Peasants as victims, peasants as heroes : They Burn the Thistles

A relatively short but thoughtful discussion at book group last night of Kemal's "They Burn the Thistles," with pretty much all of us agreeing the book was unusual, difficult to get into at first (largely because of the unfamiliarity of the background, history, places, and especially the names, many of which are ridiculously similar), but ultimately worth reading. I was probably at the lowest end of the enthusiasm spectrum, as I found the pacing of the whole novel rather strange - a fast-action story of a superhero or a Western lone gunslinger type slowed down by much topical description and lots of repetition - I wasn't surprised it (or at least its predecessor in 4-book series) was a movie and as a novel it could have been half the length. M noted that the setting is almost like a character in the book, and I would agree but found the topical descriptions poorly integrated into the narrative - they stand out and apart. (I've been reading Proust, which is all about description, but at least it's of a piece.) Some discussion of the politics of the novel: clearly Kemal's sympathies are entirely with the peasants, and LR reported the Kemal is a progressive leftist, a brave stance in Turkey, especially during the 60s-70s, but I did raise the question whether he's off base in imagining that the peasants ever really had it so great before arrival of the new government and in fact whether it isn't a bit reactionary for him to depict the peasants as helpless victims waiting for a savior (Memed). We greatly enjoyed the comic names Kemal gives to many of the characters (Bald Hamza, Lame Ali, et al.) - much like today's mobsters.