbul. When Ginette grows up she emigrates to Israel, raises children of her own, one of whom dies in military service.
During World War Two Turkish diplomats in German occupied countries used their consular offices to issue visas and save about 35,000 Jews. At home in Turkey the government conscripted religious minorities into segregated military units and imposed a devastating wealth tax on non-Muslims. Those who could not pay the wealth tax were sentenced to labor camps. These policies fell on Christians as well as on Jews, and convinced many of the latter to emigrate after the war. Characters in the novel leave for Mexico, Argentina, England, America, and the greatest number go to Israel. Today Turkey's Jewish population numbers less than 20,000 whereas Israel's population includes 70,000 Israelis of Turkish descent.
Monsieur Jacques and Madam Roza's oldest son Robert emigrates to England, becomes a wealthy coffee trader whose occupation takes him on business trips around the world and remains a bachelor. His closest friends in London are also ex-pats. The middle son Berti earns a graduate degree at Cambridge University where he falls in love with a non-Jewish Mexican photographer. After graduation he returns to Istanbul where his parents convince him to end that relationship. Berti marries Juliet, an Istanbul Jewish woman of whom the family approves; the couple stay in Istanbul and raise two daughters, Rosy and Nora. Monsieur Jacques and Madam Roza's youngest son Jerry attends Harvard University, becomes a Mormon, marries and has children, and breaks off all ties with his family of origin.
These are just a few of the novel's many characters. For the most part the narrator conveys their stories in his own voice with relatively little dialogue or for that matter monologues in other character's voices. In the few places where Mr. Levi lets his characters speak their voices provide relief from the narrator's discursive ruminations. Despite the problems I have addressed in New York Journal of Books Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale deserves wider notice than my lonely review.
Jewish-Turkish fiction writer Mario Levi's first book to be published in English, his 800 page (Turkish edition) 1999 novel Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale , is a challenging but ultimately worthwhile read that provides a unique view of Turkey's Jewish community. The publication of the 664 page English translation last month by Dalkey Archive Press has been greeted with near silence by this country's literary community.
This article is an addendum to my New York Journal of Books review of the novel which readers should read first. If after reading my review you decide to read the book, a decision in view of the book's dense and difficult prose that I can only endorse for readers whose verbal SAT or GRE scores place them in the 90th percentile or higher, come back to this article in a month or two when you've finished reading the book. If my review convinces you not to undertake so daunting a read but you are nonetheless curious about the book this article will give you the Cliff Notes version.
As I mentioned in my review the novel has a very large cast of characters. If there is one character who is a kind of linch-pin to whom the other characters are connected that character would be Monsieur Jacques. He was born at the turn of the previous century and entered adulthood at the end of World War One and the birth of the Turkish Republic as did his older brother Nesim, Nesim's wife Rachael, Monsieur Jacques' wife Madam Roza, her sister Madam Estreya, a Ladino speaking and Istanbul raised Ashkenazi woman named Olga who is like a sibling to Jacques and Nesim and whose father Moses Bronstein immigrated to Istanbul from Riga by way of Odessa and Alexandria, the narrator's Uncle Kirkor who was Monsieur Jacques' closest confidant, Uncle Kirkor's wife Ani, and the narrator's Aunt Tilda. Their generation was the first to be educated in French and they enjoyed an unprecedented level of urbanity, worldliness, sophistication, and in some cases decadence.
Towards the end of this non-linear novel we learn that Monsieur Jacques' grandfather Yasef founded the family business after apprenticing under an Armenian carpet weaver and subsequently starting his own carpet business. Yasef's son and Monsieur Jacques' father Avram switched the business from carpets to textiles. Avram's wife was Madam Perla who survived her husband and went blind in her old age.
Her oldest son Nesim lived and studied in Vienna where he became fluent in German. After World War One, and perhaps after seeing how his Muslim countrymen had treated their Christian compatriots, Nesim decided that a western democracy would be a safer place to raise a Jewish family, and moved to France. Two decades later when France is occupied by Nazi Germany a Turkish consular official advises Nesim to return to Turkey with his family. But Nesim tragically believed that his Turkish passport and fluent German would spare him, his wife and three daughters from deportation. The family's domestic servant hides their youngest daughter Ginette in a convent, and the rest of the family are deported to Auschwitz. Nesim's friend Henry Moscowitch, a Spanish Communist who had fled to France after the Spanish Civil War, was also deported and is the only one of the group to survive the concentration camps. After the war he takes custody of Ginette from the convent and returns her to her relatives in Istanbul. When Ginette grows up she emigrates to Israel, raises children of her own, one of whom dies in military service.
