Here is the life of an ordinary Turkish man, a master tambour player of local fame, whose life stretches from Istanbul to Beirut because of his obsessive love for Maryam. We witness the fading of this love with the passage of time and changing of circumstances, bringing us closer to this man than to many other modern protagonists.
''A few hours after the incident, Aziz Bey went home. He sat for a while in the light of a blinking bulb that settled over the room like a grave illness, and with eyes brimming with tears that just could not fall, he looked at a shattered moonlight that was reflected in the dirty waters of the Golden Horn..''
The writing of Ayfer Tunç is in essence urban, and yet she manages to imbue her characters with a fragile humanity and an old-fashioned sense of the melancholy of modern life. Aziz Bey is at once the most genuine and the saddest of all her heroes. Here we see the life of an ordinary Turkish man, a master tambour player of local fame, whose life stretches from Istanbul to Beirut because of his obsessive love for Maryam. We witness the fading of this love with the passage of time and changing of circumstances, bringing us closer to this man than to many other modern protagonists. With the soft touch of an accomplished writer, the life of this singular musician is laid bare in all its sweetness and mediocrity, until we are almost sure that we might catch a glimpse of him next time we visit the vibrant, all-night bars of Istanbul.
