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The handle http://hdl.handle.net/1887/49670 holds various files of this Leiden University dissertation.

Author: Cengiz, N.B. Title: 'Non-Istanbulites' of Istanbul : the right to the city novels in Turkish literature from the 1960s to the present Issue Date: 2017-06-13

‘NON-ISTANBULITES’ OF ISTANBUL: THE RIGHT TO THE CITY NOVELS IN TURKISH LITERATURE FROM THE 1960S TO THE PRESENT

N. BUKET CENGİZ Leiden University, Institute for Area Studies S1108743

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INTRODUCTION

Background and Central Question I started working on the proposal for this dissertation in September 2010, at the beginning of the last quarter of a year that had been spent in celebrations of Istanbul 2010, European Capital of Culture. There were numerous events in the city – concerts, exhibitions, film screenings, panel discussions and so forth. From outside, everything looked fine; Istanbul 2010 seemed to mesh in a perfect way with the city’s acceleration on the list of the hip cities of the world. On the other hand, things were not that positive for those who were being pushed out of a rapidly gentrifying city centre. Neighbourhoods such as Sulukule were being removed from the memory of the city, rents and flat prices were getting higher and higher, while in numerous neighbourhoods, people were living in anxious expectation of urban transformation projects. This made me think about these people who were suffering the most because of the drastic changes, as Istanbul was competing in the race to become a global city: these people living in poor neighbourhoods in the city centre, or in ex-shanty-towns which were whetting the appetites of building contractors. At the same time, I was observing the extremely popular nostalgia for a cosmopolitan Istanbul, which seemed artificial and manufactured. In its adaptation by elitists, this nostalgia was hostile to rural to urban immigrants, with the message that Istanbul had been a much better place in the past, before the arrival of rural to urban immigrants, with its cosmopolitan people including a significant non-Muslim population. As this discourse ignored the fact that the Istanbul of the 1950s had already lost the great majority of its non-Muslim population, it in a way created the illusion that the rural to urban immigrants had pushed the cosmopolitan non-Muslim population out of the city. The elitist, anti-immigrant adaptation of old-Istanbul nostalgia put almost all the blame for the negative changes in Istanbul on immigrants, and saw their presence in the city as something they were in fact not entitled to. Reflections of nostalgia for old-Istanbul were visible in popular culture and the publishing sector. Framed black and white photos of old-Istanbul were being sold everywhere, television dramas set in old-Istanbul neighbourhoods, which had had a significant non-Muslim population in the past. such as Çengelköy1, Balat2 and Samatya3, were received with enthusiasm, books about the history of the city as well as monographs on

1 Süper Baba [Super Daddy] (1993-1997, Dir. Osman Sınav) 2 Yeditepe İstanbul [Seven Hills Istanbul] (2001-2002, Dir. Türkan Derya) 3 İkinci Bahar [The Second Spring] (1998-2001, Dir. Uğur Yücel, Orhan Oğuz, Türkan Derya) 2 various neighbourhoods4 of it were being published one after the other to the interest of readers, historical anecdotes on the past of Istanbul were appearing in books5 as well as newspapers and magazines, while eating habits in old-Istanbul were becoming an area of gastronomic interest in themselves. Certainly, this is not to claim that all these cultural products adopted an elitist, anti-immigrant discourse. Rather, it can simply be argued that in the zeitgeist there was nostalgia, and in the hands of some this nostalgia took on an elitist, anti-immigrant discourse. The reflections of this nostalgia in literature particularly attracted my interest. Old- Istanbul has been an ever-rewarding setting and subject for literature, and from the 1990s onwards it became even more popular. There were many books with an old-Istanbulite setting and characters. While it would not be fair to say that all novels with such setting and characters reflect nostalgia for old-Istanbul, there are various novels with nostalgia at their centre, and interest in such novels has been high. Spotting the reflections of the nostalgic discourse in between the lines of nostalgic novels with their old-Istanbulite characters and setting, I became curious about the representations of immigrants in Istanbul in modern Turkish novels. Based on this curiosity, I started to wonder if Turkish literature had significant novels with rural to urban immigrant protagonists in Istanbul. I started thinking about some decades back, when deserted apartments in non-Muslim minority neighbourhoods were being rented by immigrants and when shantytowns were being built in numerous parts of the city. I wanted to track the representations of these experiences in literature, from the beginning of rural to urban migration to Istanbul until the present time, through the standpoint of immigrants. Thus evolved the central question of this dissertation: Similar to the ways nostalgic novels were putting a spot-light on old-Istanbulites, were there novels putting a spot-light on new Istanbulites? Just as the former were implying that Istanbul belonged to old-Istanbulites, were there novels giving the message that Istanbul belonged to anyone and everyone who chose to

4 For instance, Heyamola Press has published eighty-five monographs on different neighbourhoods of Istanbul within its İstanbulum [My Istanbul] series, ongoing since 2009. Sel Press has printed twelve monographs on ex- Greek neighbourhoods of Istanbul, the first of which published in 1998 and the last in 2016. 5 Within the İstanbul’un Yüzleri [lstanbul’s Hundreds] series, ongoing since 2009, İBB Kültür A.Ş. [lstanbul Metropolitan Municipality - Culture Inc.] Press has published some eighty books on the city’s social and cultural history, such as: 100 Tastes of Istanbul, 100 Mansions of Istanbul, 100 Customs of Istanbul, 100 Families of Istanbul.

3 come and live in this city? Put simply, were there novels depicting immigrants in Istanbul in such a way that is compatible with the philosophical idea of the right to the city? If the answer to the first question was yes, then I was curious to know through which themes and with the use of which formal and stylistic elements the idea of the right to the city was elaborated in these novels? Were immigrants depicted simply as peasants in the city or were they portrayed as new urbanites? How were their strategies for survival depicted in these novels? Were they portrayed as potential agents of change in the city for good? In what type of language, with which sort of narration were these novels written? In which parts of Istanbul were they set? As I started my research, I found out that there were various novels depicting immigrants’ experiences in Istanbul in impressive ways. In these novels with immigrant protagonists, themes based on various facets of the immigration experience were treated. The novels with immigrant protagonists could be regarded almost as a counterpoint to the nostalgic novels with old-Istanbulite protagonists. I decided to analyse a selection of the novels with immigrant protagonists, tracking the idea of the right to the city in them, through themes directly or indirectly related to this idea, reciprocally with the formal features of the novels. Such a work on literary, therefore cultural, output in Turkey could help us track the changing perceptions about immigrants in the city, and discursive strategies about them, as art reflecting reality. It could also help us tackle the question of how influential these novels were on our perceptions about immigrants in the city, as art mediating reality.

State of the Art Neither at the initial stage of my research, nor today having completed the writing of the dissertation, have I come across analytical works approaching the representation of rural to urban migration to Istanbul in literature through an inter-disciplinary perspective at the junction of literary and urban studies, placing the idea of the right to the city at the centre of the argument. However, a limited number of works, mainly in the form of articles, dealing with representations of immigration and/or urbanity in Turkish literature should briefly be mentioned here. Among all the works in a sphere mutual to my dissertation, Ali Kurt’s dissertation entitled “Immigration from Anatolia to Istanbul in Turkish novel after 1950 (1950 –1980)”6 which was defended at the end of 2011, is the closest one to my work. However, our dissertations are highly different from each other in many ways. His descriptive work tracks

6 1950 Sonrası Türk Romanında Anadolu’dan İstanbul’a Göç (1950 –1980) 4 various themes and motifs in a rather large corpus of novels, and lists the instances where they appear with short analyses. Turgay Gümeli, in his Master’s thesis entitled “Rural to Urban Migration in Orhan Kemal’s Homesick Birds and Latife Tekin’s Dear Shameless Death”7, which he defended in July 2011, focuses on two novels which are also included in my corpus. However, in his thesis he also adopts a descriptive method, and lists the themes connected with rural to urban migration in the two novels without much analysis. The article “Big Town Blues: Peasants ‘Abroad’ in Turkish Literature” by Talat Sait Halman, written in 1985, “addresses the way Turkish writers have dealt with the psychological effects of urbanization at home and abroad” (192). In the article, novels and short stories elaborating themes of migration to big cities in Turkey as well as to Europe are discussed. In this article, Halman argues that the Turkish novel lacks powerful novels depicting the migration experience due to four integrated reasons: “traditional lacuna of psychological depiction; ideological distortion; anti-peasant bias; ‘sympathetic fallacy’” (193). Urban sociologist Önder Şenyapılı, in his article “Rural to Urban Migration Phenomenon in Turkish Novel”8 published in 1983, briefly discusses the treatment of issues about rural to urban migration in various novels and short stories. The works commented upon in the article are not particularly about migration to Istanbul, some of them are about migration to other cities. In this article, Şenyapılı argues that genuine novels of rural to urban migration in Turkish literature are yet to be written, in which evaluations of the phenomenon rather than simple observation will appear (87). Sevinç Özer’s “Urbanization Phenomenon and Problems of Urbanizing in Novel and Short-Story from the 1960s to the Present”9, published in the same issue of Yazko literary journal as Şenyapılı’s article, is also about novels and short stories with central themes related to migration. Özer’s article is particularly interesting for this dissertation, since she focuses on the theme of immigrants adopting urban identities. Similar to Şenyapılı’s article, the novels and short-stories Özer discusses are on migration to all big cities in Turkey. In her article, she points out that urbanisation enters Turkish novels through two central themes: the encounters of rural and urban cultures; and problems of urbanising and difficulties of life in the urban context (91).

7 “Orhan Kemal’in Gurbet Kuşları ve Latife Tekin’in Sevgili Arsız Ölüm Romanlarında Köyden Kente Göç ve Yoksulluk” 8 “Türk Yazınında Kırdan Kente Göç Olgusu” 9 “1960‘tan Bu Yana Roman ve Kısa Öyküde Kentleşme Olgusu ve Kentlileşme Sorunları” 5

In his article “Transition From Cultural Center Istanbul to Economic and Social Conflict Center Istanbul: Transition From Cultural Capital to Slum City”10 Çonoğlu makes a comparative analysis of Samiha Ayverdi’s The Mansion of İbrahim Efendi11 (1964), Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s A Mind at Peace12 (1949), Orhan Kemal’s The Homesick Birds13 (1962) and Latife Tekin’s Berji Kristin: Tales From the Garbage Hills14 (1984), with a rather superficial approach and an anti-immigrant stance. Finally, it might be useful to mention the following works, although they are not written at the interface of literary studies and urban studies: Doğan Hızlan’s article “Istanbul in Literature as a Symbol of Social Changes in Turkey”15 written in 2010 gives a trajectory of significant literary works, novels and poetry, that are not simply set in but also about Istanbul, from the late Ottoman era until the present day. This article, in which Hızlan groups literary works into historical periods, does not include any analysis, it is a bibliographical piece. One Hundred Novels of Istanbul16, published in 2010, gives descriptive information on one hundred Istanbul novels from the late Ottoman era to the present day. Azade Seyhan’s chapter titled “Istanbul: City as Trope and Topos of Crossed Destinies” in her Tales of Crossed Destinies published in 2008, focuses on Istanbul’s significance in Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s A Mind at Peace, Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book17 (1990), and Yaşar Kemal’s The Sea-Crossed Fishermen18 (1978). Adnan Özyalçıner’s article “Map of Istanbul”19 lists various significant literary works in prose and poetry, as well as popular history and research books about the city from the early Turkish republic to the present day. Türkeş’s article “Urbanization in Novel: From Shanties to Villacities”20 published in 1999, tracks urbanisation in world literature, as well as in Turkish literature, and the latter is discussed only in the last three pages of the article. In this part of his article, Türkeş briefly introduces various novels of Turkish literature, with the theme of urbanisation from the 1920s to the present day. Despite its title, the article mentions a couple of short story books as well.

10 “Kültürün Merkezi İstanbul'dan Ekonomik Sosyal Çatışmanın Merkezi İstanbul’a: Kültürel Başkentten Gecekondu Şehrine Geçiş” 11 İbrahim Efendi Konağı 12 Huzur 13 Gurbet Kuşları 14 Berci Kristin Çöp Masalları 15 “Türkiye’deki Sosyal Değişimlerin Sembolü olarak Edebiyatta İstanbul” 16 İstanbul’un Yüz Romanı 17 Kara Kitap 18 Deniz Küstü 19 İstanbul Haritası 20 “Romanda Kentleşme: Gecekondudan Villakentlere” 6

In setting out on the road to write this dissertation, I believed that when so many people were talking about Istanbul as it was changing dramatically, a work of analysis on its literary representations built on the idea of the right to the city could help us transcend clichés and stereotypes connected with the city through the possibilities of literary imagination. This, in turn, could motivate us to depart from the literary realm and arrive at the historical realm, and try and understand, through historical records, certain facts about stigmatised and/or gentrifying neighbourhoods and people living in them, most of whom are first or second generation immigrants. This would be an invaluable step towards understanding the inevitability of immigration and the rights of the citizens of the country in their quest to establish their lives in Istanbul. On the other hand, such research could also be instrumental in making connections between novelists who would seem disparate on the surface, which would be a worthwhile contribution to scholarship on the modern Turkish novel. As the population living in cities keeps increasing all around the world, urban life is becoming a more and more significant topic in culture and literature. Analysing treatments of urban life in novels, with their endless themes, characters and settings reciprocally with evolving formal and stylistic aspects, seems necessary and meaningful for literary and cultural scholarship more than ever. Therefore, I believed that researching ‘non-Istanbulites’ in the modern Turkish novel would be well worth my labour.

The Material Analysed: Creation of the Corpus In this research project, seven novels are analysed and interpreted. These novels were selected from a group of novels from modern Turkish literature which have immigrant protagonists and which are set in Istanbul. The novels selected for the corpus can be considered as belonging to four eras:  The 1960s and 1970s,  The 1980s and 1990s,  After 2000  After 2010 In the 1960s and 70s, the immigrants who are the protagonists of the novels are first- generation. In those years, a humanistic approach by an author who is not an immigrant and therefore who looks at the subject from outside, is the main tendency in approaching the issue of immigrants and their right to the city. The Homesick Birds (1962) and Uncle Halo and Two Bulls (1973) were chosen as representative of this category. The two novels have an extra 7 compatibility for comparison, since both of them have a father and son relationship against the background of immigration. From the 1980s, authors who grew up in Istanbul as the children of immigrant families appear on the stage of literature, writing about first and second generation immigrants’ experiences as insiders. In this respect, the works of Latife Tekin and Metin Kaçan have a significant place in the Turkish novel, almost comprising a category in themselves. Tekin’s Berji Kristin: Tales From the Garbage Hills (1984) was selected for the corpus, despite the fact that the city it is set in is not explicitly identified as Istanbul, a point discussed in the analysis of the novel. This novel and Heavy Roman(i) (1995) offer rich material for comparison, due to the two unique neighbourhoods in which they are set. Authors who have an insider’s experience of the immigration phenomenon, as well as those who do not, continued writing on immigrants in Istanbul. Neighbourhood life has been a central aspect of these novels from the 1980s to the present time. As the shantytowns took an amorphous shape after legal provisions enabling owners of shanties to build apartments over their shanties, the neighbourhoods appearing in the novels also changed. Additionally, from the 1990s, the globalisation and neo-liberalisation of the city, gentrification and tourism became more and more important, which had a great impact on the shantytowns, especially from the 2000s onwards. In this regard, two novels written after the start of the millennium come to the fore, in the ways they elaborate on this issue of the changing faces of shantytowns, as well as perceptions on the meaning of periphery: Ayhan Geçgin’s On the Periphery (2003) and Hatice Meryem’s It Takes All Kinds (2008). As this research was in progress, in the very final weeks of 2014, Orhan Pamuk’s novel A Strangeness in my Mind came out. The novel seemed almost to have been written for this dissertation: it is a novel with a first-generation immigrant protagonist, and it describes the immigration phase in detail, a trait which brings it close to novels such as Birds and Bulls. It has two main settings: Duttepe, a shantytown and Tarlabaşı, a poor neighbourhood in the centre of the city. In this respect, it also has parallels with novels about second-generation immigrants where neighbourhood life has great significance. Within the wide time span it covers, it also includes the globalising of Istanbul, with gentrifying neighbourhoods and foreign immigrants arriving in the city, similar to the novels in the third group. Therefore, it contributed significantly to the corpus.

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The Argument of the Dissertation In all the novels in the corpus, there is the underlying idea of the right to the city21, sometimes explicit on the thematic level, while sometimes implicit within other themes. Thus, in this dissertation it is argued that these novels can be defined as a vein within Istanbul novels: the right to the city novels. It is also argued that the right to the city novels appear as a counterpoint to novels that have old-Istanbul nostalgia at their core. This dissertation does not claim that these novels constitute a genre; it presents them as a vein within the category of Istanbul novels. Again, Istanbul novels are not regarded here as a genre; instead, they are seen as a long lineage of novels which have Istanbul as their setting, and in which the city appears as more than just a setting, an integral aspect of the plot as well as of the central themes of the novel. At certain times, the idea of the right to the city is developed through explicit themes in the novels. At other times, it is elaborated within various themes such as the urbanisation of immigrants, their survival strategies and their struggle against various exclusion mechanisms, life on the periphery, and so forth. In a topic like rural to urban migration, dramatic changes in gender roles finds a place among the novels’ concerns. Such changes are analysed simply as themes, not through adaptations of gender theory per se. In some novels, this theme is scarcely touched on, in which case this fact is simply acknowledged. All these themes are analysed and interpreted reciprocally with the formal and stylistic features of the novels. Through a cultural materialist approach, it is observed that while historical developments in social, cultural and economic life find expression in the themes and formal features of novels dealing with immigrants in Istanbul, the ways immigrants appear in these novels, have, to a certain extent, an influence on society’s ways of perceiving immigrants and their right to the city. This point is briefly touched upon in the conclusion chapter. Finally, it should be noted that this dissertation aims at identifying examples of the right to the city novels from different eras. It is not argued here that all novels set in Istanbul having immigrant protagonists can de facto be defined as right to the city novels. However, it is implied here that such novels most of the time deal with the right to the city; therefore they are potential components of this vein of novels. It is to be hoped that further studies of these novels are made, and that this dissertation provides a modest contribution in this direction.

21 This concept of Henry Lefebvre is analysed in a separate chapter below. 9

Chapter Structure The dissertation comprises six parts. The first part consists of the theoretical and methodological framework, as well as the historical context. The first chapter is on the literary theoretical and methodological approach of the dissertation. The next one is on the historical context, as regards immigrants in Istanbul. The third chapter is on the urban theoretical dimension, namely the right to the city. In this chapter, the contested concept of who is an Istanbulite is also discussed. The final chapter of this part is on literary history, concerning novels with old-Istanbulite and ‘new Istanbulite’ protagonists. Each of the following three parts of the dissertation is on a pair of novels, including an analysis chapter of each novel22, and ending with a chapter of comparison for each pair. In the comparative analysis chapters, the focus is on the way the idea of the right to the city is developed, through themes related to setting and character. In these comparative chapters, discussions of specific themes and formal traits that become more visible when two counterpoint novels are read comparatively are also included. Therefore, in each comparative chapter there are points that are compared only in that pair of novels. Part II is on Orhan Kemal’s The Homesick Birds (1962) and Muzaffer İzgü’s Uncle Halo and Two Bulls (1973); Part III is on Latife Tekin’s Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills (1984) and Metin Kaçan’s Heavy Roman(i) (1995), Part IV is on Ayhan Geçgin’s On the Periphery (2003) and Hatice Meryem’s It Takes All Kinds (2008). Part V is on Orhan Pamuk’s A Strangeness in My Mind (2014). The dissertation ends with a conclusion chapter, where the novels are briefly compared with each other, first in terms of their central formal and stylistic features. This section of the chapter is followed by a comparison of the ways the following issues, the three central tenets of the urban sociological framework discussed in Chapter 3, are elaborated in the novels: the right to the city as an explicit theme; immigrants becoming urbanites; and immigrants laying claim to the city. This final chapter also includes a short section comprising brief comments on the potential influence of the novels in the corpus on real life, the way they mediate reality, to use Williams’s phrase. The dissertation includes two maps of Istanbul. The first map shows the districts of the city. The second map shows significant neighbourhoods appearing as settings in the novels. The book cover images presented are scanned from the actual printed books. The appendix comprises short biographies of the authors of the novels in the corpus.

