Madonna in a Fur Coat: Sabahattin Ali (Penguin classics)

AMAZING BOOK!! highly recommend only around 167 pages, so quick read, beautifully written! Came in perfect condition no complaints!!

Enjoyed the read.

In GeneralIt's a well-written, interesting, slow-paced tragi-romance story, that reveals its characters internal qualms about themselves and their relationships, some level of those which are very rarely expressed in real life, but with which the reader can readily sympathise. Particularly dialogued is a desperate precious pure-hearted longing for a unique love pitted against apprehension, a wall of preperceptions and seemingly unassailable expectations. It's not terribly exciting in any regard, though may perhaps have been for the retrospectively feeble-hearted unstimulated romantics of the time with no multi-channel televisions, CGI action thrillers, nor hard-core pornography at their fingertips. That said, it is most pleasant and evocative to experience second-hand this slower sepia-paced life with its incessant trivial observations of minutiae long-gone and ever-present. Perhaps, if I read it in the bleak mid-winter, rather than in spring, I might be more touched by the desperate lonely sentiment of it all...Of the Subject(/Object) Character(Note, this reflection was written before the full conclusion of the story.) We must all content ourselves with aspects of reality we cannot change. Maria was possessed of a type of human conditional craving that can never be sated, always wanting something else, something more, something total and profound, a perfect lasting connection to her own self-obsessed zharring personas, skipping just ahead of her, a figment that could never be realised. The like of which leads so many to addictions. She was bereft in her dissatisfied solitude, forever vainly seeking that missing piece of her puzzle. She needed to calm the heck down and get over herself. So did Raif. Maybe even more so. Jebus heck.

a wonderful, nuanced, emotional and endearing read. i loved every minute of reading this and would recommend it to everyone. a wonderful author.

Great book ideal for travel 166 pages.love the story & writing style

the story conveyns the depth and complexity of human mind and feelings, mystery of love, doubts and loneliness.Wonderful description of life in Berlin at that time and also of what Turkey was like at that period. Still the reader .left with many questions: Why Raif Efendi, a clever man, is so indecisive and shy? Why his eyes filled with tears every time he is unhappy or somebody is kind to him?

This is not a happy feel-good book but it is a book that deals with the marrow of life. The power of love and the ineffable fragility of life. To write like this requires an artist author: an observer of the essence of life. An unforgettable book - recommended to me by an 18 year old hotel concierge in Istanbul who wanted to converse so that he could practise his English and I could get insight into Turkish culture = serendipity

Written by a Turkish dissident who was assassinated in the 1940s, this is a short semi-autobiographical novel about a Turkish man who falls in love with a artist in 1920s Berlin.It’s a 20th century classic I hadn’t heard of until it was picked by my book group. It opens with an unnamed narrator becoming fascinated by a colleague who seems oddly accepting of being dismissed and downtrodden by everyone in his life. The love story is contained in a manuscript that the downtrodden colleague shares with this narrator.I really loved the bracketing story of the narrator and his intriguing colleague, and the evocation of Berlin post WWI was also interesting. But as the lovers examined their philosophical navels, debating the nature of love in self-contradictory circles, they increasingly bored and annoyed me. If I’d read the book in my twenties, I might have thought it profound and been emotionally moved. Reading it now, I can only agree with Nazim Hikmet (Ali’s literary mentor and political hero, quoted in the 2020 introduction to the Penguin Classic edition) that “proceeding to the second part, one involuntarily notes what a shame it is that the very original, truly accomplished beginning of the novel, and the opportunities it offered, have been wasted for nothing”. Harsh, but fair.

وصلني بعد يوم من الطلب الكتاب بحاله ممتازه مافيه اي دامج

livro super macio e sem nenhuma avaria!

A beautifully written, slow-burn novel that explores love, loneliness, and self-discovery with remarkable depth. The characters feel real, and the emotions linger long after the last page. Quiet, poignant, and thought-provoking, definitely worth reading if you enjoy literary fiction.

I’m so in love with this book!! As you can see, I took it everywhere with me to read it :)

esto no es algo por lo que normalmente me quejaría pero llegó roto :-(