This year, a chapter from The Theory of Infirmity by Ersan Üldes, one of the contributors of Turkish Book Review is selected for the anthology.

For detailed information visit the publisher’s website:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/book/?GCOI=15647100326240

You can read the interview with Ersan Üldes at:

http://www.dalkeyarchive.com/info/?fa=text163

Plath’s and Marmara’s lives and works reflect a kaleidoscopic nature of existence, a life made up of many fragments and defying rational explanation and categorization. After The Colossus was published, many critics were fascinated by Plath’s revelation of both physical and mental pain and the stunning use of the limits of the English language. The same can be said for Marmara’s poetry, which is a sort of epitaph to the ‘I’ lost in time and haunted by the very reality of death. But Plath is fascinated with the idea of death to the extent that she can be said to be ‘conjuring with the unknown’. Here is Plath in ‘Lady Lazarus’:

Dying
Is an art, like everything else
I do it exceptionally well.

Almost the same resolve for death is present in Marmara’s ‘Swan Song’:

My poems, swan songs before death
The black gowned nightwatch secrets of my rolling life

Every pain I’ve postponed for so long
Is cracking now, and a new song starts
–this poem–

As my life and my unknown parts stagger
I’ve gotta stay a friend to me and to you all

‘Cause it has split from the aggressive
From the great desire that breaks its sleep
–this poem–
If it takes its magic from a sincerity
then lives its own pure violence
The quiet-space of the beauties I cannot make
the obedient reflection of the unattainable
calls out your name
with love!

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In the last years of Ottoman Empire, Turkish literature turned its face towards the West and started a new course parallel to the development of world literature. Both its geographic position between East and West, at the centre of three continents, Asia, Europe and Africa, and also its long lasting relations with East and West gave Turkish literature a unique place in world literature.

After a journey over more than a thousand years, Turkish literature has become a focus for international attention. In the last few years, many Turkish works have been translated into world languages, and many others are in the process of translation. In 2006, the Nobel Prize for Literature was awarded to the Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. And Turkey will be the guest of honour at the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2008.

It is in such times that the Turkish Book Review sets out its venture to be a voice for Turkish literature. This is the first book review magazine on Turkish literature in English. We are seeking to draw a profile that includes the masters and landmark figures of Turkish writing along with the young authors, mainstream authors as well as more marginal ones.

Turkish literature has attracted global interest but it is not easy to see beneath the surface when viewed from abroad. While some names shine on the surface – as with any literature in the world – some underlying tides can be overlooked. I hope this magazine will help enrich the world’s understanding of Turkish literature in all its depth and liveliness.

In our daily language we give a very special connotation to writing. The word yazı, meaning writing in Turkish, also means destiny. We say one’s destiny is written on a person’s forehead.

In this issue, we present to you a special feature about the alphabet and focus on letters and their various reflections in art and religion.

There exists within Islam a little known sect dating back to the 14th century known as Hurufism, which has a very interesting philosophy based on letters. The believers of Hurufism tried to find the secrets of life in letters, they believed there are hidden letters in the human face and body. They analysed the relationship between letters and numbers, and searched for the mystic information in the letters of the Quran. Members of the sect were killed when they started to have an influence on the heir of the Ottoman Padishah, Mehmed II, the future conqueror of Istanbul. This sect, which has influenced many heterodox religious movements in Islam like Sufism and Bektashism, is now a part of Islamic history; although it continues to inspire contemporary authors like Orhan Pamuk, Elif Şafak and Hilmi Yavuz. This issue includes a review of the first book written in Turkish on this very delicate subject, Hurufism by Ömer Tecimer. In this feature, besides Hurufism, there is a review on a publication on the Ottoman Art of Calligraphy and an interview with the prominent author Tahsin Yücel on the relationship between language and writing, contemporary literature and semiotics.

There exist some special letters in the Turkish alphabet which are not used in other languages. Over the last years, especially with the rise of the internet, we have become used to converting them into standard letters in the Latin alphabet. On the covers of most Turkish literature books which are published in other languages, we see Turkish authors’ names are also transliterated. In the first issues of the Turkish Book Review, we also chose not to use these special characters; since Turkish literature is already a new subject for many readers, we wanted to make it easy for you to become acquainted. In the first three issues we succeeded in reaching a significantly large audience. Now, in this issue, we would like to introduce you to Turkish letters as well.