22 The structure of the novel analysis chapters is explained in detail in Chapter 1. 10

Notes on the Format This dissertation is written in line with the MLA 2016 handbook. However, one of the in-text citation rules of this referencing system is adapted in the following way: in the novel analysis chapters, in the excerpts from the novels, the name of the novelist is not included to avoid repetition. A minor adaptation appears in punctuation as follows: in the quotes, in order to avoid confusion between ellipsis as part of the sentence, and ellipsis used to indicate skipped words in the quotes, ellipses as part of the sentences are written without spaces as ‘…’, while ellipses to indicate skipped words are written with spaces as ‘ . . . ’. Additionally, when ellipses are at the end of the sentence, the full-stop is implied to be within the skipped part of the sentence. Scare quotes are used only in the first appearance of the related word or phrase, except for ‘non-Istanbulite’. In the analyses, if the novel is dedicated to someone it is mentioned. Information on the novel’s adaptations to other media and translations into other languages is given if any adaptation or translation exists. Apart from Hills and Strangeness, excerpts were translated into English by the author of this dissertation. In the analyses of these two novels, when necessary, page numbers are indicated by “T” for the Turkish and “E” for the English versions of the book. The translations of the excerpts from novels have been made simply with the objective of rendering their content on the lexical level; the rural accents of protagonists do not appear in the translations. The information on the style of the novel, given in the Main Features section of each novel analysis and explaining whether rural accent is used in characters’ speeches is regarded as sufficient in this sense. Only in two instances in the analysis of Heavy Roman(i) is rural accent signalled in brackets within the conversation, because in them this use determines the contents of the conversation. Throughout the dissertation, instead of simply using acronyms of the novels’ titles, abbreviations that create an association with the context of the related novel are used. A short explanation of each title’s English translation is included in the relevant analysis chapter.

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Turkish Title English Title Abbreviation

Gurbet Kuşları The Homesick Birds Birds

Halo Dayı ve İki Öküz Uncle Halo and Two Bulls Bulls

Berci Kristin Çöp Masalları Berji Kristin: Tales From Hills the Garbage Hills Ağır Roman Heavy Roman(i) Roman(i)

Kenarda On the Periphery Periphery

İnsan Kısım Kısım, Yer It Takes All Kinds Kinds Damar Damar

Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık A Strangeness in My Mind Strangeness

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analysed. analysed.

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PART I - FRAMEWORK AND CONTEXT FOR ANALYSIS

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CHAPTER 1

Theoretical and Methodological Framework: Cultural Materialism and Applications of Narratology As explained in the introduction, this dissertation analyses and interprets seven novels in relation to the historical context. Clearly, a novel is a piece of fiction, a literary product, a work of art and it has to be analysed as an artistic work. That said, locating it in its historical context is not an obstacle against an analysis which appreciates its being a work of art. In analysing literary works, paying attention to their formal characteristics as in close reading while also locating them as cultural products of their times are two approaches that complement each other. In this dissertation, the novels are analysed and interpreted based on “underlying theoretical assumptions” (Hawthorn 73) of cultural materialism and with “particular methods of analysis and inquiry” (Hawthorn 73) of narratological concepts. The expression Andrew Milner uses to explain the objective of cultural studies discipline as a “science” is the objective of this dissertation: “description and explanation rather than judgment and canonization” (5).

1.1 Theoretical Framework: Cultural Materialism

1.1.1 Historicizing Literature In 1977, Raymond Williams, in his book Marxism and Literature, defined “a position which can be briefly described as cultural materialism: a theory of the specificities of material cultural and literary production within historical materialism” (5). Historical materialism is a key word here and unfortunately due to insufficient attention to its historical materialist roots, cultural materialism is usually regarded as a similar approach to New Historicism. Milner’s comparison of Raymond Williams’ position with that of John Frow and Tony Bennett is worth attention. Milner points out that all three of them aimed at stressing the “necessarily social nature of literary relations” (101). The concern of these scholars was the same in the sense of their disagreement with “ontological dualisms as those between ‘real’ history and ‘less real’ literature, base and superstructure, ‘real’ content and ‘less real’ form”23 (101). However, their solution for the problem was entirely different: while Williams chose the path of “historicising literature” Bennett and Frow followed the route to “narrativis(ing) history” (101). Similarly, Ken Hirschkop, in his article Marxism, Modernism, History, underlines that according to Frow “the real is a textual construct or an effect of discourse and that there is no

23 All quotation marks, italics and bolds within quotes in the text and in the footnotes belong to the original unless otherwise stated. 16 absolute existence of the referent” (630). He describes such a position as “denial of a reality ‘objective and external to’ discourse’” (630) and stresses the necessity to see the connection between “experience” and “particular social and discursive structures” without neglecting either of them (631). Fredric Jameson starts his book The Political Unconscious saying: “always historicize!” (ix). Ian Buchanan attracts attention to this fact (54) and warns us to see that dialectical criticism of Fredric Jameson is “not comparable or compatible with New Historicism” since New Historicism is based on “a subject-centred view of history”, while Jameson starts from “an object-centred view of history” (54). Similarly, Terry Eagleton draws attention to the fact that historicizing by and large has served politically conservative interests. He points out that on the one side there are liberals and conservatives and on the other side leftists, and the difference between them is not whether or not they are involved with “historical context” but over how to perceive history (“Contradictions” 2). John Higgins defines cultural materialism as “a concept deployed as a conscious alternative and direct challenge to the available Marxist formula” (R. Williams: Literature 41), as a concept Williams developed to make a connection between the changes in drama “without recourse to the clumsy metaphor of ‘base and superstructure’” (42). Milner explains that in developing this term, Williams separated his route both “from an older tradition of British Communist Marxism” and from the “British version of literary humanism” at the core of which was F.R. Leavis (18). Put simply, Williams rejects the idea that cultural products, as accepted in the sphere of superstructure, are simple results of the base, and he argues that cultural products do not simply reflect reality but also mediate it. As Daniel Hartley underscores, cultural materialism is a concept which is perceived in many different ways (Personal Interview). Similarly, Higgins describes the concept as “open to dispute” (R. Williams Reader 221) and criticizes Jonathan Dollimore and Alan Sinfield’s understanding of cultural materialism as a ‘term’24 rather than a concept (223). In brief, this dissertation departs from the point that cultural materialism is based on historical materialism and aims at what Williams explains as “analysis of the historically based conventions of language and representation; the plays themselves as socially and materially produced, within discoverable conditions . . . ” (“Afterword” 239). What Williams says for William Shakespeare plays in this quote can clearly, be extended to all types of literary fiction. Higgins explains that the cultural aspect of cultural materialism stresses culture’s influence on “historical change and (any) political practice”, while its materialist aspect

24 Quotation marks belong to Higgins. 17 attracts attention to the ways “cultural or signifying practice(s)” are influenced by “historical and political” developments as opposed to the “bourgeois aesthetic theory” which sees the artists’ inspirations as coming from somewhere isolated from the social and historical facts of the era in which he/she lives (R. Williams Reader 223). Higgins’ explanation is a perfect clarification of cultural materialism’s emphasis on the reciprocity between culture and history that surpasses a simple base and superstructure approach. While the vulgar Marxist base and superstructure perspective perceives superstructure as a simple outcome of base, hence cultural products as simple reflections and outcomes of political and economic conditions, cultural materialism makes clear that social and historical life is affected by products of culture, while products of culture are also affected by social and historical life. Marc Augé’s clarification about the reciprocity between art and life is worth mentioning. He points out that “art has to express society . . . but it has to do it deliberately. It cannot be simply a passive expression . . . ” He stresses that if showing something beyond what people see in their daily lives and through media is art’s aim then “it has to be expressive and reflexive” (xxi). He adds that the artist tries to “manage this gap between expression and reflexiveness” (xxi).

1.1.2 Form and Content In Marxism and Literature, Williams emphasises the need for “a fully social theory of literature” (171) to surpass the limits of approaches limited in form or content. In this sense, the concept of the notations is crucial. As Williams explains, “the notations are relationships, expressed, offered, tested, and amended in a whole social process, in which device, expression, and the substance of expression are in the end inseparable” (171-2). As discussed above, for expression art needs subjects, themes as well as formal devices to cultivate them and turn them into works of art. Therefore, content and form must always be analysed through their reciprocity. As Higgins observes, Williams, in his book Culture, designates two main objectives of a cultural materialist literary analyst: on the one hand, an analysis on the textual level is necessary, which is “narrowly focused” and is concerned with “the specificities of textual analysis” (R. Williams: Literature 142). On the other hand, the cultural materialist literary analyst must be able to locate the literary product in the context of the “means and conditions” (142) under which it existed and was received. Higgins, referring to this aspect of Williams’ approach explains that Williams helped literary studies move from an “aesthetic and evaluative” function (173). With the cultural materialist approach, the literary analyst is able 18 to see the “formal” characteristics of the “text” – its idiosyncrasies, the way all of its pieces make a whole; and at the same time she can analyse it through its connections with its material conditions (173). These conditions not only influence the production of the literary text but also its reception; thus a cultural materialist analysis takes all these aspects into account (173). Form of a literary work includes its linguistic and stylistic characteristics. In literary analysis, neglecting these aspects of a work and focusing simply on its content is a huge fallacy. It would be useful to remember at this point the Russian philosopher Mikhail Bakhtin, a highly significant figure in literary theory who put great effort into finding a solution to a vulgar mimetic understanding of the relationship between art and reality. His perception of form and content as a unity lies at the core of his perspective of making a connection between art and reality. He makes this point clear at the very beginning of “Discourse in the Novel” as he starts the article asserting that: “ . . . the study of verbal art can and must overcome the divorce between an abstract ‘formal’ approach and an equally abstract ‘ideological’ approach. Form and content in discourse are one” (259). This apt observation of Bakhtin warns the literary analyst to refrain from equating content with historical facts, while regarding form as connected with personal inspiration. Both content and form have a core in them based on the historical realities of the times in which the literary work is produced. In line with Bakhtin’s approach, Sue Vice stresses that style and theme are “inextricable aspect[s]” of each other (83). Obviously, style is an element of form while theme is an element of content. Similarly, Eagleton explains that the aim of “scientific criticism” is being able to see how a piece of literature is a “part” of the “ideological structure”, and at the same time to explore how this ideological structure gets “transform[ed]” through the artistic characteristics of this piece (Marxism and Literary 18). These words of Eagleton stress that traces of historical, ideological reality do not simply enter the text in content through simple mimesis, but get changed and expressed artistically owing to the formal possibilities of literary arts. Eagleton underscores that scientific criticism’s task is to see how a literary piece is connected with ideology and at the same time “distance[d]” from it. This distance is, in a way, what makes each individual literary work different from the other. As Eagleton points out, such a scientific approach to literature “means grasping the literary work as a formal structure” (18). In another work which focuses on the practice of analysing literature, Eagleton reminds us that commenting on “what the poem or novel says, setting aside the way that it says it” is a mistake that novice practitioners of literary analysis very often make, and describes such a stance as “set[ting] aside the ‘literariness’ of the work” (How to 2). Eagleton 19 lists the main points to pay attention to for understanding and analysing works of literature as “tone, mood, pace, genre, syntax, grammar, texture, rhythm, narrative structure, punctuation, ambiguity” and emphasises that all of these constitute the form of the literary work (How to 2). Similarly, Fredric Jameson urges us that “form” should be regarded as “content” (The Political 84). He stresses that formalistic characteristics of works in fact have in them “ideological messages of their own, distinct from the ostensible or manifest content of the works” (84). This analysis of Jameson is in line with Bakhtin’s excerpt above, and with reference to Freud’s analysis of dreams where there is a manifest and latent content, Jameson’s words point out that while the subject and themes of literary works constitute their manifest content, their formal traits constitute their latent content. Jameson underlines the fact that “ . . . the existence of a determinate literary form always reflects a certain possibility of experience in the moment of social development in question” (“Metacommentary” 12). Such an emphasis is in complete harmony with Williams’ argument for a fully social theory of literature. In conclusion, in this dissertation, form and content, style and theme are regarded as two sides of the same coin and analysed and interpreted accordingly. Before ending this section it might be useful to make a brief remark on the issue of theme. As Werner Sollors underlines, the thematic aspect in works of analysis and criticism in the sphere of “Women’s Studies, Black Studies, Ethnic Studies, Cultural Studies, Ideological Criticism, and New Historicism” has a significant place, albeit in a “largely undeclared” manner (xiv). As Thomas Pavel observes, after the 1980s formalist approaches were challenged by those literary critical veins based on the explication of literary texts within the framework of “feminism, Afro-American culture, ethnic and sexual minorities, and the postcolonial Third World” (124). Certainly, one can add the class dimension to this framework presented by Pavel. He underlines the fact that, for such approaches to literary criticism “a more concrete grasp of literary content than narrative grammars, semiotic squares, and self-subverting meanings could offer” was necessary (124). As discussed above, in this dissertation such formal and stylistic features of literary works and their themes are seen as two sides of the same coin: in order to analyse one side, the analysis of the other side is compulsory. Some literary works give more material for the analysis of form, others for the analysis of content; in any case they must be analysed through their reciprocity. In this regard, it is obvious that the analyses of the novels in this dissertation, although they do not follow strict methods of thematology, have a significant thematological aspect. In his apt analysis, Sollors stresses that in our era thematics is seen as a passé approach, 20 something belonging to the past, and therefore “discussions of literary ‘treatments of’ themes tend to call themselves by other names” (xiii). This dissertation does not follow this path, on the contrary it ‘proudly’ acknowledges the thematic aspect of the analyses of novels the reader will read about in the following pages. One of the central arguments of this dissertation is that themes are a central part of analytical and interpretative projects like this one, which aim at locating literary works in their historical and cultural context.

1.1.3 Genres, Conventions and Forms In Marxism and Literature, Williams posits that “meaning is always produced; it is never simply expressed” (166). Augé’s description of the gap between expression and reflexiveness is in line with this analysis. As quoted above, Williams also draws attention to the fact that “device, expression, and the substance of expression” cannot be perceived as independent from each other (Marxism and Literature 171-2). He uses an analysis of changing conventions of “presentation of persons (‘characters’)” (174) in drama and prose to explain this point. The manner in which characters are presented by the way they look as well as the position they have in the social stratum; the ways they enter the novel or play “as instrumental (servants, drivers, waiters), as merely environmental (other people in the street)” and each decision of the author regarding a similar case, he demonstrates, “depends on the acceptance of its convention, but it is always more than a ‘literary’ or ‘aesthetic’ decision” (174-175). He aptly points out that formal analysis enables us to “identify” the presence of “conventions” in literary works; however in order to “understand” them we need “social analysis” (176). Williams continues his analysis of conventions by touching upon how conventions of narrative stance; cause, motive, and consequence; temporal sequence; presentation of place; action and presentation of speech are deeply connected with social/historical developments (176-179). In Politics and Letters, Williams clearly points out that once the literary analyst is able to make the connections between the literary work and the “conditions” in which it was produced, then it will be clear that the basis of conventions is social and “that they are not simply formal devices of writing” (306). On similar lines, referring to Barthes’s Writing Degree Zero, Eagleton underscores that “the languages and devices a writer finds to hand are already saturated with certain ideological modes of perception, certain codified ways of interpreting reality” (Marxism and Literary 25). 21

Williams analyses these concepts in his book Culture as well. In this book, he explains how forms25 are not simply devices as the formalist analysis regards them. He uses the example of soliloquy from drama which means a man “speaking aloud to himself” (140) and explains how its emergence was “inseparable from new conceptions of personality and new senses of the limits and contradictions of available social relations” (141). He underlines that developments in form “can be shown to be relatively associated with a much wider area of social practice and social change” (142). Williams points out that “different levels of form” are related to different “kinds of social relations” (Culture 194). At the deepest level, there are the lyrical mode and the dramatic mode which are related to “anthropological and societal dimension” more than to one which is “sociological in its ordinary sense” (194). The second level which Williams identifies here is “‘genres’ or ‘kinds’” which are more dependent “on changes between social orders in their epochal sense” than modes (195). Williams points out that genre classification comprises three “basic components” which he lists as “stance”; “mode of formal composition” and “appropriate subject-matter” (Marxism and Literature 183). Stance, “traditionally defined in the three categories of the narrative, the dramatic, and the lyrical”, is “forms of composition and address” (183), while “mode of formal composition” can be “verse or prose, particular forms of verse, and so on” (184). He points out that a historical approach cannot define “definitive forms” based on these components, since “their actual combinations are of irreducible historical importance, and must be always empirically recognized. But any theory of genre must from the beginning distinguish between them” (184). He stresses that the genre classification is useful in a formalist analysis. From a cultural materialist perspective, genre “is neither an ideal type nor a traditional order nor a set of technical rules” (185). Williams concludes that, “it is in the practical and variable combination and even fusion of what are, in abstraction, different levels of the social material process that what we have known as genre becomes a new kind of constitutive evidence” (185). As Williams asserts, within the “the last two centuries” genre mostly left its place to form in literary theory (186). He explains that we find “the really significant changes” at the level of types and forms (Culture 196). He defines types as “radical distributions, redistributions and innovations of interest, corresponding to the specific and changed social character of an epoch” and gives bourgeois drama, the realist novel and landscape painting as examples (196). Forms are “certain formal dispositions” which are “inherently reproducible”

25 Italics in paraphrases in this and the next paragraph belong to Williams. 22

(197). For forms, Williams gives examples such as “a particular stance, an appropriate selection of subject matter, a specific mode of composition” (197). As Hartley points out, “forms become ‘techniques’ when they have become widely accepted as conventional” (116).

1.1.4 Conclusion At the core of the approach in this dissertation lie all of the points briefly discussed above. Throughout the analysis, attention is paid to the significance of aesthetic decisions which are grounded in changes in history. On a larger scale, conventions which are “the mode of junction of social position and literary practice” (Williams, Marxism and Literature 179) are traced, as much as possible, in the analyses of the novels selected for this dissertation. On a lesser scale, formal traits of a literary piece as listed above by Eagleton (How to 2) are taken into consideration throughout the analyses of the novels. In sum, the literary analysis in this dissertation is based on the following premises: Literary works are not simply mimetic, they do not simply reflect reality but also mediate it. When literary works reflect reality they do it in their form as well as in their content, bridging the gap between expression and reflexiveness. Therefore, form and content must be analysed in their reciprocity. However, it must be noted that, in this dissertation, although themes and styles, that is form and content have been analysed within their reciprocity, some novels in the corpus offered more material for analysis in terms of form than the others. Below, the methodology of the analysis and the format of the dissertation are explained.

