Oğuz Cebeci - Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi
Transkript
Oğuz Cebeci - Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi
Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3, Sayı 2 (Haziran 2006) Mak. #21, ss. 7-28 Telif Hakkı©Ankara Üniversitesi Ankara Üniversitesi Dil ve Tarih-Coğrafya Fakültesi Çağdaş Türk Lehçeleri ve Edebiyatları Bölümü Remembrance of Istanbul Past: Time and Language in Selim İleri’s Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci Yeditepe Üniversitesi ÖZET Selim İleri’nin Solmaz Hanım: Kimsesiz Okurlar İçin adlı romanı, uslûp ve tema itibarıyle Marcel Proust’un, Reşat Nuri Güntekin gibi erken dönem Cumhuriyet yazarlarının ve “sentimentalist” ekole mensup Muazzez Tahsin Berkand ve Kerime Nadir gibi kadın yazarların yapıtlarından etkiler taşır. Solmaz Hanım: Kimsesiz Okurlar İçin, yapısal bir iskelete dayanmak yerine, anlatıcı-yazarın çocukluk anılarına, duygusal çağrışımlarına dayalı gevşek bir anlatı dokusuna sahiptir. Yazarın diğer yapıtlarında olduğu gibi bu yapıtında da dikkat çekici olan, Türk romanının genel bir sorununun, inandırıcı ve gelişkin karakter yaratma sorununun aşılmasıdır. Selim İleri marijinal, ancak inanılır karakterler yaratarak Türk romanının “insan sorunu”nu aşmayı başarmıştır. Selim İleri’nin geçmişi yeniden kurgularken kullandığı temel teknik isimleri, nesneleri ve zaman kiplerini yaratıcı bir biçimde kullanımına dayalıdır. Şimdi’yle Geçmiş’in içiçe geçtiği bu teknik içinde bulunulan zamanı daima geçmişe ait bir perspektif içinden görmemize olanak verir. Bu tekniğin en önemli kullanımlarından biri, aynı cümle içinde zaman geçişleri yapılarak, özellikle –mişli geçmiş zaman ile şimdiki zaman arasındaki sınırların kaldırılması ilkesine dayanır. Bunun sonucunda ortaya çıkan, çağrışım zenginlikleri taşıyan şiirsel ve güzel bir Türkçedir. ANAHTAR SÖZCÜKLER Türk edebiyatı - edebiyat kurgusu, Selim İleri - edebiyatta İstanbul , Marcel Proust edebiyatta etkiler ABSTRACT Selim İleri developed an original style in Solmaz Hanım: Kimsesiz Okurlar İçin: a mixture of 8 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 the Proustian evocative novel, the writings of the idealist writers of the early Republican era, such as Reşat Nuri Guntekin, and, interestingly, the literature of the sentimentalist women writers of the early to mid-Republican period, such as Muazzez Tahsin Berkand and Kerime Nadir. Lacking a structural “skeleton” to rely on, Selim İleri’s narrative unfolds itself loosely as the reading progresses, through evocations and through the autobiographical presence of the writer both as a protagonist and the narrator of the text. One important feature of Selim İleri’s work is his re-introduction of the human element, particularly marginal characters, to the Turkish novel, creating exceptional yet credible and lovable personae. A major problem with the new generation of Turkish novelists is the lack of fully developed characters, a problem which Selim İleri successfully avoids. İleri’s method of recreating the past is realized through his specific use and treatment of names, objects and tenses. He uses time shifts and blurs the limits between the present and the past, so the shadow of the past is always here, or the present is expanded to include the past. He also employs shifts of direct and indirect speech within the same grammatical and semantic unit, by means of which he creates a double blurring effect between different time periods. The most striking example of this method is observed in his shifts from reported speech ("--mişli geçmis zaman") to direct speech ("şimdiki zaman"). His interest in reconstructing the past contributes both its peculiarities and beauties to his language. KEY WORDS Turkish literature – fiction, Selim Ileri, Istanbul in literature, Marcel Proust – literary influence The development of the novel in modern Turkey, as in many countries, was closely tied to political and social changes. The advent of western literary forms in Turkish literature coincided with the attempts at westernizing the Ottoman Empire in the late nineteenth century, and the first influences in the development of the Turkish novel came from France, including the work of Flaubert and Zola. A later important effect is that of Marcel Proust, who influenced the writers in the early years of the Turkish Republic -- from the 1920s to the 1940s-- including Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar and Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar. While modern Turkish literature has generally moved away from the French tradition, the contemporary novelist Selim İleri seems to have inherited Proust’s literary legacy. Three of İleriʹs recent novels, Mavi Kanatlarınla Yalnız Benim Olsaydın (If Only You Had Been Mine With Your Blue Wings), Kırık Deniz Kabukları (Broken Seashells), and Gramofon Hala Çalıyor (The Gramophone is Still Playing), are the subsequent volumes of a larger novel whose subject matter is the narratorʹs reminiscences of childhood memories mixed with some impressions of the past, about which he seems to speculate on the basis of hearsay information. Marcel Proust devoted the latter part of his life to reestablish the first half of it in À la recherche du temps perdu, and Selim İleri, equally alienated from the present time, seems to follow a similar path towards his own childhood, real and imagined. Although Selim İleri’s early work had highly structured narratives, he later Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci abandoned the idea of constructing the narrative text after a structural design. At the same time, he abandoned the most fashionable theme from the Turkish literature of the 1970s: the urban intellectual in search of fulfillment in a basically unsympathetic society. Instead, he has developed an original style: a mixture of the Proustian evocative novel, the writings of the idealist writers of the early Republican era, such as Reşat Nuri Guntekin, and, very interestingly, the literature of the sentimentalist women writers of the early to mid-Republican period, such as Muazzez Tahsin Berkand and Kerime Nadir. Even as he parodies these women writers, he is able to create a high artistic form out of their neglected (and critically disdained) genre. Lacking a structural “skeleton” to rely on, Selim İleri’s narrative unfolds itself loosely as the reading progresses, through evocations and through the autobiographical presence of the writer both as a protagonist and the narrator of the text. One important feature of Selim İleri’s work is his re-introduction of the human element, particularly marginal characters, to the Turkish novel, creating exceptional yet credible and lovable personae. A major problem with the new generation of Turkish novelists is the lack of fully developed characters, a problem which Selim İleri successfully avoids. He creates men and women who are outsiders, yet he is able to portray them as sympathetic human beings. Selim İleri’s technique is based on reminiscences of the past, in a frame of significant social and artistic events of the day. These provide the story with a shell: the individual history blends and crisscrosses with the social history and, through which, at times, attains dramatic dimensions. İleri uses early-to-mid and even contemporary republican politics as a symbolic sub-narrative for that dramatization effect. To create tension and conflict in the narrative, he relies on character development and its exposition: the semi-historical parallel text provides that exposition with symbolic temporal reference points. İleri refuses to follow a centralized theme and any need to create a balance between sub-plots in a preconceived fashion. The novel, in this respect, for Selim İleri, is not a finished product from the viewpoint of architecture or engineering, but a living organism like a caterpillar: folding in on itself, yet opening up to become a butterfly. 