For many years Turkish literature did not received the interest it deserved from the literary world. But looking at the positive feedback we are receiving from our readers and the increasing number of translated works of Turkish literature, we can say that this trend is on a turning point; there is a very bright future is written on its forehead…

Throughout his books, the language of Barış Bıçakçı can be defined as ‘poetic’ in a general sense. These texts, all of which have been written in a plain and unvarnished, yet abundantly rich style in terms of discourse and meaning, are the products of an imagination that has strong ties with poetry. Be that as it may, one can hardly make precise interpretations of the structures built by the author’s language. There are certain differences of opinion in literary circles with respect to determining the genre of Barış Bıçakçı’s books, particularly After Going Parallel to the Ground for a While. Some critics define the work as a ‘short story’ book, while others claim it is a ‘novel’. Even though the critics who maintain that After Going Parallel to the Ground for a While is a story with respect to its language conforming to the short story genre, the fact that this book is composed of thirty-seven sections, all of which contribute to the development of the overall interactive plot, makes this text beyond a shadow of doubt a contemporary novel.

Other books by Bıçakçı namely, As if Everyone is Friends with Each Other and Our Great Desperation, in which there can hardly be any doubt that they are novels in the strictest sense of the word, can be considered as some of the distinguished texts of Turkish Literature, thanks to the plain and condensed language used, the gratifying range of meaning and non-coercive plots.

Despite the fact that As if Everyone is Friends with Each Other is the first novel of the author, this work brings an opulence of expression and fresh means of constructing a narrative account to the sphere of literature. The plot of the book that vaults from persona to persona and from setting to setting, moves on to another story without allowing the personalities to acquire the status of a ‘character’; so the flavour of each story lingers in the mind of the reader. The human stories, all of which might initially give the impression of being irrelevant in relation to each other, eventually form into the unique story of a comprehensive novel. As if Everyone is Friends with Each Other offers an unpretentious insight into ordinary, nevertheless ignored, human conditions.

Since divorced, he hankers and craves for every woman except his ex-wife. From this point on, for him, ‘woman’ is a combination comprised of every woman except his wife. Woman is a combination. Not a weight that leaves its tracks on the right side of the bed. Let everyone know this as it is. (p. 52)

The triumph of humankind was crushing them. They were being crushed under the triumph of the people who took refuge in caves and who started fires there; who hunted and survived, and then drew pictures of the animals they hunted on the walls of the caves; who domesticated animals, sailed ships, built castles (nay, they have come even from Britain in order to build Ankara Castle); who produced catapults and used in these catapults helical springs made up of women’s hair; who ‘got laid with women’; who brought potato and corn from the American continent and took Africans from there as slaves; who believed in Moses, Jesus, Mohammad; of the executive secretaries, bank managers, purchase specialists, sales representatives, plant and operation managers, site managers, actors, artists, litterateurs, translators, editors, generals, graduate students, sportsmen, engineers. (p. 55)

Our Great Desperation can be considered as the most ‘novel like’ of Barış Bıçakçı’s works. In comparison with his other works it has a more straightforward plot which takes shape around a single theme. The close friendship of Ender and Çetin, which dates back to their childhood, changes dimension upon the arrival to their house of an uninvited guest, a girl called Nihal. Nihal, who has lost her parents in a traffic accident, is the sister of Fikret, a close friend of Ender and Çetin who is residing in America. The novel which is narrated by Ender and addressed only to Çetin, discusses in detail the love that the two men feel for Nihal and, in point of fact, the feelings they have for each other. The author’s account in this novel is again both plain and rich.

