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Fiction. Literature. Historical Fiction. HTML: To most people, Emmett Conn is a confused old World War I veteran, fading in and out of senility. But in his mind, Emmett is haunted by events he'd long forgotten. In his dreams, he's a gendarme, a soldier marching Armenians out of Turkey. He commits unspeakable acts. Yet he feels compelled to spare one remarkable woman: Araxie, the girl with the piercing eyes-one green, one blue. As the past and present bleed together in The Gendarme, Emmett Conn sets out on one final journey to find Araxie and beg forgiveness, before it's too late. With uncompromising vision and boundless compassion, Mark Mustian has written a transcendent meditation on the power of memory-and the dangers of forgetting who we are and have been..… (more)
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Emmett is diagnosed with a brain tumor and as his health worsens, he begins having vivid dreams of himself as a young man. Unusual because he was injured in WWI and has had amnesia of his early life every since waking up in a British hospital. The dreams are disturbing to him, and to the reader, because he begins to piece together that he had a role in the Armenian genocide. The novel switches back and forth between the present and the past, until Emmett Conn, or Ahmet Kahn, has difficulty staying in the present. Nor does he particularly want to, because in the dreams he can be with the young Armenian woman with whom he was passionately in love.
The plot drew me in from page one and never let go. In some novels, the shifts between past and present can be jarring, but not so here, where the old man's dreams are so integrated with his life, that they are nearly seamless. In addition, the characters are so well drawn, lifelike, and captivating that I felt as though I knew them, or wanted to. I sympathized with their situations, wanted them to find happiness, and despaired at their deparate circumstances.
And yet. And yet, Emmett Conn was a willing participant in the Armenian genocide. How can one reconcile such actions with the character one has grown to love? Is it possible to ever atone for such deeds? Can love for one transcend the cruelty to hundreds, thousands? Is it possible to move beyond the horror, either as a perpetrator, a victim, or a country? What role does memory play in atonement? Can love forgive even the worst of actions?
Although I rarely give a book five stars until I have been drawn to reread it at least once, I am incapable of giving this book anything less. It is an amazing novel that I recommend to everyone as a must read. It will be available in the US in September.
At its heart, the novel deals with powerful themes of inhumanity, guilt, absolution, and forgiveness. We learn the universal truth that good people are capable of great evil.
It tells the story of Emmett Conn, a 92-year-old immigrant Turkish-American who develops a brain tumor and starts remembering suppressed memories from his youth in Turkey. At that time, he was 17-years-old Ahmet Khan and served as a gendarme escorting a group of 2,000 Armenian deportees on a forced march out of the country. Only 65 deportees survive the ordeal. Along the way, there are horrific acts of inhumanity. Emmett Conn's recovered memories assault him in every more persistent streams of indistinct dreams. At first, he denies that these dreams reveal anything about his own personal past, but slowly he begins to understand the truth. We go along with him as he recovers the details of this journey, the details of his past. We learn about the atrocities that he and his fellow gendarmes committed. But most of all, we learn about the beautiful young Armenian girl, Araxie, who he loves and tries to protect.
I have read numerous academic and historical accounts concerning the Armenian Genocide—about the forced mass deportations and related deaths of hundreds of thousands of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Empire during World War I. It is generally agreed that these events occurred, but the Turkish government and many other nations deny that they constitute genocide. This book placed me in the emotional heart of this issue. It forced me to make up my mind. Personally, I am left with no doubt whatsoever that these events constitute genocide. But equally as strong, I am compelled to understand and forgive. Good men can do evil things—this is the central mystery of the human condition. This is something we all must all come to terms with.
The author is an accomplished storyteller and an astute literary talent. "Gendarme" is popular fiction, but it has strong literary overtones. The prose is crisp, fresh, and rich; best of all, it never gets in the way of the story. The action is taut and purposeful. As the story progresses there is an ever-quickening rhythm that compels the reader to find out how this strange story concludes.
