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The Lovers
From the acclaimed author of the 2007 New York Times Notable Book Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name comes a stunning novel about the love between husbands and wives, mothers and children.
Twenty-eight years ago, Peter and Yvonne honeymooned in the beautiful coastal village of Datça, Turkey. Now Yvonne is a widow, her twin children grown. Hoping to immerse herself in memories of a happier time—as well as sand and sea—Yvonne returns to Datça. But her plans for a restorative week in Turkey are quickly complicated. Instead of comforting her, her memories begin to trouble her. Her vacation rental's landlord and his bold, intriguing wife—who share a curious marital arrangement—become constant uninvited visitors, in and out of the house.
Overwhelmed by the past and unexpectedly dislocated by the environment, Yvonne clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet as her guide, Yvonne gains new insight into the lives of her own adult children, and she finally begins to enjoy the shimmering sea and relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But a devastating accident upends her delicate peace and throws her life into chaos—and her sense of self into turmoil.
With the crystalline voice and psychological nuance for which her work has been so celebrated, Vendela Vida has crafted another unforgettable heroine in a stunningly beautiful and mysterious landscape.
Twenty-eight years ago, Peter and Yvonne honeymooned in the beautiful coastal village of Datça, Turkey. Now Yvonne is a widow, her twin children grown. Hoping to immerse herself in memories of a happier time—as well as sand and sea—Yvonne returns to Datça. But her plans for a restorative week in Turkey are quickly complicated. Instead of comforting her, her memories begin to trouble her. Her vacation rental's landlord and his bold, intriguing wife—who share a curious marital arrangement—become constant uninvited visitors, in and out of the house.
Overwhelmed by the past and unexpectedly dislocated by the environment, Yvonne clings to a newfound friendship with Ahmet, a local boy who makes his living as a shell collector. With Ahmet as her guide, Yvonne gains new insight into the lives of her own adult children, and she finally begins to enjoy the shimmering sea and relaxed pace of the Turkish coast. But a devastating accident upends her delicate peace and throws her life into chaos—and her sense of self into turmoil.
With the crystalline voice and psychological nuance for which her work has been so celebrated, Vendela Vida has crafted another unforgettable heroine in a stunningly beautiful and mysterious landscape.
240 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 2010
47 people are currently reading
1519 people want to read
About the author
Vendela Vida
122 books491 followersVendela Vida is the award-winning author of four books, including Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name and The Lovers, and a founding editor of The Believer magazine. She is also the co-editor of Always Apprentices, a collection of interviews with writers, and Confidence, or the Appearance of Confidence, a collection of interviews with musicians. As a fellow at the Sundance Labs, she developed Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name into a script, which received the Sundance Institute/Mahindra Global Filmmaking Award. Two of Vida’s novels have been New York Times Notable Books of the year, and she is the winner of the Kate Chopin Award, given to a writer whose female protagonist chooses an unconventional path. She lives in Northern California with her husband and two children, and since 2002 has served on the board of 826 Valencia, a nonprofit writing and tutoring lab for youth.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 360 reviews
December 18, 2014
As none of my GR friends have read this novel, I have no idea how it ended up on my tbr list. I also have no idea what the point of the story was; there didn't seem to be any plot or direction. It was an ordinary, very ordinary read. 2★
December 9, 2011
Vendela Vida, also known as the wife of Dave Eggers, has written a book about Yvonne, the widow, who goes to Turkey to grieve and remember her late husband. Her destination is Datca, the place where decades before she spent her honeymoon. As Turkey is the ‘land where archaeologists came and were startled to find entire town as they once were’, she expects to find things exactly as she left them all those years ago, so she can re-enact the happy times of the early days of her marriage. Something, she convinced herself, that would help the mourning process which, for now, was going extremely slowly. Sadly, she arrives in a town that is barely a shadow of its former self. It fell into decay and its previous glory is another thing on the list of things Yvonne has to mourn.
The first half of the book is full of lengthy inner monologues and banal observations that we have to sit through while waiting for Yvonne’s grief to take on more shape and meaning. So we read things like:
“There was nothing sadder, Yvonne thought, than seeing an old man’s underwear.”
Really? How about clubbing baby seals?
Or:
“She walked around, enjoying the sound the sandals made on the tile floor. The sound of elegance, she thought. The sound of a woman preparing for a party.”
And so it goes, my friends, it’s like being stuck in a boring person’s head. Nonetheless, it reads smoothly, if only you are willing to overlook bizarre things like:
“She lifted her fingers to her own face, and only then did she know she had been crying.”
I have seen this in books a few times and it doesn’t cease to baffle me. Just how can you not know you are crying? Has this happened to anyone in real life?
Amidst this questionable writing we learn about Yvonne’s relationship with her two children and her late husband. We also witness her befriending an ex-wife of her temporary Turkish landlord and a Turkish boy who sells shells on the beach. One these two new found friends will serve as catalyst to a much needed breakthrough for Yvonne and the book itself. From then on the novel takes on a more surreal tone. It becomes deep, hot and stuffy. The emotions come across as more authentic and the writing, too, seems to be less cringe-worthy. The events gain momentum and lead up to a dramatic (if slightly far-fetched) finale.
I didn’t fall in love with The Lovers and this book and I should probably start seeing other people. However, I am certain that it will appeal to the fans of detailed introspection set in exotic lands; this, I hear, is Vida’s speciality.
(originally published on bookmunch.wordpress.com)
The first half of the book is full of lengthy inner monologues and banal observations that we have to sit through while waiting for Yvonne’s grief to take on more shape and meaning. So we read things like:
“There was nothing sadder, Yvonne thought, than seeing an old man’s underwear.”
Really? How about clubbing baby seals?
Or:
“She walked around, enjoying the sound the sandals made on the tile floor. The sound of elegance, she thought. The sound of a woman preparing for a party.”
And so it goes, my friends, it’s like being stuck in a boring person’s head. Nonetheless, it reads smoothly, if only you are willing to overlook bizarre things like:
“She lifted her fingers to her own face, and only then did she know she had been crying.”
I have seen this in books a few times and it doesn’t cease to baffle me. Just how can you not know you are crying? Has this happened to anyone in real life?
Amidst this questionable writing we learn about Yvonne’s relationship with her two children and her late husband. We also witness her befriending an ex-wife of her temporary Turkish landlord and a Turkish boy who sells shells on the beach. One these two new found friends will serve as catalyst to a much needed breakthrough for Yvonne and the book itself. From then on the novel takes on a more surreal tone. It becomes deep, hot and stuffy. The emotions come across as more authentic and the writing, too, seems to be less cringe-worthy. The events gain momentum and lead up to a dramatic (if slightly far-fetched) finale.
I didn’t fall in love with The Lovers and this book and I should probably start seeing other people. However, I am certain that it will appeal to the fans of detailed introspection set in exotic lands; this, I hear, is Vida’s speciality.
(originally published on bookmunch.wordpress.com)
March 7, 2016
This is a slow, meandering, and emotionally disjointed story of a woman who has recently become a widow.
The meandering quality is because the descriptions and sequence of them felt like a travelogue; a woman travels from Burlington, Vermont, to Turkey, and within Turkey, to the place of her honeymoon, to Konya (Rumi’s hometown), and to other smaller towns. Toward the end (page 211 of 225 pages), we are reminded that she has taken this journey because she is trying to recapture something from decades earlier, and then the list of events is recapped, culminating in the admission that she is lost. I almost felt as if I were reading the details of a well-researched trip, reported as they were observed—like travel notes in a journal, with no story in mind. In fact, it felt as if the story was superimposed on travel notes and the writer was a little lost about what she was attempting.
For me, further disjointedness came from many emotional transitions that didn’t feel organic, a seemingly endless supply of money funding this trip that was never explained (the protagonist is a teacher), and a completely unbelievable ending. In other words, there were many aspects of this story that didn’t feel real, yet it also didn’t feel surreal or like a dream.
Nevertheless, the writing is nice.
I read this book because it was immediately available at my library and the two books by Vida that Goodreads friends had raved about were not. I still want to read the other two books (The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name).
The meandering quality is because the descriptions and sequence of them felt like a travelogue; a woman travels from Burlington, Vermont, to Turkey, and within Turkey, to the place of her honeymoon, to Konya (Rumi’s hometown), and to other smaller towns. Toward the end (page 211 of 225 pages), we are reminded that she has taken this journey because she is trying to recapture something from decades earlier, and then the list of events is recapped, culminating in the admission that she is lost. I almost felt as if I were reading the details of a well-researched trip, reported as they were observed—like travel notes in a journal, with no story in mind. In fact, it felt as if the story was superimposed on travel notes and the writer was a little lost about what she was attempting.