We do not need to use words as nostrums anymore. We are not obliged to make meaningful, memorable and expressive speeches, because we’ve been healed! Because we do live together! (p. 91)

Although Barış Bıçakçı’s most recent book After Going Parallel to the Ground for a While also includes the characteristic features of his previous writings, it is a literary opus which positions itself above the earlier books of the writer both in fictional and textual terms. The novel focuses on the suicide of a young girl, Başak and the people in her immediate surroundings: her mother Türkan, her brother Umut, her grandmother Nanni, her boyfriend Ahmet, as well as her friends Nergis and Abidin. The novel opens with the plot within which is contained the essential feature of the novel: the concealment of truth from Başak’s grandmother, upon whom the young girl’s suicide would have the severest effect; the agreement of Canan, the girl next door, who surrenders to her mother’s insistence and reluctantly assumes to play the role of Başak who has allegedly gone to America for her studies; Canan’s intermittent phone calls to Nanni pretending to be Başak; and last but by no means least, the curious way that Canan becomes attached to being Başak, smitten with the game she starts to increase the number of phone calls to Nanni. Afterwards, the relationships which develop according to pre and post Başak’s suicide are embroidered in detail commensurate with the narrations of each character.

In this book, Barış Bıçakçı builds up a meta-episodic representation. Even though the matter of Başak’s suicide can be tangibly considered as a kind of ‘episodic’ development, this suicide does not in the least attain the status of an ‘episode’; and what is more the suicide does not become the anticipated ending of a given time sequence nor does it occur as the crux of the plot. It is only glue here; a connective which compels the characters, all of whom represent an existential condition and a time division, to become narrators. In so doing, Bıçakçı inserts both rewarding and non-coercive narrative into action scarcely encountered in Turkish Literature. All the narrations, all the words serve to expose an ordinary condition, rather than to reveal a striking episode.
A growing virgin forest, sprouting from little things. We call it fate but we can also call it a wasted little fly which somehow found its way to the very number six of the table clock. Because now, here, here in this world, everything is scattered and every single piece can substitute the other. We don’t find it odd. We’re supposed to lose our senses but we don’t find it odd. I, for instance, can be both a smart arse and a goldfish, I carry foolishness and death with my gauzy fins. This fish can be the truth itself but truth is always a bit blue. During the course of searching the truth, we dream of changing it at the very moment we find it. Because truth is at the same time, is always a bit shameful. (pp. 97-8)

In the novel, the narrator constantly changes; nevertheless, this approach never takes the form of a literary display. Since in the course of shifting from one narrator to the other the author does not fall back on cheap tricks, such as turning the language upside down according to the personae and adding accent-dialect-intonation to their speech. Being more or less people who come from the same surroundings, they naturally speak the same language. The way the author approaches his characters in such an objective way is so striking that one can hardly find a fair equivalent in the history of world literature. Even for Başak, who has committed suicide, any privilege or favouritism is out of question.

The sense of completeness in the plot makes its presence felt in the language and dialogue. Bıçakçı achieves a style of narration which can be defined as ‘plain’ in style; although what he achieves is not ‘simplistic’ in vain, rather it is a completeness difficult to attain in meaning and narration. It is a strong architectural edifice in which words serve to depict merely a condition and do not occur in the least pompous in sentences; as in a building that ascends vertically from the ground towards the sky, built with the same type of bricks used by everyone, but using less than half of them.

I didn’t want to play but I felt myself compelled to play. To be a decent person and help someone worse than me… An angelic and a marmoreal decentness that is gained by visits to the graveyard… Knights who have been developed before bishops. Sacrificed pawns. The Queen’s gambit declined. Life goes on. Some flowers endure drought and forlornness. Life always goes on and everyone knows this. (p. 55)

The literal and political references of the book do not hamper the plot in the slightest; on the contrary, they serve its development. The story of the book that Aunt Türkan reads in the bus is a literary exhibition per se: a story, ending at the right point, narrated with a minimum number of words without being highlighted and thus, making its effect highly felt. Another textual reference that fits into the context is the well-known pastoral definition of Julio Cortázar in his work entitled A Certain Lucas (i.e. the place where uncooked chickens stroll) that goes hand in hand with the inquiry of Abidin and Nergis as to whether they prefer pastoral life or not. The political emphases regarding the revolutionary struggle prior to the 1980 coup, the reviving operation and the cell house raids, all of which are immersed in the text as a meditation merged with narration, rather than sticking out in the plot like a sore thumb and hence in the lives of the characters, can be considered as another achievement of the novel.
Because this city is similar to other cities. Here too, there are issues like living hand to mouth, finding a roof over one’s head, ending up in a police station or in a hospital. In this city too, something grasps the wrist of a person when someone is writing on the walls at nights, and as a matter of fact, certain letters are skipped over, and words are written wrong. All in all, in this city too, most people share the same opinion: ‘The anarchists do not know spelling.’ (pp. 77-8)

