62 pages • 2 hours read
Elif ShafakThe Bastard of Istanbul
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2006A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Chapters 10-12Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Chapter 10 Summary: “Almonds”
Armanoush settles into the routine of the Kazanci household—breakfast from 6:00 AM to 9:30 AM, with everyone coming and going from the table, as though it were a train car. Auntie Banu is the first to awake to perform her morning prayers; she sets the table. She also talks to the two djinn (genies) who sit on her shoulders—Mrs. Sweet and Mr. Bitter.
From Mrs. Sweet, Auntie Banu gets kind-hearted sympathy; from Mr. Bitter, she acquires knowledge. Normally, she only asks for information that will help her clients, but one day she asks something more personal: who is Asya’s father? Mr. Bitter, the treacherous gulyabani (ghoul), tempts Auntie Banu with the knowledge that she desires. Gulyabani know dark secrets and the world’s historical calamities. Surely, Auntie Banu thinks, Mr. Bitter would also know if Armanoush’s family was forced to go on a death march in 1915.
Mr. Bitter claims that Armanoush’s family did indeed go on such a march and that he was there to witness it. He took the form of a vulture and circled above, “waiting for them to fall on their knees” (192). Armanoush rises late that morning. She and Asya have breakfast with Auntie Banu. Asya then asks Auntie Banu to read some roasted hazelnuts for Armanoush to tell her her fortune. Auntie Banu says that she doesn’t do that anymore, as it proved to be a poor method of fortune-telling. However, she agrees to read the girls’ coffee cups.
The coffee cup reading gives Auntie Banu visions of Armanoush’s mother, her Armenian family in San Francisco, and an image of a young man “who cares deeply” for her (196). She also sees “a strong bond” forming between Armanoush and Asya (196).
The girls leave the konak and take the ferry to Café Kundera, so that Armanoush can get a fuller view of Istanbul. During the ride, Asya asks to know more about Baron Baghdassarian. Armanoush says that they’re cyberfriends. She wants to know more about him but is afraid of meeting him, worrying that an attraction could destroy their friendship. Asya, though only 19, has been to bed with many men and thinks that one must have carnal knowledge of a man to know him best. She doesn’t share these thoughts with Armanoush, out of fear of giving her the wrong impression about Turkish women’s morals.
They jump off the ferry and 15 minutes later are in Café Kundera. Asya greets her usual group, then introduces Armanoush as “Amy, a friend from America” (201). A street vendor enters the café, carrying “a huge tray of unpeeled yellow almonds on cubes of ice” (202). The Dipsomaniac Cartoonist buys enough for everyone at the table. Armanoush is surprised to see so many people drinking at the café. At the table, she notices a “young, sexy brunette” who doesn’t seem to be a regular member of the group (203). She is the scenarist’s latest girlfriend. She shows Armanoush her new tattoo of a wild, red orchid.
Asya narrates the history of tattooing, saying that prehistoric people “tattooed animals, the ones that were their totems” (204). The brunette asks Asya how she knows all of this; the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist tells her that Asya’s mother, Zeliha, runs a tattoo parlor. Armanoush sees the warmth in the cartoonist’s eyes when he talks about Asya and figures that he’s in love with her.
Asya decides to frighten the scenarist’s girlfriend by implying that her tattoo may be a source of danger, given that tattooing needles are often infected. The young woman becomes alarmed, while Armanoush and the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist are amused by Asya’s prank. The Dipsomaniac Cartoonist’s wife cuts the girlfriend’s torment short by imploring everyone to drink. Conversation then turns toward Armanoush, who discusses her background and family history.
When she tells the group how her family were victims during the Armenian Genocide, the Nonnationalist Scenarist of Ultranationalist Movies denies it all. He mentions the Armenian rebels who killed Turks and pushes her to “think about the other side of the story” (209). When challenged, he insists that his viewpoint is based on “meticulous research” (210). The story of the genocide, he says, is an internalized narrative that resulted from “collective hysteria” (211).
To ease the tension, Armanoush points to a framed photo of a road in Arizona. Meanwhile, Asya calls the scenarist a hypocrite for producing films that reassert authoritarianism and aggressive masculinity. The scenarist calls Asya a bastard, which prompts the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist to throw a glass of wine at him. The crowd at the café pauses briefly to observe the fight that ensues. They then resume chatting or daydreaming while staring at the framed photos on the walls.
Chapter 11 Summary: “Dried Apricots”
It is dawn. Armanoush logs on to Café Constantinople to tell her cyberfriends about the scene that she witnessed at Café Kundera. Baron Baghdassarian ridicules Asya’s friends, calling them a self-loathing “third-world country elite” (216). Asya is still asleep, as are most of the other women of the household. Auntie Zeliha is awake. She reaches for a pack of Marlboro Lights on her bedtable and lights one.