For me, further disjointedness came from many emotional transitions that didn’t feel organic, a seemingly endless supply of money funding this trip that was never explained (the protagonist is a teacher), and a completely unbelievable ending. In other words, there were many aspects of this story that didn’t feel real, yet it also didn’t feel surreal or like a dream.
Nevertheless, the writing is nice.
I read this book because it was immediately available at my library and the two books by Vida that Goodreads friends had raved about were not. I still want to read the other two books (The Diver’s Clothes Lie Empty and Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name).
May 23, 2012
The Lovers, at first glance, seems to be an unfortunate title for this story: a middle-aged widow, Yvonne, journeys back to a seaside village in Turkey where she and her husband had happily honeymooned decades before. She is there to spend some time alone before meeting up with her twin adult children – her troubled and addicted daughter Aurelia and her “perfect” son Matthew – for a cruise.
An aura of menace with wisps of sexual tension pervades most of the novel. The vacation home is spotless and lovely, but traces of an active sex life are everywhere: a sex swing, nude photographs, and a book with a particularly erotic title. Worse, the town is shadier and not quite the way Yvonne remembers it. She also begins getting visits from the vacation home owner’s estranged wife Ozlem, who fills her with tales of her husband’s unfaithfulness and abuse…and tales of her own shaky morals.
There is just one respite for Yvonne: a young 10-year-old Turkish boy – a shell collector, who metaphorically collects beautiful fossils, not unlike Yvonne herself. He awakens feelings of protectiveness in Yvonne and harkens her back to a more innocent time when her twins were young. Until tragedy strikes again…
There is strong writing on display here. Yvonne – who relies on the company of strangers – finds out that strangers can hurt. There’s a searing flashback to leaving her husband’s memorial service only to find a note room a stranger instructing her to be “less selfish” because of her poor parking job. Time after time, people Yvonne meets end up hurting her – inadvertently and advertently. As a waiter who is witness to her budding friendship with Ahmed says, “Not all of us are so eager to be your friend.”
The interweaving of grief, lies, and loss, and redemption is explored in a subtle yet satisfying manner, as Yvonne goes on her Joseph Campbell-style “heroine’s journey” to gain a truer sense of self and more honest memories. The metaphors can sometimes get too heavy-handed: an owl that appears in her room, for example, or entering into a cave and then not being able to find a path. And the ending is a tad too rushed and pat and, in this reader’s opinion, is the weakest part of the book.
Yet despite these flaws, the Lovers is still a fascinating and atmospheric exploration into how we go away (sometimes even from our inner core) to find ourselves once again. (3.75)
An aura of menace with wisps of sexual tension pervades most of the novel. The vacation home is spotless and lovely, but traces of an active sex life are everywhere: a sex swing, nude photographs, and a book with a particularly erotic title. Worse, the town is shadier and not quite the way Yvonne remembers it. She also begins getting visits from the vacation home owner’s estranged wife Ozlem, who fills her with tales of her husband’s unfaithfulness and abuse…and tales of her own shaky morals.
There is just one respite for Yvonne: a young 10-year-old Turkish boy – a shell collector, who metaphorically collects beautiful fossils, not unlike Yvonne herself. He awakens feelings of protectiveness in Yvonne and harkens her back to a more innocent time when her twins were young. Until tragedy strikes again…
There is strong writing on display here. Yvonne – who relies on the company of strangers – finds out that strangers can hurt. There’s a searing flashback to leaving her husband’s memorial service only to find a note room a stranger instructing her to be “less selfish” because of her poor parking job. Time after time, people Yvonne meets end up hurting her – inadvertently and advertently. As a waiter who is witness to her budding friendship with Ahmed says, “Not all of us are so eager to be your friend.”
The interweaving of grief, lies, and loss, and redemption is explored in a subtle yet satisfying manner, as Yvonne goes on her Joseph Campbell-style “heroine’s journey” to gain a truer sense of self and more honest memories. The metaphors can sometimes get too heavy-handed: an owl that appears in her room, for example, or entering into a cave and then not being able to find a path. And the ending is a tad too rushed and pat and, in this reader’s opinion, is the weakest part of the book.
Yet despite these flaws, the Lovers is still a fascinating and atmospheric exploration into how we go away (sometimes even from our inner core) to find ourselves once again. (3.75)
July 17, 2013
Interesting small book ---
Its really closer to a 3 star book ---(yet, I'm giving it 4 stars). I liked the 'intimacy' I felt while reading it. (I was swept right into this this story).
I could see a few things in the plot which are questionable ---however --I enjoyed the flow of writing --and who cares if I maybe the story could have taken a different direction. Truth was---I was pretty damn 'PRESENT' while reading every word of 'Vida's book!
This is my first book I've read by Vendela Vida (wife of one of my favorite authors: Dave Eggers)....
I love them both --(respect them both as human beings) ---
Now: if only I could find a way to meet this charming couple sometime....(they don't live THAT far from me)
:)
elyse
Its really closer to a 3 star book ---(yet, I'm giving it 4 stars). I liked the 'intimacy' I felt while reading it. (I was swept right into this this story).
I could see a few things in the plot which are questionable ---however --I enjoyed the flow of writing --and who cares if I maybe the story could have taken a different direction. Truth was---I was pretty damn 'PRESENT' while reading every word of 'Vida's book!
This is my first book I've read by Vendela Vida (wife of one of my favorite authors: Dave Eggers)....
I love them both --(respect them both as human beings) ---
Now: if only I could find a way to meet this charming couple sometime....(they don't live THAT far from me)
:)
elyse
August 8, 2010
I made a rookie error and poor, poor Vendela Vida's novel "The Lovers" is the innocent victim.
It all started when I feel madly in love with Jennifer Egan's book "A Visit from the Goon Squad." I lovingly caressed the cover, made kissy faces at it, considered starting from scratch and rereading it immediately. I tried to think of a better book in all the world over, and failed. I sighed a lot. The music of REO Speedwagon finally made sense to me.
What I should have done: Chased it with something completely different from a different section of the bookstore. A food memoir, travel essays, or lousy vampire fiction.
What I did do: Chased it with Vida's book. Climbed right back into a piece of contemporary fiction. Stupid. STUPID.
The end result wasn't pretty. "The Lovers" is probably a better book than I think it is, in light of where it fell on my reading list. It unwittingly became the block of Velveeta you are forced to consume when you finish the $40 chunk of brie, but still need a taste of cheese.
Yvonne is zeroing in on her twilight years. The school teacher's husband died tragically two years earlier, and she has adult children, twins with very different lives. Matthew is a success, with a fancy pants fiance and a cool job. Aurelia is a recovering addict who tormented the family through her teen years, with her in and out of rehab bit.
Matthew has invited Yvonne to go on a cruise with his fiance's family, but instead she decides to travel to a small town in Turkey where she and her husband had honeymooned a zillion years ago. She'll catch her son during a leg of his trip, but mostly try to recapture her own sense of adventure with this solo gig. Yvonne's got an itch to reclaim the sense of adventure she had when she was young.
Times have been tough. Yvonne feels like she is on everyone's watch list, and during the past school year she presented the same lecture, word for word, twice in the same week.
She's a bit out of her element in Datca, where she rents a house from a possibly abusive man. While roaming the space, she finds a book about anal sex, a nudie photograph, and a sex swing. She makes friends with the man's wife, a young and colorful woman with a lot of bad ideas and a pregnancy of questionable origin. She makes enemies with a waiter. She is a little scared of the landlord. She meets a young sea shell seller named Ahmet, who doesn't speak English, and they fall into an easy, albeit silent friendship.
But instead of being a healing trip, per se, Yvonne spirals toward her emotional breaking point -- helped along by a whack tragedy that pages later is still a head scratcher of an event.
Vida's novel feels a lot like an Anne Tyler creation, with its quaint thises and thats. The defining moments of the book are kind of snoozers. In one, Yvonne drives her rental along a freshly tarred road and ruins the exterior of the car; In another, an owl gets trapped in the house, which is seemingly an omen. A very obvious omen. There is also a boat ride with new friends during bad weather. Yawn. Yawn, double yawn.
There is also a lot of introspection about her family life back home. Yvonne spends so much time thinking about her husband Peter, weighing their relationship and what it was worth, and the struggles with Aurelia and how that affected them all.
Maybe under different circumstances I would have found this book beautiful and light. A pleasant read about a woman popping her emotional bubble. But under the circumstances of cracking it immediately after finishing the epic piece of awesome that is "A Visit from the Goon Squad," "The Lovers" felt dull and uninspired.
It all started when I feel madly in love with Jennifer Egan's book "A Visit from the Goon Squad." I lovingly caressed the cover, made kissy faces at it, considered starting from scratch and rereading it immediately. I tried to think of a better book in all the world over, and failed. I sighed a lot. The music of REO Speedwagon finally made sense to me.
What I should have done: Chased it with something completely different from a different section of the bookstore. A food memoir, travel essays, or lousy vampire fiction.
