Beginning ~ with climbing a tree

Gülhane Park

"This is a story of freedom and love.  The story of two young people ailing in heart and soul.  I was one of them.  That night I climbed with effortless ease the tree where I was going to live."

A paragraph or two below those opening lines, I found this:

"I hadn't planned on climbing a tree and staying there.  It just happened."

The Girl in the Tree ~ by Şebnem İşigüzel, translated by Mark David Wyers, 2016 (translation 2020), fiction (Turkey)

A young woman climbs the tallest tree in Istanbul’s centuries-old Gülhane Park, determined to live out the rest of her days there.  Perched in an abandoned stork’s nest in a sanctuary of branches and leaves, she tries to make sense of the rising tide of violence in the world below.  Torn between the desire to forget all that has happened and the need to remember, her story begins to unfold.

Then, unexpectedly, comes a soul mate with a shared destiny.  A lonely boy working at a nearby hotel looks up and falls in love.  The two share stories of the fates of their families, of a changing city, and of their political awakenings in the Gezi Park protests.  Together, they navigate their histories of love and loss, set against a backdrop of societal tension leading up to the tragic bombing that marked a turn in Turkey’s democracy — and sent a young girl fleeing into the trees.

I just googled "Istanbul Gülhane Park" and took at look at the actual place.  Wow!  I could not only walk among the trees there — in effect — but I could also click on the Google map and use the satellite view to imagine I'm there with the book's characters.  I noticed Istanbul Archaeological Museum is on the east, and there's a mosque just up the street.  To the west, believe it or not, there's a Domino's Pizza a few blocks away.  How funny!  Here's a wikipedia article about Gülhane Park.  I wonder if I'll be able to get even closer to "her" tree once I'm into reading the book.  We'll see.

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