Oğuz Cebeci - Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi

Transkript

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
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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
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10 Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi
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,
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
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)
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
[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.”]
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
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
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
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
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
“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
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
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: [email protected]
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

Oğuz Cebeci - Modern Türklük Araştırmaları Dergisi

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