Madonna in a Fur Coat

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The principal character is an extremely shy and despondent man but he keeps to himself an innermost secret, which the narrator learns only too late… In Berlin, at the exhibition of new painters, the main hero sees an outstanding self-portrait of an artist named Madonna in a Fur Coat… Ali’s own story as a dissident, freethinking romantic jailed for his beliefs may be a factor in the book’s current popularity—it must be hard to disentangle these things—but it could just also be the appeal of the story itself. Innocence, sexuality and social resistance combine in a story of two young people who are not just refusing to accept gender and other socially-imposed roles, but who are also finding themselves in each other. Maria decries the dominance that she claims comes with hetereosexual love, yet she longs for it. Raif is trying hard to grow up. There is a great deal of introspection; both monologue and dialogue is much peppered with ellipses rendering it rather breathless.

A poignant coming-of-age tale, drenched in disillusionment. The gap between hope and reality, art and ordinary life, has been explored in many other novels, but rarely with the unaffected simplicity of Madonna in a Fur Coat ...The translation by Maureen Freely and Alexander Dawe is crisp, capturing Ali’s directness and clarity of language.”— Times Literary Supplement When the innocent, if intense, Raif becomes obsessed with a self-portrait, there appears no hope for him when he meets the original. Just when it seems a reprise of Wolfgang Koeppen’s A Sad Affair (1934; 2003) is building up towards ironies Ali moves from tantalising banter being showered on a besotted suitor to agonising profundity in the face of lost opportunities. The story of passionate love and the tragedy that always lurks around the corner is a theme as old as literature itself. But it continues to capture the popular imagination because it speaks to the most basic desires of the human heart. This is a kind of middlebrow novel of intense passion and existential angst which, perhaps aside from the most heartless postmodernists, everyone enjoys reading. As did I.She has decided that she is not to be pushed around: any relationship is to be strictly on her conditions which, while extremely close, are decidedly platonic. By now he had established himself as a poet and writer of short stories. Like so many other writers whom he came to count as friends, he was a patriot of the socialist variety. The works for which he was most admired in his time were imbued by his dreams for the common man, and rooted in his knowledge of the injustices they suffered. Kitabı okuduğumdan beri sürekli o Kürk Mantolu Madonna'nın resmini hayal ediyor, tıpkı Raif Bey gibi orada olduğumu, her gün oraya giderek resme bakmanın ne demek olduğunu zihnimde canlandırmaya çalışıyorum. Kendi Maria Puder'imi hayatıma girmiş ve çıkmış tüm insanlarla karşılaştırıyor ve ona ne kadar benzediklerini çıkartmaya çalışıyorum.

In fact, he is slow to recognize that the elegant woman in the painting, the outspoken intellectual artist, and the common dancehall performer are one in the same person. I loved how Rafe’s coming to us in layers is matched by layers he must parse in his love interest. I got some nice zings of wisdom out of the portrayal of love as involving both a selfless and selfish dimensions, such as this highlighting of how sudden love spurs us to reach far while at the same time exposing our yawning needs: Ben de, o zamana kadarki hayatımın boşluğunu, gayesizliğini sırf böyle bir insandan mahrum oluşumda bulmaya başlamıştım." (s. 86) The porter took me first to a small waiting room. When I was ushered into Hamdi's office, I could feel that same foolish smile on my face, and I hated myself even more. Madonna in a Fur Coat tells the story of a Turkish man named Raif Efendi who stirs an interest in one of his colleagues, the unnamed narrator, to find out more about him. Upon becoming closer to him, the narrator gains the opportunity to read a diary written by Raif revealing an emotionally intimate and intense relationship with a painter named Maria Puder that occurred when Raif was a young man living in Berlin.

Büyük konuşmayacaksın' derdi babam, haklıymış. Kitabın bu kadar yüksek bir puan almasını garipsemiş, madem bu kadar güzel bir kitap, neden diğer dillere tercüme edilip bir Dünya klasiği haline gelmemiş diye eleştirmiştim. For cost savings, you can change your plan at any time online in the “Settings & Account” section. If you’d like to retain your premium access and save 20%, you can opt to pay annually at the end of the trial. The story follows Raif Efendi, who has been sent from his home is Havran, Turkey, to study soap-making in Berlin. He's not interested and instead spends his days learning German, reading books and visiting art galleries and museums. One day he visits an art gallery, he has noted in the local paper and comes across a painting, a self-portrait, 'Madonna in a Fur Coat'. We already know Raif has tried his hand at art but given up because as he discovers it is a medium of self-expression and he cannot bear to reveal such secrets of himself. He is a young man of 24, but he falls in love with the painting and visits it every day to gaze upon this beautiful woman, the artist who has painted it. And so, eventually Raif meets Maria, but as we see from above Maria has her own very strict ideas about Romance. She insists that they be friends; until one fateful New Year's Eve. Hoping to learn more, he dives into the exhibition catalogue, but only finds “Maria Puder, Selbsporträt”. A newspaper article on the exhibition compares the painting to Andrea del Sarto’s Madonna delle Arpie. He rushes off to buy a print—and only then it occurs to him that his Madonna, the one in the fur coat, must “exist in real life”. Maria soon regains her strength, but Raif finds out that his father died and decides he needs to leave for Havran. Maria too decides to leave Berlin to live with her mother in Prague, until Raif settles in Turkey and invites her to live with him. When he finally reaches Turkey, he sees that his brother-in-laws have claimed a big portion of the inheritance. He is given a "wasteland" to farm. While he works in his olive fields, his only source of joy is Maria's letters, until one day the letters stop coming. In one of her last letters, Maria says she has got a surprise that she will reveal when they see each other face to face. When she stops sending letters, Raif thinks Maria too has betrayed him and is heartbroken. He has lost his will to live, and eventually marries a woman that she doesn't like, and lives with her in between the furniture he bought for Maria. He thinks that if even his Maria was going to betray him, then not another person on this Earth is worth his trust and alienizes himself from the society. Raif finds a job as a German translator in a lumber firm.

One suspects that the novel’s current popularity may be the result of its readers, especially those “young adults”, being left feeling much the same.

I cannot reveal more - only that the love story is written in a note book by Raif and exposed by chance to our narrator, a young man who works in the same office. The note book passes into our narrator's hands for just one night and at the request of Raif it must be burnt. The framing story allows us to feel the authenticity of Raif's character - he has allowed not one person close to him in his entire life except Maria - and there are consequences.