Book Review: The Dark Moment

Title: The Dark Moment

Author: Ann Bridge

Date: 1952

Publisher: Macmillan

ISBN: none

Length: 310 pages

Quote: “It is not an easy job, to turn a primitive oriental nation into a twentieth century one.”

In quoting the next to last line a character utters in this novel I'm not giving away anything. The Dark Moment is not a novel of suspense. It's a discussion of the history of social change in Turkey in the early twentieth century, drawing heavily from Winston Churchill's World Crisis.

That change is symbolized mostly by a fictional family. On page 7, in 1914, a little girl is scolded, “Oh, what a shameless girl, showing your hair!” By page 261, as a young woman in 1924, she's being ordered to attend a formal party with “not a scrap” of even an ornamental gauze veil covering her hair; that's the price of her family's good fortune as allies to the very real character Mustafa Kemal Ataturk.

I hardly dare to comment further on the story. This is one of a collection of books a friend ordered me to dispose of; I read it, and it's a nice, wholesome piece of historical fiction, not a mere romance although the fictional girls who grow up during the war years will of course have relationships with men, sex and violence suggested but kept properly “offstage.”

Beyond that...this web site tried to say supportive things about Turkey, once, long ago, after Reuters had reported some sort of weather disaster there, and not long after that my Yahoo account was hacked into by some vile person, reportedly in Turkey, who changed my Yahoo Classic to Yahoo Neo. Ugh, ick! How can I ever feel any sympathy for anyone in Turkey, ever again! This web site currently gets a lot of traffic from Turkey. If I had faith that that traffic meant readers rather than hackers, I'd be pleased.

Seriously, Gentle Readers, I don't know enough European history to be able to criticize this historical novel. If you enjoy novels about well-balanced adult women who love their men, care about their parents and children, are loyal to each other, and also take an interest in world events, The Dark Moment is your kind of story. How much “truth” does it present through its fictional characters? Beyond the facts anyone can look up, to what extent has Bridge understood the cultural changes she describes, or even described them accurately? Maybe a review of this book should be able to answer those questions, but mine can't.

Maybe, if we have actual Turkish readers, they'll post comments...Google doesn't handle comments on Blogspot blogs well because Google tries to route them through Google +. Google + is global and easy to join; you don't have to disclose inappropriate information or pay for anything, and e-friends who also use Google + are easy to find. I don't want to grow a horrible prejudice against Turkey, so if you are an actual reader in that country, please identify yourself on Google +; I'd be delighted to meet you.

To buy it here, send $5 per book, $5 per package (four books of this size would fit into one package), and $1 per online payment to the appropriate address from the very bottom of the screen.