In the room at the other end of the second floor, Auntie Banu is also awake. She stares at herself in her mirror. For the first time in years, she misses her husband. She visits her old house and her husband now and again—a good man whom she thinks deserves a better wife—to deliver him dried apricots. After she prepares him a meal and tidies up, he asks her to stay. She always delivers the same response: “Not today.” After her last visit, Auntie Banu returns home, takes out her jade rosary, and, with the help of the djinni, Mr. Bitter, embarks upon a journey that takes her from 2005 back to 1915.
Chapter 12 Summary: “Pomegranate Seeds”
Hovhannes Stamboulian is sitting at a “hand-carved walnut desk” (225). He has just purchased a gift for his wife: a gold brooch in the shape of a pomegranate with red rubies for seeds.
Hovhannes is a poet and columnist currently writing a children’s book. He shows the book to his wife, whose opinion he reveres above that of all others. If she thinks it’s good, he’ll take the manuscript to a publisher; if she thinks it isn’t, he’ll burn it. Hovhannes’s wife, Armanoush, is a sophisticate who attracts artists and intellectuals to their konak. They have three children, including Yervant, his eldest son, and their only daughter, Shushan.
In the midst of writing, Hovhannes hears something fall and “[smash] to pieces” (229). A sergeant has arrived at the Stamboulian house with orders to search the residence. Hovhannes takes the soldier to his study. The sergeant looks over Hovhannes’s favorite books, which are mostly French literature. He goes through the drawers of the walnut desk and then sees “the miniature pomegranate” on the desk (235). Hovhannes says that the brooch is a present for his wife.
The sergeant then finds a poem written in the Armenian alphabet. The sergeant accuses Hovhannes of encouraging Armenian insurgents to “rebel against the Ottoman Sultanate” with his poems (237). Hovhannes becomes aware of what he’s being accused of, and the seriousness of the accusation. He says that he can’t control who reads his work and what they do with it. The soldier demands that Hovhannes leave with him.
Hovhannes says goodbye to his wife, who is four months pregnant. Outside, Hovhannes realizes that he forgot to give Armanoush her present: the brooch he got her is in a desk drawer. He smiles, thinking of how pleased she’ll be when she finds it.
As soon as the soldiers leave, a Turkish neighbor implores Yervant to go to his Uncle Levon’s house. Uncle Levon is the best cauldron-maker in the Ottoman Empire. When Yervant arrives, Levon’s apprentice, Riza Selim, tells the boy that Master Levon was taken away that afternoon. On the way back home, Yervant sees a gutted kitten mewling in the filthy gutter. Many years later, the image of the kitten would be his most vivid memory from the genocide.
Auntie Banu sees all of this in her silver bowl. Mr. Bitter guides her through the vision. The djinni asks Auntie Banu if she’ll tell Armanoush about what she has seen, including how Shushan was discovered by two women from a Turkish village who nursed her when she had typhus and washed lice out of her hair. Instead of agreeing to tell Armanoush the truth, Auntie Banu wonders if it might not be better to forget the past altogether.
Chapters 10-12 Analysis
Auntie Banu’s reading of the coffee cups foreshadows the familial connection between Asya and Armanoush that will later be revealed. Though Asya is usually annoyed by her family’s superstitions, she expresses interest and admiration in her aunt’s powers, as well as for her mother’s skill as a shamanic tattooist. Asya’s respect may have more to do with the independence that these abilities have afforded Aunties Banu and Zeliha.
Armanoush’s initial ideas about Turkey are reflections of her provincial mother and her youthful naïveté. That said, she is sensitive to others and attuned to their emotions, which allows her to accurately perceive the Dipsomaniac Cartoonist’s love for Asya, though she has never experienced romantic love herself. Armanoush’s crush on Baron Baghdassarian is exemplary of her chastity and romanticism. She is fascinated with the idea of who he is.
Romance is further explored in these chapters through an examination of the marriages between Auntie Banu and her husband, as well as that between Hovhannes and Armanoush Stamboulian. These relationships are egalitarian and loving, serving as foils for the marriages between Riza Selim and Petite-Ma, Levent and Grandma Gülsüm, and the dull union of Rose and Mustafa. Though Banu doesn’t live with her husband, she shows her care for him by leaving him dried apricots and ensuring that his home is in good condition. She maintains her agency within the marriage by coming and going as she pleases. Hovhannes’s reliance on his wife’s opinions of his work indicate his belief in her intellectual ability, contrasting with the expectations that men in Muslim societies routinely disrespect women and that such disrespect was more prevalent in earlier decades.
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