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Utopia's End
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20605 |
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BOOK WORLD
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| Issue
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12 / 1992 |
1,767 Words |
| Author
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Talat Halman
Talat Halman, professor of Near Eastern languages and
literatures at New York University, is the author of forty
books in English and Turkish. He is a poet, critic, literary
historian, dramatist, and translator. |
BALIK IZLERINN SESI
(The sound of the traces of fish)
Buket Uzuner
Istanbul: Remzi Kita bevi, 1992
219 pp.
Cyrano de Bergerac did not try to hold back his tears; Brooks Nin kept cracking her red fingernails; Jeanne d'Arc, doubled up on the steps, her head stooping, mumbled something that sounded like babbling in Latin; Anders Grieg furiously scribbled notes in the music book in front of him; Roni Chagall was busy polishing a gigantic evil-eye bead. Parveen Nehru sat crosslegged on the floor … while Aurora Sand ran her fingers through her hair…. Carmen de Cervantes, carried away by a music only she heard, was dancing a flamenco of death. Galilei was gone. The others stood still in a posture of reverence. Even Genghis Khan seemed sad. As we went down the stairs, Romain [Gary] bellowed cheerfully: 'What's wrong with you people, for God's sake? Strangers might think you're in mourning. How about playing a love song for us?' And we started to dance."
These are some of the principal characters in Balik izlerinin sesi, a frentic novel that is the latest by Buket Uzuner, one of Turkey's most magical writers. In her deft hands, they form a compelling cast for a tragicominal masquerade, one that has the makings of a tour de force. As the names indicate, virtually all are descendants, alter egos, or pale imitations of renowned historical figures. The first-person narrator, Afife, who is also the "heroine" qua Uzuner, is descended from an early sixteenth-century Ottoman admiral (celebrated for his map of America, the oldest extant copy of Columbus' original) and from Turkey's first Muslim actress, Afife Jale. Romain Gary dominates her and the novel with the subtleties of his personality and the force of his intellect.
Uzuner, now thirty-nine years old, never met Gary, who committed suicide at age sixty-six in 1980. She became enamored of him through his novels, his action-packed life, his persona. Hers is a case of hero worship. She will confess that Hermann Hess is the only man with whom she could possibly two-time Romain Gary. She explained in a recent interview that between 1988 and 1990, she "wrote hundreds of letters to this beloved writer who had died many years ago," but instead of publishing the letters in book form, she decided to craft a novel out of her "admiration which is love."
Gary's real life was a marvel of adventure, versatility, and
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