I saw the news about the police operation in the morning too. Do you know what I thought? Let me tell you what I thought. I thought that after reading which news I would cease to continue in my normal life. (p. 105)

In his novel Barış Bıçakçı, instead of detailing the concrete reasons that set the ground for suicide, contrary to what is expected from every novelist, i.e. constructing the renowned psychological background accompanied by the cause and effect chain and then killing his/her character off, he dwells upon the vital lacks and existential excesses that might lead to the suicide of any given character. Because suicide is a more reasonless action; indeed, suicide is something that cannot be explained based on the reasons of those who would not contemplate doing it.

All aspects considered, in After Going Parallel to the Ground for a While as well as his other books, through using even less of the same words Barış Bıçakçı creates a distinctive kind of literature.

WORKS BY BARIŞ BIÇAKÇI

AS IF EVERYONE IS FRIENDS WITH EACH OTHER
(Herkes Herkesle Dostmuş Gibi)
İletişim, 112 pp., 2000, ISBN: 978-975-470-814-1

THE SHORTEST DISTANCE BETWEEN US
(Aramızdaki En Kısa Mesafe)
İletişim, 99 pp., 2003, ISBN: 978-975-05-0148-7

OUR GREAT DESPERATION
(Bizim Büyük Çaresizliğimiz)
İletişim, 167 pp., 2004, ISBN: 978-975-05-0263-7

WE’LL COME AGAIN IN SPRING
(Baharda Yine Geliriz)
İletişim, 109 pp., 2006, ISBN: 978-975-05-0393-1

AFTER GOING PARALLEL TO THE GROUND
FOR A WHILE
(Bir Süre Yere Paralel Gittikten Sonra)
İletişim, 136 pp., 2008, ISBN: 978-975-05-0585-0

The story I put together is one of canonical status in Turkey. Simply put, it states: that from roughly the early 1950’s until the late 1970’s the poets of the İkinci Yeni, collectively and alone, were at the forefront of Turkish poetry’s most rapid and dynamic period of innovation and change.1

The İkinci Yeni was an informal group of second-generation Turkish Modernists who emerged in the 1950s, and were active throughout the 50s, 60s and 70s, primarily in Istanbul and Ankara. Though ostensibly a conceptual grouping, the poets shared some distinctive stylistic and poetic concerns, as well as sharing close friendships, and drew from the work of the French Surrealists and the contemporary European avant-garde. The basic tenets of İkinci Yeni poetics were to treat the poem as an object of the deepest subjectivity, to emphasise the self, the individual, and the poetic possibilites of the wounded unconscious.

~

The phrase ‘ikinci yeni’ was first used by Muzaffer Erdost,2 in a short essay published in Son Havadis on 19 August, 1956. Erdost had become increasingly aware, he claimed, of ‘a difference’ (bir başkalık) in the poetry being published from 1953 onward, particularly in the Ankara-based Pazar Postası (Sunday Post), which Erdost edited.

The core poets, according to Erdost, were Ece Ayhan, İlhan Berk, Edip Cansever, Sezai Karakoç, Cemal Süreya, Ülkü Tamer, and Turgut Uyar. Despite a profusion of other voices, these were the most prominent exponents of the new poetics.

Click here to buy this issue and read the rest of the article, and Ikinci Yeni poems translated by George Messo.

The Turkish language started to use Arabic letters after the Turks embraced Islam. Although Arabic letters were used both prior to and throughout the Ottoman Empire, discussions were taking place about the compatibility of the alphabet with the Turkish language, especially during the nineteenth century. The most basic problem was the Arabic alphabet being accepted without making all the necessary adaptations. It was not possible to express some Turkish language sounds using the Arabic letter system; while the alphabet has some nuances unique to Arabic that do not exist in Turkish. This had an impact on peoples’ ability to learn to write. The very low literacy rate was one of the factors which led the newly established Turkish Republic to adopt the Latin alphabet in 1928. But of course, this should be analysed within the framework of the Turkish revolution and the modernisation/westernisation project that had begun more than a century previously.