Personally, I had problems with the ending. The ending read more like what you'd find at the end of a blockbuster movie rather than what you'd find at the end of a fine book dealing with such complex psychological and historical themes. But I am usually the odd person out on such matters. I suspect, in all likelihood, the ending will thoroughly please most readers of popular fiction.
The novel is exceptionally cinematic. I would not be surprised to see it adapted into a screenplay and made into a major motion picture. If this happened, I'd be one of the first to see it. I would also not be surprised to see this novel work its way onto major bestseller lists. Why? Because it is a good story; it is well written; and it is on a topic that is of interest to a wide range of readers.
I will recommend this book to my friends. It will make a terrific book club selection.
Emmett Conn aka Ahmet Kahn is 92 years old and has a malignant glioma, a type of brain tumor. He really wants to left alone to die but consents to treatment because of his daughter’s pleas. As the treatment goes on he recovers memories of his life prior to being retired in Wadesboro, Georgia. At first he doesn’t recognize his native language of Turkish. He had learned English in the U.S. and never wanted his children to speak it. Up to now, he could not remember anything of his time in the army or shortly afterwards. The book shifts back and forth from the past to the present skillfully.
Ahmet in his dreams meets Araxie, one of the Armenians being marched out of Turkey into Syria. She has one brown eye and one blue eye and he is captivated by her, at first because of her eyes and later because of her demeanor and behavior. Ahmet’s relationship with Araxie was one of constant change and learning from her.
Ahmet did commit atrocities during the march and the march more than decimated the group. Many were sick, killed or raped. There at first 2,000 Armenians in the group they were left and the numbers dwindled to only 65.
The story flows easily and there is a side story of his first wife and his children. When reading the book, I felt that I wanted to get away from his children. I didn’t feel comfortable with them. I couldn’t figure out my feeling towards his wife, Carol. The ending of the book amazed me.
I highly recommend this book to all who want to learn more about the Armenian Genocide in terms of emotions and memories, regrets, forgiveness and sorrow.
I definitely wasn't prepared for the amount of description of the violence and sexual acts that the main character and others participated in. Unfortunately, I've become a little desensitized to violence and vivid descriptions, but this book caused some weird dreams for me as well. It was also hard to switch between Emmett's flashbacks through his dreams and the present day at first.
Telling the story from the "immigrant" perspective was compelling. Emmett's struggle to answer the question of where he was from reminded the reader throughout the book what his mindset was. Before reading this book, I had no idea about the supposed genocide in Armenia and Turkey during World War II. Reading the author chat at the end of the book also informed me about the current day sensitivity towards this subject as well.
This book did his a note with me since I could easily see my grandfather, a World War II veteran who struggled with dementia at the end of his life, within Emmett's actions. I could relate to Emmett's daughter as she adjusted to her father's behavior.
While this book can be squeamish at times, it does take modern day themes and intertwines them with a historical setting that most of us are not familiar with.
Mustian expertly weaves together the two narratives, one the current life and the remembered times of Emmett Conn, the other the strikingly realistic dreams of the terrible journey out of Turkey with a band of suffering refugees riddled with merciless cruelty and an unexpected and forbidden love. The present day narration is a seemingly spot-on depiction of an aging widower. He recalls a life he considers to be well-lived, full of hard work and family. He wonders how he failed to pass on his hard-won life and rigid values to his two daughters who seem to care about him but fail to visit and seem all too willing to concede his care to strangers. He even makes wry, almost laugh out loud funny observations about his dearly departed wife's relatives, really the only relatives he himself has left.
The other narration fleshes out the details of an incident that is still a taboo topic for many Turks. It effectively transports us to a different time and a different place. It reveals the raw cruelty and the terrible suffering inflicted by the gendarmes on their captive refugees. At the same time, though, Mustian manages to put a very human face on a tragedy using a present-day narrator we have come to like who is seeing this all anew, but in a way that feels distinctly familiar. Emmett's disbelief and regret at the actions of his former self, Ahmet, casts the events in an atypical and disconcertingly sympathetic light as we even watch Ahmet change as he falls in love with this unusual girl that he never got the chance to apologize to.
