Ben:
– Eyoo, Extra Man gelmiş!
Ben:
– ama ama Banks’in Excession’ı?..
bunun üzerine Ben:
– Bekler o.
Jonathan Ames, Extra Man; Murakamisss
Kategori: Edebi
Umberto Eco, William Shakespeare
Efsane dizilerden Murphy Brown’ın bir bölümünde takım olarak yarışmaya gideceklerdir. Murphy Brown’ın takıldığı barın barmeni bir cep gurusu olarak, bir ismi söyler (şimdi hatırlayamadım, nette de bulamadım), “Nobel’le ilgili bir soru sorarlarsa cevap budur.” der. Hakikaten de yarışmada hiçbir soruyu bilemezler (rakipleri hep onlardan önce cevap verir) ama sunucu “Nobel..” diye başlayınca hemen atlarlar ve hanelerine skoru eklerler.
Bu nereden aklıma geldi? Başlıktan. Ola ki bir yerde Eco ve Shakespeare adlarını yan yana görürseniz, bilin ki, o yazı Gülün Adı ve Romeo ile Juliet‘i kesiştiren gül mevzusu üzerine olacaktır. Bildiğiniz üzere Juliet (Capulet) ile Romeo (Montague) birbirlerine düşman ailelerin çocuklarıdır. Balkon sahnesinde Juliet, isimlerin değil, nesnelerin önemli olduğunu belirtir:
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‘Tis but thy name that is my enemy;–
Thou art thyself, though not a Montague. What’s Montague? It is nor hand, nor foot, Nor arm, nor face, nor any other part Belonging to a man. O, be some other name! What’s in a name? that which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet; So Romeo would, were he not Romeo call’d, Retain that dear perfection which he owes Without that title:–Romeo, doff thy name; And for that name, which is no part of thee, Take all myself. |
İşte bu mesele biraz daha geliştirilir, aksi yönden yaklaşılır Eco’da, Gülün Adı
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Stat rosa pristina nomine, nomine duda tenemus.
(Adıyla bir zamanlar gül olan, salt adlar kalır elimizde) |
cümlesiyle noktalanır. (Yeri gelmişken, vaktiyle Defter dergisi’nden bu konu üzerine çıkmış çok güzel bir yazı olan Doğan Özkan’ın “Değerlendirmeler Üzerine Bir Deneme” makalesini Epigraf’a alıntılamıştım – nasıl ‘*-*-*!’ bir kültürsüzlükte yaşıyoruz ki, birkaç ay önce Radikal’in pazar ekinde çıkan bir yazıda (Caner Fidaner, Rengârenk Adlar, 24/12/2006) ilgili yazıya doğal olarak yayınlandığı dergi üzerinden değil de, Epigraf üzerinden referans verilmiş! Sadece bu da değil, bizatihi olarak faydalanılan kitaplara da kitap tanıtım sayfalarından referans gösterilmiş! Off offf!)
Bu noktada, bir ekleme de ben yapmak isterim, Sampu’nun bir haikusu:
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Vardır her otun çiçeği,
Bilmesek de İsimlerini |
Otu çiçekle, çiçeği de kokuyla değiştirebiliriz netekim.
Gelelim bütün bunları niye yazıyor olduğuma: Dün, taa lise günlerimden bir arkadaştan email aldım. Vaktiyle yazdığım bazı yazılarda ismini fütursuzca soyadıyla birlikte kullanmışım ve Google’da arama yapıldığında doğal olarak benim “edebi sayıklamalarımın” arasında adının çıkması nahoş bir durum oluşturuyordu. Yukarıda anlatmaya çalıştığım hikayenin bir de bu yüzü var: 10 yıl önceki ben, 10 yıl önceki o, sadece adlar kalıyor elimizde, hatırlatılmasak onlar bile kalmayacak. 10 küsür yıl önce o kadar tutkuyla yazılmış satırlar, öylece kalıveriyor. Internetin hafızasının bize oynadığı çok fena bir oyun.
God Willing
[Bu arada]
- Dido yeni albümünü marttan sonbahara çekmiş.
- Nina, nina, nina..
- Imogen Heap‘in Live Sessions gibi bir isimli konser albümü çıkmış (taa olmuş epey hem de).
- Jem gibi cici bir kız nasıl olur da 24 gibi bir şarkı yapabilir? (24 güzel by the way – zaten benim anlamadığım da o!)
- Yazoo – Only You.
- Rober Hatemo – Senden çok var. Hakikaten.
- Edukators‘ü bitirdik geçen gün bir yıldan sonra, güzeldi. Ama sonu yakışmamış pek. Çok prototip çekmişler. Şimdi sırada bitirilmek üzere yine yarım yarım yan bakan Voksne Mennesker (Tutunamayanlar) var. (Siyah At?) [Sonradan Not – gittim kontrol ettim, Voksne Meksner yazmışım, onu düzelttim, ama Siyah At olayını doğru hatırlamıştım, aferin bana!]
