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The Anthropologists
Asya and Manu are looking at apartments, envisioning their future in a foreign city. What should their life here look like? Can they create their own traditions and rituals? Whom can they consider family?
As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, spends her days gathering footage from the neighborhood park like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.” Life back in Asya and Manu's respective home countries continues-parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly beyond their reach. But the world they're making in their new city is growing, too, they hope, into something that will be distinctly theirs. As they open up the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release?
Hailed by Lauren Groff and Marina Abramovic, Savas's fine, precise craft turns The Anthropologist's simple apartment search into a soulful, often funny, examination of modern coupledom, home-building, and expat life in the universal modern city.
As the young couple dreams about the possibilities of each new listing, Asya, a documentarian, spends her days gathering footage from the neighborhood park like an anthropologist observing local customs. “Forget about daily life,” chides her grandmother on the phone. “We named you for a whole continent and you're filming a park.” Life back in Asya and Manu's respective home countries continues-parents age, grandparents get sick, nieces and nephews grow up-all just slightly beyond their reach. But the world they're making in their new city is growing, too, they hope, into something that will be distinctly theirs. As they open up the horizons of their lives, what and whom will they hold onto, and what will they need to release?
Hailed by Lauren Groff and Marina Abramovic, Savas's fine, precise craft turns The Anthropologist's simple apartment search into a soulful, often funny, examination of modern coupledom, home-building, and expat life in the universal modern city.
192 pages, Hardcover
First published July 9, 2024
About the author
Aysegül Savas
8 books344 followersAyşegül Savaş grew up in London, Copenhagen, and Istanbul. Her work has appeared in The New Yorker, The Paris Review, and Granta, among others. She lives in Paris.
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August 22, 2024This book is for people who love to watch strangers “morning routine” videos in the hopes that they will rub off by exposure and suddenly you’ll wake up one day a motivated, well adjusted member of society who doesn’t spend the first two hours of their day rotting in bed with their phone clutched between their hands letting the sweet wave of serotonin scrolling wash away their sins (me)
July 30, 2024
Ayşegül Savaş builds on her background in sociology and anthropology for her novel. A piece which grew out of her New Yorker story “Future Selves.” It centres on Asya and her partner Manu both relocated from their homelands to study in a European city not unlike Paris, there they met and became a couple. Now they’re ready to put down deeper roots, hunting for an apartment to buy, the perfect space in which to carve out their future life – an idea that grew out of Savaş’s own experiences of searching for a new home in a time of wider, post-pandemic restlessness.
Savaş sets out to chart the ways in which people might decide how to be in the world, particularly when uprooted or “estranged,” inhabiting spaces which operate according to a different set of rules and rituals, far removed from the ones they grew up with, and far away from their families. For Asya and Manu their everyday’s shaped by their relationships with each other, the shows they watch, the friends they chose to spend time with – particularly their close friend Ravi, and their neighbour the older Tereza who welcomes them into her home so that it becomes a familiar spot in their landscape.
Asya trained in anthropology but is also a filmmaker, working on documentaries similar to the kind associated with directors like Agnès Varda. Her latest project revolves around a neighbourhood park and its regulars, interviews with these are scattered throughout the novel. Asya uses anthropological frameworks around culture, about kinship, to analyse her own behaviour, to ponder the unspoken rules of the society around her. She’s fascinated by how others attempt to define her through what she does, where she comes from, how she speaks…
Savaş’s narrative’s deliberately episodic, broken down into short, captioned scenes that have a slightly cinematic quality, a reflection of the scenes that might stand out in daily life: a sighting of a local celebrity at a café; breakfast with a friend; a day trip. Here, these events unfold against the backdrop of a troubled world, marked by climate change, ageing and illness, all of which Asya and Manu must grapple with yet somehow strive to make individual choices.