The Gendarme is a brave and haunting portrait of yet another wartime tragedy that many would rather see pushed under the rug, but it is also a story of love that transcends even the worst circumstances. The Gendarme is a powerful book that definitely makes Mustian an author to watch.
The story is narrated by 92-year-old Emmet, who is suffering from a brain tumor that results in vivid dreams from his youth. Interestingly, he dreams in chronological order, so each time he sleeps, Emmett remembers another nugget from his past. He realizes he was a "gendarme" - a Turkish guard who escorted Armenian refugees out of Turkey into Syria. The conditions of the march were horrible with many Armenians dying along the way. He becomes entranced by an Armenian girl, and as they spend more time together, they begin a friendship and eventually fall in love.
The flashback/dream stories were well told and vivid with detail. Emmet was not perfect, and Mustian made no attempt to make him into a hero. The modern aspects of Emmet's life, though, felt very contrived and unbelievable to me. The story may have been better as a reflection of Emmet's past without the complications of his modern life. The ending especially was unrealistic and left me dissatisfied. Sometimes, it's better to not end a story with a pretty bow on it.
With that said, I would recommend The Gendarme for its historical research and storyline. Mustain wrote well and kept my interest. I will be curious to read what others think about his debut book.
"To those around him, Emmett Conn is an old man on the verge of senility. A World War I veteran, he's been affected by memory loss since being injured in the war. Now, at the end of his life,
In Emmett's dreams he's a gendarme, escorting Armenians from Turkey. A young woman among them, Araxie, captivates and enthralls him. She becomes the love of his life. But then the trek ends, the war separates them. He is injured. Seven decades later, as his grasp on the boundaries between past and present begins to break down, he sets out on a final journey, to find Araxie, and beg her forgiveness."
This is an amazing book. I tend to avoid war stories, but this is a war story like The English Patient is a war story or like the musical Miss Saigon is a war story. They are, of course, but they're also love stories and stories about loss and betrayal and the best and worst of humanity.
I cannot recommend this book enough.
This story alternates between Emmett’s life as it was, slowly revealed to him in his dreams, and his life as it is now. A life filled with doctors’ visits, his daughters growing concern for his physical and mental health, and the awful memories that begin to reveal themselves. It is a story of the horrors of war and the dangers of prejudice. It is also a story of forgiveness-of yourself and those who cause you harm. This is a remarkable novel.
Everyone should read this book at some point in their schooling or adult life. The lessons presented are too important to be ignored.
Emmett Conn is a ninety-two-year-old man, ex-gendarme, when he was young he escorted Armenians from Turkey before the World War I. During this perilous journey he met Araxie.
The book starts with a question: ‘Ninety-two years have passed - for what? For what?’ (p.5) And after this question follow several dreams of an old man, or are these dreams only memories?
Emmett and Araxie met the first time as in a dream, without contact: ‘What is your name? She does not respond, or if she does, her name is lost in the leaves.’ (p.12)
As Atom Egoyan has written in the advance praise for The Gendarme: ‘Ahmet Khan’s spiritual transition to Emmett Cann is emotionally resonant’; I’d say also Emmett transition to Ahmet. At the end of the book Ahmet and Emmett become one person, the ends of all stories become just one end.
After Ahmet becomes Emmett in America and the old man what happened? Why Emmett choose Carol instead of rescuing Araxie? Could be the following some of the answers?