The change of the alphabet created various reactions from intellectuals. Some welcomed it arguing the new alphabet would make it easy to read and would increase the literacy rate, whereas some claimed the low literacy rate illustrated only the economic problems Turkey faced. Such critics of the reform opposed the change, arguing it was not necessary to change the alphabet in order to be a part of western civilisation, citing the Japanese as an example. Another argument was that the change would detach the populous from the Islamic world. On the other hand, some intellectuals claimed Arabic letters were not holy, that they had nothing to do with the religion and that such an alphabet reform would complete the revolution.

It is notable that literacy rates increased dramatically after the alphabet change. The alphabet reform made it really easy to read and write in Turkish; and although the change happened after so many years using Arabic letters, maybe we should say better late than never. However, today it saddens me that most people cannot read documents they may have found among their late grandfathers’ things, or any of the writing on the fountain just across the street. Maybe some opportunities could be created in our education system to learn how to read in Ottoman.

‘And He taught Adam the names of all things.’ (Quran 2:31) The primary, universal and transcendent language which was taught to Adam doesn’t only consist of the voices which have a momentary and temporary existence; the essential point is the integrity and permanency of the script which transforms the language to the form. The Word reaches its permanent and pertinacious existence through scripture.

The writing and the letters represent the essence of the genesis. The writing reflecting all the universe embraces the created. The scripture endorses the Word; the Word is concretized with the scripture. To discover the Word in the essence of every creature is possible through the scripture which immobilizes the voice in a drawing.

The scripture is read but the Calligraphy is beheld. The beauty of the scripture is related to the Word within it; the Calligraphy connects the one who looks at it to God’s word. The essential forms of the letters composing the scripture are not arbitrary, they are a divine obligation; but humanity can perfect and glorify the letters according to his/her soul’s demands. The search by the soul to reflect the Word is the essence of Calligraphy.

Ottoman Art of Calligraphy (Hüsnühat) by Ahmet Soysal is published by Norgunk. Ahmet Soysal is a philosopher and a critic of poetry and the visual arts. A well known translator of works by André du Bouchet, Antonin Artaud, Yves Bonnefoy, Maurice Merleau-Ponty, Soysal has also translated poems by the Turkish poet Fazıl Hüsnü Dağlarca into French. His previous works as an author include Desire and Being: Analyzing Dağlarca (Arzu ve Varlık: Dağlarca’ya Bakışlar, 1999), Material and Darkness: Situations of Art and Philosophy (Madde ve Karanlık: Sanatın Durumları ve Felsefe, 2003), Death Writing Body (Ölüm Yazı Vücut, 2004)

Ottoman Art of Calligraphy begins with the history of this art and focuses on its establishment as a result of the efforts of Şeyh Hamdullah (1429-1520) and Hâfız Osman (1642-1698), the transformation effect of Mustafa Râkım and various experimentalist attempts in 19th century.

In the next section the author discusses basic aesthetic matters, describing calligraphy’s relationship with image and the pleasure of looking and what the criteria for beauty are. Soysal states that the script is intended for God, not only with regard to the meaning but also concerning form. This phenomenon grants privilege to Ottoman Calligraphy as a universe of forms. He also explores the similarities and disparities between the Ottoman Art of Calligraphy and Western painting; whilst emphasising that it is the divine aspect of this art that dominates, its earthly elements should be minimized. Ottoman Calligraphic Art, he writes, has always conserved its religious essence, although there are works in other fields outside religion, the homeland of the letters remains in the religious realm.

