Like his country, like this planet, in limbo! Amin Maalouf and Ports of Call

"…If the war had never broken out, if we were twenty instead of fifty, if none of us had died, if none of us had betrayed the others, if none of us had gone into exile, if our country were still the pearl of the East, if we hadn't become the world's laughingstock, obsession, bogeyman, and whipping boy, life would be beautiful…"

This sentence, which expresses a longing in the simplest way, confronting the past and questioning the present, seems to summarize everything…
From a geography in the shadow of civil war, from Beirut; a group of friends who scattered to the four corners of the world, leaving behind friendships, joys, hopes, pains, and an entire youth... And the novel of their reunion one day for the funeral of their friend named 'Murad'; 'Ports of Call' (YKY).

The novels of Lebanese-born Amin Maalouf, one of the most curious and admired authors of world literature, have had a large and devoted readership in our country since they began to be published in the 90s. The first ones that come to mind are; 'Samarkand', 'Leo the African', 'Ports of Call', 'The Crusades Through Arab Eyes'…
Maalouf is doing something a person should never stop doing, that is, the work he knows best; he tells of the Mediterranean and the East, which he knows best, in his works…

'THE ONLY CULPRIT FOR WHAT HAPPENED TO US…'

"I carry the humanity that is being born in my name, but I belong to a humanity that is gradually becoming extinct, Adam would note in his notebook two days before the painful event."
Adam (or Adem) is the name of the novel's protagonist who, like Maalouf himself, leaves his country and settles in France. When one finishes the book, one cannot help but ask the question; how much of Adam is Maalouf himself, and how much is not?

Translated by Ali Berktay, Ports of Call, when viewed in its entirety, is like a novel of confrontation, and above all, of questioning. It is a novel of a 16-day re-confrontation with the long-festering wounds of the Middle East, which begins with our hero Adam's 'return home'.

As expressed in the book, 'there is only one real culprit for everything: War'.

A civil war that started in the mid-1970s and lasted until the 1990s. Even though its name is never mentioned, the place described is Beirut… Amin Maalouf, through Adam's voice, tells of the Lebanon of the 1970s while simultaneously seeming to convey his own life…
Adam arrives at his 'home', to which he returned after many years following the death of his old friend Murad, and with his journey to Beirut, we witness his childhood, his youth, and the years he spent away from his country like a time tunnel, through lines he occasionally jotted in his notebook, emails he sent to his friends, and sometimes through his conversations.

EVERYONE'S STORY…

For some, it is the story of those who had to flee their country, for others, those who fled, and for others, those who were forced into a transition to refugee status.
According to Adam, they are all refugees. He finds himself in France. His friend Naim has to leave Brazil, and Semiramis has to leave Egypt. And the others…
An ancient group of friends who called themselves 'Byzantines' at university and each scattered to a corner… They try to come together years later due to the death of their friend Murad. Adam is the pioneer of this meeting. Each of them is in different parts of the world, with different concerns. Adam tries to reach them all. He makes a great effort on this path. Who were these friends? It is as if they represent the entire Middle East or the East, or perhaps, to put it most accurately; our entire planet!..

"Among the Muslims, my best friend was Ramiz; among the Jews, my best friend was Naim. And among the Christians, my best friend was Adam…"
You can find in the book the transformation in identities due to the effect of war, the missing parts in those who left, the divisions; the changing moods, worldviews, and lifestyles of those who remained…

'WHAT IS TRULY UNBEARABLE IS THE DISAPPEARANCE OF THE FUTURE'

Author Amin Maalouf, who carries the East to the West, reveals the moods of individuals raised in a painful geography in his novel. He takes the reader on an unpretentious and simple journey. We can also call this a journey taken in Maalouf's autobiography. The most remarkable aspect of this novel is that Maalouf never mentions the name of his country. It is as if he feared that mentioning its name would make the wound bleed even worse…

During this return, Maalouf asks many questions and makes observations; but every time, he does not refrain from expressing his longing and his disillusionments: "One is easily comforted in the face of the disappearance of the past; what is truly unbearable is the disappearance of the future. The country whose absence saddens me and never leaves my mind is not the one I knew in my youth, but the one I dreamed of in my youth and which could never take its place under the sun."

He frequently shows an effort to settle scores and re-weave ties: "It changed, I changed, the country changed, and our world is not the same. Yesterday's pioneers have been pushed back, and the rearguard forces have advanced to the very front lines."

Another point that caught my attention in the book was the 'Spirit of the Age' and the 'Pulse of the Age', which Maalouf repeated many times. Maalouf examines and questions the 'Spirit of the Age' many times. Acting in accordance with the pulse of the age, belonging to another age that has untimely been abolished…

Amin Maalouf, who was born in Beirut, Lebanon in 1949 and went to France by fleeing the civil war in 1975, wrote 'Ports of Call' in 2012. In those days, there were deepening conflicts in the Middle East. The Middle East is still burning today. A genocide is taking place in Palestine at the hands of Israel. Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are in the shadow of wars and conflicts… Imperialist countries are exploiting all resources by dividing this geography on the basis of ethnicity, faith, and sect and pitting them against each other…
In this book, Amin Maalouf reflects the ache of his country, which is drowned in pain, blood, and tears due to 'sectarianism', the biggest problem of our time and our region. He rubs salt into the wound of humanity…