I found this book overrated. The characters fell flat to me: the introverted sentimental incel-y young man and the manic pixie dream girl. Much like “500 days of summer”, if you ask me. A lot of self-absorption going on, and this wasn’t something I necessarily enjoy reading.
I read this book is supposed to be the epitome of yearning, and I was somewhat disappointed. The plot was predictable in the end, and I did feel sad, however the claiming that this is the greatest love story is straigh-up wrong.
The writing is fluid and overall it is an pleasant reading experience. The monologues of the characters were well-written and I found the discussed topics to be engaging, despite the unlikable character(s).
Summary (very bad, but I need to keep track of the main plot)
Narrator, lost his job for a while in the 1940s. Got employed by some friend of his as a clerk, and there he meets Rafaid, who is a German translator at the firm. He always seems so purposeless, so alone and inhibited. He gets sick often, and one day, the narrator comes to his house once to bring him some papers to translate. Rafaid asks him to bring his notebook and other belongings from the office.
In the notebook, we read the story of him when he was 24yo in Berlin, after the war, he is well off thanks to his dad, came here to study soapmaking. He is not that determined, spends days vesting galleries and whatnot, studying the language. There is a soap factory he goes to.
One day at one museum of art he sees this self portrait of a woman in a fur coat. He is transfixed by it. The artist sees him coming for days to visit the gallery and stare in front of it. The first conversation is teasing and goes awkwardly for the man - he does not recognize the artist, blurbed she reminds him of his mother, and she makes fun of him.
Some days later, Rafaid sees the woman in the portrait late at night, while he is going home to the pension. She works at this cabaret place “Atlantic”.
Maria tells him not to fall in love with her. She has view headstrong view of men and women, but tells him he seems different. They begin to have an intense platonic frienship. She initiated a kiss in one of those nights.
New Year’s day: they go to this place, dance a little, Maria got quite drunk. He finds her outside after 15 minutes, she was not dressed well. He walks her home, they wake up together. Maria gets mad, they have an argument about their relationship. Later on she falls ill, he goes to the hospital and helps her recover. It’s been 1 month or something,
Later on he gets a telegram from his brother - his father died.
Anyways Maria must go to Prague to her mother too, so she leaves first. At departure they make a promise, for her to come to Turkey and live together.
He got a wasteland from his father’s legacy.
They continue to write one another, Maria mentions she has something to tell him, which should happen in person, but suddenly her letters stopped. Not knowing the cause of the interruption, it’s been years, Rafaid marries and has children with someone else, whom he does not love. One day, he encounters the lady he was staying at the pension with, with a little girl, and tells him about Maria’s death, and the pregnancy. The 9yo girl is his daughter. He does not say anything, and they depart.
Rafaid dies and this notebook is burned.