The Berliner Building
Good Fit
- Readers of detective-horror novels built on a neighbourhood setting, humour and small details
- Anyone who likes «closed circle» whodunits like Agatha Christie's and horror films
- Readers looking for a light, flowing diary-style novel told in the first person
Not a Fit
- Readers expecting fast, continuous tension: the first part is slow and full of getting-to-know-the-neighbours
- Anyone sensitive to violence and death scenes
- Readers who dislike light, chatty novels in diary tone
The novel is written as the diary of Oya Arslan: «Dear Diary, my name is Oya…» The thirty-year-old translator moved three months ago into apartment 2 of the Berlinli Apartment in Kadıköy's Bahariye district. They bought the flat with money her brother Ozan earned; the previous owners — Mustafa Bey and Tijen Hanim — dropped the price because they wanted to be near their pregnant daughter. Oya has lost her parents, her brother is a TV-drama director, and her closest friend is his wife Funda. The first pages are both a portrait of happiness and a warning to the reader: «That was my life before strange things began to happen to me… Now I begin to write for real».
The history of the building is told in a separate section. A Turk working at the embassy in Bonn falls in love with a German woman, a simultaneous interpreter living in Berlin; his friends nickname her «the Berliner», and the name sticks after she marries. In the seventies the couple tear down the wooden house in Bahariye and put up an apartment block, naming it «Berlinli». Having no children, after both die the relatives sell the flats. The section is calm and fairy-tale in tone; it builds the backdrop image of a «sweet home, kind neighbours».
The neighbours are introduced one by one under separate headings. Elif next door is a ballerina at the State Opera and Ballet; lively, tattooed, she wants to leave her depressive violinist boyfriend. Seventy-something Auntie Faruka upstairs has six or seven cats, only one with a name — Şeytan (Devil); both her husbands died of heart attacks, and her antique-filled flat resembles a shop in Çukurcuma. Ahsen Hanim is a retired banker with a taste for astrology, who has named her cats Zeyno and Fatoş; her handsome son Rauf is an architect with a lifeless left eye. In the office upstairs graphic designer Kaan and painter-teacher Barbaros work; when water drips from the bathroom ceiling, Barbaros comes and repairs it himself.
Two more characters stay in the mind. The building manager Bünyamin Bey is a retired gynaecologist, proud, aloof and a National Geographic watcher; but Oya warms to him after learning how he stood by the cleaner Lilifer in her divorce. The sisters Matild and Natali Perlanta on the top floor bring Easter bread and introduce themselves. Matild is bold, smokes and asks questions; Natali is timid and shy, and bursts into tears at the ballet. Lilifer says she is «possessed» and that her room is full of dolls; Auntie Faruka calls her «a bit cracked».
The author's style is a poet's: small domestic details, nostalgic objects, references to films and Agatha Christie. Oya herself translates «The Body in the Library» and loves horror films; the diary tone lets her tell everything as a light story. The weak side of the first part is the length of the introductions: for several chapters there are only acquaintances and neighbourly chat, and tension is held only by the possibility in that sentence («before strange things began to happen to me»).
- The diary format makes the heroine's voice close and sincere and creates the base of the humour
- Each neighbour is introduced in a short «section» (Elif, Auntie Faruka, Ahsen Hanim etc.), which makes it easier for the reader to get to know them
- The setting (Kadıköy, Moda, the old building) is lovable and detailed
- References to the detective genre (Agatha Christie, horror films, the «Cluedo» game) add humour to the plot
The classic «closed circle» mystery that Oya translates in the novel
The motif of uncovering a murder by watching neighbours through the window
A humorous detective story with neighbours and elderly characters
On an April night Auntie Faruka greets Oya and Elif with mint liqueur and the board game «Cluedo». In the game Mr Carnation is «killed» and the killer turns out to be Mr Hyacinth. Auntie Faruka talks about her two husbands: she met the second at the cardiac clinic where the first died. Elif is waiting for Timur, her tattooist boyfriend, to arrive after midnight; at the door Auntie Faruka reminds them about ritual ablution.
In the morning Oya sees police in the garden: Elif is crying, Timur is dead. He was found dead in his workshop by his partner; Ahsen Hanim talks about a heart attack, saying he had a congenital heart defect. Elif tells the police that Timur used no drugs. A month later the autopsy report comes: no trace of drugs in his body, light grazes on arms and head; it is recorded that he fell during the attack and hit objects, and the case is closed. Elif becomes quiet, and the evenings in Auntie Faruka's flat stop. At the start of summer Oya begins reading in the garden her new translation, a book about Ed Gein.
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