What I did do: Chased it with Vida's book. Climbed right back into a piece of contemporary fiction. Stupid. STUPID.
The end result wasn't pretty. "The Lovers" is probably a better book than I think it is, in light of where it fell on my reading list. It unwittingly became the block of Velveeta you are forced to consume when you finish the $40 chunk of brie, but still need a taste of cheese.
Yvonne is zeroing in on her twilight years. The school teacher's husband died tragically two years earlier, and she has adult children, twins with very different lives. Matthew is a success, with a fancy pants fiance and a cool job. Aurelia is a recovering addict who tormented the family through her teen years, with her in and out of rehab bit.
Matthew has invited Yvonne to go on a cruise with his fiance's family, but instead she decides to travel to a small town in Turkey where she and her husband had honeymooned a zillion years ago. She'll catch her son during a leg of his trip, but mostly try to recapture her own sense of adventure with this solo gig. Yvonne's got an itch to reclaim the sense of adventure she had when she was young.
Times have been tough. Yvonne feels like she is on everyone's watch list, and during the past school year she presented the same lecture, word for word, twice in the same week.
She's a bit out of her element in Datca, where she rents a house from a possibly abusive man. While roaming the space, she finds a book about anal sex, a nudie photograph, and a sex swing. She makes friends with the man's wife, a young and colorful woman with a lot of bad ideas and a pregnancy of questionable origin. She makes enemies with a waiter. She is a little scared of the landlord. She meets a young sea shell seller named Ahmet, who doesn't speak English, and they fall into an easy, albeit silent friendship.
But instead of being a healing trip, per se, Yvonne spirals toward her emotional breaking point -- helped along by a whack tragedy that pages later is still a head scratcher of an event.
Vida's novel feels a lot like an Anne Tyler creation, with its quaint thises and thats. The defining moments of the book are kind of snoozers. In one, Yvonne drives her rental along a freshly tarred road and ruins the exterior of the car; In another, an owl gets trapped in the house, which is seemingly an omen. A very obvious omen. There is also a boat ride with new friends during bad weather. Yawn. Yawn, double yawn.
There is also a lot of introspection about her family life back home. Yvonne spends so much time thinking about her husband Peter, weighing their relationship and what it was worth, and the struggles with Aurelia and how that affected them all.
Maybe under different circumstances I would have found this book beautiful and light. A pleasant read about a woman popping her emotional bubble. But under the circumstances of cracking it immediately after finishing the epic piece of awesome that is "A Visit from the Goon Squad," "The Lovers" felt dull and uninspired.
August 17, 2010
I like Vendela Vida's writing a lot. It's pared down to the essentials, with a great forward momentum--even when the characters are privately mulling over the past, as Yvonne is in this book. I like how she captures the surrealism of ordinary details--white freckles on a man's arms, a hotel room in a cave, a woman who only arranges her face so that she looks beautiful when she knows she's being looked at. I agree with those who say that she writes in the vein of Paul Bowles--these travel novels at least--showing people journeying abroad in order to journey inward. She can get at her characters' interiority while mostly staying focused on what they're experiencing on the outside, which I admire. I found this book hard to put down, which I appreciate (especially since I've been a bit distracted lately). Like others, I'm mixed on the ending. Halfway through the book, I'd decided that the backstory involving the daughter, and why she'd turned to alcohol and drugs from such a young age, was dark in a way that Yvonne herself hadn't recognized yet, but that she would by the end. This didn't happen, and I can't decide if I'm relieved or not.
June 28, 2010
I really wanted to like this book, since I loved my time in Turkey. However, I found the events unrealistic and couldn't get past this. The ending was preposterous!
October 18, 2025
Oof not Vida's best work. The main character felt like Emily from Emily in Paris got older and is still completely oblivious to everyone but herself.
June 13, 2010
Yvonne's life has taken unexpected turns over the years. Her husband has died in a horrific hit-and-run car accident; their children, twins Matt and Aurelia, are grown now, but Aurelia's teenage years and on were riddled with drug and alcohol abuse, filled with lies and deceptions and stints in rehab. Yvonne returns to Datca in Turkey where she and her husband had spent their honeymoon in hopes of returning to memories that don't involve death and dishonesty while at the same time desiring to find herself again.
The thing with memories, however, is that they don't go away. Even when you go across the world and immerse yourself in another culture, your past follows you there.
We learn about Yvonne's past through her memories and conversations with others in Datca and the surrounding towns. It's a sad story, particularly the relationship between Yvonne and her daughter. Yvonne wants to be able to trust her daughter again, and wants to reconnect, but Aurelia's past isn't easy to forget.
I saw a review where someone gave this book 3 stars, and the explanation was that it was a good story but a little "depressing". My 3 stars are not because it was depressing (is that really a legitimate reason to knock off a star?) but because I felt the ending was rushed. It's easy to sit down and read this book in a couple of sittings - it's not a difficult read, and Yvonne's experiences are recognizable - but all of a sudden it was done. I feel even a few extra pages could have made a difference.
But I was taken away to Turkey. Vida's writing of scenery and description is impressive - I felt myself following Yvonne around Datca and I was able to put myself in Yvonne's shoes, something that isn't always easy. This is the first book by Vida I've read but certainly won't be the last. I won't even hold it against her that she's married to Dave Eggers. I'll hold off real judgment until I read something else by her, but will say that if her other books make the same kind of connection I won't be sorry.
The thing with memories, however, is that they don't go away. Even when you go across the world and immerse yourself in another culture, your past follows you there.
We learn about Yvonne's past through her memories and conversations with others in Datca and the surrounding towns. It's a sad story, particularly the relationship between Yvonne and her daughter. Yvonne wants to be able to trust her daughter again, and wants to reconnect, but Aurelia's past isn't easy to forget.
I saw a review where someone gave this book 3 stars, and the explanation was that it was a good story but a little "depressing". My 3 stars are not because it was depressing (is that really a legitimate reason to knock off a star?) but because I felt the ending was rushed. It's easy to sit down and read this book in a couple of sittings - it's not a difficult read, and Yvonne's experiences are recognizable - but all of a sudden it was done. I feel even a few extra pages could have made a difference.
But I was taken away to Turkey. Vida's writing of scenery and description is impressive - I felt myself following Yvonne around Datca and I was able to put myself in Yvonne's shoes, something that isn't always easy. This is the first book by Vida I've read but certainly won't be the last. I won't even hold it against her that she's married to Dave Eggers. I'll hold off real judgment until I read something else by her, but will say that if her other books make the same kind of connection I won't be sorry.
August 11, 2010
Ms. Vida presents us with another spare and reflective novel about a woman searching to redefine herself after the death of a loved one. Instead of the cold glow of the Arctic Circle that defined Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name, Ms. Vida bathes the protagonist of The Lovers, Yvonne, in the cerulean blue of the Turkish Riviera.
Ms. Vida writes so deftly and with such elegance. You are given just the right depth of detail to create your own vision of setting and character and the just enough tension to keep you on your emotional edge.
This story sagged in the behavior of Yvonne, the recently-widowed history teacher who returns to the tiny Turkish village of Datca, the site of her honeymoon some thirty years before. She travels there in an attempt to evoke memories of her husband and the romance of their marriage that she has lost in a period of too-public mourning. Yvonne exasperated me. Perhaps it was her grief that caused her to behave with an uncharacteristic stumbling impulsiveness. Her social naivete and clumsiness, the long stares behind the facade of the perfect marriage, the wayward daughter and the creepily-perfect son were way too Anne Tyler/Joyce Carol Oates for me. Yet, in contrast to these overly-sympathetic authors, I felt like Vida was laughing a bit at her protagonist.
In this regard, The Lovers lacks the resonance of ...Northern Lights.... It is beautifully written, but a bit too maudlin to allow you to truly connect and empathize.
Ms. Vida writes so deftly and with such elegance. You are given just the right depth of detail to create your own vision of setting and character and the just enough tension to keep you on your emotional edge.
This story sagged in the behavior of Yvonne, the recently-widowed history teacher who returns to the tiny Turkish village of Datca, the site of her honeymoon some thirty years before. She travels there in an attempt to evoke memories of her husband and the romance of their marriage that she has lost in a period of too-public mourning. Yvonne exasperated me. Perhaps it was her grief that caused her to behave with an uncharacteristic stumbling impulsiveness. Her social naivete and clumsiness, the long stares behind the facade of the perfect marriage, the wayward daughter and the creepily-perfect son were way too Anne Tyler/Joyce Carol Oates for me. Yet, in contrast to these overly-sympathetic authors, I felt like Vida was laughing a bit at her protagonist.
In this regard, The Lovers lacks the resonance of ...Northern Lights.... It is beautifully written, but a bit too maudlin to allow you to truly connect and empathize.
March 6, 2011
A real page turner --but not in a good way.