‘Race and division and circumstance - these surmountable, all! ... I should speak, I should offer support for rebirth, transformation, but instead I am frozen, my tongue stilled and thick. What is my direction? My offer? ... I could blame the heavens, blame fate or luck or inheritance, but it is all to no gain. My shame is boundless, my guilt so heavy it overweight even truth!’ (p. 198)
‘I am from Turkey. I fought in the war. I was injured, then rescued. An immigrant. A father ... I was a gendarme, a ... murderer. That this is my shame.’ (p. 208)
Could shame affect a whole life? Maybe not, there is an answer at the end: ‘Things weave in and out. I am there, I am here. At the end the past is so great it intrudes like an army!’ (p. 274)
The past could be dangerous, but it’s great.
Until the last chapters I had many doubts about The Gendarme: Is this book too ‘cold’? I mean, written as a lecture about elderly people and old history.
Although the passages from one story (old Emmett) to another one (young Ahmet) seems a relieve of the pain of remembering or dreaming; I preferred the narration of the old Emmett: point of view of an old man like a camera that watches, records, and put down.
Mustian telling the deportation’s story on Turkey border is lacking of ‘spicy’: the deportation is narrated as a summary from history books, so I’d have preferred smell of horses, carpets full of sand, sounds of small bells from running horses, shouting, etc.
The novel provides a fascinating look at memory and perspective. Most interesting to me was the way in which the young Emmett justified his actions, and the tactics and messages that were used to justify racism, rape and murder. It's chilling to see how easily young men were convinced that a certain ethnic group was the enemy and how this dehumanized an entire population.
The novel is very well-written, and the back and forth between past and present is disorienting in a way that allows us to feel the confusion the way that Emmett must have felt it. The ending felt a bit rushed to me, and somewhat unbelievable in ways I can't articulate without spoiling it. Despite that, however, the novel as a whole was a very worthwhile read and serves to bring to life a buried part of history.
Mark Mustian's book however, has one glaring anachronism. It's main character, Ahmet Khan. He is 92 years old and suffering from a malignant brain tumor that triggers his return to memories of his participation in the unspeakable acts against the Armenians and his love for an enigmatic girl with mismatched eyes in his charge.
Ahmet or Emmet as he is called in America has a series of dreams that caause him to recall his long forgotten role in the conflict. It seems to have been a lawless time, with enemies among his own being more dangerous than the his apponents.
I was expected to suspend logic as the 92 year old cancer patient escapes after radiation treatments on a bicycle. Bicycles to a Grayhound Bus Depot, takes the bus to Tallahassee, hails a taxi to the airport, flies to Charlotte, and then rents a car and drives to New York City.
It would have served the story better if the author had placed the action twenty years sooner. And it would have eliminated the problem of him having found his enigmatic love deceased and then having her grandaughter assume the first person of Araxnie to tell her part of the story.
I was a little put off by his telling the story as if he was an unwitting participant, and later admitting to atrocities he committed as though it were someone else.
I am interested in history but when it seems impossible as it relates to the present it defeats the purpose.
The Gendarme is an excellent book club selection.
The events that Mustian (of Armenian descent himself) chooses to place this story around were another thing that I loved. The Armenian "genocide" (as many call it, though we never learn a thing about this horrific event in school) is a topic that has always fascinated me. As I just stated though, many schools (at leasts mine) don't teach about this event. I learned about it years ago through a song by a really awesome band who's lead singer's family is from Armenia. I don't know any other fiction books that use this very real event as a backdrop. Mustian did this all perfectly, and he also awakened in my history buff brain a hunger for more information on what happened in Turkey just before and during The Great War.
I highly recommend you read this book. It is extremely well written and different from so many other books I've read.
8 out of 10
This was truly an amazing book. It took me on a journey in many ways. I knew very little of the Armenian deportation from Turkey that took place prior to the First World War. However, having a Turkish Armenian friend I did have an inkling of the history, but
It began with our narrator and central character’s diagnosis with Glioblastoma Multiformae, and subsequent Radiation Therapy. As I am currently an Oncology Nurse in a Radiation Department this is something I treat on a daily basis and I found it most intriguing to see the experience and progression of this disease from the patient’s perspective. I also found it hard to fault on a clinical level and I was most sympathetic to the central character’s increasing retreat into a past that I also found more compelling than the bewildering, daily humiliation of becoming increasingly dependent on family and medical professionals. Even when he was held against his will in a psychiatric unit, I found the description to be detailed and authentic—and I am generally a merciless critic of medical drama, having previously worked in psychiatry for six years in New York.
