In the Falling Snow by Caryl Phillips

m z ? es p H < w H h-J Q pfj O dor. Shortly before the engagement ceremony, Kemal falls in love with F?sun Keskin, an eighteen-year old distant family member from a lower-middle-class family who works at a shop called ?anzelize Boutique. Their passionate love affair ends abruptly when F?sun disappears after KemaFs engage ment ceremony. As Kemal realizes the extent of his infatuation with her, F?sun has already been mar ried off toan aspiring young screen writer and director, Feridun, and in themeantime, Sibel and KemaFs engagement crumbles under the burden of KemaFs ever-growing obsession with F?sun. Thereafter, the novel revolves around KemaFs romance-like quest for the subject of his desire, their celibate/chaste relationship for 1,593 nights, a brief reunion before F?sun's tragic, Grace Kelly-like death, and ultimately KemaFs mourning via his museum project. What is woven into this cli ch?d love story between a wealthy businessman and a beautiful, poor (but proud) young girl is the pro tagonist's profound and at times satirical depiction of theupper class in Istanbul, their consumer habits, sense of fashion, and ideas on love, sex, and marriage. While KemaFs "westernized," upper-class scopo philia reveals his objectifying of F?sun, thenovel makes itclear that economic factors and class differ ences determine the "Western" or modern identity of the Turks and ultimately segregate them. Interspersed with nostalgic allusions to Pamuk's previous nov els, The Museum of Innocence once again makes a rather traditional association between East and West. Kemal doesn't develop an under standing of the poverty and lower class sociocultural habits of F?sun and her family, F?sun's agony in the novel is eclipsed by Kemal's portrayal of her purely as a subject of desire, love, and affection. Identi fiedwith themuseum of innocence is thatclassless space where all con structions/divides of Western/East ern, modern/traditional are shed and F?sun and Kemal can indeed be happy. This space created for thehappiness ofKemal and F?sun, however, is created, ideologically, ifnot ethically and economically, in questionable terms. This museum that will represent thedesired unifi cation and affectionate love affairof these two people is constructed of objects that are mostly taken from Orhan Pa m u k The Museum of Innocence F?sun's household?objects that have use-value and practical impor tance for the family,ormore impor tantly, emotional value. (After all, how can Kemal know that the same objects he adores were not adored by the familymembers fora similar reason? These objects may consti tute theirfamilialhistory aswell.) In this sense, the museum of innocence and its method of construction par allel the typical Western colonial ideology thatdominates or exploits S?f;S?l the East. The bridge Kemal tries to S?S?-Si build from Nisantap to?ukurcuma doesn't allow for the "non-westernBi ^^ ized" F?sun to cross to the other WM^M side. Viewed from the perspective of class and poverty, F?sun and llfSSi KemaFs tragic love story is thereiSS ^?| fore reminiscentof, if not analogous SlSp^ to, theproblematic and unresolved Sl^il relationship between the East and ?flSf*M the West.iBflpI IclalCetin '^M&?k SUNYFredonia 'IIBl? CarylPhillips. Inthe FallingSnow.||p|f$|| New York. Knopf. 2009. 308 pages. S^vf $25,95. ISBN 978-0-307-27256-0 pftl IIS At theendofCarylPhillips'srecent |?^f^l somber novel, In the Falling Snow, 'ir-;;'-.. ' j bedroom. After his father's death earlier that day, Keith has learned ^^?| that his teenage son's girlfriend is // V \| pregnant. A return to his wife's bed could provide welcome relief|pS?i| from the troubles Keith has expe- felS^ rienced, but Phillips astutely with- .' - ; holds comfort. "There is no reason IliSISl forhim to spend a night here. . . . Sf??if^ He will tellher this when she comes back upstairs. He lies back on the pillowand . . .hearsherfootsteps pP^lI as she begins towalk slowly up the H^v?l stairs." Throughout Phillips's fiej |S8lll tion and nonfiction, he focuses on people who, likeKeith in thenovel's fife -. \ final sentence, are caught between S?SP?j places, desires, and circumstances flp4|| of history. As a black man, Keith sometimes-feelsoutofplaceinEngjfgj land, but more profoundly he feels ?V^S? out ofplace in the lifehe findshim self living.Steadily and convincing- Ily;; '--r-i ly,Keith's ordered and successful W^?^M life falls apart. Charged with sexual harassment afterhe ends a consen- !/W:^5?? suai relationship with a coworker, US IIIIIIIIIIIIIHIIIIIflllllllllllllllM 68 i WorldLiterature Today ?^fe^ I, Keith resigns from his job, half 1 heartedly attempts towrite a book , on black American music, develops 1 "an unbecoming obsession" with a I much younger Polish immigrant, [ and struggles unsuccessfully to con i nect with his son. Standing in the , London neighborhood where he and his wife moved twenty years , earlier,Keith thinks,"the truthis,he 1 liked the area better then; in fact,he I liked his lifebetter back then." 1 Occasionally, Phillips goes I astray. The role of Danuta, the Po [ lish woman, is underdeveloped. ? While Phillips includes incommu , nicative men inmost of his fiction, 1 his solution here?Keith's otherwise I taciturn father narrates his life in 1 lengthy monologues?is unconvinc i ing, and the details of the father's [ story are overly familiar. Phillips I is at his best when he sticks to the , quiet moments and small details of I Keith's life.He elegantly handles a , complicated time scheme, shifting 1 smoothly between Keith's present I and memories of his past. Time in 1 general seems topreoccupy Phillips. I Keith, in his forties, seems stuck , between the energy and purpose of I youth and an aimless and resigned I middle age. With appealing melan 1 choly, Keith wonders "if indecision I really is a sign of ageing," nicely 1 suggesting Caryl Phillips's recur i ring interest in ambivalence. [ Jim Hannan I LeMoyne College I1 Matthias Politycki. Jenseitsnovelle. I Hamburg. Hoffmann & Campe. 2009. 1 126 pages. 15.95. isbn 978-3-455 ! 40194-3 I As the title Jenseitsnovelleindicates, , Matthias Politycki (b. 1955) has 1 appropriated German literary tradi , tion, with the "unheard-of event" authorof Dancing intheDark ^^^E^^^^^J place even before the action of the novella proper begins. A woman who has spent her lifefearingdeath, who married a man because he promised, should, he die first, to accompany her to the other side (Jenseits)?a promise renewed on each wedding anniversary forgoing on three decades?has died. One autumn morning Hinrich Schepp, inhis early sixties and still a Privat dozent in ancient Chinese philol- E ogy, entershis study, troubled by an E unpleasant smell. Perhaps Dora, his E wife, forgot to change thewater in E thevase of flowers?Dora, herself a E sinologistwho gave up her career to E bewife andmother, appears tohave E fallen asleep at Schepp's desk while E editing one ofhismanuscripts. E No, something more alarming E has occurred: Dora is dead. The E March-April 2010 i69

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