First let me say that there was a lot that I liked about this book, especially at the beginning. I liked the premise: widowed Yvonne, a school teacher, goes to Turkey, which is where she and her husband had gone on their honeymoon, 20-something years earlier. I also was very fond of Yvonne; I found her interesting, sympathetic, with compelling personal problems to work on during this trip. And I really liked Vida's prose, which balances descriptive travel imagery and psychologically intriguing interior monologues.
Now for the things I didn't like. As the book progressed, I grew increasingly dismayed at the protagonist's behavior and choices, and the author's preoccupation with problems that seemed to be more plot-ploy than believable. Plus, a little past halfway, I started to suspect that there wasn't going to be any resolution to Yvonne's issues from her own strength of character, and in fact there might be dissolution. Dissolution would have been fine as an outcome except for one thing: the series of events didn't hold together. The plot turns got extremely unbelievable and the metaphors got heavy-handed. At one point, Yvonne is lost in a dark catacomb, racing towards the exit. That was how I felt at that point in the book: I was in a dark place, racing towards the end. Happily for me, it was a short book, and I was able to exit within an hour.
First let me say that there was a lot that I liked about this book, especially at the beginning. I liked the premise: widowed Yvonne, a school teacher, goes to Turkey, which is where she and her husband had gone on their honeymoon, 20-something years earlier. I also was very fond of Yvonne; I found her interesting, sympathetic, with compelling personal problems to work on during this trip. And I really liked Vida's prose, which balances descriptive travel imagery and psychologically intriguing interior monologues.
Now for the things I didn't like. As the book progressed, I grew increasingly dismayed at the protagonist's behavior and choices, and the author's preoccupation with problems that seemed to be more plot-ploy than believable. Plus, a little past halfway, I started to suspect that there wasn't going to be any resolution to Yvonne's issues from her own strength of character, and in fact there might be dissolution. Dissolution would have been fine as an outcome except for one thing: the series of events didn't hold together. The plot turns got extremely unbelievable and the metaphors got heavy-handed. At one point, Yvonne is lost in a dark catacomb, racing towards the exit. That was how I felt at that point in the book: I was in a dark place, racing towards the end. Happily for me, it was a short book, and I was able to exit within an hour.
May 16, 2015
The second title from Vendela Vida that I have read; the second winner. Like Let The Northern Lights Erase Your Name, the writing is simple yet illuminating, picturesque prose especially exemplified as her settings seem to be lesser popularized travel destinations.
Here she has her heroine, Yvonne, in Turkey, including Datca, Istanbul, Konya, Kronos; the most mesmerizing being those near the water as she spends time with Ahmet.
It is a story of self-discovery. A story about marriage, love, motherhood. Forgiveness, guilt, regret. The past merging with the present. Learning from this to better her relationship with herself as well as her children. She specifically chose luxurious, resplendent Turkey because it was the destination of her honeymoon almost twenty-five years ago. The plan is to remember her late husband Peter, then meet her children Aurelia & Matthew a few weeks later. Unfortunately, sometimes one's memories are not as comforting as one wishes; we remember only what we want to for a reason... To further complicate things is her friendship with a young Turkish boy she meets on the beach where he collects seashells. He reminds her of her children; he fills the void of loneliness, her need to caretake rather than unveil her own worries, something she is forced to do as the friendship soon ends in tragedy.
A widow who is finding herself again, maybe finding herself for the first time.
Here she has her heroine, Yvonne, in Turkey, including Datca, Istanbul, Konya, Kronos; the most mesmerizing being those near the water as she spends time with Ahmet.
It is a story of self-discovery. A story about marriage, love, motherhood. Forgiveness, guilt, regret. The past merging with the present. Learning from this to better her relationship with herself as well as her children. She specifically chose luxurious, resplendent Turkey because it was the destination of her honeymoon almost twenty-five years ago. The plan is to remember her late husband Peter, then meet her children Aurelia & Matthew a few weeks later. Unfortunately, sometimes one's memories are not as comforting as one wishes; we remember only what we want to for a reason... To further complicate things is her friendship with a young Turkish boy she meets on the beach where he collects seashells. He reminds her of her children; he fills the void of loneliness, her need to caretake rather than unveil her own worries, something she is forced to do as the friendship soon ends in tragedy.
A widow who is finding herself again, maybe finding herself for the first time.
February 28, 2012
Vendela Vida's relatively short novel, The Lovers, packs a big wallop. It is a multi-layered story about Yvonne, a widow, who returns to Turkey where she and her husband once honeymooned. She believes that by returning to the same place where they had been together early in her marriage, she will feel closer to him. Her husband Peter was recently killed in a hit and run car accident in their hometown of Burlington, Vermont. Yvonne has rented a large home, sight unseen, for a couple of weeks until she is scheduled to meet up with her son and daughter and their partners on a boating trip.
Yvonne is an aging woman who is a history teacher. Recently, she has had some troubles in the classroom. For instance, she presented a class about Cromwell twice in the same week. She knows that she is floundering, that her center is gone, but she does not know how to get it back. Perhaps, she thinks, this trip to Turkey will help her.
While in Turkey, odd things happen to her. Yvonne is renting a home that belongs to her landlord's lover. Ozlem, the wife of Ali, the man from whom she is renting, appears one day and begins a friendship with Yvonne. Ozlem is fraught with her own problems. She is not sure whether she wants to leave Ali and she is violently jealous of Ali's affair. Ozlem is also pregnant but not sure if Ali is the father.
Yvonne has two children, Aurelia and Matthew. Matthew has been good at everything since she was a child and Aurelia has been a drug addict, in and out of rehab a good many times. This trip they are all planning to take is to be a pre-wedding trip for Matthew and Yvonne is fearful that some catastrophic event will happen with Aurelia before the trip commences. Aurelia's drug addiction had caused a lot of friction between Yvonne and Peter during their marriage.
Yvonne likes to drive to the beach. While there, she meets a young boy who sells sea shells. Yvonne strikes up a friendship with him and commissions him to find shells for her. She looks at him as one would a new-found possibility, a friendship or child that is a tabla rasa. She begins to endow him with qualities that he doesn't really possess but that she needs him to have.
Throughout her time in Turkey, which is fraught with panic, eerie circumstances, and darkness, Yvonne looks back on her marriage and tries to find the truth of what it really was. As she progresses in finding the truth, she becomes first weaker and then gains strength. She realizes that her marriage was not what she thought it was and that she is not really the woman she thought she was in her relationship. She sadly realizes that "these were two of her strengths: changing the subject and feigning ignorance." She also realizes how very strong her love for her daughter is.
I found the book mesmerizing. The plot alone is enough to carry the book along but the atmospheric suspense makes it even more present and portentous. This book is a sensory experience, at times subtle like watching fish swim in a small pond. At other times, it feels like you are in the eye of the hurricane.
Yvonne is an aging woman who is a history teacher. Recently, she has had some troubles in the classroom. For instance, she presented a class about Cromwell twice in the same week. She knows that she is floundering, that her center is gone, but she does not know how to get it back. Perhaps, she thinks, this trip to Turkey will help her.
While in Turkey, odd things happen to her. Yvonne is renting a home that belongs to her landlord's lover. Ozlem, the wife of Ali, the man from whom she is renting, appears one day and begins a friendship with Yvonne. Ozlem is fraught with her own problems. She is not sure whether she wants to leave Ali and she is violently jealous of Ali's affair. Ozlem is also pregnant but not sure if Ali is the father.
Yvonne has two children, Aurelia and Matthew. Matthew has been good at everything since she was a child and Aurelia has been a drug addict, in and out of rehab a good many times. This trip they are all planning to take is to be a pre-wedding trip for Matthew and Yvonne is fearful that some catastrophic event will happen with Aurelia before the trip commences. Aurelia's drug addiction had caused a lot of friction between Yvonne and Peter during their marriage.
Yvonne likes to drive to the beach. While there, she meets a young boy who sells sea shells. Yvonne strikes up a friendship with him and commissions him to find shells for her. She looks at him as one would a new-found possibility, a friendship or child that is a tabla rasa. She begins to endow him with qualities that he doesn't really possess but that she needs him to have.
Throughout her time in Turkey, which is fraught with panic, eerie circumstances, and darkness, Yvonne looks back on her marriage and tries to find the truth of what it really was. As she progresses in finding the truth, she becomes first weaker and then gains strength. She realizes that her marriage was not what she thought it was and that she is not really the woman she thought she was in her relationship. She sadly realizes that "these were two of her strengths: changing the subject and feigning ignorance." She also realizes how very strong her love for her daughter is.
I found the book mesmerizing. The plot alone is enough to carry the book along but the atmospheric suspense makes it even more present and portentous. This book is a sensory experience, at times subtle like watching fish swim in a small pond. At other times, it feels like you are in the eye of the hurricane.