Savaş was influenced here by writers like Tove Jansson and by New Wave cinema. But I felt her narrative lacked Jansson’s charm or the quirkier, more memorable aspects of New Wave. I could see there was a conscious overlap with Rohmer, films like Godard’s Une Femme Est Une Femme, but I found Savaş’s characters far less engaging, verging on one-dimensional - they never fully came to life for me. There were very few memorable scenes or lines; Savaş’s exploration of banality was often just too banal to stir my interest.
The concept itself has potential but the use of anthropological and sociological frameworks - drawn from theorists like Bourdieu – seemed rather unsophisticated, although the writing on a sentence level is more than decent. I was puzzled too by the lack of any real political analysis, there are obvious issues here around taste groups, around class, that are underexplored, taken as given. Nor is there any recognition of the impact of globalisation, the products, the customs that have been widely exported from Christmas to McDonald’s, so that much of contemporary society is both varied and curiously uniform. So, while I found this perfectly readable, the narrative never quite took off for me, perhaps I just wasn’t the right fit?
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Scribner for an ARC
Rating: 2/2.5 rounded up
Savaş sets out to chart the ways in which people might decide how to be in the world, particularly when uprooted or “estranged,” inhabiting spaces which operate according to a different set of rules and rituals, far removed from the ones they grew up with, and far away from their families. For Asya and Manu their everyday’s shaped by their relationships with each other, the shows they watch, the friends they chose to spend time with – particularly their close friend Ravi, and their neighbour the older Tereza who welcomes them into her home so that it becomes a familiar spot in their landscape.
Asya trained in anthropology but is also a filmmaker, working on documentaries similar to the kind associated with directors like Agnès Varda. Her latest project revolves around a neighbourhood park and its regulars, interviews with these are scattered throughout the novel. Asya uses anthropological frameworks around culture, about kinship, to analyse her own behaviour, to ponder the unspoken rules of the society around her. She’s fascinated by how others attempt to define her through what she does, where she comes from, how she speaks…
Savaş’s narrative’s deliberately episodic, broken down into short, captioned scenes that have a slightly cinematic quality, a reflection of the scenes that might stand out in daily life: a sighting of a local celebrity at a café; breakfast with a friend; a day trip. Here, these events unfold against the backdrop of a troubled world, marked by climate change, ageing and illness, all of which Asya and Manu must grapple with yet somehow strive to make individual choices.
Savaş was influenced here by writers like Tove Jansson and by New Wave cinema. But I felt her narrative lacked Jansson’s charm or the quirkier, more memorable aspects of New Wave. I could see there was a conscious overlap with Rohmer, films like Godard’s Une Femme Est Une Femme, but I found Savaş’s characters far less engaging, verging on one-dimensional - they never fully came to life for me. There were very few memorable scenes or lines; Savaş’s exploration of banality was often just too banal to stir my interest.
The concept itself has potential but the use of anthropological and sociological frameworks - drawn from theorists like Bourdieu – seemed rather unsophisticated, although the writing on a sentence level is more than decent. I was puzzled too by the lack of any real political analysis, there are obvious issues here around taste groups, around class, that are underexplored, taken as given. Nor is there any recognition of the impact of globalisation, the products, the customs that have been widely exported from Christmas to McDonald’s, so that much of contemporary society is both varied and curiously uniform. So, while I found this perfectly readable, the narrative never quite took off for me, perhaps I just wasn’t the right fit?
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Scribner for an ARC
Rating: 2/2.5 rounded up
August 28, 2024
Major thanks to NetGalley and Bloomsbury Publishing for offering me an ARC of this book in exchange for my honest thoughts:
"𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭, 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭. 𝘈𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴. 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴, 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥: 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴."
The very experience of this book is sitting on a park bench with a lover at the height of the afternoon to people watch. And as you watch, you make funny refrains of others, imagining their lives, how they look like people you know. The kind moments. Sweet ones too. And then you realize your afternoon is Seurat's 𝘈 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘢 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦 𝘑𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦. Here it is, life in plain sight, all for you.