1. An Attempt to Enter Selim İleri's World There are many parallel themes and structures between Marcel Proustʹs and Selim İleriʹs works. These two escapees from “the present timeʺ very often take refuge in their past, or live in a borrowed life through substitute identification with their own characters, whose stories are fully invented or modified from real life according to the needs of the narrator (who stands for the actual writer.) They also use the characters of other writers the way they use their own creations, as a means of self-expression. In 9 10 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 addition to the peculiar use of language, deliberate awkwardness and stylistic similarities connecting him to Proust, the second novel of İleriʹs sequence, Kırık Deniz Kabukları, starts with a direct reference to the French author: Most of the time, I would not be able to attach any meaning to the narrator of Du côté de chez Swannʹs having gone to bed early. Because, when the night came with its dark greys, dark blues and blacks, and when no daylight remained, my eyes, no matter what, would not yield to sleep, regardless of how tired I was, or how much I wished to sleep. [. . .] I felt alienated from the present time in every respect. (İleri 1993:5). Both men suffer from the night and the accompanying feeling of loneliness (as in the “night kiss” scene of Proust) and have to fill the time with a substance which otherwise seems like a dangerous vacuum. One can take the night as a metaphor for the present time, which is characterized with the features of loneliness, emptiness and darkness, a situation of abandonment which might drive one crazy. The narrator describes himself as an “aysarın” (literally, one who is under the effect of the moon, a lunatic): “Night would awaken moonstruck feelings in me.” To cope with the night and the accompanying feelings of estrangement, both writers call for the aid of their sensory impressions, especially those of visually evoked memories with colors and pictures. In this respect, Proustʹs description of his night lamp and İleri ʹs evocation of colorful sunsets practically lead the reader to the same effect: pictorial scenes through visual effects meant to fill an otherwise desolate temporal space. However, there were days whose nights I did not see with dark greys and blacks. On such days I would feel sunsets which are almost endless, look at the colours of orange, yellow and melon in the west. . . in the nights there would appear the colours of garnet pink, of dark cherry sprinkled with diamond dust, gild and leaves of gold. (İleri 1993 : 5). But the use of colors and visual effects are not the only way to create an effect of life in what is a vague greyness to these writers. As stated before, to read novels and to identify with writers and characters of literary works was another way of coping with the night (the present time). Here one remembers young Marcelʹs admiration of Bergotte, whose work he takes as an example to follow, and Selim İleri ʹs preoccupation with Turkish novelists, whose lives he slightly disguises and uses for self-expression. Bazan bir kitabın sayfaları arasında gezinir, sevinçten, coşkudan, apaçık mutluluktan gözüme uyku girmezdi... çok defa, sonuna kadar okuyup sonlarını da öğrendiğim romanların, çoktan bitmiş öykülerin kişilerini yeni bir hayatta yaşatabileceğim kuruntusuna kapıldım... kendimi olduğumdan başka görür, artık yaşamak istediklerimi yaşar, başka kişilerin kimliğine bürünür, Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci yine sevinçler, acılar duyardım. Nice yıllardan beri kısa gezintilerime uzun yolculuk havası verdim. Böylece macerasız günler cengellerin çağrısıyla donandı... ( İleri 1993 : 6) [Sometimes I would randomly go among the pages of a book and I could not sleep because of joy, enthusiasm, why, obviously because of happiness... many times, I yielded to the fancy of being able to make the personae of the novels, whose fates-which were already complete-I had learned, live in a new life... I would perceive myself as a different person, live whatever I want to live, assume the personalities of other people... feel joys and sorrows again. For so many years I have given my little trips the atmosphere of a voyage. Thus were ornamented my days of no-adventure with the call of a jungle. . . ] However, the consolatory effect through substitute identification is precarious and threatens the writer with disappointment, because of its illusory nature and instability. The passage about ʺchrysanthemumsʺ is a good example to show the unreliable nature of the substitute identification and the problems arising from the attempts to reestablish the past; and also the solutions provided by the writer: Pierre Lotiʹnin ‘Madam Krizantemʹ adlı bir roman yazmış olduğunu biliyordum. Fakat ʹkrizantemleriʹ Tevfik Fikretʹin bir şiirinde okumuştum: ʹKrizantem içimde bir yaradırʹ. . . Yakup Kadriʹnin tercüme ettiği ʹSwanlarʹın Semtindenʹ yazarı meğerse bu romanını bir çok başka romanına bir başlangıç seçmiş. Onun bütün eserinde romanlar romanları izleyerek, biri sona erince öteki başlayarak, hayat hikayeleri de işte bitecek gibi olmuşken yeniden başlıyormuş. Böylece solmuş krizantemler bir daha--bir daha yeniden açıyormuş gibi oluyormuş. Bütün bu kitapların tek bir anlatıcısı varmış ve onun da adı tıpkı romancının adı gibi Marcelʹmiş. Ama anlatıcı Marcelʹle romancı Marcel Proustʹun ille aynı kişi olması gerekmediğinden, anlatıcıyla yazarı birbirinden ayıramayanlar ikide birde yanılırlarmış. Zaten Marcel Proust, eserinde yine Marcel adını ve ʹbenʹ zamirini kullanarak bilgisiz eleştirmenleri şaşırtmak istemiş. . . Ayrıca bu romanlarda krizantemlerin geçmesi benim icin etkileyici bir rastlantıydı . . . sonra hayal kırıklığı çıkageldi: Marcel Proustʹun andığı çicekler krizantem değilmiş. Bu çiçeklerin adı cattleya diye yazılan ve katleya okunan katleyaymis. . . onlar orkide ailesinden geliyormuş. Krizantemleri çocukluğumdan ben görmüşken, katleyaları hiçbir zaman göremeyeceğimi biliyordum... (İleri 1993 : 7-8) [I knew that Pierre Loti had written a novel named Madame Chrysanthemum. But I had read about the chrysanthemums in a poem by Tevfik Fikret: ʺchrysanthemum is an inner hurt” . . . the writer of Du côté de chez Swann, which Yakup Kadri Karaosmanoğlu translated, had chosen (as I heard) that novel as a beginning for many other novels. In his oeuvre, (as I learned) one novel was following the other, starting from the point the previous one had stopped. The life stories, just at the moment they seemed to finish, would start 11 12 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 from the beginning- thus would, I heard, the faded chrysanthemums look as if they have just bloomed-again and again. There was said to be a single narrator of all those books and whose name was also Marcel, the same as the novelist. But since Marcel the narrator did not have to be the same person with Marcel Proust the novelist, those who could not distinguish the narrator and the writer would often be mistaken. In fact, Marcel Proust, it is said, wanted to use the name Marcel and the pronoun ʺIʺ in his work in order to contuse the ignorant literary critics. . . Other than this, the existence of chrysanthemums in those novels was an exciting coincidence for me … but then the disappointment came: the flowers Marcel Proust mentioned were not chrysanthemums. The name of those flowers was cattleya, which was spelled “cattleya” and pronounced as ʺkatleya” … I learned that they were of the family of orchids. Although I have seen chrysanthemums from my childhood on, I knew that I would never see cattleyas.] Selim İleriʹs use of language has interesting features in this passage: the narratorʹs pretentiously naive tone in believing what he was told about Marcel Proustʹs name, and then, in claiming to distinguish the real from the fictitious (his treatment of the name ʺMarcelʺ in Proustʹs novel and his pedantic attitude upon finding cattleyas in the place of chrysanthemums) deserve special attention. It is clear that the past is a ʺlostʺ period of time and any effort to bring it back is bound to be a failure, be it a substitute identification with a novel character such as ʺMarcelʺ or an experience concerning an object of the past, such as a chrysanthemum. Sooner or later comes the inevitable disillusionment, and the fear of it is what gives Selim İleriʹs sentences a rambling effect: first the sarcastic tone covering a disappointment on his part: ʺ. . .bilgisiz eleştirmenleri şaşirtmak istemiş.. .