July 3, 2010
As a huge fan of this author's last book: Let the Northern Lights Erase Your Name, I was very excited to read Vida's latest novel, The Lovers.
Like in her last novel, this story is about a woman on an emotional journey, traveling far from home to find herself and meaning in her life. Yvonne is a 53 year old woman, mother of adult twins: Matthew and Auerelia. She lost her husband Peter, two years earlier and is still numb from the loss. She is tired of having everyone still asking how she is doing, so she convinces herself she is fine, but her actions show us she is not. Yvonne's son, his fiancee and her family are cruising the Mediterranean on a chartered yacht, and she has agreed to met them in Turkey. Yvonne heads out for Datca Turkey, nine days before they are to meet up, where she has rented a home. This is the place where she and her husband Peter had honeymooned 28 years earlier. She is hoping that reliving happier times in her past will help ease her grief.
From her arrival at the airport the reader can glean that things will not go as planned. On her own, she puts herself in some unsafe situations. The town is not at all how she remembered it.:
"The beach was filthy. Small plastic bags, gelatinous in the sun, had been deposited by the tide on the wet sand. Dark, dead leaves swirled and settled around a boat that looked like it had docked on the beach five years before, and never left. The water too looked dirty, the foam of the small waves that crashed on the beach the color of beer. The promenade itself was not half as populated as she remembered it. The short trees bordering the walkway provided little shade and had rooted themselves under the cement, creating small hills and crevices. From somewhere in the trees came the eerie daytime hooting of owls."
" Half the restaurants had been shut down. The remaining ones displayed sick-looking fish on beds of crushed gray ice. With soiled rags, waiters shooed away mangy cats trolling for food. A sprinkling of tourists speaking German sat outside cafes', their skin sunburned to a peculiar shade of orange."
The highlights of Yvonne's days are meeting up with little boy who sells seashells. He does not speak English. She spends time thinking about her life and her relationship with her children, especially Auerelia, who she had a strained relationship with, as she spent years in and out of rehab.
The Lovers is a story that reminds the reader how life is very much a journey. The ending gave me hope that Yvonne would be able to move on. Regardless of your age, I think many readers will be able to connect with Yvonne, as I did. The writing is sparse but reflective, and the pages of this short 225 novel turned quickly. If you were expecting a romance novel, from the title of this one, you'll have to look elsewhere ~~~ this title is misleading, thank goodness.
4.5/5 stars
April 28, 2021
Apparently, I read this back in 2017 but reading it again now, I had no recollection of it. It's a slim novel that carries an air of menace. Two years after she's been widowed, Yvonne, a 53 year old history teacher in Vermont, returns to Datca, the seaside town in Turkey where she and her husband had honeymooned three decades before. The town is no longer beautiful as it used to be, it's become seedy, but the air of menace does not come from the expected quarters of an American woman traveling abroad alone, renting a house sight unseen, sending her deposit in advance; indeed, she's met at the airport, the owner is honest, the house seems fine, though as she explores the rooms, she finds evidence of an active sex life, and a heavy-handed owl denoting tragedy will find its way into the house. Yvonne is in Turkey for ten days alone, before meeting up with her golden son and his fiance for a cruise, and her damaged daughter. She's there searching for something she can't identify: that she can continue on with her life and become adventurous again, or determine whether her marriage was good, interrupted as it was by their daughter, a sensitive girl who ended up in rehab several times, while her twin brother was beloved by all, causing years of dissension between wife and husband. Her friendship with Ahmet, a ten-year-old boy who speaks no English and whom she meets on the beach at Knidos has tragic, if expected, results. For a smart woman Yvonne makes some strange decisions that don't feel organic, some narrative threads are left hanging, the ending is rushed and not believable, but this was an engaging and interesting novel nonetheless.
January 24, 2016
This month was dedicated to a marathon of #laslasreads - a book where a character dies, or where they cope with the loss. Or where you just lingered in a limbo and unsure where to go.
Of all the books that I've read, this book shined because it gave me a sense of closure. It has awarded me a piece of solace. This, no matter how simple it was written, or how short the development it, gave me an ending - exactly how I imagined it would end.
Some may consider this prose a comfort read, a novel that can be done in one sitting; but for me it gave linger, closing this book at the climax and let my imagination (or paranoia) fly while walking alone in the quiet streets of the sheltered community (aka Bonifacio Global City) at night.
The characters may or may not be part of my dreams tonight, but the setting will be #travelgoals. Someday.
Of all the books that I've read, this book shined because it gave me a sense of closure. It has awarded me a piece of solace. This, no matter how simple it was written, or how short the development it, gave me an ending - exactly how I imagined it would end.
Some may consider this prose a comfort read, a novel that can be done in one sitting; but for me it gave linger, closing this book at the climax and let my imagination (or paranoia) fly while walking alone in the quiet streets of the sheltered community (aka Bonifacio Global City) at night.
The characters may or may not be part of my dreams tonight, but the setting will be #travelgoals. Someday.
February 21, 2022
A great reminder of what traveling is like. Feeling out of place, tired, skipping dinner and only eating cheese. Great one liners and reminders about not understanding foreign languages.
July 12, 2010
The Lovers, Vendela Vida
The Lovers is a novel set in Turkey, where a newly widowed woman returns to the place of her honeymoon, almost three decades before. She's trying to escape her life in Vermont, and her new status as the pitied single woman among couples. As the mother of grown twins, she is conflicted with her memories of her marriage and her relationship with her children. She's discovering that as more time passes since her husband's death, the more she is forced to re-evaluate their relationship.
After describing lush and green Vermont, the description of Turkey provides a stark contrast with dust, stones, and volcanic mountains. It's a none-too-subtle hint that with a new setting in place, things are going to change. But are they? This is where the novel makes a twist: nothing you think is going to happen actually happens. Once in place, she craves the company of others, so much so that she puts up with the imposition of others just to have human contact. Eventually, this leads her to a realization about her own personality and her own future.
To be sure, this is not a romantic or happily-ever-after "chick" lit story. It is not Eat Love Pray, and there's no glamour, sudden insight, or handsome distraction. Rather, Yvonne, is very much alone and really has no basis to understand who she was, or is. If she's different, then it means her perceptions of her husband and children are altered too, and that's where her story becomes less typical and more interesting. In fact, the title "The Lovers" is misleading...it's not easy to determine who that would describe.
It doesn't take long for her to realize she's been playing a role, but she has no other script to turn to...she doesn't quite know how to behave anymore. I don't want to reveal any spoilers, but as the plot continues, she is so disoriented that her decisions become riskier and more dangerous. Rather than feature shocking revelations or dramatic confrontations, the novel proceeds to a realistic conclusion. Rather than settle for a shallow resolution, the novel leaves you to ponder deeper complexities of personality and self.
The story is fast paced, and as a main character, Yvonne is solid. But her children remain a mystery, and it's hard to grasp how they fit in with it all. Additionally, in the beginning there are hints as to the direction of the story that are misleading, and really weren't necessary at all. The book didn't need those elements to mystify us, her story alone is strong enough without them. And while the main character is female, the appeal of the plot isn't limited to a female audience.
There was one seeming discrepancy: this sheltered woman has put herself in a foreign country, alone, without even a guidebook to the language. She is suspicious at times of others, and rightfully so, as malice is present, and yet she makes no great attempt to lock up her vacation rental or show any sense of caution in her actions. She's throwing euros around as tips, and everyone seems to know she's alone. Unexpected visitors, with their own keys, seem to pop up constantly, and yet she takes it all in stride. That seemed a bit out of character from how she was described, but it's a small complaint.
The Lovers is a novel set in Turkey, where a newly widowed woman returns to the place of her honeymoon, almost three decades before. She's trying to escape her life in Vermont, and her new status as the pitied single woman among couples. As the mother of grown twins, she is conflicted with her memories of her marriage and her relationship with her children. She's discovering that as more time passes since her husband's death, the more she is forced to re-evaluate their relationship.
After describing lush and green Vermont, the description of Turkey provides a stark contrast with dust, stones, and volcanic mountains. It's a none-too-subtle hint that with a new setting in place, things are going to change. But are they? This is where the novel makes a twist: nothing you think is going to happen actually happens. Once in place, she craves the company of others, so much so that she puts up with the imposition of others just to have human contact. Eventually, this leads her to a realization about her own personality and her own future.
To be sure, this is not a romantic or happily-ever-after "chick" lit story. It is not Eat Love Pray, and there's no glamour, sudden insight, or handsome distraction. Rather, Yvonne, is very much alone and really has no basis to understand who she was, or is. If she's different, then it means her perceptions of her husband and children are altered too, and that's where her story becomes less typical and more interesting. In fact, the title "The Lovers" is misleading...it's not easy to determine who that would describe.