Adulthood in all its vagaries and wonders, sweet and sad, saccharine all the way down. Full of life. And I want it to happen all over again.
Reminds me so beautifully of the park scene in Annie Hall with the Truman Capote look-alike-contest where Truman Capote is actually walking through Central Park.
"𝘐 𝘧𝘦𝘭𝘵 𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘭𝘦𝘥 𝘣𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘤𝘭𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘵𝘺 𝘰𝘧 𝘮𝘺 𝘬𝘯𝘰𝘸𝘭𝘦𝘥𝘨𝘦, 𝘸𝘩𝘪𝘤𝘩 𝘴𝘦𝘦𝘮𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘯𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭, 𝘰𝘳 𝘵𝘰𝘰 𝘳𝘦𝘢𝘭. 𝘈𝘴 𝘪𝘧 𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘳𝘺𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘦𝘯𝘥𝘦𝘥 𝘶𝘱 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘴𝘰𝘳𝘵 𝘰𝘧 𝘭𝘪𝘧𝘦, 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘤𝘳𝘪𝘣𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘵 𝘸𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘳𝘥𝘴. 𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘦𝘯𝘰𝘶𝘨𝘩 𝘧𝘰𝘤𝘶𝘴, 𝘐 𝘤𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘣𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘺 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵 𝘰𝘶𝘳 𝘭𝘪𝘷𝘦𝘴 𝘢𝘴 𝘸𝘦𝘭𝘭, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘵𝘺𝘱𝘦𝘴 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘦𝘰𝘱𝘭𝘦 𝘸𝘦 𝘸𝘰𝘶𝘭𝘥 𝘳𝘦𝘴𝘦𝘮𝘣𝘭𝘦. 𝘛𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘴 𝘴𝘰𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘷𝘪𝘵𝘢𝘣𝘭𝘦 𝘪𝘯 𝘤𝘩𝘰𝘰𝘴𝘪𝘯𝘨, 𝘪𝘯 𝘭𝘰𝘰𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘢𝘩𝘦𝘢𝘥: 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘸𝘦𝘳𝘦 𝘰𝘯𝘭𝘺 𝘴𝘰 𝘮𝘢𝘯𝘺 𝘰𝘱𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯𝘴."
The very experience of this book is sitting on a park bench with a lover at the height of the afternoon to people watch. And as you watch, you make funny refrains of others, imagining their lives, how they look like people you know. The kind moments. Sweet ones too. And then you realize your afternoon is Seurat's 𝘈 𝘚𝘶𝘯𝘥𝘢𝘺 𝘈𝘧𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯𝘰𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘯 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘐𝘴𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘰𝘧 𝘓𝘢 𝘎𝘳𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘦 𝘑𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘦. Here it is, life in plain sight, all for you.
Adulthood in all its vagaries and wonders, sweet and sad, saccharine all the way down. Full of life. And I want it to happen all over again.
Reminds me so beautifully of the park scene in Annie Hall with the Truman Capote look-alike-contest where Truman Capote is actually walking through Central Park.
August 12, 2024
…and now for something different. It’s hard to peg what kind of book The Anthropologists is. You might say it’s an immigrant story, but not really – at least, not at the level of, say, Dinaw Mengestu. Or you might think it’s an urban novel, but not like Teju Cole’s. Or a novel of a young 20-something couple’s trajectory, but not like Sally Rooney’s.
In other words, The Anthropologists claims a territory all its own. It’s insightful, engrossing, and unique. Asya, a documentary film=maker and her childhood sweetheart (now her husband) Manu are living in a big city, where they are foreigners.
After graduating from university, they are “playing out our adulthoods rather than committing to them.” Asya spends her day filming a nearby park (her overseas grandmother says, “We named you after a whole continent and you’re filming a park.” ) They live “without a shared native tongue, without religion, without the web of family and no obligations to keep us in place.” The rituals and ties of kinship are absent. They are, you might say, a tribe unto themselves. How, then, do they define themselves and “make a life, as some people called it.”