ʺ and then, when he understands that the flowers were not his childhood chrysanthemums but cattleyas, a pretentious claim to the control of the situation: ʺbunlar cattleya diye yazılan ve katleya okunan katleyalarmış.” In order to understand Selim İleri’s relationship with the past, I will attempt to analyze what the ʺcattleyasʺ signified for the writer. The first thing about the ʺcattleyaʺ phrase is a curious sense of the comic one feels about things bordering on the grotesque. But why? Psychoanalytic theory states that there are two things which automatically provoke laughter: firstly, unexpected events, and secondly, repetition of words or situations.1 Now we have the repetition of the word “cattleya” three times in its written and spoken forms within a short sentence and this is apparently what causes us to find it curious. Why do we find the repetition of a phrase funny or strange? Why should the narrator repeat the word three times? The narratorʹs reluctant recognition of cattleyas in the place of chrysanthemums indicates a 1 See Stoller (1985: 63-69); Kriss (1974: 173-204) Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci disappointment on his part and his insistance on finding the exact flower (chrysanthemum) he once observed in childhood. In this sense, it seems to me that that type of repetition means a psychological arrest, a fixation in time on a certain thing which defies change or progress. Therefore, what one finds comic in the cattleya sentence is an archaic state of mind with an obsessive quality refusing to grow into adulthood. Here, it will be helpful to have a look at the function of these flowers for the writer. When remembering the chrysanthemums of the narratorʹs own past and his tendency to identify with the narrator of À la recherche, the meaning of his insistance on repeating the word ʺcattleyaʺ becomes more clear. Had the cattleyas been chrysanthemums, his identification with ʺMarcelʺ would have been enhanced. He wants the cattleyas to be chrysanthemums and his striving to determine what cattleyas are actually means an attempt to handle the disbelief that the cattlcyas are different from the chrysanthemums. In this sense, the narratorʹs ostentatious display of information about the name of À la rechercheʹs narrator ʺMarcelʺ is a surface attempt to ground himself in reality and to cover the disappointment coming from his failed endeavor toward identification with him. The repetition of the name, on the one hand, stands for the obsessive desire to change reality into a make-belief world through magic and, on the other hand, an attempt to keep up with reality. The repetition implies that, however denied, reality is subconsciously perceived by the ʺrepeaterʺ who tries to gain mastery over the shocking effect. The comic effect comes from the recognition on the beholderʹs part of a developmental arrest in the narrator which is a main challenge for all human beings. It should not be forgotten that laughter expresses criticism and hostility! What makes one angry with repetitious things is the futility of the effort which is bound to be a circular and not a progressive movement. It refuses the linear proceeding of time and obsessively relives the same thing probably to gain control over it. It is also an effort based on a wish to keep and protect a thing from change, which is, in reality, not stable or fixed anymore. The result is a feeling of uneasiness and laughter on the part of the beholder/reader. This mental attitude appears as a peculiarity of word choice and use in the works of Selim İleri, who tries to get the past into now, not only by means of visual reflections from former times, but also by means of constructing a language whose main features are a tendency to archaism, a repetition of words and phrases, a shift of tenses and a resulting comic effect which is very well balanced with the high poetic quality of his prose. İleriʹs preoccupation with dates, names and objects in Gramofon Hala Çalıyor is similar for the same reason to his preoccupation with the memory of chrysanthemums in Kırık Deniz Kabukları. An example might be taken from the 13 14 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 ʺPrincess Rozetʺ episode, in which the narrator speculates about a ball to which the beautiful princess has been invited: Fakat hangi ayın beşinci günü? . . . yine de aylardan hangi ay olduğunu bir türlü çözemezdim. . .Rozet, inciden düğmelerle bezenmiş gökmavisi kadife bir ʹropʹ giyiyordu. Düpedüz elbise anlamına gelen bu rop sözcüğünü uzun yıllar, şık ve özel bir kostüm sandım … Prenses Rozet, ne olduğunu o zamanlar bilmediğim ʹerganunʹ adlı bir çalgının önüne geçer ʹartistik bir durumʹ alırdı. Galiba asıl bu sahne bende yoğun roman duygusu uyandırmıştı. But the fifth day of which month? . . . I would not be able to figure out which month it was. . . Rozet was wearing a sky-blue velvet robe adorned with pearl buttons. For many years I believed that this word ʺrobeʺ, which means any kind of dress, was a special and elegant frock. . . Princess Rozet would go before an instrument called ʺerganunʺ (organ) and assume and artistic posture. Probably it was this scene that inspired in me an intense perception of a novel. (İleri 1994 : 24-25) But the narratorʹs attempts at ʺexactitudeʺ are only partly succesful because of the unreliable nature of memory or imagination. Memories of the past seem available only at the cost of continuous repetition, which must be the reason why Selim İleri uses descriptions of things past so often (and so well.) 2. Selim İleri's Characterizations and His Need to Remember Things Past What aim might Selim İleri have in writing about the past? It seems that the “idea of losing timeʺ is the cause of great suffering for him and writing the memories of the past is the only consolation which alleviates the pain to some extent: Bizim zamanımızın gelgeçligi içinde . . . ne . . . leylak ağaççığını, ne de. . . diriltemeyeceğimi elbette biliyorum. Fakat hepsini yazabileceğimi ummak, kalbimdeki ağrıyı hafifletiyor. (9) [Of course I know that I cannot resuscitate the little bush of lilac in the temporariness of our time. But the hope of being able to write about them all eases the pain of my heart.] The narrative voiceʹs indulgence in remembrance of things past is explained by his dissatisfaction with the present time. Then he goes beyond this description and attributes a human quality to the time past: Şu şimdiki zamanlarımızı dinleyecek … olursak … bizim şimdiki zamanımızda beliren bir sessizlik söz konusu … Dünkü yıllar belki … yükselen kahkahalarla donanmış değildi ama ... şimdiki kadar suskun, sessiz, yankısız da değildi … hikayesinde bir gönül dinginliğinin hepimizin Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci işitebildigi sözleri fısıldanıp dururdu …(İleri 1994 :10) [If we listened to our present times … there has appeared a silence in our times … maybe the years of the past … were not brightened with laughter either, but … neither were they as mute, silent and echoless as today. ] Before illustrating Selim İleriʹs use of time in the context of the abovementioned mental framework, it will be helpful to have a look at the reasons which require Proust and other writers to deal with the past and reflect it into the present and then the future. First of all, to understand the nature of the night fears (of the present time) and insomnia from which both writers suffer might be a way going to a further understanding of their preoccupation with the past. According to Heinz Kohut: the healthy person derives his sense of oneness and sameness along the time axis from two sources: one superficial, the other deep. The superficial one belongs to the ability~-an important and distinguishing intellectual faculty of man-to take the historical stance: to recognize himself in