Ayse Kulin; trans. John W. Baker
Last Train to Istanbul by Ayse Kulin, translated by John W. Baker, alternates between France and Turkey in the years between 1940-1943 and includes the Nazi occupation of France.
The focus is on Selva, the Muslim daughter of a prominent Turkish pasha. Because she married a Turkish Jew against her father’s wishes, Selva and her husband move to France to start a new life for themselves. When the Nazis occupy France and begin rounding up the Jews, Selva works with Turkish diplomats in France to smuggle Turkish and non-Turkish Jews out of Nazi-occupied territories to find safe harbor in Turkey. The non-Turkish Jews are furnished with fake identity papers by the Turkish Consulate and are taught a smattering of Turkish words to bluff the Nazi officials. Their harrowing journey through enemy lines takes place on the last train to Istanbul.
The secondary thread, which occurs in Turkey, involves Selva’s sister, Sabiha, and her husband, a diplomat working in the foreign ministry. As Turkey tries to retain its war-time neutrality in spite of intense pressure to enter the war, Sabiha’s marriage seems to be falling apart. She misses her sister and feels estranged from both her husband and her daughter. Eventually, she seeks the assistance of a therapist.
Although the story had a lot of potential, the execution was very poor. Some of the problems may have been due to the translation. The writing was stilted and riddled with clichés; the dialogue was stiff and unnatural. There was too much exposition throughout, and whole sections which explain Turkey’s diplomatic maneuvers to remain neutral during the war were better suited to a history book. The main characters were not well developed. They are portrayed stereotypically, acting and speaking as mouthpieces, not as individuals. Lengthy back stories were attributed to several minor characters on the train, but since they did little to advance the narrative, their presence was an unnecessary digression. There were a lot of dangling threads, including Sabiha’s marital crisis and her sessions with her therapist, all of which made no sense, went nowhere, and detracted from the main focus.
Once the characters got on the train, the novel’s pace picked up. There were fewer digressions. The focus shifted to the journey—the strongest part of the book. Tension was palpable as the passengers navigated through each train stop in Nazi territory. They endured the many document checks along the way and were able to survive through quick-thinking and collaboration. But although the last section of the novel was handled relatively well, it did not redeem the novel as a whole.
It is unfortunate that a story as important as Turkey’s role in helping Turkish and non-Turkish Jews escape from Nazi-occupied Europe should suffer from poor writing and poor execution.