Bliss by O. Z. Livaneli

In order to paint a picture of the divergent beliefs in contemporary Turkey, author Livaneli takes the reader into the lives of three different characters in his novel Bliss.  Meryem, fifteen years old, has just been raped by her uncle, a sheik in her small village.  She is locked in a barn as her family waits for her to commit suicide, thereby clearing the family of any shame she has brought on them.  Cemal, her cousin, returns home from the Turkish army where he has been fighting against the Kurds, one of whom is his childhood friend Memo.  Since Meryem will not hang herself, Cemal is given the task of "taking her to Istanbul," committing the honor killing himself.  But along the way, he falters and is not able to do it.  With this shame on his head, he cannot return to the village, so he and Meryem struggle to find a way of life outside of their home.

Interrupting the story of Meryem and Cemal is the story of Professor İrfan Kurudal.  Plagued by a need to get away from his life in Istanbul, İrfan leaves his job at the university, his beautiful wife, and his city behind as he goes on a sailing adventure.  He is definitely trying to run away from something, it is not yet obvious what.


Meryem and Cemal both begin the fundamentalist beliefs with which they've been raised as they travel through Turkey.  When they join İrfan on his boat, Meryem sheds her beliefs as she sheds her headscarf and thick traditional clothing, while Cemal clings to his beliefs and gradually becomes an outsider.  


School Library Journal classifies this book as "adult/high school."  It does have some very difficult subjects, including rape, sex, violence, politics, and religion.  But Bliss is a wonderful story about examining culture and coming to terms it.  Livaneli pushes the boundaries of the believable as he introduces the myriad of character types in this novel, yet the overall effect is a complex picture of what Turkey is like today.