his recalled past and to project himself into an imagined future. But this is not enough- clearly, if the other, the deeper source of our sense of abiding sameness dries up, then all our efforts to reunite the fragments of our self with the aid of Remembrance of Things Past will fail. We may well ask ourselves whether even Proust succeeded in this task. . . The reconsolidation achieved by Proust . . . rested on a massive shift from himself as a living and interacting humanbeing to the work of art he created. The Past Recaptured, the Proustian recovery of childhood memories, constitutes a psychological achievement significantly different from the fitting in of infantile amnesia . . . The Proustian recovery of the past is in the service of healing the the discontinuity of the self. The achievement of such a cure is the result of intense psychological labors. The Proustian Remembrance of Things Past attempts to provide an experientially valid continuity for the self-Proust laid out artistically what the modern psychology of the self attempts to give to man in scientific formulations. (Kohut 1977 : 181-183) One of Kohut’s case studies, that of a fantasy game played by a child in a lonely period of his life is interestingly close to what Proust (and also Selim İleri) do in their artistic works. This child, who was taken from his family to a farm to live with some distant relatives, felt threatened by a beginning fragmentation of his body-self and that he was therefore unable to give up conscious control (was unable to sleep) because of the fear that if his vigilance ceased his body-mind self would break apart, never to mend again. A fantasy game which he played for hours at such times demonstrates one of the countermeasures he employed to allay his fragmentation fears. As he lay awake, he imagined making long excursions on his body. Starting from his nose, he would imagine himself walking over the landscape of his body down to his toes, then back again to his navel shoulder, ear, etc. . . His trips from one part of his body to another reassured 15 16 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 him that all the parts were still there and that they were still held together by a self that inspected them. (Kohut 1977:159) Inspecting the body parts through an imaginary journey is rather similar to inspecting events and people of the past to see if they are still there -- that is to say, if one still has oneʹs history, which makes one a unified whole. Kohutʹs understanding of Proustʹs work also relates closely to Selim İleriʹs work, but there are some differences between the nature of the past they reestablish and create. Selim İleri’s attitude toward the past or lost time shows great resemblances to the case of Kohut’s “fragmented” child. The narrator of Gramofon Hala Çalıyor is very unsecure and lonely in the present and to go and digging into the past is his way of protecting his personal history from disintegration: “Sonra çiçeklerin adları ne kadar sihirliydi! Onları kendi kendime, tek tek, söylerken çiçeklerin hepsini de saksılarında, tarhlarında tekrar görür gibi oluyorum” [“And the names of the flowers were so magical! While I am saying their names one by one to myself, I almost see them all in their pots and flowerbeds again”] (İleri 1994:99). Although the comparison between the present and the past is openly in favor of the latter, İleri also seems to recognize that the past was not a place of absolute bliss: taking a look at his description of the past and the people crowding Gramofon Hala Çalıyor will illuminate his ambivalent attitude toward it. The subject matter of the novel is the narratorʹs associations and remembrances of the past with an underlying feeling of remorse and longing. The main characters of the novel include the narrator himself, his mother and father, his motherʹs friend ʺAlafrangaʺ Selma Hanım of the Kadiköy-Moda period, the ʺmuharrirʺ Cemil Şevket Bey and Solmaz Hanım of the Cihangir period, the ʺgigoloʺ Neşet Ağabey, the young imaginary navy officer, of all periods, other relatives and neighbors, and some fairy-tale characters such as Princess Rozet or ʺOburcuk.ʺ Gramofon Hala Çalıyor consists of 64 short and loosely-connected episodes dealing with the narrator’s childhood memories. These memories seem to be inspired mainly by a book he came across in his library, ʺKadıköyüʹnün Romanı,ʺ (The Novel of Kadıköy) and a photograph, showing the narratorʹs mother with some friends in the ʺPapasınbağıʺ (The Priest’s Vineyard). The events the narrator witnesses or hears take place in the 1950s, but some of the reported events, actual or semi-created, date back to earlier decades. There is an obvious quality of speculativeness and fictitiousness about these remembrances. The narrator who, for various reasons, cannot stand the ʺpresent time,ʺ indulges himself in ʺcreative remembranceʺ of the past. Therefore, the novel does not assume to have a ʺtrue to realityʺ quality and this is what gives it a postmodern tone. But when tracing the characters to their origins and roots, one finds the main charactersʹ real sources of inspiration, as exemplified by the connection between the ʺgigoloʺ Neşet Ağabey and the figure of the young navy officer who is extracted from him. In fact, the interconnection between the main characters of the Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci novel is established through this partly fictitious navy officer, who seemingly stands for the youthful male virility which fascinates some characters of the novel, including Alafranga Selma Hanım, Cemil Şevket Bey, Countess Bertini and the narrator himself. This fascination also confines the main characters into a multifaced single hermaphrodite personality. The other characters are connected to this multifaced personality in various ways, as exemplified by the hat collection which is the subject of a common interest between Countess Bertini, Solmaz Hanım and eventually Cemil Şevket Bey. There are also more subtle things used to establish a connection between these characters, such as the colour of Cemil Şevketʹs silk handkerchief and Selma Hanımʹs dress in the photograph, ʺa yellowish white color of raw silkʺ which is also the color of the magnolias which the navy officer offers to Cemil Sevket, an important symbol of passion in the novel. The emotional kinship connecting the main characters is worthy of attention. The longings, passions, and emotions of these personalities are characterized by a quality of perversion which makes their feelings illegitimate and impossible. For example, the 12th episode ʺModaʺ (“Fashion”) deals with the theme of ʺforbiddenʺ love and longing: Terastan denize atlayan- biraz bıçkınca-gençler, iskelenin çevresinde dönenen sandallardaki birçok hanımı pek heyecanlandırırdı. Onların ateşli gençliğini, geçkince hanımların bazılarının onulmaz heyecanlarını gönlün hisleri unutulmasın diye-yazmıştım. (40) [The youths-a bit on the rowdyish side-who jumped into the sea from the balcony used to make many ladies in the cayiques almost too much alarmed. I had written-their fiery youth, the ladiesʹ fairly advanced age-in order not to let the feelings of the heart be forgotten.] This is the kind of love that binds Cemal Sevki and Selma Hanim to the young navy officer. The story of the gigolo also exploits the same theme: a physical longing mixed with emotional moroseness. A lack of balance between the participants makes the love impossible, and either age or sex or fortune or social status or all of them condemn this love to be a secret and an unhappy affair. Apparently, the narrator who reluctantly accepts that there was not much happiness in the past needs to reestablish it and tends to indulge in a feeling of selfsacrifice on the behalf of his characters. Indeed, the participants of the perverted passion seem to be ʺwould-be martyrsʺ exemplified by Cahide Sonku, who is the patron saint of the Selim İleri canon. In that sense, the theme of the novel is an exploration and recreation of the past, which was not happy but still a desirable period by the virtue of its being past: seemingly, the very fact of its being left behind in time makes an event or experience precious, regardless of its being happily fulfilled or not. Therefore, what gives the novel its tone is an underlying element of frustration. 