1.2 Methodological Framework

1.2.1 Applications of Narratology Narratologist Mieke Bal, in her article entitled “The Point of Narratology”, underscores that “the often alleged opposition between historical and systematic analysis is a false one” (728). Such a perspective adopted by numerous scholars of narratology resulted in a new vein in this sphere. While classical narratology is principally structuralist, this new vein which is called post-classical narratology is contextualist (Nünning 48). Ansgar Nünning describes it as “a contextual, cultural or historical narratology” (48). Similarly, Roy Sommer defines this “specific branch of narrative theory” as “›contextualist‹, ›applied‹ or ›thematic‹ narratologies” (62) and adds that “these terms are used as synonymous umbrella terms for the so-called ›hyphenated‹ narratologies which combine structuralist and cognitive frameworks with context-sensitive approaches to fiction” (Footnote 2 page 62). Similarly, Nünning describes contextualist narratologies as “applications of narratological categories to the 23 context-sensitive analysis and interpretation of narratives” (55-56). Helms, inspired by works of Jameson, Bal and Nünning, explains that cultural narratology “enables us to identify and understand cultural experiences translated into, and meanings produced by, particular formal narrative practices . . . ” (14). It comes as no surprise when Nünning, referring to the passage from Jameson quoted above, asserts that “the project of a cultural narratology can draw on Fredric Jameson’s concept of the ‘ideology of the form’” (63). Nünning points out that “cultural narratology strives to cross the border between textual formalism and historical contextualism, and . . . to close the gaps between narratological bottom-up analysis and cultural top-down synthesis by putting the analytical toolkit developed by narratology to the service of context-sensitive interpretations of novels” (60-61). Nünning makes a list of sub-branches under the heading of “Contextualist, Thematic, and Cultural Approaches: Applications of Narratology in Literary and Cultural Studies” (54). He stresses that some of these sub-branches are established approaches, while some of them are what he tentatively identifies for the list. For instance, while he presents Feminist Narratology as an example of the former, Marxist Narratology is included as an example of the latter in his list (55). As Nünning’s title demonstrates, all these sub-branches approach literary and cultural studies through a contextualist, thematic and cultural perspective. Williams attracts attention to the significance of “indications of situation” and “combinations of situation and identity” in literary texts. He points out that: The process of reading, in anything more than its most literal sense, is radically dependent on these indications: not only as an answer to the necessary question, ‘who “speaks”?’, but as answers to the necessary range of related questions: ‘from what situation?’; ‘with what authority?’; ‘with what intention?’ (Marxism and Literature 170) Similarly, referring to Monika Fludernik, Sommer draws attention to the fact that “ . . . narrative strategies and literary devices such as descriptive and evaluative comments by the narrator” can give the analyst significant clues regarding “the underlying notions of identities and alterities” in literary texts (68). Sommer draws attention to the importance of these notions in postcolonial literary theory. In fact they are important for all contextual approaches such as feminist, cultural materialist or new historicist ones. Throughout the analyses of the novels in this dissertation, particular attention has been paid to their narrators’ comments. Similarly, “ . . . the selection and combination of settings, character constellations, the representation of speech” (68) listed by Sommer with reference to Fludernik as concerns of postcolonial literary are of great importance in other contextual approaches as well, hence 24 they are in this dissertation. In fact, as mentioned above, the novels of the corpus are selected based on setting and characters. Put simply, all these aspects of “structural framework” (68) are analysed together with themes in the novels in the following pages. Similar to the postcolonial approach, the ways immigrant characters are constructed in relation to the otherisation processes in social, cultural and economic life in these novels are detected in the analysis. Nünning points out that “most of the contextualist, cultural, thematic, and ideological approaches have been concerned with issues that are not really germane to narratology” and that they can be seen as “mere(ly) applications of narratological models and categories to specific texts, genres, or periods” (55). Therefore, he stresses that applications of narratology and ‘narratology proper’26 should be regarded as different categories. He emphasises that this distinction does not aim to suggest “a binary opposition but rather a gliding scale between the poles of ‘narratology proper’ and ‘applications of narratology’ or ‘narratological criticism’” (55). Within this framework, it should be noted that, in this dissertation which can be categorized within the domain of cultural narratology, the analyses and interpretations of the seven novels in the corpus are examples of applications of narratology rather than narratology proper.

1.2.2 Concepts of Narratology Used In the Analyses Below, each novel of the corpus is analysed in a separate chapter. Each novel analysis chapter starts with two introductory paragraphs, the first about the novel and the second about the central argument of the analysis, and continues with the plot summary. Since “plot is the sequence of events in a story and their relation to one another” (A. Charters and S. Charters 7), in the summary section of the analyses, events are summarized in the order they appear in the novel. In the Main Features section, first, the information on the shape of the narrative i.e. number of pages and chapters is given. After that the literary movement to which the novel broadly belongs to is mentioned. This is followed by brief information on style, i.e. the use of language in a unique way in the novel based on: diction (the choice of words) and syntax (the ways these words are placed in the sentence); the ways sentences are structured in terms of “length and complexity”; and punctuation (A. Charters and S. Charters 15). After this, the narrative situation in the novel is succinctly specified, based broadly on Franz Stanzel’s approach. Obviously, Stanzel’s narrative theory is an extremely wide topic, a

26 Inverted commas belong to Nünning. 25 discussion of which is outside the scope of this work. As Wolf Schmid explains, Stanzel’s model as simplified into authorial and figural narrative situations has widely been used for narrative analysis (91). Throughout this dissertation, in the analysis of the narrative situation, the following route is taken: In the authorial narrative situation, the narrator exists outside the story world of the characters and possesses capacities consistent with an external perspective—the narrator can offer panoramic descriptions and observations about events occurring simultaneously in the story world. In the figural narrative situation, the perspective of a reflecting character inside the story world . . . overwrites the narrator, whose presence is downplayed. (Keen 39) However, as Suzanne Keen adds, “authorial and figural narrative situations represent not absolute differences, but poles of a continuum” (39) and “the decision to call a narrator authorial or figural can itself pose interpretive challenges” (40). Similarly, Fludernik uses the phrase “the sliding scale of the authorial-figural continuum” (129). As such, in the analysis of the narrative situation of the novels in the corpus, all of which are told in the third–person27, the focus is on where in the authorial-figural continuum each novel stands. Also indicated is whether the novel gives any information about the identity of this third-person narrator. In this respect, W. Schmid’s apt analysis stressing that “a narrator can be strongly marked without having a personal identity” (62) is of great importance. It should also be noted that, in the following analyses, following Susan S. Lanser’s approach, the narrators in two novels of the corpus which are written by women are taken as female (167). The narrators in the rest of the novels written by male authors are taken as male. In addition to the broad comment on the narrative situation of the novel as a whole in the Main Features section, the movements on the authorial-figural continuum and the changes of the reflector characters throughout the novels are taken into account during the analysis of themes whenever necessary. Last but not least, the way of narration, the comments of the narrator, the adjectives he/she uses are always taken into consideration, as explained above, since the stance of the narrator can give significant clues to the novel’s implications and messages on various issues. The final aspect of the Main Features section is the formal characteristics of the novel that merit special attention. References to the reviews of the novels are mainly included here.

27 Except for some parts of A Strangeness in My Mind. 26

This section is followed by another one comprising a short analysis of the title and beginning of the novel. Characters and setting, which are the criteria in creating the corpus, have a particular emphasis in the analyses. The right to the city and related themes of the novels are scrutinized through their connection with characters and setting. However, when a theme is presented as e.g. character-related most of the time, it could just as well have been considered as setting- related or vice versa. In the final instance, the degree of the relationship between these two formal categories and themes has been definitive. The fourth section is about characters and related themes. Uri Margolin summarizes the three main theoretical approaches in the analysis of characters as follows: “an artistic product . . . constructed by an author”; “character as an individual within a possible world”; “text-based construct or mental image in the reader’s mind” (66). The approach in this work follows the second category. Keen points out that such an approach to the character in the novel is in harmony with “historically contextualized reading” (26). As Margolin acknowledges, for this sort of character analysis the analyst must examine the characters’ “physical; behavioral (action-related) and communicative” attributes; identify each character in the novel and categorize the character (72-74). He underlines that categorization can be made based on different features such as “physical, behavioral, and mental” but also, depending on the novel, it can include “various biological (gender, age), cultural (ethnic), social, actional, and psychological categories” (75). He adds that the main “dimension of categorization” will vary from one novel to the other and gives the example of Don Quixote where the “social class” of the character requires particular attention (75). As regards the focus of this work, the three methods Margolin explains are not followed strictly. For instance, every single character in each novel is not identified (the second of his methods above) in each novel. The focus is on the main characters, and especially on their development in the city, in other words their character development in terms of their ways of adopting an urban identity, which is in line with Margolin’s third method above. The fifth section of each novel analysis chapter focuses on setting and related themes. As is well known, mainly “time, place and social environment that frame the characters” constitute the setting in the novel (Meyer 137). Michael Meyer stresses that in many pieces of literary work setting is “more than background and furnishings” (137). Similarly, Teresa Bridgeman describes “time and space” as “more than background elements in narrative”, which have a significant role in the construction of the story world in the reader’s mind (52). In the analyses of the novels, the temporal dimension is examined briefly in terms of the era 27 the stories are set in. The spatial dimension is analysed more deeply, since it is one of the criteria in the creation of the corpus. Finally, the conclusion section includes overall comments on the analysis as a whole. With all the explanations above, it should be noted that, as Richard Abcarian and Marvin Klotz, commenting on the act of analysing literary works through categories such as “tone, setting, plot, theme, characterization, and point of view as separate aspects” emphasise, “the story (if it is a good one) is an integrated whole” (8). Therefore, the integration rather than the separation of all these aspects of the novels is what constitutes the basis of the analyses in the following pages.

1.2.3 Conclusion As Higgins points out, cultural materialism allows the analyst “to integrate the three usually separated dimensions of textual, theoretical and historical analysis” (135). Higgins explains that in cultural materialist investigation “. . . a text is read formally, in terms of the play of its generic and internal construction; it is located historically, both in terms of its means and conditions of original production, and also in relation to the history of its readings; and it is read theoretically, in terms of whatever questions can be productively put to it” (173). In line with such an objective, in the analyses of the novels in the corpus the following approach is maintained. For the textual analysis dimension, concepts of narratology are used. In the historical dimension, taking into account the dates when the novels were written, the changes in the approach to the idea of the right to the city and related themes are examined. Finally, in the theoretical dimension, the answers to various questions that can be asked at the junction of literary studies and urban studies are attempted. The historic dimension regarding the reception of the novels is briefly touched upon in the final chapter.

28

CHAPTER 2

The Historical and the Social Context: Istanbul and Immigrants In the following pages, a brief history of Istanbul after the1950s is discussed as regards immigration to the city, particularly internal rural to urban migration starting in the 1950s, and related topics such as the immigrants’ integration into urban life and their perception by old-Istanbulites. Eric Jan Zürcher, at the beginning of his book Turkey, A Modern History, emphasises the inevitability of periodisation while studying history, and divides the 1950s to 1990s period in Turkey’s history as follows: “the rule of the Democratic Party, 1950–60; the second Turkish Republic, 1960–80 and, the Third Republic: since 1980” (Contents). This chapter loosely adopts this periodisation, together with Tahire Erman’s periodisation regarding studies on informal shanty type housing in Turkey: the 1950s and 1960s; the 1970s and early 1980s; the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s; and the late 1990s (984).

2.1 Background Information about Istanbul Istanbul was the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire from A.D. 330 until 1453, and the Ottoman Empire 1453-1923. During the 18th and 19th centuries, as it became the centre for commerce and trade, its cosmopolitan identity became even stronger (Keyder and Öncü 14). Since the imperial palace and administration were in the city, there were a significant number of Westernised upper class Muslims in the city, which contributed to its cosmopolitan atmosphere. Until World War I, the city included a wide array of people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds with its population comprising of Muslims, Greeks, Sephardic-Jews and Armenians (Keyder and Öncü 14-15). As the 1885-1886 census reveals, as of 1886, Muslim Turks living in Istanbul constituted only forty-four percent of the city’s population which was around one million (İstanbul: Kıtaların 201). A series of events following World War I (WWI) decreased the minority population in the city. Although the population exchange in 1923 excluded the Greeks in Istanbul, in the period between WWI and WWII Istanbul lost a significant amount of its wealthy non-Muslim minorities and foreigners who were no longer feeling safe and secure in the city (Keyder and Öncü 15). After the Kemalist regime made Ankara the capital of the Turkish Republic, Istanbul, which “became the symbolic vestige of decadent Ottoman cosmopolitanism . . . was marginalized not only politically but also culturally” (15). However, after WWII, as a result of the dynamics in Turkey’s international political and economic relations, Istanbul became the “growth pole” of the expanding economy (16). 29

2.2 The 1950s and 60s Between 1950 and 1970 private manufacturing enterprises spread in Istanbul and “51 percent of total employment in Turkish private industry” was located in the city (Keyder and Öncü 17), which created a significant need for labour. Additionally, Adnan Menderes, the prime minister of the time, launched an extensive urban transformation project, with devastating effects on the city’s historical and cultural heritage, in the second half of the 1950s, which turned the city into a massive building site and created demand for labourers, including many unskilled ones. Sema Erder describes the past and the present Istanbul as “a destination for migrant populations, changing and cosmopolitan in its composition” (“Where Do You” 161). She points out that, until the 1950s, the Muslims and minorities i.e. Armenians, Greeks and Jews which were not only the religious but also the ethnic minorities of the city, comprised an urban population (161). As Erder underscores, after the 1950s the city’s population went through two major changes almost synchronically: on the one hand the minority population shrank and on the other hand two major waves of immigration happened in the city: immigration from the Balkan countries based on international agreements, and internal rural to urban migration i.e. immigration of rural population from Anatolia to Istanbul (161). The first stage of the shrinking of the minority population in the city was the outcome of the Wealth Tax. In November 1942, a tax was imposed aiming at those who had profited from the war. “But the way in which this law was applied was scandalous: . . . the small non- Muslim communities, . . . were subjected to rates ten times higher than those of Muslims” (Zürcher 199-200). The Istanbul pogrom on 6-7 September 1955 against the Greeks in the city where some members of the Armenian minority were also attacked, and the exile of Greeks in 1964 were other devastating events that resulted in the loss of the city’s non-Muslim population. Where immigration into the city is concerned, Erder emphasizes that since immigrants from the Balkans were settled in the city under the supervision of the public authorities, their reception was unproblematic, which was not the case for Anatolians who tried to find their own ways to survive in the city. These Anatolian immigrants were “peasants” in the eyes of the old urbanites of the city (“Where Do You” 161), who regarded “their mode of arrival, occupation of land, construction of housing, search for employment, and style of life . . . as alien” (162). This led to the discourse of the “peasantization of cities” and an “urban-peasant divide” (161). As Erder observes, peasants in the cities, who were seen as a homogenous group, were expected to integrate into urban life by “changing [their] life styles” and the 30 characteristics of this integration was a hot topic for journalists and scholars until the 1980’s (162). She adds that, when the complications of urban life were discussed, the attention was on whether immigrants were successful enough in this integration or not. Those who were not successful in integration were criticized for their failure (162). At this stage, a brief overview of the shanty phenomenon in those years can be a good base to understand issues concerning the presence of immigrants as well as their life-styles which Erder refers to. Shanty (squatter) settlements started by the end of 1940s, as “a non-market solution for those who were excluded by the formal housing market as well as the state”28 (Işık and Pınarcıoğlu 112). The word for these shanties in Turkish is gecekondu which literally means ‘built overnight’. The first era shanties, as its name implies, were built by rural to urban immigrants “on the Treasury land in the periphery of the city”29 (113). Oğuz Işık and Melih Pınarcıoğlu emphasise that, during this era shanty settlements did not create a serious conflict owing to two factors. The first is the “multi-stage migration”30 (114) which enables the immigrant to continue to have his financial and social ties with his hometown and to have the chance to go back for a while, and bring his family to the city after he is established, which reduces the traumas of migration (115). The second factor was the structure of land ownership. In Turkey the state owns the largest share of the areas in and around cities, which is called Treasury land (115). At the first stages of migration, as pieces of the Treasury land were occupied by immigrants for building shanties, the state preferred to stay as “a silent collaborator”31 in the process (115). Işık and Pınarcıoğlu also remind us that localism [hemşehrilik] relationships, as a form of network relationship, was another significant characteristic of the early era shanty life (117). As Çağlar Keyder points out, since the state was not acting as a welfare one in practice, newcomers in the city were supporting each other to a certain extent through “kinship and neighbourhood reciprocity” (“Globalization” 127). Erman finds significant changes in the way shanty dwellers were perceived in the four periods of studies mentioned above. She asserts that, in the 1950s and 1960s they were seen as ‘the rural Other’. As the title implies, in the first phase the dwellers of the shanties were seen as those people in a city who have arrived with their rural culture. ‘Peasant’ would be the derogatory term to stigmatize them. She underlines that “under the influence of [modernization] theory, Turkish scholars expected the assimilation of rural migrants into the modern urban society” (985). As Erder’s excerpt above illustrates, such an approach

28 “hem formel konut piyasasının, hem de devletin dışladığı kesimlere yönelik piyasa dışı bir çözüm” 29 “kentin çevresinde yer alan Hazine arazileri üzerinde” 30 “aşamalı göç” 31 “sessiz bir ortak” 31 dominated public opinion as well as the institutions in terms of urban planning and organisation. Keyder’s analysis summarises the 1950s and 60s in a lucid way. He underlines that through Menderes’s developmentalist vision Istanbul was seen as the locomotive of the “political economy of national development” (“Capital City” 3). In the city where the population “doubled from the 1950s to the 1960s” Keyder notes, the growth was characterized by lack of order and planning since “shantytowns developed where it was easiest to occupy and to build, industry was located where it was easiest to pollute” (3-4). This was the picture of the city as it reached the end of the 1960s.

2.3 The 1970s In the 1970s, shanties started to evolve from poor immigrants’ inevitable solution to their housing problem to “profitable commodities” (Erman 986), as some of the owners of these houses started renting or selling them to others. This era also coincides with the interest in upmarket housing in the suburbs of the city, which made the land outside the city centre more precious. However, the ruling parties did not act against shanty builders, as these were the years of leftist activism and the people of the shanty settlements were naturally potential supporters for the left movement (987). Erman adds that, in the 1970s and early 1980s the perspective in shanty studies shifted to ‘the disadvantaged Other’32 (984). Overall, until the 1980s, as Erder explains, immigrants’ presence in the city did not really create a problem. Immigrant men worked hard for low wages, while their wives were useful as helpers in middle and upper class homes. “For politicians they were a potential store of votes to be tapped, and for government officials they were ‘people’ less demanding than citizens . . . ” (162). However, the city was by no means a bed of roses, either for immigrants or for the old-Istanbulites. Keyder describes Istanbul of the 1970s as “a grimy, unkempt, and dark third-world metropolis” reminding us that in the city, where almost four million people were living by the middle of the decade, even upper-class areas had infrastructure problems and “gloomy facades” (4). It should also be noted that Turkey’s invasion of Cyprus in 1974 resulted in the departure of more Greeks from Istanbul, leaving a bitter feeling in the social atmosphere of the city.

2.4 The 1980s After the 1980 military coup which brutally repressed the leftist movement of the country, a new government was formed. As Erman underlines, the liberal economic policies

32 Inverted commas belong to Erman. 32 of the government of the new Prime Minister Turgut Özal had serious negative effects on the majority of the population. The number of people migrating to large cities increased while “unemployment rates and hence social discontent” was climbing (Erman 987). She adds that as distribution of income changed to the detriment of the poor in those years, this discontent accelerated among “the economically disadvantaged strata, particularly among rural migrants in the city” (987). In the meantime, as Erman draws attention, the shanty laws which were passed in the Özal era rendered it legitimate to build up to four-storey buildings on the shanty land. This resulted in “the commercialization of gecekondus, which could be interpreted again as the government’s ‘bribing’ those who suffered the most for their liberal policies” (987). So, while apartment blocks started to be built in place of former shanties, the shanty phenomenon lost its initial meaning and function and turned into a tool for easy wealth for its owners as “the ‘apartmentalisation’ of gecekondus became a widespread phenomenon” (987). However, this was not a successful time for all the shanty population. As Erman notes, in the 1980s some members of this population were becoming rich thanks to their apartment buildings while others were suffering from “increasing deprivation” (987). Hence her description of the perspective in shanty studies between the mid-1980s and the mid-1990s as “‘the urban poor Other(s)’ versus ‘the undeserving Other(s)’ and ‘the culturally inferior Other(s) as sub- culture’” (984), implying the separation between shanty dwellers. Erman stresses that outcomes of this process were manifested in the tension between the culture of new rich immigrants and the urban elites. She adds that in the 1980s and the 1990s it became clear that “rural migrants/gecekondu people [could] rapidly jump up to a higher economic stratum” and also “shape the city by creating their own ways of life and sets of values” and there was a wide gap between their life styles and values and those of the “modernising urban e´lites” (987). Some immigrants who had formerly been living in shanty housing could make money using their shanty as rent, Erman adds, and with this money they started to live in apartments carrying “their own culture” to their new spaces. Erman defines this era as the stage when “rural migrants/gecekondu people” were regarded as the “‘the culturally inferior Other as sub- culture’” (987). In conclusion, with the 1980s the split in society took on a more complex and multi-dimensional form than a simple “urban-peasant divide” (Erder, “Where Do You” 162). It should also be noted that, from the middle of the decade onwards the city’s face started to change in line with the process of its globalization (Keyder, “Globalization” 128), a phenomenon examined below.