It doesn't take long for her to realize she's been playing a role, but she has no other script to turn to...she doesn't quite know how to behave anymore. I don't want to reveal any spoilers, but as the plot continues, she is so disoriented that her decisions become riskier and more dangerous. Rather than feature shocking revelations or dramatic confrontations, the novel proceeds to a realistic conclusion. Rather than settle for a shallow resolution, the novel leaves you to ponder deeper complexities of personality and self.
The story is fast paced, and as a main character, Yvonne is solid. But her children remain a mystery, and it's hard to grasp how they fit in with it all. Additionally, in the beginning there are hints as to the direction of the story that are misleading, and really weren't necessary at all. The book didn't need those elements to mystify us, her story alone is strong enough without them. And while the main character is female, the appeal of the plot isn't limited to a female audience.
There was one seeming discrepancy: this sheltered woman has put herself in a foreign country, alone, without even a guidebook to the language. She is suspicious at times of others, and rightfully so, as malice is present, and yet she makes no great attempt to lock up her vacation rental or show any sense of caution in her actions. She's throwing euros around as tips, and everyone seems to know she's alone. Unexpected visitors, with their own keys, seem to pop up constantly, and yet she takes it all in stride. That seemed a bit out of character from how she was described, but it's a small complaint.
August 3, 2010
Vida’s novel opens with Yvonne, a middle-aged widow, lost and looking for her driver in a Turkish airport. Vacationing alone in an attempt to recapture the magic of her honeymoon in Turkey twenty-six years before, lost is how Yvonne spends most of the novel, metaphorically speaking.
While her husband was killed in a car accident years before, this is Yvonne’s first trip without him. Even though the reader hears stories about Yvonne’s life at home in Vermont, it feels to the reader as though this is Yvonne’s first trip out of the house at all without Peter. She seems incredibly fragile and somehow unable to fully cope with the activities of daily life. She is wholly unmoored.
The Turkey that Yvonne finds upon her arrival is not the same Turkey of her youth. Like Yvonne, Turkey is weathered and decayed. It is the physical emblem of the grief that cripples her. Yvonne rents a house from a successful businessman and becomes entangled in his marital problems when his wife, Ozlem, becomes a frequent visitor at the house. “Entangled” is actually a very apt word for Yvonne’s experience in Turkey as she also becomes deeply entangled in a friendship with a local boy who sells shells. While it is entirely innocent — and really a way for Yvonne to connect to her children by proxy — a local waiter and the boy’s grandmother clearly express their skepticism and disapproval. This constant juxtaposition of isolation and connection pervades the text.
I could not stop turning the pages as I read. Beyond some very tightly woven motifs about marriage, decay, and grief, the formal structure of the novel also fascinated me. Without chapters and clocking in at only 240 pages (and it felt shorter!), I found myself thinking of The Lovers as a novella — somehow denser and more punch-packing than a differently-paced novel separated into sections. This decision also affected the pacing of the story — causing me to read faster and faster, mimicking the out-of-control spiral in which Yvonne finds herself.
The only problem I had with this book at all was the title — why The Lovers? Obviously, this is a love story between Yvonne and the memory of her husband. While their marriage was far from perfect, the power of her grief and the tenderness of her memories conveys a different kind of passion but passion nonetheless. Ozlem and Ali, the house’s owner, also take separate lovers and spend the novel working out the terms of their relationship as lovers. And Yvonne sees honeymooners everywhere. I would love to know why Vida chose this title to encapsulate Yvonne’s story.
This is a really beautiful book — a short and fulfilling read. It’s the quiet kind of book that not everyone will like — there is little action other than wandering around Turkey and while the ending is surprising, it’s not the kind of surprise that most readers might expect. For me, this book is an unexpected triumph.
While her husband was killed in a car accident years before, this is Yvonne’s first trip without him. Even though the reader hears stories about Yvonne’s life at home in Vermont, it feels to the reader as though this is Yvonne’s first trip out of the house at all without Peter. She seems incredibly fragile and somehow unable to fully cope with the activities of daily life. She is wholly unmoored.
The Turkey that Yvonne finds upon her arrival is not the same Turkey of her youth. Like Yvonne, Turkey is weathered and decayed. It is the physical emblem of the grief that cripples her. Yvonne rents a house from a successful businessman and becomes entangled in his marital problems when his wife, Ozlem, becomes a frequent visitor at the house. “Entangled” is actually a very apt word for Yvonne’s experience in Turkey as she also becomes deeply entangled in a friendship with a local boy who sells shells. While it is entirely innocent — and really a way for Yvonne to connect to her children by proxy — a local waiter and the boy’s grandmother clearly express their skepticism and disapproval. This constant juxtaposition of isolation and connection pervades the text.
I could not stop turning the pages as I read. Beyond some very tightly woven motifs about marriage, decay, and grief, the formal structure of the novel also fascinated me. Without chapters and clocking in at only 240 pages (and it felt shorter!), I found myself thinking of The Lovers as a novella — somehow denser and more punch-packing than a differently-paced novel separated into sections. This decision also affected the pacing of the story — causing me to read faster and faster, mimicking the out-of-control spiral in which Yvonne finds herself.
The only problem I had with this book at all was the title — why The Lovers? Obviously, this is a love story between Yvonne and the memory of her husband. While their marriage was far from perfect, the power of her grief and the tenderness of her memories conveys a different kind of passion but passion nonetheless. Ozlem and Ali, the house’s owner, also take separate lovers and spend the novel working out the terms of their relationship as lovers. And Yvonne sees honeymooners everywhere. I would love to know why Vida chose this title to encapsulate Yvonne’s story.
This is a really beautiful book — a short and fulfilling read. It’s the quiet kind of book that not everyone will like — there is little action other than wandering around Turkey and while the ending is surprising, it’s not the kind of surprise that most readers might expect. For me, this book is an unexpected triumph.
October 15, 2015
In The Lovers, Yvonne, 53, travels from her home in Burlington, Vermont to the Turkish town of Datça where she spent her honeymoon with her husband Peter, killed two years earlier in a hit-and-run accident. She was hoping to come to terms with the truth of her marriage - especially to remember again the happiness that characterized it at the beginning, and to emerge from the catatonic state in which she has been since Peter’s death:
"…she had come to Datça to strip herself of these lies, to shed this grief. The grief and the lies were the same - one begot the other.”
She finds that the small town of Datça had deteriorated, analogous to the way her marriage had. Much of the conflict between Yvonne and Peter was over their twins, Matthew and Aurelia. Matthew was “perfect” and the one on whom Peter bestowed his favor. Aurelia was damaged, subject to alcohol and drug addiction, and Peter seemed to blame Yvonne. Even when the children grew up and left the house, “they had grown so accustomed to resenting each other that they didn’t know how to stop.”
In Turkey Yvonne encounters some rather eccentric people, such as the estranged wife Özlem of her proprietor; a local boy Ahmet who sells seashells to her; Ahmet’s sister; and another vacationing American couple. All of them serve to give insights about herself to Yvonne.
Eventually, Yvonne gets some answers about her life, but they weren’t answers to the questions she came with; she had been blinded all along by the wrong questions.
Discussion: This is a short novel, with spare but well-crafted writing. The primary theme seems to be the way in which we define ourselves through our relationships, and how these ideas of who we are and who the others are in our lives may get embedded in old patterns - almost like those paperweights of insects stuck in amber, that then go on to hold down our growth in the same fixed and stuck way. In addition, these definitions affect the evaluations of us by others; how does one escape such enmeshment? In the biggest metaphor of the book, an owl, bereft of its mate (owls are monogamous), becomes trapped in the house which Yvonne is renting. The owl eventually gets loose; whether Yvonne does too remains to be seen.
Evaluation: This is a thought-provoking meditation on sense of self and the importance of relationships to one’s identity. The characters struck me as rather odd though; I didn't really warm up to them. Moreover, some of the plot developments are sort of enigmatic and/or get dropped. In addition, I found the ending to be a bit improbable. Nevertheless, I would recommend it for a book club, because it would definitely generate discussion.
"…she had come to Datça to strip herself of these lies, to shed this grief. The grief and the lies were the same - one begot the other.”
She finds that the small town of Datça had deteriorated, analogous to the way her marriage had. Much of the conflict between Yvonne and Peter was over their twins, Matthew and Aurelia. Matthew was “perfect” and the one on whom Peter bestowed his favor. Aurelia was damaged, subject to alcohol and drug addiction, and Peter seemed to blame Yvonne. Even when the children grew up and left the house, “they had grown so accustomed to resenting each other that they didn’t know how to stop.”
In Turkey Yvonne encounters some rather eccentric people, such as the estranged wife Özlem of her proprietor; a local boy Ahmet who sells seashells to her; Ahmet’s sister; and another vacationing American couple. All of them serve to give insights about herself to Yvonne.