17 18 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 The characters either act out their passion like Alafranga Selma Hanım, who leaves her family for a young man, or live their passions mentally like Solmaz Hanim, who indulges her need for love in sentimental novels. But why should they be so unhappy? The reason seems to be related to the narratorʹs personality: it must be taken into account that the narrator has strong feelings of deprivation which derive from a comparison between the things which belong to him and the things which belong to other people. Within this context, his mother, his house, his familyʹs eating and picnic habits and even the furniture of his house are counterposed with those of neighbors and relatives: “Evimizde tek bir koltuk takımı varken. . .bu. . . büyük salonda, kimisi yaldızlı, kimisi yine kadife. . . koltuklar. . . abanoz sehpalar vardı” [“While we had only one set of armchairs... in this large parlour... there were low ebony tables, armchairs of velvet and gilded fabric”] (19). The outcome is always in favor of the ʺothers.ʺ Then the ʺother,” which is defined by superior conditions, and the “self,” which is defined by deprivation, are kept in tension, which seems to be the basic emotional source of the novel. Since the narrator is identical with almost all of the characters, it is only natural that they should be unhappy too. It should not be forgotten that what inspires Selim İleriʹs mind concerning the past is not fulfillment, but just the contrary. His account of ʺPrenses Rozet Masalıʺ in Episode 6, ʺPrensler, prenseslerʺ (“Princes, Princesses”), sheds light on this peculiarity: it is not Rozet’s final happiness but Oranjinʹs malice that Selim İleri takes side with. It is jealousy which is felt better compared to happiness. The basic principle of Selim İleriʹs world is the predominance of negative feelings coming from frustration over happiness. This little tale, whose heroine Rozet eventually defeats her evil sisters Oranjin and Kusset, is of much significance. It seems that what is “roman” or what is past which is dramatized in the narration is determined by ill chance and failure. Therefore, Selim İleriʹs understanding of time relies on a past which is not a place of satisfaction but a place of a bitter pleasure coming from suffering: “Simdi anlıyorum ki Prenses Rozetʹin masalını sevdiğimi sanmış, ama çekemezlik yolunda yalnızca kıskanmıştım” [“Now I understand that I had misconstrued a liking for Princess Rozet’s tale but in reality I was only jealous of it”] (27). Therefore, the passion which the characters of the novel share is fulfilled not in consummation but in frustration. Neither Cemil Şevket nor the aging Selma Hanım, nor the gigolo Neşet’s other women could have their beloved ones, represented by the imaginative navy officer of magnolias. Even this young officer who seems to be interested in older women can not attain the target of his incestuous passion. Here it will be helpful to have a close look at Alafranga Selma Hanım who is on her way to martyrdom, a destiny Selim İleri wishes for his characters. In the 18th episode she is introduced through her impossible and socially disapproved love affair with a young man. The narrator notes that is was his first encounter with love which Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci was a disasterous passion leading to an absolute collapse: Aşkı ilk kez duyumsuyordum. Aşk, evini, çocuklarını, aile saadetini ebediyen terk etmek demekti. Aşkʹın gittiğimiz yolun sonunu düşünmemek olduğunu düşünüyordum. (59) [It was the first time that I had felt about Love. Love meant to renounce forever oneʹs home, children, family, happiness. . . I was thinking that Love meant not to think about the end of the road we were on.] Sometimes this tension of longing and deprivation evolves into a state of halfmadness in some characters who are destined to sever the ties with society. Bazi günler Alafranga Selma Hanım hiç sebep yokken İstanbulʹun vapur iskelelerinde tek başına oturuyormuş. .. Boğazdan esen rüzgarı duyuyormuş... taa akşama kadar bekliyormuş... ve o artık denizlerden ayrılamıyormuş. (62) [Some days, without a reason, Selma the alafranga would sit alone, I heard, in the ferry stations... feeling the wind blowing through Bosphorus... waiting even until the evening, she could not keep herself away from the seas. . .] In fact, the disastrous love affair, and the dramatic element arising from it, is what Selim İleri seems to fall in love with: as will be seen, the very feeling of nostalgia and loss replaces the real object of longing in his world. Another leading figure of the novel, Cemil Şevket Bey, an old writer and the emotional victim of an imaginary homosexual love affair, is introduced in the 21st episode of the novel. He is described, like the narrator, as indulging in remembrance: “Hatıraların anlatirdi... yaşadığı ölgün hayatın ötesinde, bu hatırladığı hayat, gönlüne besbelli daha çekici gelmeye başlamıştı” [“He would tell his memories... this remembered life, beside the dead life he was leading, obviously looked more attractive to his heart”] (69). In fact, the narrator is in need of reestablishing this life because it is not easy to make a picture of decay: Adı, gitgide sönen edebiyatımızda çoktan silinmiş Cemil Şevket Beyʹi dile getirmek, “yazmak” sanıldığınca kolay bir çaba değildi. Hayatının sırlarını başkalarından dinlemiş; bu sırların çekilen acılarını ise öğrenememiştim. (70) [To make Cemil Sevket Bey come alive again, to write about him, whose name had already disappeared from our gradually extinguishing literature, was no easy work as it might appear. I had heard the secrets of his life from other people and could not learn about the suffering inflicted by those secrets.] Apparently, Cemil Şevket feels bitterness about his past, which was actually a time of disappointments, but which he attempts to show as a time of glory: Hanımlara denizi özlemediğini söylüyor, yakasını silker gibi yapıyor; deniz sadece bir kaç sokak ötedeyken, yokuşlardan inip manzarayı görmeye üşendiğini gevrek bir kahkaha atarak, hırçın yüz buruşturmalarıyla söylüyordu.... . bıkkınım, bıkkın!...derdi. (70) 19 20 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 [He was telling the ladies that he had not missed the sea; making a gesture of stretching his collar to show his weariness of it, and making a peevish face, he would give a little brittle laughter (to show) that he was too lazy to climb down the hillside to see the scenery, despite the fact that the sea was only a few streets away. He used to say ʺI am so tired of everything, so tired.] There is something inherently sad about him: “Her kahkaha atıştan sonra çıkagelen bir iki damla gözyaşını beyaz, kolalı... kendisinin kolaladığı, solgun ipek sarısı ipek mendiliyle silerdi” [“He would dry the two teardrops, which would gush out from his eyes after each laugh, with a white, starched (starched by himself) silk handkerchief of pale silk-yellow”] (71). In fact, Cemil Şevket is a blend of Abdülhak Şinasi Hisar and Alafranga Selma Hanım, who posed in the photograph in a ʺsolgun ipek sarısı ipek elbise.