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Book Reviewed by:Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? What rituals will structure their days? Whom can they consider family?
As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, gathers footage from the neighborhood like an anthropologist observing local customs. "Forget about daily life," chides her grandmother on the phone. "We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park."
Back in their home countries parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly out of reach. But Asya and Manu's new world is growing, too, they hope. As they open the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release?
Unfolding over a series of apartment viewings, late-night conversations, last rounds of drinks and lazy breakfasts, The Anthropologists is a soulful examination of homebuilding and modern love, written with Aysegül Savas' distinctive elegance, warmth, and humor.
The driving activities of The Anthropologists are Asya and Manu's hunt for an apartment and the documentary Asya is making about life in the park, a kind of cinéma vérité project where she interviews park-goers about their reasons for being there. But really, the plot is somewhat beside the point. The meat of the story is in the moments in between larger events, conversations had with family members, neighbors, and friends. A book where so little happens could easily become dull, but I found The Anthropologists curiously engaging. I think this is mainly thanks to author Aysegül Savas's style, which is clear and airy, and never belabors a point. The novel is cut up into short chapters whose titles roughly correlate to its themes — "Principles of Kinship," "Future Selves," "Ways to Live." The brevity of the chapters keeps the story moving along swiftly, despite the tranquility of its characters' lives...continued
Full Review
(812 words)
(Reviewed by Grace Graham-Taylor).
.jpg "Cinéma vérité director Jean Rouch")
In Aysegül Savas's The Anthropologists, Asya, the novel's narrator, is a documentary filmmaker set to embark on a project based around the goings-on in her local park. Though not explicitly identified as such, Asya's project sounds a lot like "cinéma vérité," a style of filmmaking developed in the 1950s and '60s that aimed to capture life "as it is" by using authentic dialogue and natural action, often prioritizing ordinary people as subjects. By deliberately embracing spontaneity and eschewing carefully controlled narratives, the pioneers of cinéma vérité hoped to reveal deeper truths that could not be captured through traditional storytelling. This seems to be Asya's intent as well, since she does ...
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The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-winning author of The Friend brings her singular voice to a story about the meaning of life and death, and the value of companionship.
Bryan Washington, author of Lot, Memorial, and Famiy Meal
"The Anthropologists is yet another gorgeous, gorgeous book from Aysegül Savas: she is an author who simply, and astoundingly, knows. Savas knows hope. Savas knows despair. Savas knows joy, and malaise, and laughter, and curiosity. There are worlds inside of Savas' prose, and The Anthropologists is both a bright light and a map for how to be. A massively heartening achievement.