Eventually, Yvonne gets some answers about her life, but they weren’t answers to the questions she came with; she had been blinded all along by the wrong questions.
Discussion: This is a short novel, with spare but well-crafted writing. The primary theme seems to be the way in which we define ourselves through our relationships, and how these ideas of who we are and who the others are in our lives may get embedded in old patterns - almost like those paperweights of insects stuck in amber, that then go on to hold down our growth in the same fixed and stuck way. In addition, these definitions affect the evaluations of us by others; how does one escape such enmeshment? In the biggest metaphor of the book, an owl, bereft of its mate (owls are monogamous), becomes trapped in the house which Yvonne is renting. The owl eventually gets loose; whether Yvonne does too remains to be seen.
Evaluation: This is a thought-provoking meditation on sense of self and the importance of relationships to one’s identity. The characters struck me as rather odd though; I didn't really warm up to them. Moreover, some of the plot developments are sort of enigmatic and/or get dropped. In addition, I found the ending to be a bit improbable. Nevertheless, I would recommend it for a book club, because it would definitely generate discussion.
November 17, 2018
Here's another title that suffers in comparison with Rachel Cusk's most recent trilogy, in this case with Cusk's Outline in particular. Vida here gives us a story of a 50-something American woman coming to terms with dual traumas in her life while on vacation in the Mediterranean. It's a heavily worn literary landscape (territory re-covered in a slightly more racy but no less conventional fashion a couple of years later in the book I read before this, Jennifer Egan's short story collection Emerald City).
Cusk escapes the familiarity, not to mention the mild queasiness, of the conceit of a WASP-y protagonist discovering truths about her or himself among exotic people in arid lands of mystery by both bulldozing through naturalistic conventions and telling a story that is stylistically particular to its subject, a disillusioned, discombobulated middle aged English writer with an increasingly shaky hold on her sense of self. Vida, in contrast, adopts a conventional literary fictional approach that flattens the narrative while drawing attention to its somewhat creaky mechanics.
The novel has several other issues. One is related to those mechanics. The main story takes a melodramatic turn towards the end that seems to exist more because it is needed as a prompt to revelation than because it is convincingly organic to the story rules Vida has set up.
Connectedly, the main story turns out to function mostly as a vehicle for the heroine to reframe her relationship to the backstory. But since we only learn about the backstory as its true nature is revealed to our protagonist, we get to learn about the most important parts of her life second hand. This approach can work - it's the sort of thing McEwan plays with all the time - but here it feels like the result of a lets-see-where-things-go approach to novel writing. Again, that can work well. But in this case, the story that Vida ended up with could have had more impact if told in a different order.
A final issue is psychological. I do wonder how old Vida was when she wrote this. Her fifty year old American woman seems more like what someone in their late twenties or early thirties might think a fifty year old is like than the modern American women I know of that age.
Cusk escapes the familiarity, not to mention the mild queasiness, of the conceit of a WASP-y protagonist discovering truths about her or himself among exotic people in arid lands of mystery by both bulldozing through naturalistic conventions and telling a story that is stylistically particular to its subject, a disillusioned, discombobulated middle aged English writer with an increasingly shaky hold on her sense of self. Vida, in contrast, adopts a conventional literary fictional approach that flattens the narrative while drawing attention to its somewhat creaky mechanics.
The novel has several other issues. One is related to those mechanics. The main story takes a melodramatic turn towards the end that seems to exist more because it is needed as a prompt to revelation than because it is convincingly organic to the story rules Vida has set up.
Connectedly, the main story turns out to function mostly as a vehicle for the heroine to reframe her relationship to the backstory. But since we only learn about the backstory as its true nature is revealed to our protagonist, we get to learn about the most important parts of her life second hand. This approach can work - it's the sort of thing McEwan plays with all the time - but here it feels like the result of a lets-see-where-things-go approach to novel writing. Again, that can work well. But in this case, the story that Vida ended up with could have had more impact if told in a different order.
A final issue is psychological. I do wonder how old Vida was when she wrote this. Her fifty year old American woman seems more like what someone in their late twenties or early thirties might think a fifty year old is like than the modern American women I know of that age.
July 14, 2010
I received an advance copy of this book from the publisher.
In the aftermath of her husband's death, grieving widow Yvonne travels to Turkey where she and her husband had honeymooned 28 years before. Her plan is to spend some time alone reflecting on her marriage and the loss of her husband and then meeting up with her adult twins for a cruise. Her plans become complicated when she quickly becomes entangled in the lives of several people. She uncovers secrets about the man she is renting a house from. She becomes friends with the man's wife and forms an unlikely bond with her. She befriends an elderly woman who runs a yacht service with her husband. And, most poignantly, she befriends a young boy named Ahmet who sells shells at the local beach. Through these interactions, Yvonne gains new insight into herself and the lives of her children until a tragic accident throws everything into chaos.
This is a short but affecting book not only about how we move through grief but also about how we define ourselves through relationships. As much as Yvonne longs to be alone with her memories and her thoughts, she cannot stop herself from connecting with other people and being affected by them. These strangers change the way she thinks about herself and her life in ways that she never imagined. While the accident will not come as a surprise, it is still very moving. Vida While some of the relationships in the book felt a little forced, the friendship between Yvonne and Ahmet was wonderful and the exploration of Yvonne's complex and difficult relationships with her addict daughter was also very well done.
BOTTOM LINE: Recommended. This book will not appeal to everyone. It is very introspective and quiet with little action or major entanglements. Still, it manages to be affecting and provides a very interesting character in Yvonne.
In the aftermath of her husband's death, grieving widow Yvonne travels to Turkey where she and her husband had honeymooned 28 years before. Her plan is to spend some time alone reflecting on her marriage and the loss of her husband and then meeting up with her adult twins for a cruise. Her plans become complicated when she quickly becomes entangled in the lives of several people. She uncovers secrets about the man she is renting a house from. She becomes friends with the man's wife and forms an unlikely bond with her. She befriends an elderly woman who runs a yacht service with her husband. And, most poignantly, she befriends a young boy named Ahmet who sells shells at the local beach. Through these interactions, Yvonne gains new insight into herself and the lives of her children until a tragic accident throws everything into chaos.
This is a short but affecting book not only about how we move through grief but also about how we define ourselves through relationships. As much as Yvonne longs to be alone with her memories and her thoughts, she cannot stop herself from connecting with other people and being affected by them. These strangers change the way she thinks about herself and her life in ways that she never imagined. While the accident will not come as a surprise, it is still very moving. Vida While some of the relationships in the book felt a little forced, the friendship between Yvonne and Ahmet was wonderful and the exploration of Yvonne's complex and difficult relationships with her addict daughter was also very well done.
BOTTOM LINE: Recommended. This book will not appeal to everyone. It is very introspective and quiet with little action or major entanglements. Still, it manages to be affecting and provides a very interesting character in Yvonne.
June 19, 2010
It's been over a month now since I've read this book and I am still thinking about the ending - in fact, about much of the book. It's not very long; I read it in one or two sittings straight on through.
Because I am enthralled with Turkey and love reading books set there (a reflection of my longing to revisit), I was immediately drawn to The Lovers by Vendela Vida. The premise of a woman going on vacation to a village by the sea and the title suggest that this story might romanticise travel (and thus might be a good beach/vacation read). Instead, The Lovers is a character driven, psychological study of a woman burdened by memories and guilt, who is trying to navigate the world after her husband's death. Traveling alone to a foreign and bewildering country becomes a metaphor for how one survives loss of a loved one and eventually, how to find one's self.
The narrative is tensely drawn and, just like real travel, is tinged with the possibility of danger at every corner. Will she be taken advantage of? What are the hidden motives of those she meets? Here, Turkey is depicted as beautiful, run down in some places, strange, and slightly threatening. This is not a lighthearted book that celebrates travel - rather it makes one uneasy.
You know something profound is going to happen to Yvonne, possibly something tragic. Vida builds the psychological suspense so effectively that the unforgettable ending threw me off completely. I am still mulling over it and can't decide exactly what happened. Which doesn't mean it wasn't satisfying, more unexpected.
Because I am enthralled with Turkey and love reading books set there (a reflection of my longing to revisit), I was immediately drawn to The Lovers by Vendela Vida. The premise of a woman going on vacation to a village by the sea and the title suggest that this story might romanticise travel (and thus might be a good beach/vacation read). Instead, The Lovers is a character driven, psychological study of a woman burdened by memories and guilt, who is trying to navigate the world after her husband's death. Traveling alone to a foreign and bewildering country becomes a metaphor for how one survives loss of a loved one and eventually, how to find one's self.
The narrative is tensely drawn and, just like real travel, is tinged with the possibility of danger at every corner. Will she be taken advantage of? What are the hidden motives of those she meets? Here, Turkey is depicted as beautiful, run down in some places, strange, and slightly threatening. This is not a lighthearted book that celebrates travel - rather it makes one uneasy.
