A review by curlymango
Madonna in a Fur Coat by Sabahattin Ali

emotional reflective medium-paced

4.25

This book really went and exposed all the mechanics of my sad little brain. It almost hurt how much I saw myself reflected in Raif, and even the initial narrator. He won’t let go of the pictures he’s painted of others (get it?) which hinders his ability to really know or to love someone. Can you love someone without knowing them? Idk. His thoughts are swirling and cramped but also crystal clear and poignant, he’s painfully self-aware but hopelessly lost in his own imagination. Reading a story about a young lover Klara, Raif writes:

“When I saw how she was incapable of voicing her feelings, and how fear and envy contrived to suppress everything about her that was deep and strong and beautiful — I saw myself.”

Or after getting to know Maria:

“I had no desire to see reality stripped bare…Would it not be more humane to show each other some mercy, turning a blind eye to the details, sacrificing the smaller truths for the greater?”

So many more memorable lines than that. I wasn’t expecting a story so brief to speak to me quite like this and call out my flaws so…pointedly. Damn.