“The Anthropologists” by Ayșegül Savaș (New York: Bloomsbury P, 2024)
For those who’ve lived abroad for extended periods, Aysegül Savaș’ “The Anthropologists” depicts that familiar feeling of trying to integrate oneself into another culture — having “native” friends, a local bar, a rapport with shopkeepers. At the same time, there is the fear of adopting the values of the new locale to the extent that one becomes a “stranger” to family back home. The narrator/protagonist Asya and her husband Manu are foreigners in a new city and from different cultures themselves. They search for home and family through shared experiences and friends they meet. There are echoes of Jhumpa Lahiri in trying to penetrate a chosen place as well as Annie Ernaux in studying markers of culture. Certain chapter titles are repeated and evoke the anthropologist’s eye: “Principles of Kinship,” “Fieldwork,” and “Courtship.”
As part of their quest to live sturdier, more meaningful lives, Asya and Manu decide to buy an apartment. Several chapters called “Future Selves” — the title of Savaș’ short story that was the basis for this book — treat visits to potential dwellings along with personal, philosophical concerns about changing one’s lifestyle. Through these appointments and other outings in the city, Asya interrogates the choices we make and the rituals we follow in our search for a good life.
There is a mystery to this place. The unnamed city where Asya and Manu live becomes a character itself. “[T]he city seemed alluring,” they felt, upon arrival there (2). In an interview with Amy Omar, Savaș explains that rather than the feeling one gets from a specific city she wanted to focus on “the experience of being estranged.” Yet the reader wonders about possible models for this place, with its many plazas, bars, and bookshops. This interest in cities was already apparent in Savaș’ first novel, “Walking on the Ceiling.” In a scene from that work, the protagonist is writing about cities for a magazine, some already famous and others trendy. We read: “I’ve become accustomed to summing them up — plazas, cathedrals, restaurants, myths — packing them tight with charm, inventing superlatives” (160-161). Something of that enchantment emerges in “The Anthropologists” as well, as Savaș, who has lived in many places, creates a poetic metropolis for Asya and Manu.
This is also a work of art about a work of art. Asya has a grant to make a documentary. She decides to focus on the daily life in this city, “its unremarkable grace” (5), specifically happenings in a local park. There are women doing stretches, people lying about, and the lake at sunrise. She reasons that people’s “uniqueness [is] most apparent in everyday acts, in the banal rather than the extraordinary” (36-37). When Asya and Manu eventually find the apartment they’ll buy, the importance of the ordinary comes to the fore. Asya reflects: “I could suddenly see us there, with our couch and dishes and towels” (131). We hear echoes of realist cinematic and literary traditions and the many artists of everyday life. Indeed, Savas explains to Omar that one character in the text, the Great Dame, is based on the French filmmaker and documentarian Agnès Varda.
This is also a story about growing up. Asya and Manu met while in college. Now, many years later, they gradually embrace adult life. They can choose their luxuries — pastries in the morning or a Sunday afternoon film: “We’re adults, goddammit, Manu said, which was one of our sayings” (57). In their playful tone, one recognizes their youth and this transitional phase. They look toward the future: the apartment they choose is where they may grow old, this place where “the time for playing games was over” (178).
Savaș’ striking images capture the reader’s imagination. Consider, for example, how she conjures up Asya and Manu’s different backgrounds: “[W]e’d always known that wherever we lived would require us to change. There was no place where we could feel at ease, no language that, after so many years, we could sink into like a deep sleep” (12). Yet Asya feels secure with Manu, “like being indoors during a downpour” (80).
We are lulled by Savaș’ sober, rhythmic prose and the lazy pace which Asya and Manu seem to enjoy, particularly with their friend Ravi, who often accompanies them. At the park, they lounge on the grass, drink beer, and absorb the “slow and leisurely rot of the day” (10).
Savaș’ observational perspective is fortified by the frequent lack of quotation marks. This allows her to shift between direct and indirect discourse creating a sense of discovery for the reader. An interviewee at the park comes to life once we realize that these could not be the married Asya’s words. A chapter “In the Park” begins: “I always sit here, at the top of the hill. You can see down to the lake…. I always wanted to live in the countryside, where you can see the horizon…. But I never have. And I don’t think I will. I’ve never been married” (35). When Asya interviews Ravi, we hear only his answers and not her questions:
It never feels wasteful to come to the park…. [I]t’s the people that make the place. I could live anywhere with the right people.
Yeah, I do mean that. Even if I like to be alone a lot of the time.
No, I don’t think I’m very private…. (157)
Like Asya the interviewer, the listener, we the readers, take all of this in — envision these people, this park, this encounter.
“The Anthropologists” is finally a love story. Asya and Manu choose one another and revel in the comfort of companionship and excitement of discovery. Their union evokes sadness, too. They’d given up a life where they could stop by the home of a parent or relative and “show up to eat unannounced” (55). Manu misses his brother. Asya is far from her grandmother as she declines. nstead, there are friends who mark special occasions and elderly neighbors to check on, all of whom become part of this city the couple comes to love as well — this place they’ll call home.
Further reading:
Omar, Amy. “On ‘The Anthropologists’ — an Interview with Ayșegül Savaș.” The Markaz Review. 26 July 2024. Web. Accessed 20 September 2024.
Savaș, Ayșegül. “Future Selves.” The New Yorker. Condé Nast. 22 March 2021. Web. Accessed 20 September 2024.
Savaș, Ayșegül. “Walking on the Ceiling.” New York: Riverhead Books, 2019.
Claire Marrone is Professor of French and Italian at Sacred Heart University, where she teaches courses in French/Francophone and Italian language, literature, culture, and film. She holds a Ph.D. in French and Italian from the University of Pennsylvania, and joined Sacred Heart in 1992 after teaching at the University of Minnesota, the University of Pennsylvania, the University of Paris X, the Frères Lumière University in Lyons, France, and the Bryn Mawr College/University of Pennsylvania Italian Studies Summer Institute in Florence, Italy. In addition to her book “Female Journeys: Autobiographical Expressions by French and Italian Women,” Dr. Marrone has published numerous articles on works from the nineteenth century to the present.