I especially found the flashbacks to a London interesting as I have been researching nursing in the same period of time—as my grandmother was a nurse during this time and place and I trained to be a nurse myself in London, about twenty years ago. I could just imagine the Nightingale wards and the injured soldiers “back from the front” and I am particularly sympathetic as to how ill-equipped the nurses were to deal with so much of the pain and suffering in this time. It was convincing how Carol and Ahmet fell for each other in this context and strangely fulfilling that Ahmet ended up caring for her at the end of her own life.
Freedom of culture and identity are crucial to the story. It is a bold choice to tell this from the point of view of the captor—the Gendarme, and ironic that the tale is told at a time in his life that his own freedoms are being gradually whittled away by his physical and mental deterioration. Also mesmerizing, how sympathetic the Gendarme becomes to one of his charges, Araxie, ultimately deserting and plotting a new life in the place where all things are possible—America. The place where religious freedom is constitutionally protected, the only place where they can possibly imagine being together. It is skillfully handled how Ahmet shifts from captor to protector, then to admirer and ultimately to heartbroken lover. It is also perceptive that we gain insight from Emmet as exactly what his “freedom” in America has truly meant, the hard work, the small racist slights that he has tolerated over the years. As an immigrant into this country myself in a multiracial marriage, I have an appreciation of this.
I found the commentary on rape and prostitution to be intriguing—rape is evidenced as a weapon or war and prostitution is currency. At the same time, Ahmet (Emmet) protects Araxie’s innocence with his very life, her purity is something that he recognizes and is compelled to protect at all costs. Is she symbolic of her people for Mustian? Araxie is not naïve or ignorant. On the contrary, she is evidently educated and well-informed, easily an intellectual match for Ahmet.
There is a constant grappling with the concept of faith versus fate—indeed, if you accept the will of Allah are they one and the same? To what extent is one in control of one’s own destiny? How long must you trust in the will of God—especially in the face of an unfathomable reality? It was satisfying ultimately to see Emmet (Ahmet) take his own destiny into his own hands and go on his own pilgrimage to find the one he always loved.
The way in which we are treated to shards of memory as the story pieces together builds tension as we have the sense of time running out for Emmet. I thought this was a well-crafted story that served a broader purpose—to educate and compel the reader to think a little more deeply about the values that one holds with respect to identity, culture, religious belief, freedom and the freedoms that people are deprived of; both historically and in present day.
I knew very little about this period in history and learned a lot about it from this book and I would like to learn even more. I thought the author did a great job of making the reader feel what an elderly man in the last stages of his life might feel like - confused, regretful, detached, etc. At the same time, the younger version of Emmett Conn(Ahmet Khan)has a totally different voice - naive, headstrong, stubborn. Both story lines were compelling - it was hard to put this book down.