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2.5 The 1990s Social, economic, cultural and political life in Istanbul in the 1990s, especially after the mid-1990s, was marked by various interrelated phenomena which were closely related to the issue of immigration and immigrants in the city which will be discussed below.

2.5.1 Arrival of Internally Displaced Kurds in Istanbul As the guerrilla attacks of Partiya Karkeren Kurdistan33 (PKK) fighting for the Kurdish national movement since the 1980s against the Turkish Republic increased and took the form of a low-intensity war, Kurdish villages started to be evacuated by the Turkish state, which wanted to prevent the residents of these villages from supporting the guerrillas. Together with other policies and enforcements which made life in the area unbearable, an estimated two to three million people were internally displaced (Çelik 980) which is described by Cihan Ahmetbeyzade as an “internal diaspora” (161). The inrush of a substantial number of Kurdish citizens of Turkey residing in the Eastern and South-eastern parts of the country into its metropolises, most of them in its Western parts, especially in the second half of the 1990s, was different from the earlier migration of Kurds due to economic reasons. Even though, in fact, economic difficulties ‘force’ people to migrate, if we term economic migration as voluntary, then we can call the migration in the 1990s involuntary. Bediz Yılmaz draws attention to the fact that this type of migration is usually designated forced migration, however she stresses that the term involuntary migration is more suitable since it covers forced migrants who migrated from evacuated villages, as well as those who migrated “due to various reasons connected with the conflict environment”34 (135). Deniz Yükseker lists the problems triggered by internal displacement in the 1990s as follows: “urban poverty, lack of access to education and health services, lack of social security, unemployment, and discrimination within urban spaces” (256). The Kurdish population living in the countryside who made their living through agriculture and stockbreeding did not have any means to compete in the job market in urban centres, as they did not have the necessary education or job experience. Moreover, unlike the economic migrants, the involuntary migrants did not have the benefits of multi-staged migration. These involuntary migrants lived in very bad houses, could not feed themselves and their children properly, most of these children did not have the opportunity to go to school (264). Yükseker

33 Kurdistan Workers Party 34 “çatışma ortamıyla bağlantılı olarak çeşitli sebeplerle” Both italics belong to Yılmaz. 34 adds that in the case of internal displacement “traditional solidarity networks” were not functional, as most of the relatives were also poor and they were also mostly involuntary migrants (264). Additionally, building a shanty was not an option for the involuntary migrants in Istanbul, since they did not have the financial means to build them in the few areas left in the city where this might be possible. Thus, they either rented shanties with no infrastructure or apartments in rundown neighbourhoods. Some involuntary migrants could buy a shanty or a rundown apartment in neighbourhoods such as Fener, Balat or Tarlabaşı if they had the opportunity to “sell their livestock or some of their property just before displacement” (Yükseker 265-266). Kurdish forced migrants did “informal and irregular jobs” such as “periodic work as street peddlers or as construction workers” while some of them worked as “seasonal agricultural labourers”; some children worked on the streets selling “tissue paper and bottled water”, some women worked in “childcare or housecleaning” while a significant amount of “the teenage daughters worked in garment workshops” (Yükseker 267-268). Recycling (collecting raw-material) is also informal work that forced migrants try to make some income from (Çağlayan et. al 23). Many of the internally displaced Kurds did not have the necessary language skills to communicate in Turkish. To this was added the hostile feelings against Kurds which escalated in response to the guerrilla war and terror attacks of PKK, resulting in discrimination against Kurdish involuntary migrants. This was different than the prejudice against the economic migrants of earlier decades, harsher and much more hostile. Yükseker stresses that one of the results of internal displacement is “being subject to discrimination in urban spaces” which leads to social exclusion (257). As has been discussed earlier in this chapter, rural to urban economic migrants faced prejudice due to stigmatization as peasants, yet Kurdish immigrants experienced a double prejudice both for being Kurdish and for being peasants (274). Hamza Aktan underscores that as the Kurdish neighbourhoods struggled with poverty, they became isolated, a situation which pushed both Kurds and Turks away from a common mental ground based on empathy (64-65). Therefore, when thinking of the 1990s and globalisation in Istanbul, social exclusion should be regarded as an important topic.

2.5.2 Globalisation, Urban Poverty and Social Exclusion Urban poverty in Istanbul, which started with the neo-liberal economic policies in the Özal era increased with the effects of globalisation. It resulted in the social exclusion of the poor, a large portion of whom comprised involuntary Kurdish immigrants. 35

Istanbul had the primary role, as Turkey was trying to connect with a globalizing economy after the 1980s (Öncü, “Myth of the” 57; Keyder “Globalization” 124). As Keyder underlines, in the 1990s the economy of the city was changing towards “informality” and “deindustrialization” (“Globalization” 128). The service sector mostly replaced manufacturing in the city and the modus operandi of the working class changed visibly: now fewer workers could join unions, while many of them did not even have “formal social security arrangements” (129). Keyder acknowledges that in this process those new to the city could no longer rely on people they knew through their hometown and kinship relations in order to find jobs or make social connections. He adds that the discrepancy between the privileged and the disadvantaged grew larger in this era, and in the 1990s poverty was a phenomenon that could easily be seen around the city (“Globalization” 124). As Keyder points out, polarisation, a valid term for globalising cities of the first world, is not sufficient to explain the situation in globalising cities of the third world such as Istanbul, in which exclusion is experienced in addition to polarisation (128). Keyder, defines social exclusion as “a failure of social integration at economic, political and cultural levels”, and notes “failures in the welfare regime and . . . the lack of cultural integration” as important catalysts of this phenomenon (128). Keyder acknowledges that while before the 1990s immigrants who were building shanties were somewhat accepted owing to populist policies, after the 1990s they have been regarded as “invaders of public property and beneficiaries of unfair privilege” (“Globalization” 130). In the absence of the shanty, now the newcomers to the city did not have any other chance than renting, and what they could afford was grim places in remote parts or in rundown neighbourhoods of the city (130). Keyder describes the former official approach to the shanties, which made it possible for immigrants to solve their housing needs, as the most effective of the non-formal dimensions of the welfare regime during the entire developmentalist era (131). He explains that the disappearance of this dimension and related mechanisms played a significant role in the emergence of social exclusion, since people who could not make a shanty anymore, had to live in an isolated way or even became homeless (131). Similarly, Işık and Pınarcıoğlu assert that we need to understand “the evolution of the shanty phenomenon”35 in order to be able to grasp the dynamics which led to the emergence of urban poverty in Turkey (103). The immigration process as well as the ethnic, social,

35 “gecekondu olgusunun evrimi” 36 economic and cultural background of immigrants were other important factors in the emergence of social exclusion (Keyder, “Globalization” 131), as discussed in the section about internally displaced Kurds.

2.5.3 The Rise of Political Islam In such a context, the left, having lost most of its power with the 12 September 1980 coup, could not be influential among immigrants in shanty neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city or in the poor neighbourhoods in the city centre. This paved the way for the emergence of a new influence: political Islam. As Cihan Tuğal explains, “the Islamist party started to appeal to a rural-to-urban immigrant population after the 1980s—due in part to its social justice agenda as well as to the repression of the Left, the previous carrier of that agenda” (430). He adds that, as the provincial bourgeoisie became powerful and did more business in big cities, “in the 1990s the party also got votes from metropolitan centers” (430). Tuğal stresses that this led to consideration of “the connotations of ‘the urban’ . . . to be more positive” for Islamists. He defines the agenda of the Islamist party at this stage as the “reconquest of Istanbul” (430). In the 1989 elections, Islamists took two periphery municipalities of Istanbul, Sultanbeyli and Arnavutköy, while in the municipal elections of 1994, the Islamist party became the leading one in the whole country, and R. Tayyip Erdoğan became the mayor of Istanbul. Analysing the impact of this development in the context of Istanbul, Tuğal draws attention to the fact that there were two tendencies within the Islamist party at the time: those with “more neoliberal tendencies . . . argued that after its ‘conquest’ Istanbul would be more integrated with the world”, while others “wanted to see the termination of the elitist exclusion that had kept the masses on the borders of cities” (431). He explains that Islamists managed to win shanty votes owing to their skills “in mobilizing various kinds of squatter networks” (431). He also draws attention to the debut of “a new religious middle class”, albeit a much smaller community than the residents of shantytowns (431). Consequently, “a gradual Islamization of cities” (431) was inevitable. Tuğal explains that political Islam’s approach appealed to various “classes within rural-to-urban immigrants”, while it managed to aid the poor in some ways (431). Political Islam managed to find “an answer to the desire to find one’s place in the city and articulating the shared populist reaction against the urban center and the urban elite” (431). Tuğal defines “two elements [which] were central to the Islamist construction of the urbanizing subject: being in need of guidance (being ‘lost’) and being different from the elite” (431). To a significant extent “Islamism . . . gives marginal settlements and rural-to-urban immigrants a 37 new sense of identity” (436). As Tuğal observes, the Islamist party “cultivate[s], explore[s], and shape[s] the new popular imagination” while it “builds itself on the identities and self- organizing capacity of the immigrants as much as it shapes these” (436). Tuğal stresses that “Islamist politics actually comes in when existing immigrant identities and communities risk remaining parochial and weak” and adds: “Islamism, rather than simply support and include immigrants’ subjectivities and communities, transforms the city through interacting with them, but also redefining them” (436). Before concluding this section on the 1990s, it would be useful to remember that the earthquake in 1999 almost ended migration to the city (Keyder, “Globalization” 125).

2.6 The Late 1990s and the 2000s As Keyder aptly puts it, “problems of human rights, equal citizenship and recognition” are experienced in municipal politics where the new urban poor is concerned (“Globalization” 133). He draws attention to the fact that after the 1990s, the media adopted a discourse hinting that a sort of unrest was growing in the shantytowns (133). These were also the years when shantytowns started to be called varoş in a pejorative manner. Varoş, which is the Turkish version of the Hungarian word város literally means a neighbourhood on the periphery of the city. In Turkey, it is “a label that artificially defines low income settlements as a homogenous space and in recent years has carried a robust exclusionary potential” (Demirtaş and Şen 87) In line with these developments, Erman describes the image of people living in shanties, in the late 1990s as “‘the threatening/varoşlu [varoş dweller] Other’” (984). Keyder points out that in the mainstream media “the demand for full citizenship rights (civil, political and social)” is reflected as the outcome of cultural difference with a primarily class-based and secondarily ethnic edge, “overlaid with the modern/traditional divide” (“Globalization” 133). Therefore, he adds, when people cannot modernise, they are blamed for holding too much onto their traditional culture and values, while “absence of mechanisms of incorporation” (133) are not mentioned. Additionally, those who are in the in the richer echelons or in dominant positions, create the illusion that poverty is “an individual problem of a transitory nature”, and support through charity mechanisms can be sufficient to deal with it (133). The impact of globalisation and neo-liberal policies continued in the 2000s as well. In February 2001, a major economic crisis led to a very significant increase in unemployment. In 2002, the AKP, which defined itself as a moderate Islamic party, formed a single-party government. Keyder notes that the neo-liberal AKP was well aware of the potential of Istanbul for business and investment. After the 2001 economic crisis, they carried out various 38 reforms “which made the integration of the economy into global networks of capital flows more stable” (“Capital City” 5). As Keyder observes, the next step was making Istanbul ready for its new role. The city started to have a new face that could attract foreign entrepreneurs as well as tourists. Thus, new glamorous offices and residences, as well as “hotels, cultural centers, congress venues, museums and restaurants” were being opened (5). Consequently, the urban transformation of the city accelerated. The Mass Housing Administration (TOKİ) found ways to clear away all remaining shanties in the central parts of the city, with a wide scale of excuses “such as protection of heritage, absence of earthquake preparedness, environment and creation of green zones” (5). People who were living in shanties in the areas being transformed found themselves in mass-housing, offered officially, in remote parts of the city (5). While trying to pay off huge debts on these flats, these people were suffering from serious problems related to their new residences, such as monthly maintenance charge, strict rules and isolation. During the globalisation of Istanbul, gentrification appeared as a significant phenomenon in the city, as old neighbourhoods became an object of desire for investment (Keyder, “Capital City” 5). Istanbul’s historical landmarks, food culture and its expanding cultural life became its top promotional aspects (6). It became the new hip city, climbing to the top of the ‘places to visit’ lists of tourists as well as a fertile land for international entrepreneurs. Before concluding this section, it might be useful to briefly remember the nostalgia for old-Istanbul, a discourse which emerged in the 1990s and which is still alive today. Keyder points out that Istanbul, like other cities in competition to become a global city, had to boast about its historical heritage. While the classicists wanted Istanbul to stand on its Byzantine city identity, those sympathetic with Islamist culture wanted the city to be promoted as “the Islamic city of the devout . . . promised to the believers” (Keyder, “Capital City” 6). Eventually, those with Islamist leanings and the secular elite met on the common ground of “the Ottoman capital of many cultures” (6). This emphasis on the cosmopolitan aspect of Istanbul the Ottoman capital resulted in an “exceedingly popular trend of nostalgia tak[ing] as its reference point a certain idealized representation of Istanbul in the late 19th century” which appears in “novels, articles and scholarly projects, and in the everyday discourse of Istanbulites” (Örs 134)36. Referring to Ayfer Bartu, İlay Örs emphasises that “a yearning towards an idealized multicultural coexistence” and its symbols evolved as a reaction to the

36 As a matter of fact, Örs calls this nostalgic discourse “cosmopolitian nostalgia” [kozmopolitan nostalji] (Personal Interview). 39 changes in the social fabric of the city as a result of rural immigrants’ arrival (135). The nostalgia for an idealised late Ottoman Istanbul produces nostalgia for an imaginary early Republican Istanbul as well. It is imaginary because, as discussed above, during the time between the establishment of the Turkish Republic in 1923 until rural to urban immigrants arrived in the city in the 1950s and became visible in daily and social life in the 1960s, the size of the non-Muslim population had already shrunk significantly. What makes this discourse more problematic is that, when the disappearance of the cosmopolitan minority is juxtaposed with the appearance of rural immigrants in the city, an illusion is created as if Istanbul’s minorities were pushed out by arriving immigrants to create space for themselves. Rıfat Bali, who tracks this discourse particularly through its manifestations in the popular media, points out that in the 1990s there was a significant number of journalists who were unhappy about the state of Istanbul, seeing it as having lost its character and identity, lamenting for the city’s minority heritage in their writings (142). The illusion about minority also has a subliminal dimension since rundown apartments in ex-minority neighbourhoods, which have been dilapidating since the days they were emptied by the departure of minority residents, have been rented by various generations of immigrants. One of the severest urban transformation projects was launched in one such area, Tarlabaşı.

2.7 2010 and After Such changes in the city peaked during the celebration of Istanbul 2010, Capital of Culture. Asu Aksoy points out that during the preparations for the celebrations, the 2010 Initiative Group was concerned about the ills that the lower economic social strata would suffer as a result of the gentrification in the city (94). She adds that not only people but also the cultural heritage of the city was damaged by the activities of urban transformation in the historic areas of the city (95). The urban transformation projects which created controversy, particularly those carried out in Sulukule and Tarlabaşı, resulted in massive public debate. As a result of the former, the Romani people were kicked out of their homes in Sulukule. Tarlabaşı, a former Greek neighbourhood, where Romani and Kurdish people as well as African immigrants without residence permit lived (Aksoy 105), have mostly been emptied with the project launched in 2005 and practically started in 2010. In the meantime, a renewal project in the historic neighbourhoods of Fener, Balat and Ayvansaray was launched in 2006. In addition to these historic central areas, urban transformation projects were also launched in shanty neighbourhoods on the outskirts of the city such as Fikirtepe and Ayazma, since gated communities were being built around these areas making the land valuable. 40

As early as the 1980s, in relation to globalisation, Turkey started to receive foreign immigrants, and “its migration profile has changed from the massive emigration of the 1960s and 1970s to extensive immigration during the 1990s and 2000s” (İçduygu 9). As Ahmet İçduygu stresses, “the first part of the 2000s has witnessed immigration flows from four different categories: (1) irregular labour migrants; (2) transit migrants; (3) asylum seekers and refugees and (4) regular migrants” (5). Unsurprisingly, Istanbul hosts a large majority of these foreign immigrants. The number of Syrian refugees, who first started to come to Turkey in April 2011, is around 500,000 (“Suça Karışan”) in Istanbul. Additionally, since the government started attacking Eastern cities such as Sur and Cizre in summer 2015, a new wave of internally displaced Kurds continues to arrive in Istanbul, as of the time this dissertation is being written.

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CHAPTER 3

The Urban Sociological Context As mentioned earlier, the novels in this corpus are described as the right to the city novels, not simply because they deal with themes about the right to the city, but because of their overall message regarding immigrants’ presence in the city. Sometimes the idea of the right to the city appears as themes in the novels, such as themes on material necessities or other needs for a fulfilling life in the city; sometimes it is hidden between the lines, behind various other themes and motifs. In any case, it is argued in this dissertation that this concept is at the core of all the novels in the corpus. In the first section of this chapter, what is understood by this concept throughout this work is explained. In the novels of the corpus, the question of how immigrants adapt to urban life and their process of becoming urbanites comes to the fore as a central issue. Therefore, the concept of urbanity in the Istanbul context is discussed in the second section of this chapter. Finally, since immigrants’ strategies and tactics to survive in the city is also an important theme in the novels, the concept of quiet encroachment and urban movements in Turkey are touched on, through their aspects relevant to the analysis of the novels, in the final section of the chapter.