They begin dipping in their toes by viewing a series of apartments, with the hope of finding one they can purchase. But each seems a little…off. Similarly, they bring various individuals into their “tribe”, but none of them (except, at times, their nomadic friend Ravi) seem like a particularly good fit.
At a time when life feels infinite – and also surprisingly constricted – how does Asya move forward when she “didn’t quite know where my life began and how it is extended. I didn’t want to risk cutting off any real parts.” This Turkish author really nails what it’s like to be at the cusp of a world that is foreign, unknowable, and enticing when you’re feeling estranged from yourself. In doing so, she extends the appeal of the novel to not just immigrants, but to every person who is about to leave their childhood and college years behind.
In other words, The Anthropologists claims a territory all its own. It’s insightful, engrossing, and unique. Asya, a documentary film=maker and her childhood sweetheart (now her husband) Manu are living in a big city, where they are foreigners.
After graduating from university, they are “playing out our adulthoods rather than committing to them.” Asya spends her day filming a nearby park (her overseas grandmother says, “We named you after a whole continent and you’re filming a park.” ) They live “without a shared native tongue, without religion, without the web of family and no obligations to keep us in place.” The rituals and ties of kinship are absent. They are, you might say, a tribe unto themselves. How, then, do they define themselves and “make a life, as some people called it.”
They begin dipping in their toes by viewing a series of apartments, with the hope of finding one they can purchase. But each seems a little…off. Similarly, they bring various individuals into their “tribe”, but none of them (except, at times, their nomadic friend Ravi) seem like a particularly good fit.
At a time when life feels infinite – and also surprisingly constricted – how does Asya move forward when she “didn’t quite know where my life began and how it is extended. I didn’t want to risk cutting off any real parts.” This Turkish author really nails what it’s like to be at the cusp of a world that is foreign, unknowable, and enticing when you’re feeling estranged from yourself. In doing so, she extends the appeal of the novel to not just immigrants, but to every person who is about to leave their childhood and college years behind.
August 24, 2024
told through short vignettes, this is a story of the every day mundanities that make up a life; posing reflection on existence, belonging, community, and emerging adulthood. unexpectedly tender in its prose and delivery, this book made more of an impact on me than i originally thought possible.
July 23, 2024
I...loved this? Kind of unexpectedly? The concept was what drew me in, and it was executed beautifully. So many lovely sentences to quote, and such a perfect way of describing all the ways we build our little human lives.
September 10, 2024
A coolly written yet intimate story of a young couple who, used to moving around and staying in foreign places, living largely unencumbered lives, make their way to a larger city and decide to stay. They enjoy simple things, they like to spend a day doing nothing much, pleasurably “rotting.” The events, or nonevents, of an ordinary day are enough for them. But they’ve begun to feel uneasy. Away from family, away from their ethnicities with their shared languages and customs, in a foreign city with no deep connections, no serious obligations or traditions to uphold, to Asya the narrator especially their life begins to feel unreal. She wants to feel tethered in some way and “yearns for a specific existence.” She likes her life and doesn’t wish to make any big changes, but she begins an attempt at establishing some little routines and rules for living, and casting a net that goes beyond the world that consists of just the two of them.
I ate this basically conflict-free novel up. Asya and Manu love each other and their relationship is and stays a good one. The novel is perhaps unusual for that, in a good way. Its considerations and insights were illuminating. It was a treat to think about Asya and Manu’s life, and to observe with Asya, with respect and close attention, different people and their ways of being, as well as the little daily patterns that make up ordinary lives.
I get along with Savaş‘s writing, her voice, her delicacy. The prose is elegant in its clarity and stylish simplicity.
The book is a vibe.
I ate this basically conflict-free novel up. Asya and Manu love each other and their relationship is and stays a good one. The novel is perhaps unusual for that, in a good way. Its considerations and insights were illuminating. It was a treat to think about Asya and Manu’s life, and to observe with Asya, with respect and close attention, different people and their ways of being, as well as the little daily patterns that make up ordinary lives.
