The Anthropologists
by Aysegul Savas
Bloomsbury
Bloomsbury
2024
Asya, the narrator of The Anthropologists, isn't literally a social scientist, but she is metaphorically like an anthropologist as she closely observes her friends' lives and her own, trying to discern new rules for living as she seeks to make her life 'sturdier' and more settled.
Asya and her husband Manu met in college, both foreign students from different places, who now live in an unnamed city. I suspect that Asya may share some biographical details with her author, Aysegul Savas, who is from Turkey and now lives in Paris, but I have no reason to think this is based especially closely on herself. The couple's experiences are pretty common, I think, to young adults trying to build a life for themselves in a new place after college.
The book coincides with Asya and Manu searching for an apartment to buy; it begins at the start of their house hunt and ends when they move into their new place. In between, we mostly see them when they're meeting with friends - brunches, dinners, drinks, happy hours, parties, hang outs, lazy weekend afternoons. Manu works for a nonprofit and Asya is a documentary filmmaker; her latest project is about a local park.
The book is told in very short chapters, many less than a page long, each narrating a single incident. Each scene is titled, but there are two that recur over and over. In each section called 'Future Selves', Asya and Manu visit an apartment and think about what their lives would be like if they moved there. In the sections 'In the Park', we read someone's answers to Asya's questions about how they use the park. These are the only scenes not narrated by Asya, instead they're like watching a snippet of her film in progress.
At the beginning of the apartment search, the couple's shared life is much the same as it has been up to this point, but by the time they move, it's kind of the end of an era, as other people they know reach their own inflection points and head off in other directions. Asya and Manu are each, in different ways, confronted by the realization that things are happening to their families back home that they can't fully share in because they're not there. They grow close with an elderly neighbor, and act like surrogate grandkids when she needs someone. Among their friends, one very carefree fellow starts to get more serious, a woman who's always been a bit prickly grows embittered. The move may not even be the biggest change.
Like Asya, Savas is a keen observer herself, and a very good writer. The Anthropologists is full of small moments, common to many couples, rendered at once specific, recognizable, universal by Savas's insightful prose. For example, there's a part about how Asya and Manu cannot speak each other's native languages, but have developed their own private little language as a couple, using words from both plus accumulated nicknames, references, in-jokes - the kind of thing my partner and I have built up over the years too, just for ourselves, not for others to hear.
Savas gives Asya a casual, conversational voice, but everything she says is clear-sighted and well-spoken. The tiny chapters pass quickly, and the book itself is short, less than 200 pages, but a kind of quiet wisdom builds up along with the accumulation of small details, amounting to something that might not be profound, but nevertheless feels considered and true.
Asya, the narrator of The Anthropologists, isn't literally a social scientist, but she is metaphorically like an anthropologist as she closely observes her friends' lives and her own, trying to discern new rules for living as she seeks to make her life 'sturdier' and more settled.
Asya and her husband Manu met in college, both foreign students from different places, who now live in an unnamed city. I suspect that Asya may share some biographical details with her author, Aysegul Savas, who is from Turkey and now lives in Paris, but I have no reason to think this is based especially closely on herself. The couple's experiences are pretty common, I think, to young adults trying to build a life for themselves in a new place after college.
The book coincides with Asya and Manu searching for an apartment to buy; it begins at the start of their house hunt and ends when they move into their new place. In between, we mostly see them when they're meeting with friends - brunches, dinners, drinks, happy hours, parties, hang outs, lazy weekend afternoons. Manu works for a nonprofit and Asya is a documentary filmmaker; her latest project is about a local park.
The book is told in very short chapters, many less than a page long, each narrating a single incident. Each scene is titled, but there are two that recur over and over. In each section called 'Future Selves', Asya and Manu visit an apartment and think about what their lives would be like if they moved there. In the sections 'In the Park', we read someone's answers to Asya's questions about how they use the park. These are the only scenes not narrated by Asya, instead they're like watching a snippet of her film in progress.
At the beginning of the apartment search, the couple's shared life is much the same as it has been up to this point, but by the time they move, it's kind of the end of an era, as other people they know reach their own inflection points and head off in other directions. Asya and Manu are each, in different ways, confronted by the realization that things are happening to their families back home that they can't fully share in because they're not there. They grow close with an elderly neighbor, and act like surrogate grandkids when she needs someone. Among their friends, one very carefree fellow starts to get more serious, a woman who's always been a bit prickly grows embittered. The move may not even be the biggest change.
Like Asya, Savas is a keen observer herself, and a very good writer. The Anthropologists is full of small moments, common to many couples, rendered at once specific, recognizable, universal by Savas's insightful prose. For example, there's a part about how Asya and Manu cannot speak each other's native languages, but have developed their own private little language as a couple, using words from both plus accumulated nicknames, references, in-jokes - the kind of thing my partner and I have built up over the years too, just for ourselves, not for others to hear.
Savas gives Asya a casual, conversational voice, but everything she says is clear-sighted and well-spoken. The tiny chapters pass quickly, and the book itself is short, less than 200 pages, but a kind of quiet wisdom builds up along with the accumulation of small details, amounting to something that might not be profound, but nevertheless feels considered and true.
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