This is the story of human identity, both literally and figuratively, as 92-year-old Emmett Conn wakes up in an ambulance in the 1990’s in Wadesboro, GA. He is asked his name and the first word that forms in his mind is not in English, the first clue that begins our
Mustian writes Conn/Khan’s character through first person narrative, resulting in such a thorough, three-dimensional description that I feel like I’ve known him for years. The other characters are less well developed, but this serves well to focus our attention and emotions on Conn/Khan. As a gendarme in the early 1900’s who is responsible for bringing a group of Armenian refugees hundreds of miles on foot under horrific conditions Khan deals with issues of violence and suffering, sacrifice and kindness, and ethical dilemma unlike anything he will experience again. As an immigrant who has made a new life for himself as Conn in the US the themes of belonging, religious identity, racial identity, and East versus West resurface in very satisfying ways over and over again. At a family funeral gathering he thinks, “Others stand in the foyer, regarding me slyly through gaps in their eyes. It is always this way --- I am the foreigner, the outsider. My children have adapted but I never will. I accept this. I am accustomed to head turns, exclusion. I take in the flowers and ushers and programs, the people. I greet and smile, I am friendly. But my estrangement is magnified. I am a ghost here, a shadow. I am not one of them.” Questioning his life in the US he thinks about his torturous dreams of his past, “Are they glimpses of hell, of some afterlife just beyond? My life spent without God, without religion, and perhaps this is my consequence, to greet suffering with inaction, chained and observant, a man sentenced to watch a child’s slow, painful death. Punishing. Equalizing. Such a prideful, vengeful God this would be, a God of retribution, not mercy. Do I think I deserve more? There is innocence, denial, faithlessness, blasphemy. The emptiness of happenstance, nothingness. These seeds I have sown.” He thinks about how all people desire absolution from the wrongs they have committed.
Lest you think this book is all darkness and meditation, know that Ahmet Khan has a special relationship with a girl in his group, a girl with two colored eyes. During the war they become separated and he wakes up in a military hospital in London with no memory of who he is or where he came from. We accompany Emmett Conn on his mission to find out what happened to her.
Mustian does a great job of setting this story within the context of a still very contentious period of history. The evil men do results not from their national origin but from their faulty natures as humans. The good that men do results from the resilience of the goodness of the human spirit. Mustian uses the imagery of the sterile modern life against the rough natural environment of Khan’s early years very well. As we follow the character through loops of dream state and current state the environment immediately sets the stage for where we are in Emmett’s mind. The pace of the writing is perfect – I found myself wanting to slow my reading to be able to savor the moment, to savor the words, yet couldn’t read fast enough to find out what happens to my new dear friend, Emmett Conn.
There is an author’s note at the end of the book that clarifies Mustian’s interest in the Armenian forced exodus from Turkey. He is distantly Armenian himself and did the research necessary to be able to write about that time. He draws an interesting parallel between modern Turkey, which has made it a crime to mention the Armenian genocide, and Emmett Conn, who also rid himself of that part of his history by losing his memory of it. Mustian: “Remembering is living. Forgetting, as Ahmet Khans learns, has its costs. Decades on, even centuries on, our shared history remains vital, the connection, however tenuous, to some tribal sense of before. Time stretches and calms, but still we reach, for we belonged then. We want to know. Sometimes that knowledge is painful, or inconvenient, or even damning. But it is essential. It exposes us for what we have been, and can be.”
Nicely done.
When a brain tumor hits Emmett as an elderly widower, it brings with it memories that at first he doesn’t realize are his own – memories of being a gendarme, herding Armenians out of Turkey, participating in the horrific persecution and genocide of the Armenian people during WW I. As his memories become clearer and more insistent, Emmett must face up to the truth of his past – and the question of what happened to Araxie, the young Armenia girl with whom he formed an attachment. Can he live with the truth of who he was and what he did?
Before reading The Gendarme, I had never heard the story of the Armenian genocide. Historical fiction is one of my favorite genres to read, but it comes with the burden of discovering new-to-me atrocities that humans have perpetrated on one another throughout the ages. I am continually astounded by the depth of evil that resides in the human heart – and it is only in knowing that humans are also capable of great sacrifice and compassion and love that I find comfort.
Emmett is a perplexing character – there is such a dichotomy between the man he was as a gendarme in Turkey and the man he became in the United States. He prided himself on being a good husband, father, and provider, a hard worker and a moral citizen. His head injury during the war caused extreme memory loss, and yet I couldn’t help but wonder if, subconsciously, he was trying to atone for the terrible things he did as a gendarme. His reaction to the uncovering of his memories was intriguing – at first, he did not want to admit that they were memories, wanting to believe that these acts had been committed by someone else. He is left to wrestle with the most basic of questions: what kind of man is he?
