Book Review – The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald

All About Books
aired on NET Nebraska Radio(NPR) November 3, 2011The Dervish House, a novel by Ian McDonald,

published by Prometheus Books in 2010.
Reviewed by Stephen Griffith

At the center of this story is a centuries-old building in Istanbul that originally housed a community of Sufi mystics, or Dervishes.  In 2027 or so it is home to a collection of six people whose lives will intersect in very unexpected ways.

There is a young drug user whose flight from the law has brought him to Istanbul. He is caught in a suicide bombing in which only the bomber dies. After the attack, the man begins seeing djinn, the supernatural beings that gave rise to stories of genies.

Then there is a boy confined in isolation due to a heart condition.  He sends a computer-controlled robot/pet to explore the world he wishes he could inhabit in person.

In the coffeehouse below, one of the regular customers is an old man, a Greek economist forced out of his position at the University because of his nationality and the vagaries of Turkish/Greek politics.

We meet a young young woman with a degree in marketing looking for a job.  We meet  a sophisticated, glamorous art and antiquities dealer who is hired to find an artifact that may not even exist and sets off on a quest worthy of Indiana Jones.

Her husband is a commodities trader for a huge energy monopoly that is a pillar of the Turkish (and European) economy. He and a group of friends hatch an elaborate insider trading scheme involving energy futures.

It is the 3rd decade of the 21st century, 5 years after Turkey is admitted to the European Union. Sitting astride Europe and Asia, Istanbul is once again a center of global trade.  This is a world in which robots and nanotechnology are used in everyday applications that allow people to transmit data through a handshake, enhance memory by inhaling nanobots and leave their cars to park themselves.

McDonald paints a vivid and quite recognizable picture of Istanbul it might be 15 years or so from now.  Over the course of a week, he follows his characters through its streets and shops and along the Bosporus, relating a history sometimes real and sometimes imagined – or at least a plausible extrapolation from our present world.

Through their eyes the reader gets a glimpse into ancient folk legends and can imagine the technology of a not-too-distant future.  In the byzantine plot twists the the author considers the significance of religion, the nature of consciousness and reality, terrorism, politics and ethics.  Through it all the characters stumble toward appreciating family, relationships, loyalty and life itself.

The book is The Dervish House, by Ian McDonald.

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A note:  I read this novel in e-book form.  I like holding a book in my hands and relish the feel of the pages between my fingers. But I couldn’t find this book in the library and wasn’t ready to pay for a large hardback I had heard about from only one person. So I choose the digital version. Not only did it get me the book inexpensively but it was very convenient to take along on a short trip when traveling light was a priority. I won’t abandon physical books but I won’t turn up my nose at the Kindle/Nook/iBook variety either.