3.1 The Right to the City Henri Lefebvre, at the time of the great urban upheaval in Paris in 1967-8, developed the concept of the right to the city. At the core of this concept was his vision which went against the idea of city as exchange value. As Christian Schmid points out, in a capitalist system it is inevitable that “the city itself, urban life, becomes a commodity” (55). He describes this as “the commodification of the urban” (55). This commodification process is central in understanding Lefebvre’s concept of the right to the city, which he develops against the organisation of urban life based on the exchange value of the city. As a result of the dominance of the exchange value, the majority of inhabitants of the city are deprived of living a fulfilling urban life, thus Lefebvre advocates for a transformation towards the use value of the city. Lefebvre draws attention to the fact that in cities, in addition to wealth, “knowledge (connaissances), techniques, and oeuvres (works of art, monuments)” are accumulated (66). Thus he defines the city as ‘oeuvre’37 and equates it with the use value as opposed to the product which is exchange value. According to Lefebvre, “the eminent use of the city, that is, of its streets and squares, edifices and monuments” is not based on production but on

37 Inverted commas belong to the English translation of Lefebvre’s work used in this analysis. 42

“pleasure and prestige” (“Right” 66). In arts, he sees the capability of creating “‘structures of enchantment’” (173) and stresses that the bourgeoisie “replaces the oeuvre, by the product” (75). He underscores that “those who retain this sense of the oeuvre, including writers and painters, think and see themselves as ‘non-bourgeois’” (75). For a transformed society, where a completely different sort of city and urban life can exist, the dynamics of art and philosophy must also be transformed: “ . . . the future of art is not artistic, but urban, because the future of ‘man’ is . . . in urban society. . . . art and philosophy must reconsider itself in relation to this perspective. The problematic of the urban renews the problematic of philosophy, its categories and methods” (173). Only if the city is no longer a commodity to make profit from can the right to the city, which Lefebvre describes as “a transformed and renewed right to urban life” (158), be realised. Lefebvre explains that, for this “an integrated theory of the city and urban society, using the resources of science and art” is needed and adds: “only the working class can become the agent, the social carrier or support of this realization” (158). He reminds us that “in the urban context, struggles between fractions, groups and classes strengthen the feeling of belonging” (67) and referring to the suburbanisation of the working class he acknowledges that “isolated from the city, the proletariat will end its sense of the oeuvre”, thus “urban consciousness will vanish” (77). To inhabit is a crucial concept for Lefebvre, which he uses with reference to Heidegger. Lefebvre underlines that, to inhabit means “to take part in social life” (76) and draws attention to “the reduction of ‘to inhabit’ to habitat” in Paris during its urban transformation after World War II, when “all perceptible, legible urban reality has disappeared: streets, squares, monuments, meeting places” (79). Lefebvre defines urban life as follows: “Urban life suggests meetings, the confrontation of differences, reciprocal knowledge and acknowledgement (including ideological and political confrontation) ways of living, ‘patterns’ which coexist in the city” (75). Based on this elaboration of urban life, the distinction between the use value and exchange value in terms of the urban question is clarified as follows: “use value (the city and urban life) and exchange value (spaces bought and sold, the consumption of products, goods, places and signs)” (86). In the core of the city and urban life as use value lie social bonds, class struggle and labour. Lefebvre associates the “images of effort, of will, of subjectivity, of contemplation” with the city (87). Lefebvre underlines that in addition to “anthropological needs which are socially elaborated” such as safety and security, social bonds and personal space (147) urban residents have needs such as “the need for creative activity, for the oeuvre . . . , of the need for 43 information, symbolism, the imaginary and play” (147). The right to the city includes access to opportunities for meeting such needs where “a new humanism, a new praxis, another man, that of urban society” will emerge (150). According to Lefebvre, “the urban can only be confined to a strategy prioritizing the urban problematic, the intensification of urban life, the effective realization of urban society” (132). With “the effective realization of urban society” he means “morphological, material and practico-material base” (132). As summarised above, what Lefebvre means by the right to the city is something much larger in scope than meeting material necessities in the city. It is a right to a different type of city in a completely different system. As Harvey points out: “The right to the city is far more than the individual liberty to access urban resources: it is a right to change ourselves by changing the city” (23). However, some researchers and activists conceive the right to the city simply as changes to rehabilitate urban life in the city as it exists within the current system. The list of rights in the World Charter for the Right to the City38 first presented in 2004 at the Social Forum of the Americas, in Quito, Ecuador, and which “is an instrument designed to support urban struggles and in acknowledging human rights and the right to the city in the international system” (“World Charter” News) appears to be a good example of such an approach. The Charter defines the right to the city as “the equitable usufruct of cities within the principles of sustainability, democracy, equity, and social justice” and describes it as “the collective right of the inhabitants of cities, in particular of the vulnerable and marginalized groups” and stresses that “all the civil, political, economic, social, cultural and environmental rights which are already regulated in the international human rights treaties” are included in this right (2). Rights thus listed, under the umbrella of the right to the city, are as follows: . . . rights to work in equitable and satisfactory conditions; to establish and affiliate with unions; to social security, public health, clean drinking water, energy, public transportation, and other social services; to food, clothing, and adequate shelter; to quality public education and to culture; to information, political participation, peaceful coexistence, and access to justice; and the right to organize, gather, and manifest one’s opinion. It also includes respect for minorities; ethnic, racial, sexual and cultural plurality; and respect for migrants.

38 From here onwards, Charter. 44

The . . . right to development, to a healthy environment, to the enjoyment and preservation of natural resources, to participation in urban planning and management, and to historical and cultural heritage. (2) Looking at this list, one cannot ignore the impossibility of the realisation of all these rights within a capitalist system where the city is a commodity. Lefebvre’s constant emphasis on the use value of the city thus comes to the fore. Margit Mayer aptly describes the right to the city as “less a juridical right, but rather an oppositional demand, which challenges the claims of the rich and powerful” (71). Confirming that the rights in the Charter would improve the conditions of people living in cities, she draws attention to the fact that “unlike the Lefebvrian notion of the right to the city” these rights would only render possible “inclusion in the current city as it exists” but “do not aim at transforming the existing city – and in that process ourselves” (74). It should not be forgotten that Lefebvre describes the right to the city as “a superior form of rights: right to freedom, to individualization in socialization, to habitat and to inhabit” (173). Goonewardena draws our attention to the fact that Lefebvre, in Everyday Life in the Modern World, makes the following call: “Let everyday life become a work of art! Let every technical means be employed for the transformation of everyday life!” (qtd. in Goonewardena 98). She stresses that both in that work and in The Urban Revolution Lefebvre emphasises that “there can be no social(ist) revolution without an urban revolution, no urban revolution without a social(ist) revolution, and neither without a revolution in everyday life” (98) and referring to documents such as the Charter list above, she makes the following analysis: “This is the backdrop against which Lefebvre’s concept of the right to the city must be understood - not as another addition to the self-contradictory liberal-democratic list of ‘human-rights,’ but rather the right to a radically different world” (98). In a similar fashion, Peter Marcuse clarifies the practical dimensions of the right to the city reciprocally with its overarching philosophical dimension in an apt analysis: the demand for the right to the city, he asserts, is “of those who are excluded” whereas “the aspiration is of those who are alienated”, hence “the cry is for the material necessities of life” while “the aspiration is for a broader right to what is necessary beyond the material to lead a satisfying life” (31). He explains that: The demand comes from those directly in want, directly oppressed, those for whom even their most immediate needs are not fulfilled: the homeless, the hungry, the imprisoned, the persecuted on gender, religious, racial grounds. . . . those whose work 45

injures their health, those whose income is below subsistence, those excluded from the benefits of urban life. (30-31) Having clarified that, Marcuse describes the alienated as “those superficially integrated into the system and sharing in its material benefits” but unsatisfied in terms of their “creative activity” and “social relationships” and those who feel “guilty perhaps about an undeserved prosperity, unfulfilled in their lives’ hopes” (31). He concludes that “it is a combination of the deprived and the discontent who will lead the push for the right to the city” (33). The rights mentioned above, for instance in the Charter, can be seen as what Marcuse defines as “the necessities for a decent life” which “must have priority” since “they are immediate, indeed existential, needs” (34). On the other hand Marcuse, like Goonewardena, urges us not to forget that at the core of the concept of the right to the city lies the struggle for a different world: . . . the right to the city is a demand for a broad and sweeping right, a right not only in the legal sense of a right to specific benefits, but a right in a political sense, a claim not only to a right or a set of rights to justice within the existing legal system, but a right on a higher moral plane that demands a better system in which the potential benefits of an urban life can be fully and entirely realized. (34) Some might call this utopian, or unrealistic; the argument on that is beyond the scope of this work. In any case, it might be useful to remember that Lefebvre always found utopias inspiring. In the analysis of the novels below, while the idea of the right to the city appearing as themes on the surface are examined, its resonances through other themes in the novels are also explored.

3.2 The Question of Urbanity: ‘Istanbulites’ and ‘non-Istanbulites’ Who is an urbanite is a highly contested topic, and as Grönlund points out this notion can be “too vague and too complex” (112-02). In this dissertation, an ‘urbanite’ designates a person who lives in the city, and feels at home in the urban environment; who has adopted the social codes of behaviour necessary in the public space and who can behave comfortably in that space in his/her daily life; who is aware of the diversity in the city and is respectful to it, at least in terms of manners; who respects the participation of women in the social and economic life of the urban environment, at least in terms of manners; who can communicate with strangers in the urban environment without any problems; and who socialises with people other than close family and relatives. Rather than the understanding of a monotype 46 urbanity which equates it with certain types of outfit, accent, free time activities, ways of socialisation and so on, the approach in this dissertation can be defined as open to multiple/alternative urbanities.

3.2.1 Immigrants’ Integration into the City As pointed out in the previous chapter, as shanties spread in Istanbul, rural to urban immigrants who were mostly living in them were regarded as peasants in the city. However, this pejorative description did not offer a plausible solid definition for the status of the new members of the city. Kıray, in an article she wrote in 1973, stresses firmly that “people living in shanties are by no means peasants any longer”39 (98). Yet, she adds, since the country industrialised very slowly, and it got organised even slower than that, “ . . . this population who had to leave their land behind do not find the chance to gain an industrial-urban identity, and works in random, small, non-producing service works”40 (98). She emphasises that the amount of “plausible industrial works”41 is limited, however “none of these people work in agricultural production, so they are no longer ‘peasants’”42 (98). She recommends the use of “pseudo-urbanization and pseudo-urbanite”43 since “relationships involved in economic production and the vocations in the city are so amorphous, and this amorphousness has been ongoing for so long, that the shanties and craftsmanship have become an important aspect of urban life”44 (99). Based on the informal economy most of the immigrants were employed in, and their informal housing as shanty settlements, Tansı Şenyapılı, in 1978, describes them as marginal population and underscores that although these people “are not integrated in terms of cultural and social relations”45, they succeed in being part of the “economic and physical space . . . making use of rational solutions46” (44). Wenfei Wang and Cindy Fan, in their article about the integration of rural to urban migrants in China, divide integration into three categories: “economic integration”, “social/cultural integration”, and “identity integration” (733). What T. Şenyapılı points out in the above quotation is that immigrants in Istanbul are not integrated in social or cultural terms or in terms of identity. However, in terms of finding ways to

39 “Gecekondulular artık kesinlikle köylü değildir.” 40 “ . . . topraklarını bırakmak zorunda kalmış bu nüfus, endüstriyel-kentli işçi kişiliğini almaya fırsat bulamamakta, rasgele, küçük üretici olmayan hizmet işleri ile uğraşmaktadır.” 41 “elverişli endüstriyel işler” 42 “Hiçbir tarımsal üretimle de uğraşmamaktadır, dolayısıyla artık ‘köylü’ değildir.” 43 “sahte-kentleşme ve sahte-kentli” 44 “kentteki üretim ve meslek ilişkileri o denli amorftur ki, ve bu durum o denli uzun sürmektedir ki, gecekondu ve küçük sanatlar kent yaşantısının belirgin bir parçası durumunu almaktadır.” 45 “kültürel ve sosyal ilişkiler açısından bütünleşmemiştir” 46 “ekonomik ve fizik mekanlarda . . . akılcı çözümlere vararak . . .” 47 survive economically, and of creating a place to live, they find ways through their informal and marginal solutions. Asef Bayat describes such tactics as quiet encroachment, which is briefly discussed below. Although immigrants find tactics to be able to survive in the city, these tactics, which allow them to barely survive in the urban environment, do not enable them to culturally and socially integrate. This in turn brings the impossibility of integration in terms of identity. T. Şenyapılı stresses that working in a job which is accepted as urban is not enough for integration, one needs “enough income that makes it possible to participate in urban life”47 for integration (38). Önder Şenyapılı also stresses that economic hardships create a barrier in front of adaptation to life in the urban context (101). He points out that “when peasants move to the city they are accepted as ‘urbanites’ since their labour becomes urban and they live in the city but, they are not ‘urbanites’ in the real sense”48 (128) and describes them as “‘urbanizing peasants’”49 (128). He stresses that if “urban activities (or non-agricultural activities) in the city”50 and jobs that are “consistent, healthy, and bringing sufficient income”51 increase, then this process of urbanisation will also gain momentum (128). All the views referred to above belong to the period which Erder defines as times when the focus of the discussions about immigration was on the integration of peasants (“Where Do You” 162). Views on immigrants, mainly based on the shanty people constituting their majority, went through various phases from empathy towards exclusion, as discussed in the previous chapter. The ways immigrants become urbanites in the city is an important theme in the novels of the corpus, as the analyses in the coming chapters reveal.

3.2.2 The Istanbulite and ‘Non-Istanbulite’ Dichotomy The dichotomy of Istanbulite and non-Istanbulite has been reproducing the dichotomy of urbanite and peasant, pushing it into a vicious circle. As mentioned in the last chapter, the anti-immigrant discourse takes the form of an Istanbulite snobbism and nostalgia for a cosmopolitan Istanbul in the dominant public discourse. This discourse creates the illusion that these immigrants will never be Istanbulites so they do not belong to the city. However, if the myth dimension of this Istanbulite identity was emphasised more, along with the fact that Istanbul had always been a place of immigration, then immigrants could feel a stronger bond

47 “kentsel yaşama katılma olanağı sağlayan gelir düzeyi” 48 “Kente göçmekle, en azından emekleri kentlileştiğinden ötürü, artık kentte yaşamaya başladıklarından ötürü ‘kentli’ sayılıyorlar ama, gerçek anlamda ‘kentli’ değiller.” 49 “’kentlileşen köylüler’” 50 “kentsel etkinlikleri (ya da tarım dışı etkinlikleri)” 51 “kararlı, sağlıklı, yeterli gelir sağlayan” 48 with the city. They could feel that they belong to Istanbul as well as to the places where they have come from. Second, after this important threshold is passed, then the dichotomy of urbanite and peasant could be rephrased as follows: urbanites and those who are becoming urbanites. At such a point then, concepts such as multi rather than mono type urbanity, or alternative urbanities could be used resulting in a much more inclusive approach. Some argue that, in order to be accepted as an Istanbulite, one’s roots must go back seven generations in this city. Behar, calculating the possibility of this mathematically, explains that “ . . . in today’s Istanbul of ten millions we can find around five hundred people ‘who are seven generations Istanbulite’”52 (52). As a matter of fact“[Istanbul] is a city of immigrants, with three-quarters of its population born elsewhere” (Öncü, “Istanbulites and Others” 95), let alone people seven generations of whose ancestors were born in the city. Öncü points out that: “the question of who is an Istanbulite is a rhetorical question. A true Istanbulite is a ‘myth’” (95) and adds: . . . the mythology of an Istanbulite has lost its cultural moorings in the realm of taste and distinction emblematic of high culture, shorn of its connotations of belonging and authenticity. It merely negates and excludes. It thus operates at the level of everyday, to cut and reshape the living texture of reality into a rigid dichotomy of Istanbulites and immigrants. (98) Below, this dichotomy will briefly be discussed through its central aspects. As Güvenç underscores, the discourse criticising immigrants and immigration finds support among immigrants as well (130). R.T. Erdoğan, the current president of Turkey, whose parents had migrated to Istanbul from Rize, considered bringing in a visa obligation for entering Istanbul during his appointment as mayor of the city, which is an unforgettable example of this stance (“Erdoğan: İstanbul’a”). In a similarly confusing manner, such an exclusionist discourse may also come from the left. Oya Baydar’s article entitled “Istanbul as Defeated by the Other”53 is a good example. Baydar gives a chronicle of rural to urban migration in this article, in addition to various urban planning problems deriving from inefficient governance and planning, and concludes it as follows: “In the Istanbul of the 1997’s the central conflict is not class conflict but a cultural conflict in the widest sense”54 (79). In this strikingly dichotomic approach, the cultural conflict is obviously between the culture of ‘Istanbulites’ and ‘non-Istanbulites’.

52 “ . . . bugünün on milyonluk İstanbul’unda beş yüz kadar ‘yedi göbek İstanbullu’ kişi bulabiliriz.” 53 “Ötekine Yenik Düşen İstanbul” 54 “1997’ler İstanbul’unda baş çelişki artık sınıfsal değil en geniş anlamıyla kültürel bir çelişkidir.” 49

Jean-François Pérouse stresses the dichotomy between Istanbulites and immigrants and adds: “Most of the research on Istanbul is extremely selective and thus concealing. These works are fond of people who lived in the past and empty buildings, and they attack the ugly, contemporary Istanbul which is full of ‘rude’ people”55 (21). An inclusive approach to immigrants as members of the city is necessary for their integration in terms of identity. As Pérouse points out, this can be missing in academic studies (21). So, it comes as no surprise that this is the case in the public opinion and discourse as well. Leyla Neyzi as well draws attention to the fact that “Istanbul has always been a city of immigrants”56 (80) and argues that “ . . . ‘being an old-Istanbulite’ signifies a culture and life style rather than the time passed in Istanbul”57 (82). While being an old-Istanbulite might be reserved as a signifier for an elite way of life, being an Istanbulite should be enlarged in a way that can cover all people living in Istanbul. As Erder points out, those who came from other cities of Turkey with their savings and skills and who now live in the city centre have adapted to the city easily and became Istanbulites (“Yerlisi Yok” 238-240). Since old-Istanbulites were never that visible in the city, these immigrants soon stopped feeling themselves to be the provincials of Istanbul (240). She adds that, “the old-Istanbulite is only a historical figure for them. Or he/she is an awkward master who they indirectly hear about from those who have actually had the chance to meet them [old-Istanbulites]. Today, for them an Istanbulite is anyone who lives, works in this city”58 (240). As Erder explains, former villagers and the poor had a very different story from those who came with their savings and skills. These people, most of whom lived in shanties were excluded in the past but today they “have become an important aspect of the city by all means”59 (242). Describing them as “those who look at Istanbul from the periphery”60 (243), she notes “ . . . it can be understood that they do not feel themselves as strangers in the city but they do not see themselves as Istanbulites yet, however, there is no Istanbulite which they perceive as a concrete reality”61 (243).

55 “İstanbul araştırmalarının pek çoğu aşırı düzeyde seçici ve dolayısıyla gizleyicidir. Bu çalışmalar geçmiş dönemde yaşamış kişileri ve boş binaları sever, ‘kaba’ insanlarla dolu çirkin günümü İstanbul’una verip veriştirir.” 56 “İstanbul her zaman bir göçmen şehri olmuştur.” 57 “ . . . ‘eski İstanbulluluk’, İstanbul’da geçirilimiş zamandan çok, bir kültür ve yaşam tarzını işaret etmekte.” 58 “Eski İstanbullu onlar için sadece tarihsel bir figürdür. Ya da bunlarla tanışma şansına sahip olan yakınlarından dinledikleri tuhaf bir efendidir. Onlar için artık İstanbullu, bu şehirde yaşayan, çalışan herkestir.” 59 “artık her yönüyle kentin önemli bir parçası haline gelmiştir.” 60 “İstanbul’a çevreden bakanlar” 61 “. . . İstanbul’da kendilerini yabancı hissetmedikleri, kendilerini henüz İstanbullu olarak saymadıkları ama somut bir gerçeklik olarak algıladıkları bir İstanbullu’nun da olmadığı anlaşılmaktadır.” 50

My City Istanbul [Kentim İstanbul] project launched in 2003 by the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality is worth mentioning at this point. “During the project, the Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality . . . organized sightseeing tours, coffee house talks, seminars, panels, and innumerable billboards, books and booklets”62 (Özbey). As part of the project, photos of famous figures residing in Istanbul but born elsewhere were presented on billboards in the city with the following slogan: “I am an Istanbulite” [“Ben İstanbulluyum”] (Özbey). The objectives of the project were “. . . to ensure that people living in Istanbul, feeling a sense of belonging to Istanbul inherit its enormous cultural heritage, . . . lay claim to it, and present it by defining themselves with it . . . ”63 (“Kent Kültürü”). Related to the project, surveys were made on “urban culture and consciousness of urbanity”64 (“Kent Kültürü”) which revealed that the number of people defining themselves as an Istanbulite was quite low (Özbey; “Istanbul Parallel”). Özbey points out that the project which started in a very ambitious way soon lost its charm and the tender was not renewed for 2004, and adds: “Maybe the starting point of the project was wrong, more emphasis should have been made on the mutual points, a definition of Istanbulite should have been made based on what is being shared in this place”65 (Par. 1). Similarly, Pérouse argues that, given the social reality of Istanbul, in order to be functional this project should have been designed in such a way that it could bring forth a concept such as: “I am an Istanbulite and a Sivasite; I am an Istanbulite and a Mardinite” (Personal Interview)66. Pérouse’s words are inspiring for envisioning an urban identity that crosses over the Istanbulite and immigrant dichotomy. With such an approach, this dichotomy can be surpassed, and a more productive discussion can be made on urbanity with differences and on the possibilities of multiple urbanities. These people who do not define themselves as Istanbulites today might define themselves so in this way. However, they need to be welcomed and embraced by those who look at Istanbul from the centre. As Erder summarizes in the most lucid way: “ . . . those who see themselves as Istanbulites . . .