Mustian’s first novel is astounding in both the beauty of the writing and the depth of story and character. He has brought to life an episode from history and yet done it the hard way – by writing from the perspective of perpetrator rather than victim, and yet still giving the reader a sympathetic character. And in the midst of the haunting story, he deals with issues like guilt, atonement, and forgiveness. Highly recommended.
The book is interesting; I have never read, or even heard, much about the Armenian genocide during the first World War (which, I suppose, is often overshadowed by the Holocaust, and which I have studied in much more detail, for the obvious reason of my history). I want to say that the book grabbed me, like it has so many other readers, but sadly, it really didn't. I found myself pushing through some of the chapters. I suppose that I found it nearly impossible to empathize with Emmett/Ahmet, because I went into the story knowing that he was a perpetrator, and I just can't bring myself to like him. Once again, I think that is because of my history.
The book is well-written, and it deals with the often-overlooked genocide of the Armenians. I'd recommend it, but I personally wasn't as drawn into the book as I wish I'd been.
In terms of language and writing style and even story, I found the modern day story of the ailing 92-year-old now-American immigrant Emmett Conn far more interesting and well-written than Ahmet's miserable life in 1915. Emmett's relationship to his daughter and grandson, his memories of his recently deceased, ailing wife, his struggles as an immigrant, his life in a institution, his relationship with the other patients... All of this was written very well, with stark images that were crisp and gripping. Emmett's memories of his shameful past were...more sentimental? Perhaps it is this shift in sentimentality that made me wish for more Emmett and less Ahmet? Perhaps also it is hard to write about a love story in the middle of such a horrendous situation without seeming a bit sentimental.
This beautifully-written novel was depressing but a page-turner. The ending seemed a little too pat. And I disliked his daughters. Some of the present-day incidents seemed a bit implausible, especially his drive to New York. I did wonder about a 17-year old as leader of a group of gendarmes; I thought that was very young for a position of responsibility.
Highly recommended. I felt it showed the endurance of love amidst obstacles.
Mark Mustian’s debut novel is a powerful story about a former Turkish gendarme and his role in the Armenian genocide that took place in Turkey during WWI. While his prose are lean the images he evokes are vivid,
Emmett Conn was wounded in Gallipoli during WWI and lost most of his memory prior to that time. He goes on to marry an American woman and immigrates to the U.S., where he becomes assimilated in American life and culture. It isn’t until he is diagnosed with a brain tumor when he is 92 that he begins dreaming of his life before the war. His vivid dreams tell the story of himself as a young Turkish gendarme, Ahmet Khan, in charge of leading 2,000 Armenians out of Turkey and into Syria. The journey is horrendous, filled with killing, disease, starvation, rape and torture. Of the 2,000 Armenians that begin the journey only about 65 reach their final destination (his was only one of many caravans that made this same death march). During this long trek he falls in love with an exotic looking young Armenian woman, Araxie, whom he protects and cares for, but ultimately can not hold on to.
While many of the reviews call this a love story pointing to an enduring love that crosses lines of race, religion, adversity, war, and even time, I can only see a thread of a love story somewhere among the ruins. Ultimately my take away from this book is man’s inhumanity to man. Is there another animal on the planet that commits genocide on its own species because a particular part of that species is a different color or religion (yes, I know it is absurd to think of animals as being religious)?
I read a lot of books that deal with war, misery, and the human condition, but I have to say this is one of the more depressing ones I’ve read; one horrible thing happens after another, even in the present day storyline. Having said that though, I think this is an important book, one that gave me greater insight into a part of history I knew little about. Mustian can be sure that after reading this no one will forget there was an Armenian Genocide, and perhaps by remembering we will not be destined to repeat it.