You know something profound is going to happen to Yvonne, possibly something tragic. Vida builds the psychological suspense so effectively that the unforgettable ending threw me off completely. I am still mulling over it and can't decide exactly what happened. Which doesn't mean it wasn't satisfying, more unexpected.
November 15, 2013
Op de weegschaal, deze. Het ene schaaltje heet 'goed' (niet excellent, helaas) en het andere schaaltje heet 'gekunsteld'. Het komt nooit in balans met een voordeel voor het een of het ander.
Goed: - De opening van het verhaal. - De achtergrond van een huwelijk dat een tweeling voortbracht, waarbij de vrouw (Yvonne) haar hart verpandt aan de dochter en de man aan de zoon en ze elkaar nooit kunnen overtuigen van hun keus. - Het lastige aan het alleen op vakantie zijn in een land (Turkije) waar herinneringen aan de vroegere huwelijksreis inmiddels zijn weggevaagd, en de bewoners en toeristen die je ontmoet moeilijk zijn in te schatten en te verstaan.
Gekunsteld: - De manier waarop ontelbare voorvallen symbolisch moeten zijn voor de ontwikkeling van de hoofdpersoon of de plot, het ligt er te dik bovenop. - De manier waarop de bijfiguren zich aan Yvonne vastklampen voor 'openhartige' gesprekken, terwijl die geprekken eigenlijk alleen voor Yvonne uiteindelijk verhelderend zijn. - De realisatie op het eind: de dochter, die altijd als de zwakke beschreven wordt (wispelturig, manipulatief, verslaafd) maar van wie Yvonne meer houdt dan wie dan ook, blijkt in de laatste tien pagina's ineens al jaren de reddende engel te zijn geweest en wordt dat in de laatste zin ook nog eens letterlijk.
Als je het verhaal leest als een reisgids voor afgelegen Turkije, geeft het een heel mooie en interessante insteek. Als je het leest als een psychologische roman, blijven de personages helaas alleen boekmensen.
Wipwap.
Goed: - De opening van het verhaal. - De achtergrond van een huwelijk dat een tweeling voortbracht, waarbij de vrouw (Yvonne) haar hart verpandt aan de dochter en de man aan de zoon en ze elkaar nooit kunnen overtuigen van hun keus. - Het lastige aan het alleen op vakantie zijn in een land (Turkije) waar herinneringen aan de vroegere huwelijksreis inmiddels zijn weggevaagd, en de bewoners en toeristen die je ontmoet moeilijk zijn in te schatten en te verstaan.
Gekunsteld: - De manier waarop ontelbare voorvallen symbolisch moeten zijn voor de ontwikkeling van de hoofdpersoon of de plot, het ligt er te dik bovenop. - De manier waarop de bijfiguren zich aan Yvonne vastklampen voor 'openhartige' gesprekken, terwijl die geprekken eigenlijk alleen voor Yvonne uiteindelijk verhelderend zijn. - De realisatie op het eind: de dochter, die altijd als de zwakke beschreven wordt (wispelturig, manipulatief, verslaafd) maar van wie Yvonne meer houdt dan wie dan ook, blijkt in de laatste tien pagina's ineens al jaren de reddende engel te zijn geweest en wordt dat in de laatste zin ook nog eens letterlijk.
Als je het verhaal leest als een reisgids voor afgelegen Turkije, geeft het een heel mooie en interessante insteek. Als je het leest als een psychologische roman, blijven de personages helaas alleen boekmensen.
Wipwap.
September 14, 2010
I don't have a lot to say about this book. Regrettably, this character and her plight simply did not resonate with me. The premise seemed promising: a widow travels to Turkey after her husband's death to recapture the joy she experienced there on their honeymoon. (Vida did do a wonderful job in her depiction of this exotic setting.) Yvonne, the widow, also plans to join her son and troubled daughter for a cruise. In the meantime, she befriends a young Turkish boy and a number of other local characters. Bad things happen, and she spirals into despair. However, I never felt the true impact of her husband's death on Yvonne. Her grief was simply not palpable enough for me. This may be in part due to the fact that I had almost no sense of who her husband was. He was absolutely flat as a character. As a result, I couldn't understand the longing for connection that she seemed to have with Ahmet (the young Turkish boy). And ultimately, the most important "relationship"...that between Yvonne and her daughter...is revealed exclusively through Yvonne's ruminations (rather than via flashback scenes)and unfortunately does not become a focal point for the story until near the end. And the end, God the end. I won't spoil anything, but I was truly disappointed in the end.
April 10, 2010
Vendela Vida returns to the theme of her last novel: a women, broken by some recent tragedy in her family, travels to a foreign country where she is truly alone in her grief. Vida's last book was a real heartbreaker, and this one is no less gut-wrenching. But her characters are so complex that even as their worlds spiral downwards, there's something you can hold onto and identify with within so much sadness.
The main character in the Lovers returns to the scene of her honeymoon years later, after her husband has been "killed," and tries to make her way through a new coastal landscape and all the old conflicts her family has gone through over the years. The memories of the family get into deeper issues of parenthood, like the complicated mix of shame and pride parents can have for their children, moving the story from the present into a thorny past.
I loved the book--couldn't put it down for the two days I was reading it. Vida is really skilled at delving into the darkest elements of romantic and familial relationships without burying you in some relentless depression. The hope at the very end of the book is one of the most moving moments of the novel.
The main character in the Lovers returns to the scene of her honeymoon years later, after her husband has been "killed," and tries to make her way through a new coastal landscape and all the old conflicts her family has gone through over the years. The memories of the family get into deeper issues of parenthood, like the complicated mix of shame and pride parents can have for their children, moving the story from the present into a thorny past.
I loved the book--couldn't put it down for the two days I was reading it. Vida is really skilled at delving into the darkest elements of romantic and familial relationships without burying you in some relentless depression. The hope at the very end of the book is one of the most moving moments of the novel.
July 23, 2011
This book is so well written. I really enjoyed reading it. I was carried along by the story, wondering what would happen to this woman on her solo journey to a remote corner of Turkey. However, as it went along I wondered more and more where the story was going, what was the point? I finished the book and I still couldn't answer those questions.
As I said, the writing is so memorable and enjoyable, but the story was implausible at times and at those portions I lost interest in the main character. My mind began to wander as to whether or not the story was supposed to be believable or whether things had taken a turn for art's sake. I'm all for art, literature, poetry, but I was confused by this book. Certain plot points, like what was the whole thing about the owl? Ozlem is like an angel, but why? Is it really possible for a car to become so covered in road tar that it appears "dipped in chocolate"?
I would still recommend this book to any fiction fans, because of the level of writing.
As I said, the writing is so memorable and enjoyable, but the story was implausible at times and at those portions I lost interest in the main character. My mind began to wander as to whether or not the story was supposed to be believable or whether things had taken a turn for art's sake. I'm all for art, literature, poetry, but I was confused by this book. Certain plot points, like what was the whole thing about the owl? Ozlem is like an angel, but why? Is it really possible for a car to become so covered in road tar that it appears "dipped in chocolate"?
I would still recommend this book to any fiction fans, because of the level of writing.
January 6, 2012
She writes with such truth that I can't help but nod along with the analogies and moments the book points out, about people and how they think and what we say and do, and how words can just be so inadequate. That's what I love about this book.
While this book takes place in the beautifully described Turkey, it's not about the setting at all, but entirely about Yvonne, the main character who has lost her husband in the previous months and is still dealing with the aftereffects. There is no shallow resolution here, but the sometimes cold and hard facts of realistic life, and the emotions of a woman just getting through each day. But the ending did seem very abrupt to me, and while it's sweet, I felt it was a little to coincidental.
It's a very quiet book, and also very much a thinking book. It's one that I think I'd like to read again after some time has passed.
While this book takes place in the beautifully described Turkey, it's not about the setting at all, but entirely about Yvonne, the main character who has lost her husband in the previous months and is still dealing with the aftereffects. There is no shallow resolution here, but the sometimes cold and hard facts of realistic life, and the emotions of a woman just getting through each day. But the ending did seem very abrupt to me, and while it's sweet, I felt it was a little to coincidental.
It's a very quiet book, and also very much a thinking book. It's one that I think I'd like to read again after some time has passed.
July 8, 2010
I had high hopes for this book, which started off well, but eventually went off the rails. Yvonne is a widow who decides to take a return trip to Turkey--site of her honeymoon--to help ease the pain of the recent loss of her husband. She rents a large vacation home while there, a home belonging to a wealthy man who is married but keeps the home for his French mistress. What seems to be building as a story of intrigue (and maybe an act of passion to come) veers off into another story all together with an unsatisfying end. Gorgeous details of the people, food, and sights of Turkey.
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