ʺ He is the sole male attendant of Cihangir ʺsalons,ʺ which are a very far cry from the Proustian salons of St. Germain-Faubourg. Cemil Şevket, whose homosexuality is more than implied in the novel, attempts to create a glory of the past since he can not voice his real past. İlle zengin ve varlıklı, debdebeli bir hayatın izdüşümlerini dile getirmek isterdi. Hakikati konuşmaktan kaçınıyor, hakikati konuşamadığı için belki gizli bir ıstırap duyuyordu. Kimbilir, bu dünyanın kendisinden esirgedigi bir çok şeyi, sanki bu düşsel zenginliklerde, servet kırıntılarıyla örtbas edebileceğini, soylu ve tantanalı bir geçmişin kendisine saygınlık, ayrıcalık getireceğini umuyor, ummak istiyordu. (72) {He had particularly wanted to create the illusion of a rich, magnificent past. He avoided talking about the reality, and since he could not talk about the reality, perhaps he was suffering from a hidden pain. Who knows, maybe he expected, wanted to expect that an aristocratic and pompous past with those illusory riches, with the crumbs of a fortune, would bring him respectability, so that he would be compansated for so many things of which this world had deprived him.] The 22th episode, ʺManolyalar Aşkıʺ (“Love of Magnolias”), deals with Cemil Şevketʹs emotional life. The old writer, who refuses to give the details of his love life, is shown to use a formula to avoid questions: Cemil Şevket Beyʹin bu sorulara tek bir yanıtı vardı: Büyük bir aşk yaşamış, hüsrana uğramıştı. Yalnız, hüsrana uğramak bazan değişir; muharrir Cemil Şevketʹin melankolilerden sıyrıldığı bir güne rastlıyorsa, yanıtı--Büyük bir aşk yaşadım, o aşka sadakatsizlik edemem olurdu. (75) [Cemil Şevket Bey had a single answer for these questions. He had had a great love affair; but eventually got disappointed. That disappointment part, however, was changed sometimes; if it happened to be a day Cemil Şevket Bey was able to rid himself of his melancholies, the answer would be: ʺI had a great love, I cannot betray it now.”] Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci Cemil Şevketʹs story is originally told to Solmaz Hanım, who is introduced in the 30th episode. Although she comes late, her existence is felt throughout the novel. She is another chief character of Selim İleriʹs canon, a spinster whose life is devoted to romance. She is described as a lonely old girl, whom the narrator likens to the noises of a windy night. Solmaz Hanım is the representative of the marginal women whom the narrator values over the equally unhappy but traditional housewives of his childhood. In the 31st episode, he changes her into a fairy-like creature: “Solmaz Hanım için bir masal kurmuştum... kimi günler Solmaz Hanım’ın ebedi gençliğe kavuşan bir peri olduğuna inanılabilirdi” [“I had created a tale for Solmaz Hanım. . . . some days it was possible to believe that Solmaz Hanım was a fairy who had been enjoying eternal youth”] (94). In fact, the narrator esteems these marginal people, including Solmaz Hanım, as martyrs (if not “fairies”) because they are victims of an inevitable fate. Therefore, Selim İleriʹs characters have no connection with happiness. His remembrance or creation of their memories and life stories is laden with a sad feeling. The excitement to which the hearts of these old or marginal people are exposed is called ʺgönlün hisleriʺ (the feelings of the heart) and romanticized by the narrator. It is implied throughout the novel that there is nothing carnal about their falling in love with a person of a much younger age or of the same sex. What Selim İleri tries to do is to purify these lovers. But the innocence he attributes to them is an imaginary one and created through wishful remembrance. It will be helpful to understand Selim İleriʹs world, in order to explore the nature of his remembrance. 3. The Narrative Techniques of Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Following the same creative practices and turning real people into literary characters for similar motives with Proust, Selim İleri extends his interest to the public figures of the early republic in order to create a romanesque atmosphere. This is one of the reasons why he introduces characters like Menderes or Şadiye Sultan, who are not indispensable organic parts of his narrative. But the same situation allows him to use some interesting material so that he acts with the freedom of a second hand narrator. İleri does not escape from gossip and uses his imagination to the extent of creating obviously fictional (and almost abstract) personalities, such as the young navy officer of Gramofon Hala Çalıyor. He is identical with the narrator and gradually identifies with all of the characters; the whole procedure takes place in front of the reader. One of the basic techniques İleri employs to produce his narrations is the use of the “-mişli geçmiş zaman” tense (a mix of past/present perfect tense and reported speech, usually used to describe events one has not seen personally, which has no exact English equivalent). This contributes a fairy tale quality to the story through the 21 22 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 narrator’s wishful thinking. Like Evliya Çelebi, who narrated many unlikely events as they were reported to him, the narrator of passages in reported speech is at ease when telling a tale without having to consider that that tale might prove false. Therefore Selim İleriʹs play with time is facilitated by his alternative use of tenses, and by the sudden shifts between first hand and second hand narrators. Indeed, it is not clear nor needs to be if he is a first-hand witness of the event he is telling. Sometimes he starts a sentence with reported speech, leaving no doubt that he was not one of the participants. But then he changes the mode, becomes an eyewitness to the event, and takes it to the present time as if it were not a thing of the past, but rather a life situation which he is presently experiencing. The 7th episode, “The Back Garden” (ʺArka Bahçeʺ), might illustrate this technique: the episode is the story of the narratorʹs visits to his dentist in childhood, which were rewarded with books by his parents. The description of the office and the building is an interesting mixture of past and present tenses which enables the reader to participate in the reverie the narrator indulges: Dişçi koltuğunda uslu oturursam dönüşte armağan kitap alınırdı. . . Dişçi Macit Beyʹin muayenehanesi... ahşap merdivenden üst kata çıkılır... bir kaç basamak sonra koridor. Soldaki ilk verandadan girilen arka bahçeye yıllar var ki bahçevan eli değmemiştir... arka bahçe belleğime çakılıp kalmıştı... dört bir yandan incirler kuşatıyordu... iki leylak ağacı bahçede geçmiş günlerden bir andaç gibi kalmıştı... bir sarmaşık gülü boş yere güneş aranır. (28, emphasis added) [If I behaved myself in the dentistʹs chair, on our way home, a gift of a book would be bought for me. . . Dentist M Beyʹ s office. . . the wooden stairs lead one upstairs. . . after a few steps, there is the aisle. The first door on the left... for years no gardenerʹs hand has touched the back garden which is seen from the veranda. . . the back garden had been carved in my memory. . . from every angle, fig trees were surrounding it... two trees of lilac had remained like a souvenir of old days. . . a rambling rose looks vainly for sun.] Another example might be taken from the episode ʺİpek Prensesʺ (The Silk Princess) in which Selim İleri relates a tale of his childhood whose heroine, İpek Prenses, is deceived into a trap by her evil stepmother. She is sent to a magic castle ʺBedbahtlıklar Şatosuʺ (The Castle of Illfate), believing that she was going to her auntʹs chalet. Her companion for the voyage, Oburcuk, is a gluttonous fool who is bribed with candies by the stepmother. The passage displays time shifts and changes in the narrative point. At the beginning, the narrator talks as if he was an eyewitness of the event (and even likens himself to Oburcuk in other chapters for his big appetite and fat body.) But soon the narration shifts to reported speech and then again suddenly reaches into present tense direct speech including both the narrator and the reader into the scene. Then it again becomes a story of past and then again of present. It might be Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci claimed that Selim İleriʹs use of time is related to his use of reported or direct speeches as much as time shifts in tenses. The following lines from ʺIpek Prensesʺ might illustrate this fact: İpek Prenses ʹin gözyaşlarına, yalvarışlarına aldırışsız Oburcuk, bu defa da mavi topaz rengindeki kadife kutudan yeni yeni şekerlemeler-bunlar muzlu, armut rayihali ve kakaoluydu--atıştırarak yola koyulmuş; yalnız birden hava pek kararmış, şimşekler çakıvor, yağmur başlamış, gökgürültüleri kulağı sağır ediyor. Oburcuk