At the Breakfast Table
by Defne Suman
Translated by Betsy Göksel
Stories are never forgotten, Sadik, they merely stay silent inside us, that’s all. The time comes, some pressure is exerted, the passages open, and the past flows into the present.
Defne Suman’s At the Breakfast Table is set in contemporary Turkey, precisely in the summer of 2017 on the island of Büyükada. Sirin Saka, once a prominent Paris-trained painter and alleged lover of Jean-Paul Sartre, is approaching her hundredth birthday, and her family converges onto her summer residence to celebrate this event. However, her grandson Fikret, son of Sirin Saka’s now-deceased daughter Suheyla, has plans of his own. He is obsessed with discovering the history of his great-grandfather, Sirin Saka’s father Nuri, who remains a shadowy figure in his family’s past. Partly for this reason, he invites a close family friend, investigative journalist Burak, to interview Sirin Saka, in the hope that this will uncover secrets buried for generations – secrets intertwined with momentous happenings in 20th Century Turkish history.
At the Breakfast Table is based on the concept of collective memory, the idea that traumatic events in the past can affect not only the direct participants, but also their descendants and entire communities. Although this theory may verge on the esoteric, it certainly provides much narrative scope. Suman uses it as a basis for a generational saga in reverse in which layers of recent history are peeled away to revel the sore at the source of contemporary ills.
This story is presented through the point of view of four characters, whose perspectives alternate throughout the book. Suman does a very good job of differentiating between the voices of her narrators, which are convincingly rendered in Betsy Göksel’s flowing translation. There’s Burak – intelligent, confident but quite narcissistic. There’s his on-and-off lover Nur, Fikret’s sister, who comes across as principled, passionate, and emphatic with the plights of others, but also somewhat conflicted and hesitant. Celine, Fikret’s daughter, brims with youthful and somewhat naïve enthusiasm. And then there’s the dependable, ancient butler Sadik, faithful servant and companion of Sirin Saka, depositary of uncomfortable secrets and memories. The different viewpoints generally work and complement each other well, although admittedly at some points the strategy becomes rather clunky, particularly when Suman needs to involve other characters (such as Sirin Saka or the tragic figure of Suheyla) who do not have their own “voice” and whose storylines therefore have to be incorporated in the narratives of one or more of the other actors in the saga.
The pace of the novel is quite leisurely – sometimes possibly too much so – with the latter part of the book suddenly picking up as revelations are made. The occasional longueurs, however, are compensated for by the sheer sensuality of the narration. While its basis is a philosophical, quasi-mystical one, this novel engulfs the senses in a celebration of “earthy” pleasures. There are copious descriptions of the taste, smell and texture of food; references to music and dance (from Albinoni to folk music to Massive Attack); evocations of the fragrance of the sea, of herbs, of incense, of pine; the vibrant colours of nature and of Sirin Saka’s art, and; last but not least, erotic but tasteful lovemaking scenes.
This is a poignant
exploration of a painful and sometimes controversial historical subject, done
in an ultimately hopeful and life-affirming way.
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