I get along with Savaş‘s writing, her voice, her delicacy. The prose is elegant in its clarity and stylish simplicity.
The book is a vibe.
June 16, 2024
Asya and Manu are looking at apartments in a new, foreign city. They are thinking about how to live, how to become adults, meanwhile trying to form connections with others. This is a quiet, thoughtful story about loneliness and belonging. It draws you in and doesn't let go, and Savas's writing is fabulous!
Thank you Bloomsbury Publishing and Edelweiss for the ARC.
Thank you Bloomsbury Publishing and Edelweiss for the ARC.
August 5, 2024
It was a quick breezy read but beyond that, I'm not sure it's more than just a pallet cleanser. Not that every book has to be consequential. Just sayin'.
December 28, 2024
This could've been five-line Instagram poetry.
August 8, 2024
Blander than a piece of unseasoned chicken
January 4, 2025
Asya and her partner Manu, expats from different corners of the world, search for an apartment to buy in the city they now call home. What makes a place a home is a big theme in this book, as is the sense of alienation that can come from living in a culture that is not your own.
I was SO sure I was going to love this book, but it just didn’t hit me in the way I hoped it would. The plot moves very slowly and I didn’t feel attached to the characters. There were some beautiful moments, but the prose wasn’t powerful enough to me to make up for the lack of plot. As someone who lives a plane ride away from my family, I was definitely moved by the parts where Asya watches her family members age from afar and worries about their health. I’m sure this book will resonate even more with those who’ve immigrated far from home. But overall, this book wasn’t for me.
I was SO sure I was going to love this book, but it just didn’t hit me in the way I hoped it would. The plot moves very slowly and I didn’t feel attached to the characters. There were some beautiful moments, but the prose wasn’t powerful enough to me to make up for the lack of plot. As someone who lives a plane ride away from my family, I was definitely moved by the parts where Asya watches her family members age from afar and worries about their health. I’m sure this book will resonate even more with those who’ve immigrated far from home. But overall, this book wasn’t for me.
June 28, 2024
"Because it often seemed to me that our life was unreal, and I summoned the anthropologist to make it seem otherwise."
4 stars
The in between phases of life. How we handle those days of living. Navigating new people, new relationships and becoming the person you imagine in your head you're meant to be. It brought me back to those feelings and moments in life so perfectly.
4 stars
The in between phases of life. How we handle those days of living. Navigating new people, new relationships and becoming the person you imagine in your head you're meant to be. It brought me back to those feelings and moments in life so perfectly.
December 18, 2024
A couple not long out of university, Asya and Manu, are looking at apartments in an unnamed European city. They are establishing their life together in a new country, as both protagonists are from different (unidentified) places elsewhere. Asya makes documentary films, on which she comments: “For now, I knew little beyond the fact that I wanted to film daily life, and to praise its unremarkable grace.” This quote could easily be used to describe this book. It does not have much in the way of a plot. It is about young adults preparing to strike out on their own by adding structure to their lives (i.e., what my Millennial friends call “adulting.”) It is a low-key book. I enjoyed the writing style and the setup, but the ending is rather abrupt.
3.5
3.5
December 30, 2024
Svedeno, a opet dirljivo i upečatljivo. Sve što sam očekivala kod npr. Sali Runi, a nedovoljno pronalazila u njenim knjigama. Priče zaista mogu biti i jesu u malim i svakodnevnim momentima.
August 13, 2024
If you live in a foreign city and find solace in the quiet rhythms of everyday life, RUN don’t walk to the bookstore!!
The story centers on Asya and Manu, a couple from different, unspecified, countries adrift in a foreign city. Without the web of language, history, or religion to anchor them in tradition, they craft their own rituals—intimate, and fragile.