62 “İstanbul Büyükşehir Belediyesi . . . ‘Kentim İstanbul’ adlı projesi boyunca geziler, kahvehane sohbetleri, seminerler, paneller düzenledi, sayısız afiş, kitap ve kitapçık bastırdı.” 63 “ . . . İstanbulda yaşayan insanların İstanbul’a aidiyet hissederek onun devasa kültür mirasını tevarüs etmesini, . . . sahiplenmesini ve kendisini onunla tanımlayarak temsil etmesini . . . ” 64 “Kent kültürü ve kentlilik bilinci” 65 “Belki de projenin çıkış noktası yanlıştı, ortak özelliklere daha fazla vurgu yapılmalı, burada paylaşılanlardan yola çıkarak İstanbullu tarifi yapılmalıydı.” Both emphases added. 66 On 13-26 September, 2005, a work entitled That’s an İstanbulite [O bir İstanbullu] was realised as “a part of Positionings program of the 9th International İstanbul Biennial” (“Istanbul Parallel”). The work was developed based on My City Istanbul project with the objective of creating a “confrontation of the inhabitants of İstanbul with themselves and also with their fellow citizens” (“Istanbul Parallel”). “In order to achieve this, the designed posters [were] placed on the billboards at bus stops” (“Istanbul Parallel”). The work was designed by Ülkü Gezer and realised by Sakine Çil (“Istanbul Parallel”). 51 maybe should give up searching for the nostalgic or monotype Istanbulite from now on and learn to enjoy the variety in Istanbul”67 (“Yerlisi Yok” 244). Erder’s words bring to one’s mind Sennett, who points out that “society gains equally when people’s experience is not limited just to those who resemble them in class, race, or ways of life. Sameness stultifies the mind, diversity stimulates and expands it” (“Capitalism” 114). In the analyses below, the ways the Istanbulite and the ‘non-Istanbulite’ dichotomy is treated in the novels is explored together with different facets of the question of urbanity. The novels in the corpus are analysed in terms of whether they engender the possibility of multiple/alternative urban identities.

3.3 Laying Claim to the City: Quiet Encroachment vs. Urban Movements Immigrants’ struggle for survival in the cities fall under two main categories: quiet encroachment and urban movements.

3.3.1 Quiet Encroachment Asef Bayat, in an article where he searches for a way out of the dichotomy of “elite rule and subaltern’s failure” (“Politics in the” 110) in times of neo-liberal urbanity, stresses that the left sees the “neoliberal city [as] a lost city” where subalterns do not hope for better lives and “where the ideal of the right to the city is all but vanished” (117). While agreeing with various aspects of these arguments, Bayat draws attention to the need for surpassing “categorical dichotomies as passive-active, or win-lose” and examines “what possibilities the neo-liberal city may unintentionally furnish for subaltern struggles” (119). He defines streets as “indispensable asset/capital” for the subaltern where they can “subsist and reproduce economic as well as cultural life” (119). He defines this as a form of “street politics” (119): “Street vendors who spread their business on the pavements, poor people who extend their lives onto the sidewalks, squatters who take over public lands, or protestors who march in the streets are all involved in street politics” (120). Bayat defines their strategies as “encroachment” (“Politics in the” 120), as well as “quiet encroachment of the ordinary” (Life 80). He explains that . . . the reclamation, by the poor people, of public space through encroachment, stretching out, functioning, and subsisting constitutes an expression of street politics, while simultaneously feeding into and accentuating the political street. In other words,

67 “ . . . kendini İstanbullu olarak görenlerin de belki artık nostaljik ya da tek tip İstanbullu aramaktan vazgeçip, İstanbul’daki çeşitliliğin tadına varmayı öğrenmesi gerekiyor.” 52

through this encroachment, the dispossessed are constantly engaged in struggles in and about the urban space. (“Politics in the” 120) This quiet encroachment of immigrants in their struggle to survive in the city appears in this or that way in almost all the novels analysed in this research. Encroachment of land by building shanties for shelter appears in almost all of them. Vending on streets which is another form of quiet encroachment has always been an important phenomenon in the lives of the immigrants, since it is a means of self-employment in the city where there are not enough jobs for everyone. As a matter of fact, these two phenomena, together with the self-organized public transport of immigrants in the form of the share-taxi appear in the title of an important book on rural to urban migration in Istanbul: The City with Shanty, Dolmush and Vendors68 (Tekeli, Gölüksüz, Okya 1976). Themes related to vending on streets are developed in a highly unique manner in Strangeness, as discussed in its analysis below.

3.3.2 Urban Movements Kıvılcım Ertan divides urban movements in Turkey starting in the 1970s into three groups: municipality movements, shanty movements and urban environmental movements (11-14). In 2013, fourteen years after Ertan’s article, the most significant urban movement in Turkey was experienced, the Gezi Resistance which started as a reaction against the building of a shopping-mall in Gezi Park in Istanbul, and evolved into a massive urban movement with the participation of people from all walks of life. Quiet encroachment rather than urban movements enter the novels in the corpus. An expectation of immigrants’ struggle to build urban social movements does not appear as a theme or a message in them. In other words, none of the works in the corpus stresses the fact that immigrants as agents can actually fight for their right to the city under the umbrella of urban movements, instead of simply confining themselves to quiet encroachment.

68 Gecekondulu, Dolmuşlu, İşportalı Şehir 53

CHAPTER 4

Literary Historical Context In this chapter, ‘Istanbulites’ and ‘non-Istanbulites’ and their right to the city in the Turkish novel since the 1960s are briefly reviewed. Istanbul has always been a significant subject in all literary genres of Turkish literature. When it comes to the novel, the focus of this research, Istanbul has inspired an enormous number of works where it appears not only as a setting but also as a subject. Among many Istanbul-related themes in these novels, migration from Anatolia to Istanbul and/or migrants’ struggle for survival in this city became an important topic after the 1950s, as internal migration became a central issue in the social and cultural life of the city. On the other hand, the residents of Istanbul who lived or have been living in this city for many generations and their neighbourhoods also appear as a popular topic in Istanbul novels. In this context, in novels set in Istanbul after the arrival of internal migrants in the city, it may be possible to identify two veins based on the central characters of the works: novels dealing with new-Istanbulites, i.e. immigrants, and novels dealing with old-Istanbulites. In many of the novels set in the city, new and old-Istanbulites appear together. However, the categorisation here is based on the main characters of the novels. Even so, this categorisation is not created to argue that all Istanbul novels would simply fall into one of these categories. The grey areas between the categories below might in fact cover a larger space than the categories themselves do. The aim here is to explain the background to the selection process of the seven novels analysed in this research. It might be worthwhile to clarify two points at this stage. First, the number of novels about the right to the city that have been written up to now is outside the scope of this dissertation. Access to such information would require a much more extensive archival research, which would be found in a descriptive work. However, this dissertation is mainly based on text-analysis. The inventory of novels included here is by no means an exhaustive list; such an effort is outside the focus of this research. Second, it should be noted that the large and the small corpuses in the following pages are not created based on the ideological outlook of the authors. For the creation of the corpus, many novels with rural to urban migrants in Istanbul have been examined and significant examples among them have been chosen. The authors in the corpus actually come from a wide array of philosophical and political backgrounds. Orhan Kemal is explicitly Marxist, while Orhan Pamuk is more of a liberal. Ayhan Geçgin writes from an existentialist 54 philosophical perspective. Latife Tekin’s position can be defined as post-modernist, while Metin Kaçan is close to a nihilistic vision. Muzaffer İzgü is a leftist humourist but by no means a radical, while Hatice Meryem’s works mainly reveal her feminist identity. Thus, the selection of the novels was not based on the world-views of their authors.

4.1 Novels with ‘Non-Istanbulites’ i.e. New Istanbulites as Their Subject Matter These are novels with immigrant characters (first or later generations), i.e. new Istanbulites as their subject matter. The setting of these novels is usually poor neighbourhoods and/or shantytowns. This group can be divided into two categories:

4.1.1 Novels Focusing on First Generation Immigrants a) The first group consists of novels where the immigration theme is developed within the scope of rural to urban migration as a social phenomenon, which was an outcome of the changes in agricultural technology in Turkey. The immigration phase, almost always, appears as an important theme in these novels. The setting is usually Istanbul’s shantytowns. Significant examples: o Gurbet Kuşları [The Homesick Birds] (1962) by Orhan Kemal: The main character is Memed who migrates to Istanbul in his teens from a village in southern Anatolia. The most significant setting in the novel is the shantytown of Zeytinburnu, where Memed and his wife build a shanty. o Halo Dayı ve İki Öküz [Uncle Halo and Two Bulls] (1973) by Muzaffer İzgü: The main characters are Uncle Halo and his son İdiris, who is in his late teens. As they head to Istanbul from their village in Eastern Anatolia, their primary intention is to go back to their village after they make enough money, to buy two bulls. Eventually, İdiris gets settled in Istanbul while his father Halo goes back to his village. Most of the novel is set in the building sites where Halo and his son work and spend the night.69 o Göçük [Wreckage] (1977) by Celallettin Çetin: İbrahim who is from a village near the city of Van in Eastern Anatolia, moves to Istanbul after dreaming for years about working as a street vendor there. When he first comes to Istanbul, he works as a servant in a mansion in Arnavutköy, on the shores of the Bosphorus, and after a while he becomes a vendor. Eventually, he can’t survive in Istanbul and goes back to his hometown. o Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık [A Strangeness In My Mind] (2014) by Orhan Pamuk: The

69 What we have in this novel is not a standard rural to urban migration story based on economic necessities. However, because of various reasons discussed in the analysis of the novel it is still possible to include it in this category. 55 main character is Mevlut, who migrates to Istanbul in his early teens from a village in central Anatolia to live and work with his father, who has moved to Istanbul to work as a street vendor. The most important settings in the novel are Duttepe, the imaginary shantytown where Mevlut stays with his father, and Tarlabaşı, where he lives with his wife and children. There are two points which merit attention here. First, two novels by Latife Tekin about first generation migrants in an unidentified city are usually regarded as set in Istanbul. o Sevgili Arsız Ölüm [Dear Shameless Death] (1983): The story of Huvat Aktaş and his family, who migrate to a big city from a village in Anatolia. o Berci Kristin Çöp Masalları [Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills] (1984): There is no main character in the novel, but a group of characters who have recently migrated to the city. The novel is set in an imaginary shantytown called Çiçektepe. Second, although it is outside the scope of this research, it might be useful to note that within the modern Turkish novel there are various important novels where the immigration destination is other big cities of the country such as Ankara or İzmir. Irazca’nın Dirliği [Irazca’s Amity] (1961) by Fakir Baykurt, the second book of a trilogy which starts with Yılanların Öcü [The Revenge of the Snakes] (1954) set in the countryside, is the immigration story of Kara Bayram and his family from their village in Burdur, a town in southwest Anatolia, to Ankara. The final book of the trilogy entitled Kara Ahmet Destanı [The Legend of Kara Bayram] (1977) has at its centre Bayram’s son Ahmet , who grows up in Ankara and goes to university there. Kente İndi İdris [İdris Came Down to the City] (1981) by Talip Apaydın is about İdris, bearing the same name as the son of the protagonist of İzgü’s novel Uncle Halo and Two Bulls, who migrates from Yozgat to Ankara. Gurbet Yavrum [Homesick Child] (1975) by Aysel Özakın is about a man from Urfa who first moves to Izmir and then to Canada. b) The second group consists of novels where the migration theme is developed more within an individual, personal context. Migrants do not necessarily have to come from a rural background, they might as well be from towns or small cities. The motivation for migration is not limited to economic reasons; in some of the novels below the main character migrates to Istanbul to receive education. The migration phase does not usually appear as a theme in these novels. Significant examples: o Horoz Değirmeni [The Rooster Mill] (1967) by Şahap Sıtkı: The main 56 characters are from the city of Kayseri. Şaban persuades Nevhiz to run away with him to Istanbul, and eventually pushes her into prostitution in this city. Nevhiz’s husband Emin moves to Istanbul to find her. o Kopuk Takımı [Lowlifes] (1969) by Tarık Dursun K.: The main characters are two young boys, Hasan and his friend nicknamed TheAmerican, who move to Istanbul from İzmir. o Alnında Mavi Kuşlar [Blue Birds on Her Forehead] (1978) by Aysel Özakın: The main character is Armağan, a young intellectual woman who works at a library in provincial Anatolia. She moves to Istanbul to live in a modern environment and be close to cultural and intellectual circles. o Deniz Küstü [The Sea Crossed Fisherman] (1978) by Yaşar Kemal: The novel is set in Menekşe, a sea-side fishing village on the periphery of Istanbul. The main characters are Fisherman Selim, who comes to Istanbul in his mid-teens for treatment when he is injured during his military service, and Zeynel, who comes to Menekşe as a child on his own. o İlk Kadın [The First Woman]70 (1983): In this semi-autobiographical novel by Nedim Gürsel, the central character is a boy in his early teens, who comes to Istanbul for his secondary education at a boarding school. o Kumru ile Kumru [Kumru and Kumru] (2005) by Tahsin Yücel: The main character Kumru moves to Istanbul in her mid-teens when she gets married to Haydar, a thirty-year-old man from the same Anatolian town, who has moved to Istanbul some years before and established his life there working as a janitor. o İnsan Kısım Kısım, Yer Damar Damar [It Takes All Kinds] (2008) by Hatice Meryem: The central characters are Zümrüt, who has probably moved to Istanbul when she got married and her sister Elmas who moves to Istanbul to stay with Zümrüt, leaving her home town because of a problematic love story. The novel is set in an imaginary ex- shantytown called Kozluk, on the outskirts of Istanbul. o Aksak Ritim [Syncopated Rhythms] (2009) by Gaye Boralıoğlu: The central characters are Güldane and Halil. Güldane is a young Romani girl. Her parents have moved from the Thracian city of Edirne, where many Romani people live, to Istanbul when she was three and a half years old. The novel, which is about the love story between Güldane and Halil, does not give any information about the background of Halil, a taxi-driver living in Istanbul.

70 First published as Kadınlar Kitabı [The Book of Women]. 57

o Kopoy [Kopov] (2011) by Barış Andırınlı: The main character Osman, who is a purposeless thirty-year-old unemployed man living in provincial Anatolia, comes to Istanbul for a temporary job. The novel is set in Şirinevler, an ex-shantytown. Two memoir-novels should also be mentioned here, although they are autobiographies rather than fiction. o Masalını Yitiren Dev [The Giant Who Lost his Fairy-Tale] (2000) by Adnan Binyazar: Binyazar comes to Istanbul, around the age of six, from a town near Elazığ, a city in Southeastern Anatolia, to stay with his father who has moved to the city leaving his family behind. He stays in the city for eight years, from the beginning to the end of the 1940s. During this time he has a very difficult life trying to survive with almost no support from his father. His memories of Istanbul have an important place in the book. o Tespih Taneleri [Beads] (2006) by Mıgırdiç Margosyan: Margosyan, born in Diyarbakır, moves to Istanbul at the end of the 1940s, in his early teens, to stay in an Armenian orphanage and receive his secondary education.

4.1.2 Novels Focusing on Second or Third Generation Immigrants Novels set in the shantytowns of Istanbul are almost always in this category, since most people living in them arrived in Istanbul after the 1950s. The migration phase does not appear as a subject in these novels, since the central characters are second or third generation immigrants. However, although the main characters are second (or in some cases third) generation, their parents who are first generation immigrants also appear in these novels. In addition to the new shantytowns established by immigrants, old and poor neighbourhoods in the city centre can also be the setting of these novels71. Some of these central neighbourhoods are former non-Muslim minority areas which have fallen from grace and eventually got populated by immigrants. Thus, novels set in such neighbourhoods might also include minority characters whose ancestors have been in Istanbul for many generations. In either case, the neighbourhoods have an important place in these novels, where they sometimes appear almost as characters in their own right. This category can be divided into two groups: a) The novels which provide the information that their central characters are second or third generation immigrants. o Ağır Roman [Heavy Roman(i)] (1990) by Metin Kaçan: The novel is set in the

71 The Turkish expression for such neighbourhoods is kenar mahalle mot-à-mot translation of which is periphery neighbourhood. However, since these are poor neighbourhoods in the city center, in English, poor neighbourhood is a better counterpart. This point will be explained below. 58 imaginary neighbourhood of Kolera, a representation of the old Greek neighbourhood of Dolapdere near Beyoğlu. The main character is Gıli whose parents have moved to Istanbul from Anatolia. o Kenarda [On the Periphery] (2003) by Ayhan Geçgin: The novel is set in the imaginary neighbourhoods of İncirköy and Taşlıbağ. These two neighbourhoods are thinly disguised representations of Kazlıçeşme, around where there were many factories and shanties until the early 1990s. The central character, who is unnamed, is the son of an immigrant couple living and working in this area. b) The novels which do not explicitly say that their central characters are second or third generation immigrants. Although no information is given about the local backgrounds of the characters, it can be inferred that they are second or third generation internal migrants. o Evlerden Biri [One of the Houses] (1966) by Orhan Kemal: The novel, set in a poor neighbourhood called Cibali, focuses on the life of Sadi Bey and his family. The neighbourhood is home to many immigrant families who have come to Istanbul from different parts of Anatolia. o Dar Sokaklardaki Duman [Smoke in Narrow Streets] (1992) by Muzaffer Buyrukçu: The main characters in this novel are the members of a family whose story was told in an earlier book by Buyrukçu, the short story collection entitled Kavga [The Fight] (1967). In Kavga, the immigration of the family from Bitola, Macedonia to Istanbul is related. This kind of migration is not an example of the internal migration which is the focus of this research, therefore the novel is not listed next to Periphery and Roman(i). However, this book is mentioned here since the place where the family lives is an old and poor neighbourhood, the name of which is not revealed in the novel, where many internal migrants live together with Greeks, Armenians and Jews. o Minare Gölgesi [The Shadow of the Minaret] (2013) by Engin Ergönültaş: The novel is set in a poor neighbourhood on the Golden Horn shore of Istanbul. The book, which does not have a central character, consists of a collage of stories of poor people living in this neighbourhood. One novel which may fit in more than one of the categories above is: o Istanbul Istanbul (2015) by Burhan Sönmez: The novel has four main characters. One of them is Küheylan Dayı [Uncle Küheylan], a Kurdish man who has migrated to Istanbul from Anatolia, having listened to stories about the city from his father for many years. The other character Demirtay has grown up in Istanbul and it is hinted that his mother is a first generation internal migrant to the city. The other two, The Doctor and Demirtay has grown up 59 in Istanbul, but the novel does not give enough clues as to whether their parents were internal immigrants. The book is set in a police station where the four characters tell stories to each other as they wait for their turn to be questioned, under torture, about their connection with illegal left-wing groups. It should be noted that among the novels with immigrants as their subject matter, the absence of novels dealing with the plight of the internally displaced Kurds in Istanbul in the 1990s constitutes a serious gap in modern Turkish literature.

4.2. Novels with ‘Istanbulites’ i.e. Old-Istanbulites as Their Subject Matter These are novels whose subject matter is characters whose ancestors have been in Istanbul for at least a couple of generations, who can therefore be called old-Istanbulites. The novels are set in old-Istanbul neighbourhoods. In this dissertation, it is argued that many of the novels with immigrant protagonists in Istanbul create a vein in modern Turkish literature that can be defined as the right to the city novels. Such a vein of literature can be regarded as a counterpoint to novels that have at their centre nostalgia for a past Istanbul i.e. the Istanbul before the arrival of rural to urban migrants. It should be noted that not all novels with old-Istanbulite characters are nostalgic. Some of them are and some of them are not. Therefore, the right to the city novels create a counterpoint only to the nostalgia novels, as these nostalgic novels longing for a semi- imagined old-Istanbul are usually loaded with an implicit anti-immigrant discourse. Examples from both categories of novels with old-Istanbulite characters are included below: nostalgic and not nostalgic. This can help readers have a grounding in the comparison between the two types of novels with old-Istanbulite protagonists.