artık önünü göremiyordu. Fayton sarsıldıkça sarsılıvor, atlar şaha kalkıyor ve çılgıncasına kişniyorlardı. Çok geçmeden fayton devrilecek, Oburcuk, bahçe yolunda mermer taşlara çarparak can verecekti. Şimsek çakımı, göz açıp kapayana, beyaz mermerlere renkli mücevherler gibi saçılmış portakal, turunç, nane, şeftali ve limon şekerlemelerini aydınlatırdı. (32, emphasis added) [Heedless of Princess Ipekʹs tears and pleas, and eating banana-, pear- and cocoa-flavored candies from the blue topaz-colored velvet box, the Little Glutton started his trip, but (as it has been told) it suddenly became very dark, it is lightning, it started raining, there are deafening thunderbolts. The Little Glutton was not able to see his way. The carriage was being shaken, the horses were standing up on their hind legs and neighing crazily. Soon the carriage would get capsized, the Little Glutton would fall on marble stones on the garden path and give up his soul. The moment of lightning, within a twinkle, would be shedding light on the candies of lemon, peach, mint, bitter orange and orange scattered like colored jewelry on the white marbles.] Another example might be from the life of Alafranga Selma Hanım, whose second meeting with the navy officer is anticipated by the narrator at the time when she is waiting in boat stations. The affair seems to have already started in the mind of the narrator, who creates a past for this love relationship. Before meetings are started or the relation is established, Selma Hanım is introduced into love and, even more, into longing. It seems that here in İleri’s perception, the feeling recedes the action and the navy officer is almost a mere object of a tendency to love which waits for unfulfilment. So the sequence of the events are interestingly put into reverse order showing the narratorʹs way of constructing things in time. The story of this love relationship seems to be derived from Selma Hanımʹs own account, but it is actually based on rumors. When people stop talking about it, the narrator is refrained from telling more. İleriʹs treatment of Cemil Şevketʹs life story is not very different: his strolling in time is symbolized by the image of stairs, which stands for memories, actual or fabricated. The consistantly alternating use of direct and indirect speeches is very much in the foreground here as exemplified by these verbs within the same semantic unit: “Bakakalırdı. . . başlatırdı. . . meğerse bir sandalda gidiyormuş. . . söylüyorlarmış. . . emrediyordu. . . meğerse... dermiş... bir başka konuya gelmiş” [“His eyes would 23 24 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 amazedly be fixed on it. . . it would start. . . he was said to be going in a cayique. . . they were said to be telling it. . . he was giving orders. . . and all the while he was said to be saying this. . . he was said to have passed on another subject”] (77). The story Cemil Şevket tells to Solmaz Hanım is related by the narrator and naturally starts with reported speech: “dermiş.ʺ But soon the narrator participates in the event and becomes either identical with Solmaz Hanım or a hidden presence there: “Yüzünde bir tragedyanın ifadesi beliriyordu... deminki yaldızlı sözler de eski parıltısını edinemezdi” [“The expression of a tragedy was appearing on his face... and the gilded words of a moment ago could not get their former brilliance now”] (75). Then the narrator starts to rebuild the past: “Seneler geçip Cemil Şevket Beyʹi düşündükçe onun bize çığlıklar söylediğini... gözyaşlarını sanki fısıldadığını işitiyorum” [“Thinking of Cemil Sevket Bey after many years, I hear him telling us ʺscreamsʺ, almost whispering his ‘tears.’”] (75). He even goes further and imagines a Bogaziçi scene where Selma Hanim waited for the navy officer in a dream the narrator creates on behalf of Cemil Şevket: “Cemil Şevket Bey genç bahriye zabitini bir gece rüyasında görür, onun, dalından yeni kopartılmış, ʹbakirʺ bir kaç manolyayı gülümseyerek uzattığını... farkeder” [“One night, Cemil Sevket Bey has a dream of the young navy officer, becomes aware that he is offering with a smile to him a few virgin magnolias, just broken from their branch.”] (76). Then he again approaches the world of realities: “İşte, Cemil Şevket beyʹin hazlarından adeta şikayet ettiği böyle tuhaf, tılsımlı ve yıkımlı rüyaları varmış” [“(It is said that) Cemil Sevket Bey had such strange, magical and destructive dreams from the pleasures of which he almost complains.”] (76, emphasis added). Selim İleriʹs account of the events could be summarily categorized in temporality like this. First of all, there is the narratorʹs childhood memories of certain people. The narrator explores the lives of these people which had a quality of pastness even at the time of the narratorʹs childhood. Since he does not have real access to the actual past of these people, he creates an imaginary and artificial past, but tends to present it as real. This imagined narration is defective in facts and persons so the narrator rebuilds it or speculates or imagines about it. Having considered the motives of Selim İleriʹs interest in the past and surveyed his characterization as well as his use of time, we can proceed into Gramofon Hala Çalıyor and have a close look at some technical issues. 4. The Creation of the Objects of Remembrance The narrator of Gramofon Hala Çalıyor sometimes participates in the events and sometimes assumes the role of an omniscient author who is able to give first hand information. But the evocation of memory seems to be random and based mostly on coincidences. Therefore, the remembrance of time past is an unreliable procedure Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci dependent on the evocative power of certain objects, such as a photograph or a novel: Fotoğrafı, kaybolup gittiği, işte bir gün... dün, rastlantı sonucu bulunduğu, şimdi yine kaybolup gideceği, unutulacağı, belki bir daha bulamayacağım, bu yüzden de bir daha göremeyeceğim o fotoğrafı eski yerine koyarken. . . romancı, unutulmuş eserinde... zamanın imbiğinden geçirerek anlatıyor. Bense, gitgide silinen çizgileriyle görebiliyorum. Artık seçik değil. (36, 39) [While putting that photograph back to its old place, where it was lost andagain on a certain day, yesterday-was discovered by a coincidence, that photograph would be lost and forgotten again... then I could have not found it again and thus, could have not seen it again . . . the novelist in his forgotten work... is telling his story through the still of time. And I could see it only through more and more disappearing lines. It is not clear anymore.] When these evocative objects are gone, there is little hope to recover the past. Therefore, the past is conceived in relation to the objects which are the meeting points of space and time. The first episode of the novel, which deals with Selim İleri’s relatives in Arnavutköy who lived in a little house with a pretty garden, is a good example to illustrate the role objects played in the procedure of remembrance. İleriʹs occasional visits to this family seem to be held very dear by the author who gives a magicalpoetic account of his experiences there, which is determined by the images of furniture and flowers recalled through meticulous and beautifying efforts in the writerʹs mind. The central object of remembrance in the episode is the magazine Yedigün, which function throughout the narrative as a point of reference and information. In this sense, Yedigün magazine (which is no longer published) is both a door opening to the past and a bank of information which holds precious items of time past. The magazine, which was published in the colors of blue, green and sepia, is represented like a black-and-white movie with a sense of nostalgia. ʺBu ciltler zamanda, haftadan haftaya, bir yolculuk gibiydiʺ [“those volumes were like a travel in time, from a week to another”] (11). The second episode of the novel focuses on the subjects which were introduced by Yedigün. The most important of them is the issue of marriage which is a source of remorse rather than happiness to the