During World War Two Turkish diplomats in German occupied countries used their consular offices to issue visas and save about 35,000 Jews. At home in Turkey the government conscripted religious minorities into segregated military units and imposed a devastating wealth tax on non-Muslims. Those who could not pay the wealth tax were sentenced to labor camps. These policies fell on Christians as well as on Jews, and convinced many of the latter to emigrate after the war. Characters in the novel leave for Mexico, Argentina, England, America, and the greatest number go to Israel. Today Turkey's Jewish population numbers less than 20,000 whereas Israel's population includes 70,000 Israelis of Turkish descent.
Monsieur Jacques and Madam Roza's oldest son Robert emigrates to England, becomes a wealthy coffee trader whose occupation takes him on business trips around the world and remains a bachelor. His closest friends in London are also ex-pats. The middle son Berti earns a graduate degree at Cambridge University where he falls in love with a non-Jewish Mexican photographer. After graduation he returns to Istanbul where his parents convince him to end that relationship. Berti marries Juliet, an Istanbul Jewish woman of whom the family approves; the couple stay in Istanbul and raise two daughters, Rosy and Nora. Monsieur Jacques and Madam Roza's youngest son Jerry attends Harvard University, becomes a Mormon, marries and has children, and breaks off all ties with his family of origin.
These are just a few of the novel's many characters. For the most part the narrator conveys their stories in his own voice with relatively little dialogue or for that matter monologues in other character's voices. In the few places where Mr. Levi lets his characters speak their voices provide relief from the narrator's discursive ruminations. Despite the problems I have addressed in New York Journal of Books Istanbul Was a Fairy Tale deserves wider notice than my lonely review.
January 20, 2023
İç içe geçmiş bir dönemin insan hikayeleri. Bir şahidin gözünden bir yüzyılın, bir çok coğrafyaya dağılan ama İstanbul’u, Istanbullu bir aileyi, etrafındaki bir çok insan ve olayla, lirik bir dil ve anlatanın kişiler ve olaylar üzerinden hayata dair çözümlemeleri, gözlemleri ve düşünceleri üzerinden anlatımı. İnsanların hikayelerinin iç içe geçişi ustaca yazılmış. 900 sayfalık olmasına rağmen, bir sonraki sayfayı okumak için merak duygusunu koruyan bir kitap. Zaman zaman ara verme ihtiyacı hikayelerin yoğunluğundan , içinde barındırdığı burukluklardan kaynaklanıyor. Belki de, aslında hikayelerde, hayatla bağlantılı yansımalar bulmanın etkisinden. Sona ermeler ve kayboluşlar, kitabı hüzünlü bir hale getiriyor. Hayatın sonuna çok yaklaşmadan okumalık , aksi takdirde daha ağır bir okuma olabilir.
July 20, 2018
Ми се чини ова ми е прва книга што не ја завршив, сепак ѝ дадов шанса некои 300 страни и денес ја вратив во библиотека.
Можеби во некое друго време ќе ја дочитам ама не бев расположена да го изгубам цело лето за да дознавам за судбини раскажани од трето лице кое иако некогаш бил и директно вклучен во настаните кои ги опишува воглавно се базира на претпоставки и заклучоци донесени врз база на стари фотографии и сведочења од други луѓе за тоа како ликовите живееле.
Можеби во некое друго време ќе ја дочитам ама не бев расположена да го изгубам цело лето за да дознавам за судбини раскажани од трето лице кое иако некогаш бил и директно вклучен во настаните кои ги опишува воглавно се базира на претпоставки и заклучоци донесени врз база на стари фотографии и сведочења од други луѓе за тоа како ликовите живееле.