4.2.1 Novels about Old-Istanbulites Where a Feeling of Nostalgia Is Predominant Significant examples: o Bir Küçükburjuvanın Gençlik Yılları [The Adolescent Years of a Petit-Bourgeois] (1979) by Demir Özlü: The book is set in old neighbourhoods such as Cihangir and Kadıköy in the second half of the 1960s, when internal migrants are becoming more and more visible in the city. The main character is Selim, an Istanbulite petit-bourgeois. There is nostalgia in the book for the Istanbul of the times before the arrival of the immigrants. However, the narrator also praises the leftist potential of immigrant neighbourhoods. o Geçmiş, Bir Daha Geri Gelmeyecek Zamanlar [The Past, Times That Will Never 60

Come Back] by Selim İleri, a series comprising five novels set in old and prestigious neighbourhoods of the city such as Cihangir, Kadıköy, The Bosphorus, and the Princes’ Islands.  Mavi Kanatlarınla Yalnız Benim Olsaydın [Only If You Were Mine with Your Blue Wings] (1991): This episodic novel tells the stories of various Istanbulite characters living in the 1950s.  Gramofon Hâlâ Çalıyor [The Gramophone is Still Playing] (1995): This is another episodic novel about various Istanbulite characters, set in 1955-60.  Cemil Şevket Bey, Aynalı Dolaba İki El Revolver [Mr. Cemil Şevket, Two Revolver Shots at the Mirrored Cupboard] (1997): The book tells the story of Mr. Cemil Şevket, a gay writer, from the end of the Ottoman empire until after the 12 September 1980 coup, through vignettes of Istanbul in those years.  Solmaz Hanım Kimsesiz Okurlar İçin [Ms. Solmaz, for Solitary Readers] (2000): With Ms. Solmaz, one of the characters of Mavi Kanatlarınla . . . as its main character, the book looks back at the Istanbul of 1920-1980.  Daha Dün [Only Yesterday] (2008): In this final book of the series, Istanbul from the 1800s to 1990s appears through the stories of the characters in the four earlier books. o Kumral Ada Mavi Tuna [Blond Ada Blue Tuna] (1997) by Buket Uzuner: The main characters are Tuna, Ada and Aras. Ada is a young Istanbulite girl who comes from an elite family. Tuna and Aras, who are brothers, can be regarded as second-generation immigrants, since their father has immigrated to Istanbul from Bulgaria and their mother is from Iğdır, a city in Eastern Anatolia. Still, the novel is about Istanbulites rather than immigrants when the whole scale of characters and setting is considered. o İstanbul Bir Masaldı [Istanbul was a Fairy Tale] (1999) by Mario Levi: Set in various Non-Muslim minority neighbourhoods of Istanbul, the novel tells the stories of three generations of a Jewish family from the 1920s to the 1980s. As its name indicates, the book looks at the past of Istanbul with a feeling of nostalgia.

4.2.2 Novels about Old-Istanbulites Which Are Not Nostalgic Significant examples: o Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları [Mr. Cevdet and His Sons] (1982) by Orhan Pamuk: This is 61 the saga of a family from Nişantaşı, a high class neighbourhood of Istanbul, for three generations starting from 1905 and ending in 1970. It gives a panorama of the city through these decades without a nostalgic timbre. o Bizans Sohbetleri [Byzantine Conversations] (1988) by Vivet Kanetti72: The narrator, who comes from a somewhat elite Jewish family in Istanbul, tells about her life in this city with reference to the stories of her family members and relatives. o Öfkenin Şenliği [The Festival of Anger] (2011) Jaklin Çelik: The narrator comes back to Istanbul, to the neighbourhood she grew up in, to sell the family’s run-down empty house. The novel touches upon the lives of three generations of an Armenian family from the Meds Yeghern until the present day. o Turuncu Geçmişin Kıyısında [On the Edge of the Orange Past] (2011) Melih Özeren: The novel tells the story of various Istanbulite Greeks, through the memories of Taki from the turn of the 20th century until the1960s.

72 Kanetti got this novel published under her pseudonym E. Emine. 62

PART II - IMAGINING THE IMMIGRATION EXPERIENCE: A HUMANIST APPROACH

63

CHAPTER 5

The Homesick Birds: An Empathetic Look at the Urbanites of the Future The first novel to be analysed is Gurbet Kuşları [The Homesick Birds]73 by Orhan Kemal, first published in 1962 by Varlık. The novel’s eleventh impression, by Everest, came out in 2015. There is also a film with the same name as the book, made in 1964 by Halit Refiğ. However, this is not a filmed adaptation of the novel. As Kurtuluş Kayalı explains, in the mid-1950s, film director Ö. Lütfü Akad planned to make a film about rural to urban migration to Istanbul. With this objective, he started working with Orhan Kemal. However after a while Akad decided that the material they created was not suitable for a film. Then, Kemal took Akad’s permission to use this material for a novel. As a result, he wrote Birds and dedicated it to Akad. The film bearing the name Gurbet Kuşları is in fact an adaptation of a theatre play entitled Ocak [Home] written by Turgut Özakman, first staged in 1962. What makes the story more complicated is that Orhan Kemal wrote the dialogues for this film (Kayalı 00:04:08 – 00:05:45)74. Written at the stage when immigrants who were seen as the rural other were expected to integrate into urban life in a monotype way, the novel points out literacy as the primary device in the urbanisation of peasants. The idea of the right to the city is elaborated in the novel with the emphasis that migrants as citizens of the country have the right to live in whichever city they want. Material necessities such as the right to shelter and to work appear as themes of the novel that are directly related to the right to the city. With a humanist approach, the novel depicts migrants as the urbanites of the future, advocates for their right to the city, and puts particular stress on their right to be regarded as legitimate members of the city by the old urbanites. The narration, the most outstanding formal dimension of the novel, has a central function in the novel’s message: a combination of empathy for migrants and the expectation of their integration into urban life.

73 References in this dissertation are made to the impression by Everest, 2010. 74 Eventually, Ö. Lütfü Akad made a well-received trilogy on rural to urban migration comprising of Gelin [The Bride] (1973); Düğün [The Wedding] (1974); Diyet [The Blood Money] (1975). 64

Fig. 3. Cover of the impression used in this analysis. 65

5.1 Plot Summary The following summary is adapted from Behçet Necatigil’s version included in Bezirci (172-177). Memed, the main character of the novel, comes to Istanbul from his village near Sivas, a central Anatolian town, with the expectation that his relative Gafur will help him to settle in the city. His father Yusuf the Incorrigible75 is one of the three main characters of Kemal’s earlier novel On Fertile Lands (1954)76. In that novel Yusuf and his two friends go to Çukurova, an industrial region on the Mediterranean coast of Turkey, to find work and, as cheap labour, they are offered odd jobs in a factory, a building site and a threshing field. Yusuf becomes a bricklayer and starts going to Çukurova as a seasonal worker every year. Birds is set in the 1950s, during the Democrat Party government, when Adnan Menderes was in power. Since Yusuf’s wife has recently passed away, that year instead of going to Çukurova he stays in the village with three of his children, and sends his son Memed to Istanbul to work. Memed arrives in Istanbul and finds Gafur. However, Gafur does not support Memed; on the contrary he seems uncomfortable with his arrival. Memed meets Veli who works as a porter and starts staying at an old house where Veli and fellow migrant labourers stay. There he meets Recep who has emigrated from Kastamonu, a city on the Black Sea coast of Turkey, and learns the craft of bricklaying from him as well as how to read and write. Memed, Recep and Veli start working at a building site in Kadıköy and here Memed meets Ayşe, a twenty-year-old immigrant girl who works as a maid in the mansion opposite the building site. This mansion belongs to Hüseyin Korkmaz, a former wholesaler in the fruit and vegetable trade, who is Gafur’s boss. Gafur, who stays in Korkmaz’s mansion harasses Ayşe and speaks badly about her with the shopkeeper of the neighbourhood. As Ayşe falls in love with Memed, Gafur’s negative feelings towards Memed become stronger. Meanwhile, Gafur gets sent to jail because of injuring a man in a fight. Ayşe and Memed get married and start living in Ayşe’s room in the mansion. When Gafur is in jail, Memed starts to help Hüseyin at the shop, substituting for Gafur. Soon after, Memed’s father Yusuf comes to Istanbul with his three children and moves into Gafur’s room in Hüseyin’s mansion. Hüseyin enjoys Yusuf’s company and decides to employ him in his shop instead of employing Memed. In the meantime, Memed’s relationship with his father deteriorates due to Ayşe’s negative feelings about her in-laws. Eventually, the couple move into a shanty in Zeytinburnu with the help of a friend of Ayşe’s. Memed continues working as a bricklayer while Ayşe starts

75 İflahsızın Yusuf 76 Bereketli Topraklar Üzerinde 66 working in a cotton thread factory. They save up some money, buy a piece of land and start building their shanty on it. However, it gets demolished by the municipal officers. During the demolition, Memed and Ayşe are devastated, Memed gets completely shocked, he can’t even move. Gafur who has joined the Military Front, a group supporting Democrat Party rule after his release from jail, appears behind the vehicle of the officers in charge of the demolition. It comes out that Gafur has collaborated with the wrecking crew in order to get the couple’s shanty destroyed. Ayşe tells her husband that they will be able to build a new home and wants him to get up off the ground to avoid Gafur feeling victorious. The novel ends with her words encouraging her husband.

5.2 Main Features The three hundred and seventy-two page long book is divided into twenty-one numbered chapters. The novel is, in many ways, close to the bildungsroman, a coming of age novel which tells the story of a “sensitive, intelligent protagonist [who] leaves home” (“Bildungsroman” 64). In examples of the bildungsroman, the reader follows the hero of the novel as he/she grows up and matures by overcoming various difficulties and meeting new people, making new relationships (64). In a bildungsroman, the story of the hero ends in “the best place to use his/her unique talents” (64). “The protagonist’s adventures can be seen as a quest for the meaning of life or as a vehicle for the author’s social and moral opinions as demonstrated through the protagonist” (64). This sort of novel tells the main character’s story from his/her days as a youngster until he/she becomes an adult (76). These characteristics are mostly valid for Birds. As the novel ends, the main character Memed is not yet at the point where he can realise himself fully, but still he has come to a certain maturity and reached the early phase of adulthood. Based on the difficulties he manages to overcome, the friendships he makes and his relationship and marriage which are all important events in the plot, it is possible to call this novel an example of bildungsroman. Birds is a realist novel oriented slightly towards socialist realism. Socialist realist novels elaborate the theme of the class struggle of protagonists from the proletarian class, and also aim at members of this class among their target reader group (“Realism” 664). Both of these primary characteristics of this vein of realism are valid for Birds. Additionally, the novel can also be categorised as an example of urban realism, “a branch of realist writing that attempts to accurately depict the often harsh facts of modern urban existence” (664).

67

The style of the novel can be summarised as follows. The narrator uses colloquial language. In the dialogues, which are highly realistic, dialect is used. Both in the narration and in the dialogues, the word order is unmarked i.e. inverted syntax is not used. The novel does not make use of long and complex sentences. The use of punctuation is standard. There are a couple of moments of inserted genre in the novel which will be analysed in relation with certain themes below. The novel is narrated in the third-person, by a narrator who is not one of the characters of the novel. No information is given about the narrator’s gender or age. The novel mostly employs figural narration, however at various points it gets close to authorial narration. In Birds, in different episodes there are different reflecting characters. The novel has, to use Keen’s phrasing, “serial reflectors” who “yield […] to one another the central perspective” (63). In most of the novel, the narrator appears as a marked one, with his commentary and non-neutral adjectives. Although the novel received mixed reviews at the time it was published, even today it is usually the first novel that comes to people’s minds when literary output dealing with the issue of rural migration to Istanbul is concerned. Tatarlı defines it as a book which has a unique place among all the novels dealing with Istanbul (Bezirci 175). It is a novel which continues to be reprinted and read in our day.

5.3 Title and Beginning The word gurbet, a direct equivalent of which is difficult to find in English, means a place, or being in a place, which creates homesickness. The title of the novel, which literally means ‘birds of gurbet’ creates a feeling of sympathy implying the struggle to survive under harsh conditions away from the safety of home. Gümeli argues that it is possible to find in this name a reference to migratory birds, with the connotation that “peasants who immigrate to the big city left their villages due to obligatory and inevitable reasons”77 (87). Dönmez-Colin, referring to the film bearing the same title as the novel, offers “The Birds of Nostalgia”, “Migrating Birds”, and “Birds of Exile” as options for the English translation and makes her preference for “The Birds of Nostalgia” (58). In this research, the translation offered for the title is: The Homesick Birds. Although the title has the connotation that the novel is about more than one immigrant, this is mainly a book focusing on one immigrant, Memed and his story of growing and maturing in Istanbul. However, it does not spend much time on Memed’s psychological

77 büyük sehre göç eden köylülerin, istekleri dışında zorunlu ve kaçınılmaz nedenlerle köylerinden ayrıldıkları 68 dynamics. Memed’s inner world is represented mainly in terms of his migration experience, while his emotional and psychological development, conflicts with his father, desires, love and marriage are not developed in-depth throughout the novel. The author’s choice not to focus on the individual dimension of the immigrant signalled in the novel’s title is in line with the novel’s overall theme and messages discussed below. The novel opens with the Kurtalan train, departing from the remote Kurtalan town near Siirt, a city in south-eastern Turkey, entering the Haydarpaşa train station in Istanbul. This is a landmark of the city, which is the most significant feature of the iconography related to migration from Anatolia to Istanbul. The imagery in the setting is meaningful: the train station is a place in-between, it is neither Istanbul nor not-Istanbul, very much in line with the limbo position of migrants between being rural and urban. After a brief description of the station and the people there, the third paragraph starts with the following sentence: “‘The homesick birds’ were getting off from the backmost wagons of the train, dark and skinny. They had neither someone to meet them, nor had most of them a suitcase or a handbasket, not even a duvet” (Kemal 3)78. The first sentence is an example of what Mikhail Mikhailovich Bakhtin calls double-voiced narration where “the narrator’s single utterance includes two voices” (Phelan and Booth “Narrator”): here there is the voice of Istanbulites who are unhappy with immigrants’ arrival, who see them as “dark and skinny” and then there is another voice “that repudiates it — and, by ironising the first voice, establishes a hierarchical relation between them” (“Narrator”). Here the adjective “dark and skinny” creates the feeling that the narrator has a negative perception about the immigrants’ appearance. But in fact, the word choice here reflects the elitists’ perception about immigrants. The sympathy in the following sentence makes it possible to understand the irony in the first sentence. This technique of double-voiced discourse is employed in various passages of the novel, examples and the significance of which are included throughout the analysis. The narrator continues with the double-voiced discourse: With their defeated, bewildered, embarrassed, scared faces looking around, with their socks whose greens, yellows, purples and reds are dirty, scratching themselves harshly, having spread out on the wide concrete of the train station with the

78 “‘Gurbet kuşları’ katarın en arka vagonlarından iniyorlardı, kara kara, kuru kuru. Ne karşılamaya gelenler vardı, ne de çoğunun bavullarıyla sepeti, hatta yorganı.” 69

lukewarmness of cattle, with the crowd, among the crowd they were slowly drifting out to the exit gate of the station79 (Kemal 2-3). This sentence includes an elitist voice despising immigrants and another voice that lays bare and ridicules its hostile attitude. The paragraph is followed by a couple of insulting comments from urban people against the migrants: “Look at these bears!” “I swear they are a herd!” “Every day, every day. I wonder why these animals are scared of their villages?”80 (3) The narrator explains that the immigrants do not realise that they are being insulted and even if they do they cannot reply to these insults, and adds: “ . . . all with that lukewarmness of a herd they found the exit gate”81 (3). The analogy between animals and peasants in this narration, which is similar to the words of the Istanbulites who insult the immigrants in the station calling them “bears”, appears as yet another example of the double-voiced discourse. The opening gives two messages: immigrants have a long way to go to become urbanites; urbanites have a strong prejudice against immigrants. On the fourth page of the novel, the narrator focuses on Memed, one of the immigrants who get off the Kurtalan train and take the Haydarpaşa-Sirkeci boat. In the next four pages, Memed’s first hours in the city are described in detail. In this chapter, Memed is the reflecting character of the chapter, and as the examples below reveal, the reader is introduced to his inner world with the use of narrated monologue mostly echoing past conversations about Istanbul held back in his village. In these pages, Memed remains an anonymous immigrant. The narrator eventually tells us his name: İflahsızın Memed. The character’s name is not presented in the form of a name and a surname, as it would officially be used; instead it appears as it would be used by the folks back in the village: Memed son of the Incorrigible, meaning the son of Yusuf the Incorrigible. In the dialogues echoing in Memed’s mind, the novel seems to represent the migration phenomenon as an outcome of peasants’ perception of Istanbul as a dreamland and emphasises their eagerness to be there. Based on Everett S. Lee’s theory of migration, it can be argued that conditions in rural Anatolia i.e. the push factors for immigration which leave

79 “Çevrelerine yenik, şaşkın, mahcup, korkak bakışları, yeşil, sarı, mor, kırmızıları kirli çorapları, kirli tırnaklarıyla etlerini hart hart kaşıyışlarıyla garın geniş betonuna bir sığır ılıklığıyla yayılmış, kalabalıkla, kalabalığın arasında ağır ağır sürükleniyorlardı garın çıkış kapısına.” 80 “Ayılara hele ayılara!” “Şerefsizim sürü!” “Her gün bu, her gün bu. Köylerinden ne diye ürkütürler bu hayvanları bilmem ki?” 81 “ . . . hep o sürü ılıklığıyla çıkış kapısını buldular.” 70 almost no other chance to peasants than searching for jobs in big towns, is slightly overshadowed by their enthusiasm about the Istanbulite dream i.e. the pull factors.82 In the free indirect speech of anonymous immigrants, the narrator explains what the dreamland offers: “There were many jobs in road-building, demolishing, building in Istanbul. One could feed himself, even send money back home . . . ”83 (2). The situation in the villages is added: “Instead of being in the village, working at whoever’s fields for three days, playing craps around the walls for five days”84 (2) which explains that in the village there is not enough work, men are unemployed most the time. Here there is a balance between the push and pull factors. After that, the narrator, again using free indirect discourse, tells us of immigrants’ dreams about free women in Istanbul, yet another pull factor: “Women whose faces resemble roses when they smile with bare arms and legs”85 (2). The narrator continues with the imaginary speech of immigrants as they arrive: “In the end we’ve also come. Where are women whose faces resemble roses when they smile? Where are trams, taxis, dolmushes86, buses?”87 (2) These words slightly reinforce the impression that the pull factors are stronger. The narrator continues with the prestige of the Istanbul experience back in the village: “Those who manage to go by hook or by crook were coming back changed after a couple of months. With their combed hair . . . outfit arranged from Tahtakale, they were walking about in the village, talking about Istanbul with enthusiasm in village coffee-houses, boy circles”88 (2). This sentence is problematic, since generally for immigrants it would not be financially possible to go back to their villages for a break within a couple of months. Leaving this detail aside, certainly for peasants to have the Istanbul experience is extremely prestigious and when they do go back to their villages they enjoy the status which it brings. The sentence reinforces the impression in the passage outweighing the pull factors on immigration.

