A Long Day’s Evening

Karasu’s 1971 novel, available for the first time in the U.S., begins with Byzantine monk Andronikos rowing toward an unnamed island (the bulk of the novel is divided into two sections called “The Island” and “The Hill,” both translated by Aji); he’s aware of pain, a breeze, the closeness of his goal. His mind spins from his decision to leave the monastery following Emperor Leo III’s iconoclasm decree outlaws the worship of images. The larger context of Karasu’s work will be unfamiliar to most American readers, but he engages interest with prose that is sensual and immediate, combining the tumult of an inner monologue with the precise, hyper-observed present (written in the present tense), and his omniscient narrator often imparts deeper meaning: “He is thirty-three. The same age as the peasant who at the end of his life was nailed to the cross on a hill in Palestine.” Part two switches focus to Byzantine monk Ioakim who, at 70, sorely feels his mortality. The third, short part, “The Mulberry Trees,” translated by Stark, finds the author musing on recent history in the context of a palpably natural setting. Light on plot, a vibrant and free-floating reverie on life’s biggest issues. (Nov. 15)