Best known for his precious anthology of modern Armenian literature and for his first well-received novel “A Summer Wihtout Dawn”, Agop Hacikyan has just published a touching if uneven novel titled The Lamppost Diary. Set in Istanbul during and immediately following World War II, the story recounts the life of young Thomas, a perpetually randy Bolsahai who spends much of his time dreaming, courting and winning over a beautiful young Russian girl by the name of Anya. The Lamppost Diary is of interest mainly because of its descriptions of life in post-1915 Istanbul in the NiÂantasi neighborhood among the Christian and Jewish minorities. It is a difficult life still-one where non-Muslims are constantly wary of discrimination both subtle and overt. Most notably, Hacikyan describes the effects of the infamous Varlik Vergisi of 1942 when the Turkish government imposed severe taxes on Jews, Armenians and Greeks and Levantines, effectively ruining most of the remaining Christian and Jewish fortunes in Turkey. Unable to pay such exorbitant fines, these businessmen were sent to the Askale labor camp where they either perished or returned old and physically broken down. As might be expected, many minorities fled Turkey once again in light of these events. The description of venal and cruel Turkish authorities, as well as that of Thomas’ equally opportunistic Armenian compatriots is as fun as it is sometimes stomach-turning.
Hacikyan’s Thomas sometimes appears almost preternaturally gifted - a Valentino with the fair sex, a gifted student who is also the Turkish track record holder at 10,000 meters, as well as a budding literateur who starts his own magazine while still in his early twenties. Eventually Anya leaves for America to study medicine at Johns Hopkins, where Thomas eventually joins her -love wins out, as we know it will from their opening courtship.
This touching love story as well as the precious descriptions the post-Catastrophic Bolsahai community are unfortunately offset by the novel’s faults, which are many. First and foremost is the almost obsessive attention that the author seems to attach to long drawn-out descriptions of the young Thomas’s circumcision (unusual for a Christian), as well as the boy’s near obsession with his penis or bouboulik as his mother calls it, and his visit to local brothels, all of this related in a semi-comical tone which never quite hits home.
There are also simply too many and otherwise awkward sentences, strained grammatical constructions, baroque adjectival usage and mixed metaphors of an impeachable nature, that mar an otherwise heartfelt coming-of-age story. Still, I imagine that many will want to read this novel simply for the story that it tells and in order to see the reflection of a society not often depicted in the English word.