As we follow them in their search for a new apartment, we question the nature of belonging, the ties we choose to forge, and those we gently let go 🩵
I think writing an introspective, character-driven story this concise is very challenging, but Savaş pulls it off effortlessly by immediately connecting us to Asya. She does this through the use of first-person narration and by weaving in continual chapters about Asya’s conversations with her grandmother back home, her interviews in the park, the couple’s interactions with their newfound friends, and their recurring dinners with their elderly neighbor.
Oh how I loved the phone calls with her grandma 🩷 What a spot on observation that in these conversations the small and the big, the faraway and the close by, intermingle. “My grandmother might not know the new developments in our lives—that I had received a grant, that we were looking for an apartment to buy—but she would ask what we’d made for dinner the previous day or whether I had taken down my winter clothes already, with the cooling weather.”
Reading this book was like tracing the contours of my own thoughts. The pages are now full of underlined passages. I can’t wait to see what she writes next!
The story centers on Asya and Manu, a couple from different, unspecified, countries adrift in a foreign city. Without the web of language, history, or religion to anchor them in tradition, they craft their own rituals—intimate, and fragile.
As we follow them in their search for a new apartment, we question the nature of belonging, the ties we choose to forge, and those we gently let go 🩵
I think writing an introspective, character-driven story this concise is very challenging, but Savaş pulls it off effortlessly by immediately connecting us to Asya. She does this through the use of first-person narration and by weaving in continual chapters about Asya’s conversations with her grandmother back home, her interviews in the park, the couple’s interactions with their newfound friends, and their recurring dinners with their elderly neighbor.
Oh how I loved the phone calls with her grandma 🩷 What a spot on observation that in these conversations the small and the big, the faraway and the close by, intermingle. “My grandmother might not know the new developments in our lives—that I had received a grant, that we were looking for an apartment to buy—but she would ask what we’d made for dinner the previous day or whether I had taken down my winter clothes already, with the cooling weather.”
Reading this book was like tracing the contours of my own thoughts. The pages are now full of underlined passages. I can’t wait to see what she writes next!
March 10, 2024
It's crazy how Savas pulled this book directly out of my brain. Simply yet immensely wise, about the challenges and rewards of building an independent and sturdy life in your 30s. Topics discussed: curiosity, connection, real estate listings, the drinking spirit, city parks, and that nagging concern that everything is passing you by.
November 27, 2024
An easy story about the everyday life of a couple trying to make roots in a foreign city.
October 2, 2024
Asya and Manu, after years in an anonymous foreign city, embark on a house-hunting journey. Asya, a documentary filmmaker, focuses her next project on the local park. While exploring potential homes, she films and interviews people in the park. Much of the novel takes place during these intervals—reading, walking, shopping, and leisurely moments in bars and cafés.
The story flows gently, emphasizing the rhythm of everyday life rather than dramatic plot points. This subtle novel celebrates the beauty and significance of living authentically.
The novel evokes the mundane moments of life with undue insight. Asya and Manu's experiences connect with readers, inviting them to appreciate the simple pleasures and complexities of their own existence. In The Anthropologists, Savaş captures the singularity of the couple’s logic in lucid prose.
Sweet and beautiful but ultimately feels like an episode of House Hunters International minus the suspense. I really needed a plot. Instead, I got a bunch of wonderful thoughts scribbled down on napkins and a few diary entries.
The story flows gently, emphasizing the rhythm of everyday life rather than dramatic plot points. This subtle novel celebrates the beauty and significance of living authentically.
The novel evokes the mundane moments of life with undue insight. Asya and Manu's experiences connect with readers, inviting them to appreciate the simple pleasures and complexities of their own existence. In The Anthropologists, Savaş captures the singularity of the couple’s logic in lucid prose.
Sweet and beautiful but ultimately feels like an episode of House Hunters International minus the suspense. I really needed a plot. Instead, I got a bunch of wonderful thoughts scribbled down on napkins and a few diary entries.