narrative voiceʹs perception. Selim İleri’s speculation about the nature of time takes place in the ʺHayat Yaratan Sanatkarʺ (“the artist who creates life”) episode, where he deals with the time past which has an eternal quality but misperceived by people as finite and, what is worse, as having already passed by. According to the narrative voice of Gramofon Hala Çalıyor, this period (time past) is determined by its distinguishing qualities. It is beyond our ordinary time (ʺbizim gelgeç zamanlarımızla kısıtlanmamışʺ), it has no starting point and no end, it is fluid (ʺgerçekteyse hep sürüp gidenʺ) and also attached to space or things, or rather, perceived through its connections with things: 25 26 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 “Muhakkak ki orada... öncesiz sonrasız bir zaman diliminde... ekose muşamba örtülü. masanın üstüne, ya da yunmuş, daima pırıl pırıl beyaz taşlıkta Yedigünʹler açıkta bırakılmış duruyor olmalı” [“Surely, over there, in a no beginning/no ending time period, on the table covered with a dominoed plastic table cloth, or, in the always wellcleaned shiny white hall, there should be issues of Yedigun left open”] (12). Another important theme of the episode is its parody of attempts of the early generations of republican era to adopt the new Western living standards and the difficulties arising from the transition period. The central metaphor here is the ʺCumhuriyet Balosuʺ (the Republican Ball), which is reported by Yedigün. The costumed characters of the ball were connected with the statues of Madame Taussaud’s wax museum which is an ominious sign about the future of these characters. Indeed, Madame Taussaudʹs waxworks stands for the emotional destruction which ruined the lives of past generations and for the narratorʹs attempt to keep them alive in his memories. The underlying tone is ironic. The narrator makes fun of what he is telling, but he is too much involved with his characters to be really hostile to them: Zaten Yedigünʹün.. ciltlerinde, haftalarca gülümsemiş... bütün o kadınlar, erkekler de kaybolmamışlar mıydı? Ben onların sanrılarını görmüyor muydum ve zaten kendilerini değil, yıllar yılı, sanrılarını yaşatmayacak mıydım? İşte onlar da benim hatırlayabildiğim şeyler arasına karışıp gitmişti. (15) [In fact, havenʹt all those men and women, who had smiled from the volumes of Yedigun for weeks on end, disappeared? Wasnʹt I seeing their illusions, and wouldnʹt I make-not themselves but their illusions-live for years? Now they had mixed with those things which I could remember.] This imaginative and wishful perception of an object (in this case the magazine Yedigün) and its associations (the people and issues mentioned in Yedigün) in an eternal time, which is created through a texture of colors and careful descriptions of related objects, is essential for Selim İleriʹs remembering and then reflecting ʺtime pastʺ or ʺtime lost.ʺ Naturally it depends on a denial on the narratorʹs part that the things he is remembering are not lost but still intact on a different level of existence: ʺmuhakkak ki, orada... duruyor olmalı (surely, over there. .. there should be ...).” This assumption requires the narrative voiceʹs active pursuit of them through a detailed search of memory. These precious events and expectations of the past are kept in memory and it is interesting to notice how Selim İleri uses a method to preserve things in ʺbottlesʺ of different colors: “Gizemli küçük bahçe, haziranda öylesine yoğun leylak kokardı ki bu leylak kokusunun da erguvani, leylaki ve mavi renkte, belki billur şişelerde saklı duran bir esansı olduğu sanılırdı” [“The mysterious little garden would smell in June so intensively of lilacs that, it would be thought that that the fragrance of lilac had an Selim İleri: Gramofon Hala Çalıyor Oğuz Cebeci essence kept hidden in lilac-blue bottles”] (17). This means a condensation in the substance and a process of crystallization which makes glassy and probably frozen forms out of things past: a method of artistic remembrance by means of producing crystal-like, visual images, a form of mummification as exemplified again by Madame Taussaudʹs waxworks. The narratorʹs understanding of objects and words as laden with emotions and feelings is an intrinsic part of his treatment of them: Selma Hanım kanarya sarısı mimozalara sık sık sevgiyle bakıyor, onlarda... sevgili bir varlık görür gibi oluyordu. --O getirdi, Heybeliʹden. . . Bu söz de, işte aşkʹın bir sözü oluyordu. Bu aşkı kupa vazoda duran, henüz baygın kokuları sona ermemiş bir kaç salkım mimozayla sarmaş dolaş görüyordum. Bu ask, gerçekte bir kaç salkım mimozaya duyulmuş bir aşk değil de neydi. . . (59, 64) [Selma Hanim was looking with love at the yellow rnimosas often... and seeing a beloved existence in them. --He brought them, from Heybeli Island. And that word would be a word of love. I was seeing this love in an embrace with those a few branches of mimosa in the coupe-vase whose fainting smell has not yet dinmüshed. What was this love if it was not a love felt for a few branches of mimosa. . .] Interestingly, the object which incites the imagination gradually becomes the embodiment of the whole affair and the feeling itself. Therefore, to have a feeling about the past depends on being inspired by an object signifying that feeling which is kept in memory as a visual impression. Conclusion Selim İleri avoids the present time for psychological reasons, which is what connects him to Marcel Proust. To escape from the present, he attempts to take refuge in the past and rebuilds it through creative remembrance. But there is a problem concerning his reminiscences of that period. The past is not a place of happiness but marked with an inherent sadness. Therefore, he attempts to glorify that sadness and creates martyrlike characters who are the victims of their rebellious hearts. Cahide Sonku, Solmaz Hanım, Cemil Şevket, and Countess Bertini are among these martyrs who are characterized with a two-sidedness of their minds: purity in wickedness. They are represented and redeemed by Cahide Sonkuʹs abandonment of fortune, which is idealized by the narrator as a way of self-sacrifice in order to attain real greatness. İleri’s method of recreating the past is realized through his specific use and treatment of names, objects and tenses. He uses time shifts and blurs the limits 27 28 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi Cilt 3 . Sayı 2 . Haziran 2006 between the present and the past, so the shadow of the past is always here, or the present is expanded to include the past. He also employs shifts of direct and indirect speech within the same grammatical and semantic unit, by means of which he creates a double blurring effect between different time periods. The most striking example of this method is observed in his shifts from reported speech (ʺ--mişli geçmiş zamanʺ) to direct speech (ʺşimdiki zamanʺ). His interest in reconstructing the past contributes both its peculiarities and beauties to his language. Despite the nearly insurmountable challenge that his unique style poses to translators, Selim İleri is a worthy successor to Proust who deserves a wider readership beyond the boundaries of his native country. References İLERİ, Selim (1994) Gramofon Hala Çalıyor. Istanbul: Can Yayınları. İLERİ, Selim (1993) Kırık Deniz Kabukları. Istanbul: Can Yayınları. KOHUT, Heinz (1977) The Restoration of the Self. Madison, Conn.: International Universities Press. KRIS, Ernst (1974) Psychoanalytic Explorations in Art. New York: Schocken. STOLLER, Robert (1985) Observing the Erotic Imagination. New Haven: Yale Univ. Press. Oğuz Cebeci Doç. Dr., Yeditepe Üniversitesi, İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı Öğretim Üyesi. Yoğunlaştığı araştırma alanı psikanalitik edebiyat eleştirisi. Adres: Yeditepe Üniversitesi, İngiliz Dili ve Edebiyatı Bölümü, 19 Mayıs Yerleşkesi, Kayışdağı 34755-İstanbul. E-posta: oc23@hotmail.com Yazı bilgisi : Alındığı tarih: 13 Ocak 2006 Yayına kabul edildiği tarih: 15 Nisan 2006 E-yayın tarihi: 27 Haziran 2006 Kaynak sayısı: 5 Çıktı sayfa sayısı: 22