- Orhan Pamuk‘tan özür dileyerek bir süredir okumakta olduğum Benim Adım Kırmızı‘yı, 470 sayfanın 214’ünde, hem de tam Benim Adım Kırmızı yeri geldiğinde bırakıyorum, bıraktım. Dayanamadım. En son Yeni Hayat‘ta böyle olmuştum ama sanırım onda 30. sayfada filan tak demiştim. İstikamet Kara Kitap görünüyor. Bu arada, kendimi cezalandırmak için böyle yarım bırakmayı adet haline getirdiğimden, gene vaktiyle yarım bırakmış olduğum Ian M. Banks‘in Excessionına tekrar başlama kararı aldım, başladım, hem de en baştan. Onu da yarılamıştım ama Mind’ların kendi aralarındaki muhabbetleri beni benden almıştı. Şimdi daha dikkatli okuyarak ilerliyorum.
- Yıllar yıllar yıllar sonra, klasik standart lak lak Winamp 2.91’le vedalaşıp Winamp 5.33’e geçtim sırf şu Most Played, Media Library vesairesine kandım.. Bir de program: ASMT, yani Automatic Shell MP3 Tagger (Artık Bilgisayar/Net kategorisini de yakabilirim 8).
- Geç oldu, yatıyorum, iyi geceler Nina, iyi geceler Gwyneth, iyi geceler Cate, iyi geceler Miranda.. (Unuttuklarım varsa alınmasınlar pls, uykulu halime versinler).
56. Edit Notu: (Aslında bunları 55.Edit’te yazmıştım ama kaydetmemişim anlaşılan). Yazoo’nun bu Don’t Go klibini Gürer Beyciğimin ilgisine takdim etmeyi görev bilirim.
Asıl 56. Edit Notu: (Bunu girmek için düzenlemeye başlayınca fark ettim 55.Edit notunun kaybolduğunu) Bir insan nasıl olur da 80’lerin müziğinden bu kadar zevk almaya başlayabilir???? Sırada ne var? 80’lerin Alman gruplarını beğenmeye başlamak mı? (Kast ettiğim tabii ki saygıyla durduğumuz Kraftwerk filan değil de, Modern Talking, Opus, başka?..)
Slow Train to Jacksonville
and yet another entry written in English…
Recently, I’ve been reading the ‘legendary’ Out-of-Print Publications of J.D. Salinger which includes (as far as I know) his 22 stories only appeared in magazines but never transferred to a book because of Salinger’s prohibition. If you have, like me, suffered for years for just the probability of finally reading Hapworth 16, 1924 but at the end got bored and pissed of all the (non-)developments, then you can guess the degree of my joy when I acquired this set of stories. The collection begins with the 1940 dated The Young Folks and ends with the Salinger’s final published item, Hapworth 16, 1924. For further reference, I’m including the publication details of all the Salingers:
Boston: Little, Brown, 1951, 277 pages
Boston: Little, Brown, 1953, 302 pages
Boston: Little, Brown, 1961, 201 pages
Boston: Little, Brown, 1963, 248 pages
The New Yorker, June 19, 1965, pages 32-113 |
I remember myself (must be around 1993/94, being a lycee student) aimlessly scanning the New Yorker magazines in the USA Embassy’s Library archives in the hope of stumbling a rare Salinger story. Have I told that I love internet? 8)
Anyway, as I’ve said earlier, nowadays I’m into these stories. Last year I’ve re-read Franny and Zooey and I will re-read Raise High the Roof Beam, Carpenters and Seymour: An Introduction before tuckling with Hapworth 16, 1924. When Edip Cansever’s poem collection were published by Yapı Kredi, they had included even the poems that Cansever didn’t consider to select. He had purposely omitted these poems, which mostly were earlier ones, because he did not find them as impressive as the latter ones. This, I can understand and blame the Yapı Kredi for conducting such an ill-intended collection. But I guess Salinger’s version of prohibition is a completely another type. In Edip Cansever’s version, he rejects the works because he finds that they lack something the others don’t. Salinger prohibits the republishing not because -I think- he thinks those stories are inferior or anything but because the potential readers don’t deserve them, or more likely he just detests more fuss that will be unavoidable. After all, we live in a world with the Harper Lee example in it.
There’s this thing with me and the literature I had read in past times. In the case of novels, I usually remember the plot with or without its ending and one or more characters and their names after 5-6 years. If it is one of those smash-in-the-face for me as in the case of Michel Butor’s La Modification or Sartre’s L’aige de la raison then things are a little bit exceptional and in these rare cases I sort of remember approx. 70% of all the teeny-meeny details. But this isn’t the case with the stories. However good a story is, given 2 years, I tend to forget everything. This defunction may be considered an adventegous one because you never happen to have, like, running out of Salingers. Of course I never forget the end of the A Perfect Day for Banana Fish, after all, I’m something little more than a 3-second memorizer fish – I hope you understood what I’m trying to say.
Back to the Out-of-Print Publications, the first few ones heavily resemble to O. Henry stories with the punch lines they deliver at the end. You’ve got the introduction, the development and the finishing with all the ties knot and with a punch line delivered at you. But, as the years goes by, meaning if you start reading backwards, you find yourself with the familiar seas where everything is naive and the narrator pokes his head once in a while out of the story and reminds you who he is actually and what are the possible outcomes going to be…
One additional reason for Salinger to keep this stories from publishing may be that, they (the latter ones) tend to contain a very high level of sorrow and grief. In more than one story, some specific letters are never answered back, the characters tell that they will keep in touch or at least call tomorrow but never do that and then wham! their correspondents came up dead or unreachable.