November 26, 2023
The Anthropologists is a slim, impactful novella that cuts to the heart of human experience. In simple beautiful prose Aysegul Savas conveys the complex vagaries and bone deep loneliness of adulthood. This is a stunning and unique novel that I look forward to reading again and again.
October 15, 2024
Wow, this was breathtaking. Collecting my thoughts and looking thru my 98725 annotations & will come back to this beaut.
October 1, 2024
really enjoyed this thoughtful, tender exploration of how we live our everyday lives and how the smallest, most mundane actions and rituals make up the fabric of our lives. aysegül savas' writing is concise and intimate; i felt truly enmeshed in these characters' daily lives without feeling overwhelmed by detail whatsoever. liked this one quite a bit
October 31, 2024
4.5/5 ��� This was a delight. The premise is simple, a young couple in the mundanity of their everyday lives as they work to make a foreign city a home. The writing and observations around the mundane is what makes this so special.
There are astute meditations around moving to a new place, aging parents, trying to make friends/connections as an adult, intercultural relationships, figuring out how to evolve in a relationship, deciding what’s next with yourself and with a partner. I aggressively highlighted so much in this.
Savaş writes some people, my grandmother said mysteriously, are born holding a mirror to the world and that’s exactly how I feel about her writing.
There are astute meditations around moving to a new place, aging parents, trying to make friends/connections as an adult, intercultural relationships, figuring out how to evolve in a relationship, deciding what’s next with yourself and with a partner. I aggressively highlighted so much in this.
Savaş writes some people, my grandmother said mysteriously, are born holding a mirror to the world and that’s exactly how I feel about her writing.
December 16, 2024
the perspective of two young adults, a couple, trying to find their way in a new-ish city that they call home, and trying to make sense of the world around them, the people, the places, their relationships. hits hard
October 21, 2024
a perfect little book! weak in the knees for this kind of immigrant story. it honestly hit me a little too hard.
November 17, 2024
I felt a deep kinship with the characters of this book, in a way I could not fully explain. I'm aware some people will not find meaning in this story, but I did. I enjoy a study of character, of a slice of life, just for the sake of it. I saw someone say it was meant for people who enjoy watching morning and daily life vlogs, and you know what? I weirdly agree. This is the audience. (4.25)
October 13, 2024
A calming book about mostly nothing. Very relatable, kind of felt like reading about myself, I guess as anyone also part of millennial couple living in a cosmopolitan international city might.
September 7, 2024
“You have to start romanticising your life” and its consequences.
Parts I liked but as the culture I’m apart of chooses to turn inwards on itself more and more, I find I have a rather hard time tolerating unashamed solipsism. A book seemingly obsessed with provoking the “wow, they’re just like me and my humble little life” reaction.
When I saw Fran Lebowitz live, she lamented the fact that so much of the way people choose to engage with art these days is by trying to relate it to themselves. They finished by stressing that “books are not a mirror, they are a door.” This is not to say that Savaş has no interesting perspective to provide, but whatever allusions to the ideas of alienation in a foreign country are so parenthetical to their trite observations that they’re barely worth including.
Parts I liked but as the culture I’m apart of chooses to turn inwards on itself more and more, I find I have a rather hard time tolerating unashamed solipsism. A book seemingly obsessed with provoking the “wow, they’re just like me and my humble little life” reaction.
When I saw Fran Lebowitz live, she lamented the fact that so much of the way people choose to engage with art these days is by trying to relate it to themselves. They finished by stressing that “books are not a mirror, they are a door.” This is not to say that Savaş has no interesting perspective to provide, but whatever allusions to the ideas of alienation in a foreign country are so parenthetical to their trite observations that they’re barely worth including.
January 8, 2025
A collection of very brief chapters - 192 pages in all - stitched together to create not quite a novella, but something closer to a slim epistolary novel. The Anthropologists reads like it might be the episodic diary of Asya, a woman watching her own life from a remove. Not a surprising perspective, as she is a documentarian, and her film work is also quiet and thoughtful.
