≫ PDF Orhan Inheritance Aline Ohanesian Books

Orhan Inheritance Aline Ohanesian Books

Download As PDF : Orhan Inheritance Aline Ohanesian Books

Orhan Inheritance Aline Ohanesian Books

I don't often give five stars for a book but this one would get ten from me. As an avid genealogist I was immersed in this story from the very beginning. We too often forget or, sadly, don't even think about events that shaped our lives even though we did not live them. Interwoven in this story is a main character who has no idea about his own country's genocidal history but has experienced a subsequent form of political intolerance that landed him in prison. Finding his way to the truth took a convoluted turn when his grandfather, Kemal, dies. Kemal only appears in a few chapters of the story but his presence is always near because he did not forget the history he lived and he sought to remedy history, at least within his own family. By doing so he opened a new aspect of the world to Ohan, and although unspoken, sent a message of love to Lucine. I was surprised to learn that this is the first book by the author and is based on a story she heard as a child from a family member. It is simply written with just the bare facts needed to carry the story. After reading several reviews I was not sure what I would find. Some called it a romance. Yes there is romance but it is also a gentle yet gritty tale of survival on both sides of the fence and how the act of surviving has an immense impact on peoples lives. I could not put it down and woke up each morning thinking about the nuances of the story and empathizing with all of the characters, especially since genocide and ignorance about ones own past, be it individually, nationally or culturally, is still an issue in the world. We don't have to experience genocide, prejudice and hate to know it but we can empathize and listen to the voices thereby learning and hopefully changing our future for the better. A wonderful book.


Tags : Amazon.com: Orhan's Inheritance (9781616203740): Aline Ohanesian: Books,Aline Ohanesian,Orhan's Inheritance,Algonquin Books,1616203749,Domestic fiction,Domestic fiction.,Family secrets,Family secrets;Fiction.,Family-owned business enterprises,Historical fiction,Inheritance and succession,Inheritance and succession;Fiction.,Los Angeles (Calif.),Turkey,AMERICAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,Cultural Heritage,ETHNIC AMERICAN NOVEL AND SHORT STORY,FICTION Cultural Heritage,FICTION General,FICTION Sagas,Fiction,Fiction - General,Fiction-Coming of Age,FictionCultural Heritage,FictionHistorical - General,FictionLiterary,GENERAL,General Adult,Literary,Sagas,Turkey; Armenia; Armenian genocide; Bellwether prize finalist; debut; historical fiction; european history; immigration; books about immigrants; genocide,Turkey;Armenia;Armenian genocide;Bellwether prize finalist;debut;historical fiction;european history;immigration;books about immigrants;genocide,United States

Orhan Inheritance Aline Ohanesian Books Reviews

There is a lot to like in this book, especially its effort to tell the story of Armenian genocide and to paint a picture of a world long gone -- Armenian Anatolia. It should be remembered, of course, that Armenians were persecuted and murdered throughout their historical range, and the world is poorer for their absence. The powerful message of this fiction is that the memory of history is fundamental to its interpretation, and such memory can be -- and I suppose always is -- distorted by the lens of time and historical bias. To my way of thinking, though, in the case of the Armenian story during the two decades on either side of the turn of the 20th century, truth is better than fiction. And that's my complaint about this novel. The difficulty with Orhan's Inheritance is a wooden, polemical style when Ms. Ohanesian tries to tell the political story of Turkey in WWI and the abysmal treatment of Armenians at the time. This extends to the modern Turkish state's refusal to acknowledge the genocide, treated almost apologetically by Orhan, the principal character in the book. Likewise, the soap opera plot is too much. Stipulating the need to humanize such tragedies, one feels that the coming-of-age-while-starving-and-being-raped narrative demeans rather than individuates the true theme of the book the dehumanization and murder of a people. For me, the story of Armenia is better told by Karnig Panian in his GOODBYE, ANTOURA or Peter Balakian's powerful history THE BURNING TIGRIS. Ms. Ohanesian's own comments on the origin of the novel are in some ways more powerful than the product itself, which is too bad.
Ohanesian does a good job of making the plight of the Armenians exiled from Turkey come to life. I liked the book and particularly the characters of Orhan and Kemal. The book is well-written, but the author is trying to do so much that inevitably some things fall through the cracks. The ending seemed rushed and became a philosophical debate between Orhan and Anni. When the plot twists are revealed, I felt we needed to see the events leading Seda to leave Turkey, i.e. where did the love for her husband go; how did she and her brother arrive here. On the other hand, the author made clear the necessity of an admission from Turkey of the guilt they bear for the exile and death of the Christian Armenians. The psychology that requires that admission was finally clear to me. Another example of evil done in the name of God, as if we needed any more.
I'm giving this book 3 stars primarily because it gave me insight into a historical period about which I had known very little. I was sadly fascinated with the parallels between this genocide and the Holocaust, from the threatening winds leading up to the nightmare to the nightmare itself. I also thought that it was a fairly compelling read. I didn't find it boring, certainly not for the first two-thirds or so of the novel.

But after that I started to feel manipulated by the author into a grief that, yes, is more than justified but oddly attenuated by the the almost romance genre that she sneaked in to the latter part of the book. Stereotypes that I was willing to overlook became tedious, and the plot became muddy and confusing.

I am not sorry, though, that I read this novel.
I don't often give five stars for a book but this one would get ten from me. As an avid genealogist I was immersed in this story from the very beginning. We too often forget or, sadly, don't even think about events that shaped our lives even though we did not live them. Interwoven in this story is a main character who has no idea about his own country's genocidal history but has experienced a subsequent form of political intolerance that landed him in prison. Finding his way to the truth took a convoluted turn when his grandfather, Kemal, dies. Kemal only appears in a few chapters of the story but his presence is always near because he did not forget the history he lived and he sought to remedy history, at least within his own family. By doing so he opened a new aspect of the world to Ohan, and although unspoken, sent a message of love to Lucine. I was surprised to learn that this is the first book by the author and is based on a story she heard as a child from a family member. It is simply written with just the bare facts needed to carry the story. After reading several reviews I was not sure what I would find. Some called it a romance. Yes there is romance but it is also a gentle yet gritty tale of survival on both sides of the fence and how the act of surviving has an immense impact on peoples lives. I could not put it down and woke up each morning thinking about the nuances of the story and empathizing with all of the characters, especially since genocide and ignorance about ones own past, be it individually, nationally or culturally, is still an issue in the world. We don't have to experience genocide, prejudice and hate to know it but we can empathize and listen to the voices thereby learning and hopefully changing our future for the better. A wonderful book.