There are nine short articles in the appendices where some of what Sosyal considers the most competent calligraphy samples are displayed. In these articles, the subjects discussed in the first chapters are studied in more detail. Subjects such as the comparison of Ottoman and Chinese Calligraphic Arts, the origins of the Ottoman Art of Calligraphy and its functions as an art, the tradition of the Science of Letters in Islam, the historical logic of the Ottoman Art of Calligraphy, the problem of modernity, reading-looking and voice-silence tensions, calligraphy symbolizing meaning and the divine essence of the Ottoman Art of Calligraphy are considered and discussed.

The most important evaluation concerning the relationship of the Art of Calligraphy with today’s cultural and intellectual atmosphere is presented in the introduction. Ahmet Soysal explains the issue of alienation dominating our perception of the Ottoman Art of Calligraphy: Our relationship with this art has been broken since the time of the Alphabet Reform, therefore it is highly possible for us to look at this art like a Westerner. Whereas the aesthetic qualification of the Ottoman Art of Calligraphy can only be understood by the cultural values peculiar to it.

LA, A SYLLABLE OF ETERNITY
(Lâ: Sonsuzluk Hecesi)
by Nazan Bekiroğlu
Timaş Publications, 384 pp., 2009, 978-975-263-851-8

BALEYBELEN
by Mustafa Koç
Klasik, 747 pp., 2005, 978-975-8740-35-1

From the article….

Hurufism is a well put together publication and offers a brilliant reference resource on the subject. However, it is also a history book, detailing the advance of Hurufism and the art.

Should the reader be interested in delving further into the magic world of letters and words of the Quran, Tecimer offers as an aperitif an accessible foray into a deeper sea of knowledge. Several books on a similar topic, such as the more popular Kabbalah, are often readily available in your friendly neighbourhood bookstore. However, Hurufism is the first of its kind that this writer has encountered. In short, there is something for everyone, whether you are a dedicated scholar or a curious outsider open to new paths of learning. At least here in this book you are in good hands, with Tecimer the guide to take you down into the depths of such esoteric knowledge. Thus, invaluable.

If Ömer Tecimer is a Turkish Umberto Eco with his treasure trove of knowledge, holding the Islamic version of Pandora’s Box in his hands, then Nazan Bekiroğlu is certainly a well-versed poet, capable of writing a whole book based on a single syllable.

La, a Syllable of Eternity is a poetic novel, a magical journey of a single syllable, an allegory of sorts, the story of Adam. It reads beautifully, whilst keeping the reader nodding in agreement in places, engrossed in the story throughout. As Tecimer reveals the secrets of Hurufism in his detailed book, Bekiroğlu prefers to leave the secrets untouched. Adam is not only a character of religious texts; he is the symbolic being of all of us, the sum of mankind. He is real, yet unattainable. The box of knowledge which Tecimer opens in Hurufism is slammed shut with a graceful move by Bekiroğlu, who writes instead a saga of the creation of the universe as cited in religious texts, giving it poetic justice, questioning at times the purpose, revering the move, rebelling against it and then accepting fate as it unfolds.

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From the article…

No east can deny its west; no modernity can be built without tradition. Hilmi Yavuz calls it ‘accuracy’ and defines the accuracy as the shared identity between the poet and his/her intellectual history. Therefore the poem is primarily absorbing the tradition and inevitably requires intellectual accumulation, that is to say, it includes references, allusions and associations to other texts. Being inter-textual brings an additional esoteric dimension to Hilmi Yavuz’s poetry. Traces of Lamennais, Baudelaire, Kircher, Balzac, Barthes, Bakhtin, Lacan and Hölderlin from the west are clearly exhibited in the Hurufi Poems; in addition there are both obvious and hidden references to Greek mythology, Cabbala, Old Testament, Logos, and even Alchemy:

as if bewildered! they were beautiful letters! S/Z:

hermaphrodite, castrato and of course twins

The cultural heritage of our own climate is articulated through the letters of the Arabian Nights, Seyyid Nesimî’s verses narrating love, with cryptic words evoking Fazlullah (‘fâ ü dâd ü lâm), İbnü’l Arabî’s ‘mirror’, Fuzulî’s lyric poem which waits ‘scorn of the lover’s neighbourhood’, Haşim’s ‘coral branches’, ‘Cüneyd’s robe’ from Asaf Hâlet and Necatigil’s KTL enigma requiring ebced calculation.

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