Istanbul

ISTANBUL, the final volume of the Istanbul Triptych, concludes the narratives of characters from its predecessors Byzantium, and Constantinople as well as digging into the deep past of an ancient place. Mustafa of the first two books faces his greatest challenge yet, in which not only his wits are put to the test but his own capacity for sympathy and mercy. The final chapter in the career of the poet Mehmet Aral is told through a series of interviews with those closest to him. Meanwhile the central building of the city, Hagia Sophia, tells the tale of her origins through her many incarnations in her own voice, and the mythological Jason takes his crew of Argonauts through the Bosphorus and lays down what may be the first stones of the city to come. On top of all this, you, the reader, pay a visit to a fortune teller who does her best to explain why you have come to this strange and bewildering city.

As always, the stories are told in a variety of narrative styles. The common theme of the five different threads is destiny (of a traveler, of an artist, of a house, of a church, of a city) and the degree to which we possess or lack agency over our individual fates. Istanbul’s characters grapple with the meaning or meaninglessness behind the trajectories their lives have taken.

The source material ranges from ancient Greek mythology to Byzantine history, but Istanbul will appeal to readers who enjoyed the inanimate object-narrators of Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red, modern re-tellings of myths like Madeline Miller’s Song of Achilles, or the faux “found footage” approach of House of Leaves.