August 4, 2013
J'aurais adoré aimer ce livre qu'on m'a offert. Il raconte, sans cohérence chronologique et avec de nombreux entrecroisements, la vie de quelques familles de la communauté juive d'Istambul. Aigreur de ceux qui ont renoncé à leurs rêves, isolement de ceux qui ont voulu les poursuivre jusqu'au bout et n'osent avouer qu'ils n'ont pas réussi, romances inabouties... Pas antipathique mais qu'y a-t-il dans ce livre qu'on n'ait pas soit connu soi-même, soit lu ailleurs ; qu'y a-t-il dans les 850 dernière pages qu'il n'y ait pas dans les 150 premières ? De nombreux mystères restent sans réponse, on ne sait pas vraiment qui est le narrateur, ni s'il n'a pas finalement inventé tout cela. Peut-être cela parle-t-il à ceux qui connaissent bien Istambul et/ou la communauté juive, mais pour les autres, c'est peu visuel et pas didactique : sauf par très brefs moment, on ne sent pas les épices du marché, on n'entend pas les bateaux dans le port, on ne voit pas le chatoiement des tapis; Et quelle est cette langue proche de l'espagnol qu'ils parlent tous ?... Non, décidément, n'est pas Albert Cohen qui veut. C'est cependant avec ce genre de livre que je me rends compte que j'aime vraiment lire : même quand ce que je lis ne me plaît qu'à moitié, j'éprouvre un plaisir de base à lire tout simplement.
August 21, 2023
This book wasn't an easy read for me as it didn't have chapters and the paragraphs were very long, as well as the language advanced. The story is written with love for Istanbul, describing the fates of people whose path's got crossed there. I liked the book more towards the ending.
September 25, 2020
Βαρετό και δεν μπόρεσα να παρακολουθήσω καθόλου τους χαρακτήρες. Το τελείωσα από απλή περιέργεια, κάνοντας προσπάθεια μήπως και καταφέρω να το ...συμπαθήσω λίγο προχωρώντας στην ιστορία. Δυστυχώς! Βαρεμάρα...
February 23, 2024
Ancak 100 sayfa dayanabildim. 20 küsur baskı yaptığına göre sevenleri çoktur ama benim ilgimi çekmedi. Çok tek düze, üstelik bunu en azından ilgi çekici hale getirecek enteresan bir üslubu da yok. Ender yarıda bıraktığım kitaplardan biri oldu.
February 29, 2024
Heart-breaking, and at the same time beautiful in its world-building.
October 11, 2014
A través de un intrincado e inconexo montón de páginas llegamos a descubrir la vida de una familia judía de Estambul, con sus penas y sus glorias, pero sobre todo a través de su nostalgia y miserias. Un narrador que no se sabe a ciencia cierta quién es nos cuenta la historia, que no sigue un hilo cronológico ni tampoco una línea clara. Tardamos mucho en situar a todos los personajes de la historia, conociendo el parentesco que los une, sobre todo por las múltiples divagaciones y vaguedades del narrador. Cuando llegamos al final de las casi 700 páginas creemos que lo hemos entendido todo, pero hay misterios en los personajes que nunca se resolverán. ¿Merece la pena llegar hasta el final? Sí, pero con mucha paciencia.
Currently reading
January 6, 2013This is a nonlinear reading experience in which we are introduced to a tolstoyian cast of characters, mostly Belonging to a family of Jews living in Istanbul, whose lives play out against the backdrop of the 20th century. While I am far from an expert about things Turkish, after ten days in Istanbul I at least have a sense of geography and a small understanding of Turkish history so I can begin to absorb some of this novel's meaning.
January 28, 2016
110 pages into the book and I decide to put it down. Not certain the book will dramatically change in 200, 300 pages, and even though it would, that's asking a lot of patience from a reader to wait until something actually takes off that makes you feel attracted enough by the mystery of old stories. Too little story telling, too much enigmatic pondering. Pity, this was a promising topic, a wondeful city, a colorful and vibrant community...
July 17, 2017
Başka bir kültüre o kültürün gözüyle bakmak. Başka bir anlatım dünyası, başka bir pencereden aynı hüzünleri görmek. İstanbul bir masaldı
Displaying 1 - 14 of 14 reviews