The Anthropologists

Reviews

Quirkily charming . . . Savas delicately balances humor with pathos, supplying the droll details that make these ordinary lives shimmer as Asya and Manu gradually but inexorably change over the course of time. An engrossing, perceptive, and elegantly philosophical novel about the practice of paying close attention. The peculiar habits and folkways of the creative class are on study in Aysegül Savas’s latest, The Anthropologists . . . Asya and Manu are on their own, left to figure things out from day to day, and, in that figuring-out process, life takes its form. Passing time, the book suggests, is all that there is. Aysegül Savas’ perceptive new novel, The Anthropologists, follows a nomadic couple as they struggle to find an apartment in an unnamed foreign city . . . The idealistic lovers find themselves chafing against society’s idea of adulthood and look to kindred spirits . . . in hopes of figuring out how to live a good life. The language between the couple and their rituals adds up to a study on marriage and how one should live . . . Everything about The Anthropologists is enchanting. The prose, minimal and elegant, casts a well-rounded vision of existence, making clear that the small, mundane, day-to-day details are a large part of what makes a life . . . This is the world of The Anthropologists: slow and quiet, existing finely within the details For such a slender book, The Anthropologists explores a vast array of themes—otherhood, loneliness, transitions and love—in prose that’s easy to slip into . . . An excellent book on how to ‘make do’ as you simultaneously feel alienated by an overarching culture while creating the spaces within it where you can belong. Savas’s third novel is a romance, an immigration story, and an open-hearted manual for living. [A] slim gem. It is a novel that takes as its subject the texture, routines, and rituals of a particular lifestyle—itinerant and youthful, or at least untethered by children—and serves as sort of a field guide to its participants . . . One of the book’s strengths lies in Savas’s ability to capture the experience of life as an outsider in a new place . . . Savas approaches her novel with a keen awareness of the reality through which it crafts and filters its make-believe. The Anthropologists perfectly captures the anxiety of a certain time in life, when one is still young but no longer quite young enough, an anxiety exacerbated by the fact Asya and Manu are far from their homes and families; with each new part of their life they build, there’s something else they miss. Rarely have I seen the panic of forging a life told with so much charm . . . I was eager to see them land in their perfect apartment (or home, dare I say) because I would very much like to visit. Under the cool gaze of narrator Asya, ordinary life in the city becomes an intimate study of human connection . . . As the three friends glide around the city, Savas's prose glides too, sanguine, thoughtful, and elegant . . . I finished the book with a desire to pay more attention to the many facets of life I ordinarily take for granted, the small rituals that give it structure and meaning. Utterly enchanting. An erudite and elegant meditation on modern life and modern love . . . Don’t be deceived by Savas’s cool, matter-of-fact tone–beneath it lie layers of wisdom, delicacy and subtlety. 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. Like Walter Benjamin, Aysegül Savas uncovers trapdoors to bewilderment everywhere in everyday life; like Henry James, she sees marriage as a mystery, unsoundably deep. The Anthropologists is mesmerizing; I felt I read it in a single breath. Savas’ prose is an X-ray—an acute portrait of the tender frequencies that make a life. Savas so exquisitely captures the daily rhythms, concerns and interactions of [a] life … Savas invites us to experience the renewable rules of expression — the old ways of being new — that are in play when an artist is performing at the sublime height of her art. Savas’ compact novel conveys warmth and human detail in exploring the universal question confronting all (named and unnamed) people: how to live or ‘be’ in the world . . . Friends and neighbors experience their life crises during the brief interval illuminated beautifully by Savas, creating further scenarios for her questioning narrator to investigate, as if documenting the social practices of an unfamiliar civilization. There are no explosions or battle scenes in this subtle novel, just an appreciation of the value and marvels of living a life that is your own. Perfectly perceptive. In the exceptional latest from Savas (White on White), an idealistic young couple flounders in their half-hearted effort to put down roots in an unnamed city far from their respective homelands . . . Savas captures the singularity of the couple’s logic in lucid prose, and the real estate search gives shape to the spare and subtle narrative. It’s a masterpiece. The Anthropologists is about love, youth, and that most profound and elusive of subjects—happiness. Full of delicacy, wisdom and wit, this is another gorgeous work from one of my favorite writers. Expand reviews