Asya is happily married to Manu - she acknowledges they are lucky, met young and quickly recognized each other as permanent attachments - yet she is still lonely. They are expats, having moved to an unnamed major European city - perhaps Paris, from the description of the cafes and nightlife - from distant corners of the world. Whatever their challenges starting life anew, they aren’t struggling financially. Asya has won a filmmaking grant, Manu goes off daily to an office, and there’s family money. Back home, far away parents are mystified over their life choices, a beloved grandmother is unwell, a sibling is in crisis. They are tethered to the phone, until at last given reprieve, they can return to being tethered only to each other.
For the first several chapters I struggled with the emptiness of the pages, the seeming lack of purpose to the story telling. At some point past the halfway mark, this shifted - perhaps I just adjusted the way I was taking it in - and while I never became fully emotionally or mentally invested, I came to admire the simplicity of the author’s choices in showing the slowly evolving lives of this couple. We are looking in as they sit by a window and study together, preparing for some crucial test, while outside the rain is too thick to make out where they are.
Asya and Manu make friends, just a few; the necessary unattached, free living artsy guy their age, so they have someone whose solo life they can both envy and feel sorry for; a needy socialite of sorts, a replacement grandmother who lives upstairs and inserts herself into their lives, a generally happy thing for all. The shape of their days are molded by mostly small social events. It becomes increasingly clear that their anonymous adopted city is a reminder that they could be anywhere; they fit together. It’s that union, not their surroundings, nor Asya’s patient eye behind the camera, that makes up not just the bones of The Anthropologists, but the true body of the story.
Added note: it’s hilarious to see that under Goodreads row of “If you liked this book, try these titles!” suggestions, the first one that pops up is Tony Tulathimutte's bleak, often purposefully rancid, desperately self conscious tales of utter aloneness. Yah, if you liked this rather soothing series of connected vignettes of a very connected couple, Rejection will knock that nonsense right out of you.
Asya is happily married to Manu - she acknowledges they are lucky, met young and quickly recognized each other as permanent attachments - yet she is still lonely. They are expats, having moved to an unnamed major European city - perhaps Paris, from the description of the cafes and nightlife - from distant corners of the world. Whatever their challenges starting life anew, they aren’t struggling financially. Asya has won a filmmaking grant, Manu goes off daily to an office, and there’s family money. Back home, far away parents are mystified over their life choices, a beloved grandmother is unwell, a sibling is in crisis. They are tethered to the phone, until at last given reprieve, they can return to being tethered only to each other.
For the first several chapters I struggled with the emptiness of the pages, the seeming lack of purpose to the story telling. At some point past the halfway mark, this shifted - perhaps I just adjusted the way I was taking it in - and while I never became fully emotionally or mentally invested, I came to admire the simplicity of the author’s choices in showing the slowly evolving lives of this couple. We are looking in as they sit by a window and study together, preparing for some crucial test, while outside the rain is too thick to make out where they are.
Asya and Manu make friends, just a few; the necessary unattached, free living artsy guy their age, so they have someone whose solo life they can both envy and feel sorry for; a needy socialite of sorts, a replacement grandmother who lives upstairs and inserts herself into their lives, a generally happy thing for all. The shape of their days are molded by mostly small social events. It becomes increasingly clear that their anonymous adopted city is a reminder that they could be anywhere; they fit together. It’s that union, not their surroundings, nor Asya’s patient eye behind the camera, that makes up not just the bones of The Anthropologists, but the true body of the story.
Added note: it’s hilarious to see that under Goodreads row of “If you liked this book, try these titles!” suggestions, the first one that pops up is Tony Tulathimutte's bleak, often purposefully rancid, desperately self conscious tales of utter aloneness. Yah, if you liked this rather soothing series of connected vignettes of a very connected couple, Rejection will knock that nonsense right out of you.
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