Among the stories, I can easily say that The Inverted Forest was one of the best Salingers I’ve read. Also A Girl I Knew and the Blue Melody are good enough to stop the world in its tracks even if for a minute or two. The O. Henry type punch lines are still there, the plot makes you rush for the end where you know something heartbreaking will be waiting for you but the indifference of the narrator keeps you from exchanging the humane feeling with the eye-watering melodrama – this is a quality I have encountered while reading the stories Raymond Carver and another New Yorker-er, Haruki Murakami (especially his A Perfect Day for Kangooro and Tony Takitani stories). Although it is kind of natural for Murakami to arouse similar feelings since he is known to be into Salinger with the translations and such.
So, enough for today. To summarize, it is really good meeting a favourite author of yours with works you had known but could not reach. And I thank to internet and one Miss Grace Dela Pena for some reasons. By the way, I will not reply nor approve nor supply any of requests to mail/send these stories but if you want them so bad, I suggest you to go fishing for a nice little song called “Slow Train to Jacksonville” which resides in the Blue Melody. Look over the Hungarian skies, where the grass is green and the web is free, so to say! 😉
-over and out-
P.S.: …but the most important aspect of Salinger’s is, I think, whenever I finish another of his stories, I feel like I’m breathing the same air with my honorary blood brother Doğan wherever he is. 8) After all, what is it to have an honorary blood brother if you can’t share the Salinger stories?..
Yes, you do, Mr. Gaiman…
The day before yesterday, I finished reading Neil Gaiman’s Anansi Boys. Meanwhile writing this, I checked at Wikipedia that this one is currently his latest novel. It was the Sandman series that first introduced me to Gaiman, and then my interest geometrically increased via the spin-off Death series, various other comics & graphical novels, the Neverwhere TV series, his relation with Tori Amos, and the American Gods. He is indeed a wordslinger as Dark Tower’s Roland would express and definitely has his trademark stamped upon wherever he has contributed to such as in that episode of the Babylon 5 (was it titled the Day of Dead?, not sure but something like that) or the Matrix story Goliath he had written.
American Gods included some firm and original ideas but lacked the empathy it was supposed to arouse for the reader. It was like some non-fictional pulp in which you witness the preplanned course of actions. Also, it happened to be pretty boring when tried to lecture the reader about something that the reader had already figured out (In Turkish we have a saying that can be crudely translated as “Fingering the blind eye”). But again, as I mentioned earlier, it was exceptionally original and I must admit that calling the roadkills as a sacrifice to a traffic god was definitely a revolutionary innovation – a new breath of fresh air to all said and done before.
A week or so ago, my friend Barış passed me his copy of the Anansi Boys. I’ve got to say, I began reading out of boredom than curiosity but the book succeeded in binding me along with its components. First of all, there was the successfull merging of the reader with the protagonist and as a bonus humour was thrown in, too.
The characters are like they came out from a Douglas Adams novel – they are pathetic, clumsy most of the time, shy but clever enough to be embarrassed by themselves. The plot’s pace is well managed. You’ve got the introduction with fragments with past to get an opinion about who’s who, then comes the big bang and events roll on. The ending is also well knitted so to say. The 4 old ladies by the way, reminded of me the Erinyes/Moirae/Graeae ladies of the Sandman (obviously their Moirae interpretation than the other two and I guess this was what Gaiman had intended to be at the first place.
The prose is enriched by Gaiman’s classic-but-thankfully-not-yet-cliché exaggerative and poetic style as can be observed in the following two sentences:
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(p.363 of HarperTorch International Printing, 2006)
Daisy looked up at him with the kind of expression that Jesus might have given someone who had just explained that he was probably allergic to bread and fishes, so could He possibly do him a quick chicken salad: there was pity in that expression, along with infinite compassion. |
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(p.366 of HarperTorch International Printing, 2006)
At the end of the beach they took a left turn that was left to absolutely everything, and the mountains at the beginning of the world towered above them and the cliffs fell away below. |
The best thing about the book was that, you always kind of feel that everything’s gonna be all right. The characters are almost always cool about the really bad things happening to them and this makes you relaxed for their upcoming fates: you don’t pitifully worry for the folks who don’t worry for themselves in a pitiful way (by the way, this is the one of the main reasons for me favoring the works of some northern european directors, most notably: Aki Kaurismäki).
On Wikipedia, under the subject of Neil Gaiman, there was a section entitled as “Neil Gaiman and Shakespeare” so, I’d like to end this blog with one of my favourite mottos as well as the title of Shakespeare’s play:
“All’s Well That Ends Well”
P.S.: I couldn’t refrain myself from telling that: Although it was a nice homage to -I guess- Tori Amos by the sweet cameo of the mermaid at the end, one thing for sure Mr. Gaiman: It’s not the mermaids but the sirens who can sing above the waves! 😉