82 Everett S. Lee underscores that there are factors that “atttact” immigrants to the place where they immigrate to and factors that “repel” them from the place they leave (50). 83 “Yol, yıkım, yapım üzerine çok iş vardı İstanbul’da. Karınlar doyuyor, sılaya para bile salınıyordu . . . ” 84 “Köy yerinde şunun bunun tarlasında üç gün iş, beş gün duvar diplerinde barbut atacaklarına.” 85 “Gülüverince yanaklarında güller açan, kolları bacakları çıplak kadınlar.” 86 A minibus or a share-taxi. 87 “Biz de geldik sonunda. Hani gülüverince yüzlerinde güller açan avratlar? Hani tramvaylar, taksiler, dolmuşlar, otobüsler?” 88 “Ne yapıp yapıp gidenler, birkaç ay sonra değişmiş dönüyorlardı. Taralı saçları, . . . Tahtakale’den uydurulmuş üst başlarıyla köy yerinde dolanıyor, köy kahvelerinde, delikanlı meclislerinde İstanbul’u dillerinden düşürmüyorlardı.” 71

5.4 Characters and Related Themes

5.4.1 The Tabula Rasa Immigrant Moris Farhi describes Orhan Kemal as “the voice of the voiceless” (130) and similarly, Çimen Günay-Erkol argues that Kemal “turns down the volume of the author/narrator and usually lets his characters speak”89 (8). Certainly, Kemal creates a space for the voice of the voiceless to be heard. However, to what extent he does this by making us hear the voices of the characters and to what extent by speaking for them is the question for which an answer is sought below. Orhan Koçak’s description of Kemal’s characters as “semi-mute”90 (106) seems to be a provocative gesture talking about an author who is notorious for his powerful use of dialogues in his novels. Koçak’s insight makes a perfect point of departure for a scrutiny of narration and the voice of characters in Birds in correlation with the theme of language and literacy within the context of rural to urban migration. It is quite explicit that the novel, parallel to the modernist approach to the migration phenomenon in the 1950s explained in Chapter 2, values urban society over rural and in line with that places the written culture of urbanites above the oral culture of rural folk. Therefore, literacy and the use of ‘standard’ Istanbul Turkish appear as important themes throughout the novel, as discussed below. Before that, a couple of points related to the motif of language in the novel should briefly be mentioned. In the very opening chapter of the novel, dialogues between peasants who have seen Istanbul and those who have not introduces this motif of language: Istanbul so impossible to describe. Its taxis, dolmushes, trams, buses, ferries… If someone asked ‘What is a ferry mate?’ then they would laugh into their sleeves and answer “In words they are impossible to describe!” and leave it at that 91 (2). Those who have seen Istanbul do not have the words to talk about it to those who have not, since the latter do not possess the concepts to be able to comprehend it, bringing Wittgenstein’s famous comment “to imagine a language is to imagine a form of life” (8) to mind. This impossibility of describing Istanbul in words is repeated various times in the novel (4, 11).

89 “O yazarın/ anlatıcının sesini kısar ve çoğunlukla yarattığı karakterleri konuşturur.” 90 “yarı-dilsiz” 91 “İstanbul da bir İstanbul’du. Dil ile tarifi mümkünsüz. O taksiler, o dolmuşlar, o tramvaylar, otobüsler, vapurlar...” “Papur ne ki laan?” diye sorulsa, bıyık altından gülünüveriyor, “Dilinen tarifi gayri mümkünsüz!” denilip geçiliyordu. 72

Lack of language has a great significance in the theme of immigrants’ inability to defend themselves in the city against the insults of urbanites. In the novel, aggression against immigrants first appears via language, in the form of plain verbal insult, and the immigrants do not possess the right language to defend themselves, they cannot respond using the same tool. The narrator emphasises that immigrants do not have concepts in their language which would enable them to reply since he describes them as: “Far from being angry, giving a reply, making mention of citizenship, freedom of travel, giving replies that would silence those who speak nonsense . . . ”92 (3). Unsurprisingly, on the other side of the semi-muteness appears the struggle to claim a false identity through language. Gafur’s use of the anti-immigrant Istanbulite rhetoric is the best example of this: “Labourers, sharecroppers are pouring into Istanbul. Istanbul is no more Istanbul. They are dirtying, polluting all Istanbul”93 (23). This is a striking example of how by adopting the discourse of the dominant, the dominated tries to go up hierarchically. In another instance, Gafur makes the following comments about immigrants: “Instead of coming here, [he] should have gone to Çukurova like his father. They think Istanbul’s streets are paved with gold. Istanbul’s streets, squares have become full of beggars all!” He laid his eyes on the clerk, a genuine Istanbulite as he knew, to see the impression of his words. However, it was futile, they did not make any impression.94 (43) These words have a humorous function in the novel, as nobody would take Gafur’s words seriously, when he is so obviously an immigrant. Linguistic emptiness is problematised as part of a larger cultural emptiness in the novel, where an illiterate peasant who comes to the city from the village appears as a completely empty page, a tabula rasa. This is because a lettered culture is placed above an unlettered culture throughout the book. It can even be argued that an unlettered culture is not even perceived as culture in the novel. What Memed brings from his rural culture is only his wrong perceptions about city life, based on what he has heard from those who have been in the city, such as the prejudice about urban women discussed below. Neither Memed nor other

92 “Kızmak, karşılık vermek, yurttaşlık, gezi esenliği üzerine sözler etmek, artık eksik konuşanlara susturucu karşılıklar vermekten uzak . . . .” 93 “İstanbul’a ırgat, maraba akıyor. Akın akın geliyorlar. İstanbul İstanbul’luktan çıktı. İstanbul’u pisletiyorlar, kirletiyorlar tekmil...” 94 . . . Buraya kalkıp geleceğine babası gibi Çukurova’ya varaydı. İstanbul’un daşı toprağı altın belliyorlar. Dilenci doldu İstanbul’un sokakları, meydanları tüm!” Özbeöz İstanbullu olduğunu bildiği katip üzerinde sözlerinin etkisini anlamak için uzun uzun baktı. Lakin boştu, hiçbir etki yapmamıştı. 73 immigrants are portrayed with a distinct rural culture of their own. They do not possess even a slight wisdom passed through folk tales and other products of oral culture. To a certain extent, idioms and phrases of folk language appear in the speeches of the immigrants in the novel. However, many a time these are pseudo-idioms which suggest opportunism: “Hold a candle to the devil, fake it ’til you make it!”95 (23); “ . . . ‘Kissing a hand will not make your mouth dirty!’ . . . ”96 (27) and so forth. In the novel, the rural man’s pride is not visible at all, only with the exception of the importance the immigrants attach to humiliation in front of women as discussed below within the section on gender. The feelings and longings of a rural man in the city in terms of being away from nature and the soil are not depicted at all. For instance, in general, shanties are usually regarded as places where immigrants reclaim their bonds with the soil, as they put vegetables and flowers in the gardens of shanties. However, this aspect of the shanty phenomenon does not appear as a motif in the novel at all. The passages of the novel which are set in the village only depict a coffee house where a group of men talk about Istanbul; no atmosphere of the village is depicted at all and it is implied that people back in the villages only dream of escaping from there. As mentioned earlier, the rural man’s sensitivity about pride does not appear in the novel at all and almost all immigrants are portrayed as sycophants. Certainly, the difficulties of surviving in the city would lead to inevitable compromises from the norms of pride, but we never see a conflict in this regard: the immigrant is mostly blank in terms of virtues with few exceptions such as Kastamonulu and his father’s support of Memed. The solidarity between Ayşe and Hatice can also be mentioned here, although with the proviso that Ayşe’s friendly feelings for Hatice are depicted as prone to change if a slight conflict of interest arises. Other than these, throughout the novel peasants are portrayed as opportunistic and selfish people trying to survive in the city. The novel’s stance regarding immigrants is best perceived within the opposition of ‘good and bad immigrants’: when Memed, the good immigrant in the story, becomes stronger in the city, having become literate and mastered brick-laying, he finds the courage to refuse to join the Democrat Party, declining to behave in an opportunistic manner. In brief, throughout the novel, the peasant immigrants are portrayed with what they do not have but the urbanites do, but conversely never with what they have and the urbanites do not.

95 “Köprüyü geçene kadar ayıya dayı di, sakala gore darak vur!” 96 “ . . . ‘El öpmeynen ağız kirlenmez!’ . . . ” 74

5.4.2 Literacy and the ‘Standard Dialect’ In the novel, literacy is regarded as the first step to becoming an urbanite. In the very first chapter of the novel, on his first day in Istanbul, Memed fantasises about learning how to read and write, as he can find the opportunity for this in the city. At that stage, his motivation for learning to read and write is being able to do his military service above the lowest rank. As time passes he starts to enjoy reading newspapers and even books. Newspapers and books keep appearing as a motif in the novel emphasising literacy’s significance in the process of becoming urbanites. There are numerous instances in the novel where Memed is reading, or he is envied or criticised for reading. Two connected instances of this leitmotiv catch our attention: In the first instance, Memed tries to understand a sentence in the newspaper about freedom of the press. The sentence includes an Ottoman word, the meaning of which Memed asks to Uncle Hadji97, a cunning religious man who is in charge of the place where Memed stays with other bachelor immigrants (171). This is an example of what Bakhtin calls an “inserted genre” which he describes as: “letters, found manuscripts, retold dialogues, parodies on the high genres, parodically reinterpreted citations” (Problems 108). In this instance, the high language of a respectable newspaper enters the novel as an inserted genre (the sentence is repeated on page 175). Memed’s question is followed by Hacı Emmi’s furious tirade about the evilness of reading the Latin alphabet instead of the Arabic one (171-172). Here, the idea of “authoritative discourse” which has to be simply accepted without questioning, such as “the authoritative discourse of religious dogma, or of acknowledged scientific truth” (Bakhtin, “Discourse in the Novel” 342-343) enters the novel. Thus, the moment of Memed’s confusion when trying to read a serious newspaper is followed by the discourse of religious dogma cursing at him for reading the Latin alphabet. Here, as the novel emphasises religious discourse as an obstacle against literacy, it implies that it is an obstacle against the urbanisation of immigrants. Memed’s perception of Gafur is destroyed when he finds out that in fact Gafur is not literate but just pretends to be so. Gafur is extremely sensitive about this issue and one of the main reasons he avoids Memed at the beginning is his fear of this lie being revealed. The issue of literacy plays a significant role in the collapse of Yusuf’s image in Memed’s eyes. After various conflicts the father and son face, Memed complains to his wife “I’ve never known that my father was this ignorant”98 and adds: “he is illiterate yet pontificates”99 (270).

97 Hacı Emmi 98 “Babamın bu kadar cahil olduğunu bilmezdim.” 99 “Okuması yazması yok, bir de iddialaşır.” 75

It is an important point that the son’s respect for his father, which is one of the main paradigms of the feudal family norms, gets destroyed in the process of urbanisation, over the issue of literacy. What would happen if Yusuf was portrayed as an illiterate but a wise man? This would certainly bring a more complicated equation to the story. However, combining ignorance and illiteracy in characterisation of Yusuf seems to fit the hierarchy of the lettered culture over the unlettered in the novel. The interpretation of the conflict between Memed and his father arising in Istanbul should obviously not be limited to the Oedipal complex. As mentioned above, Memed’s respect for his father deteriorates after witnessing his ignorance, and Yusuf’s arrogance is magnified as a result of the insecurity he feels because of his illiteracy and of having never been to Istanbul before. The conflict points out the weakening of feudal values in the urban setting, since life in the city is built on different dynamics. In the narrated monologue Yusuf thinks about the changes in his son: “Has he become an urban man? Probably”100 (285). He defines his son’s behaviours, which he finds disrespectful, as “urban style manners” (285)101. The conflict accelerates as Yusuf tries to put pressure on Memed to recruit him for the Democrat Party, and attempts to slander Ayşe. Subsequently, the young couple move out of their room in Hüseyin’s house and rent a shanty. That marks the end of Memed’s relationship with his father, a move which would not be so smooth if they were living in the rural setting. If literacy is the first condition of claiming an urban identity, speaking in the standard dialect is the other. Memed starts dropping his rural accent after his transformation in Istanbul, and he even corrects his father’s accent (269). Ayşe dreams that her children will be speaking like “children of Istanbulites”102 (307). Clerk Hilmi103 corrects the accent of Hüseyin (43). Hüseyin’s accent is also corrected by his wife (55) who despises the way he speaks: the symbolic value of accent is one of the most if not the most explicit recurring motif in the novel. This motif on the one hand stresses the difficulty of claiming an urban identity for immigrants, since changing one’s accent is quite a difficult thing to do. Besides, it is only one of the things that must be done on the road to urbanity. On another level, it implies the necessity of adopting the standard dialect, as discussed below. Ayşe’s and Hüseyin’s completely opposite approaches to adopting the standard dialect are noteworthy in terms of the novel’s approach to immigrants and the process of urbanisation, as discussed below.

100 “Şehir adamı mı olmuştu? Herhalde.” 101 “şehirli biçimi huylar” 102 “İstanbullu çocukları gibi” 103 Katip Hilmi 76

The novel’s satirical edge comes to the fore in depictions of Hüseyin, a ridiculed portrait of the corrupt supporter of the ruling Democrat Party. Hüseyin is a man from an Anatolian village who comes to the city to work and rises up in class owing to various unethical deeds. His wife Nermin who has married him for his money and political connections is an urban woman who is in search of status and despises everything rural about Memed, particularly his accent. Hüseyin has an unconcealed attitude to Nermin’s aggressive yet hopeless struggle to change his Turkish, and he puts almost no effort into this. He believes that accent does not have importance as long as communication is possible. On the other hand, Ayşe who also speaks with a rural accent, has a burning desire to be able to speak in the way urbanites do. The novel stresses that speaking in standard Turkish is a prerequisite for claiming an urban identity and Ayşe, who is portrayed as a good immigrant who wants to become an urbanite, takes this issue seriously. She wants to change the way she speaks and even if she cannot adopt standard dialect, she is sure that her children will. It should also be noted that, since Hüseyin is a parodied character with his manners and his outfit of an aspiring urbanite, his accent comes to the fore as a comic element while in the characterisation of Ayşe or Memed, the rural accent does not call for humour. The novel’s rendering of local dialects and focusing on this as a theme is bound up with the novel’s problematisation of how peasants can become urbanites. The author’s following words on the use of dialects in his novels are worth quoting at length: “Just because one day our people will come over differences of dialect and will speak in ideal Turkish, I cannot suppose that they already do so” (quoted in Bezirci 59)104. He says that the novelist or the short story writer should not be “correcting the wrong way of speaking”105 (59) of his characters in order to elaborate his/her own language and adds: “When the turn of speech comes to him/her [the author] outside of dialogues, he/she will give the most correct and the best example of his/her language. Doing this he/she can both show the current situation of his/her language and he/she answers the question of how it [the language] should be”106 (59). As this excerpt reveals, Kemal regards regional dialects as wrong, and the good immigrants which he creates in the novel think this way, too: They do their best to be able to drop their

104 “İnsanlarımız günün birinde şive farklarından sıyrılıp ideal Türkçeyle konuşacaklar diye, öyle konuştuklarını farzedemem.” 105 “bozuk düzen deyişlerini düzeltmek” 106 “Diyaloglar dışında, söz sırası kendine geldikçe, dilinin en doğru ve en güzel örneğini verecektir. Böyle hareket etmekle yazar, dilin hem bugünkü durumunu göstermiş olur, hem de nasıl olması gerektiğinin cevabını vermiş olur.” 77 rural accent and speak like urbanites, while those who will stay as the peasants in the city have neither the will nor the capacity to be able to speak in the standard dialect.

5.4.3 Immigrants and Labour Another good example of the distinction between good and bad immigrants is emphasised in terms of their ways of making money. The scene at the coffee-house where Kastamonulu’s father has stopped by in all his visits to Istanbul for the last thirty years serves as a good example. The coffee-house is packed with immigrants and the narrator describes them as follows: Porters with huge moustaches, builders, yoke porters who have not been able to adapt to Istanbul for years despite Istanbul, even Beyoğlu, yogurt, vegetable vendors in elegant neighbourhoods such as Şişli, Nişantaşı, Maçka, Osmanbey… They have not adapted to Istanbul but, with the glint in their eyes, with the delight in their huge moustache they have grabbed Istanbul’s shrewdness maybe much more easily than genuine Istanbulites, opened accounts in banks. Among them there were building janitors, middlemen for houses and shops making more money than estate agents, maid commissioners, sipping their tea with pleasure . . . .107 (180-181) This passage has an anti-immigrant stance and there is no evidence of a double-voiced discourse. However, since the novel as a whole does not have an anti-immigrant message, such a passage should be interpreted as a manifestation of the good immigrant vs. bad immigrant opposition of the novel. The narrator uses non-neutral language and the negative feelings about the immigrants in the coffee-house pass to the reader. The narrator’s word choice for neighbourhoods such as Şişli and Nişantaşı as polite rather than rich is also worthy of attention: he seems to stress the cultural capital of the inhabitants of these places and the established urban culture there. “Genuine Istanbulite” is a phrase which belongs to the anti- immigrant rhetoric: at the same time it is almost an empty signifier as discussed in Chapter 2. The narrator’s use of such a phrase makes the immigrant the other of the Istanbulite. However, when the passage is analysed against the background of the novel’s overall messages, it can be inferred that the narrator’s negative attitude is against the bad immigrants since commissioning for houses, shops, and maidservants mentioned in the paragraph is

107 “Kocaman kocaman bıyıklı hamallar, yapı ustaları, yıllar yılı İstanbul, hem de Beyoğlu’na rağmen ne dilleri, ne de kılık kıyafetleriyle İstanbul’a uyamamış sırık hamalları, Şişli, Nişantaşı, Maçka, Osmanbey gibi kibar semtlerde yoğurt, sebze satıcıları… Dilleri, kılık kıyafetleriyle İstanbul’a uymamışlardı ama, gözlerindeki ışıltı, kocaman bıyıklarındaki hazla İstanbul’un açık gözlülüğünü belki de özbeöz İstanbulludan çok daha kolaylıkla kapmış, bankalara cari hesaplar açmışlardı. İçlerinde apartman kapıcıları, emlak komisyoncularından daha çok kazanan ev, dükkan simsarları, hizmetçi komisyoncuları vardı, çaylarını zevkle yudumluyor . . . .”

78 usually regarded as a way of making easy money in a parasitic way. In this passage, the narrator sounds as holding a common ground with elitists, however the novel’s stance is in harmony with elitists only where bad immigrants are concerned. On the other hand, unlike elitists, the novel does not perceive immigrants as a homogenous category, and has a positive approach to those who will eventually constitute the working class and adopt urban values.

5.4.4 Immigrants and the Istanbul Pogrom As mentioned above, good immigrant peasant vs. bad immigrant peasant opposition is at the centre of the novel. This is an opposition between those immigrants who will adapt to urban life and become a part of the working class, and those who will remain as peasants in the city, and will try to make money in unethical, or at least parasitic ways. The novel tends to portray the good characters as purely good and the bad ones as purely bad. This is a good example of the dichotomist approaches Twark describes as a characteristic of socialist realism: “the negative characters existing solely to be rejected, and the ‘positive heroes’ to be emulated” (16). One exception to this dichotomy of the behaviours of the good and the bad in Birds is the treatment of immigrants’ role in the Istanbul Pogrom. The Istanbul pogrom, briefly explained in Chapter 2 of the dissertation, appears in the novel as a recurring motif. The pogrom happens when Ayşe and Memed are living in their shanty. No information is given about the pogrom by the narrator, the reader is introduced to the event through the comments of the characters. Although no character in the novel actually participates in the pogrom, they benefit from the looted goods, owing to their extremely low sell-on price. The goods looted in the pogrom appear so often and in such unexpected moments of the book (123, 124, 143, 156, 178, 179, 180, 304, 310) that this attracts attention as a motif connected with various concerns of the novel. In the pogrom, organised groups attacked the shops of the non-Muslim minorities and looted their goods. In the novel, characters’ unawareness of what happened in the pogrom is filtered through their insensitivity to it. In this sense, on this issue the novel goes beyond the good and the bad immigrant dichotomy. In other words, it does not present some bad immigrants participating in the pogrom, while good ones are damning it. Instead, it creates a position in between, and presents immigrants’ insensitivity about such a terrible event. For instance, when Ayşe thinks that they also should have bought some of the looted goods, there is unawareness on the one hand, she is not really aware what has happened; yet, there is also insensitivity, as she does not really question why and how the goods have become so cheap and if buying them would be ethical. 79

5.4.5 Being Men and Women in the City A significantly challenging aspect of the rural to urban migration phenomenon in Turkey both for immigrants and urbanites was the clash of values and perceptions regarding gender. In the novel, not only urban women but also men become the target of prejudice based on patriarchal values. The immigrants’ approach to urban men in this sense is part of a general prejudice against immigrants by urbanites that they are not trustworthy and honest people. There are instances in the novel where the immigrants claim that urban men do not feel jealous about their wives, such as Ayşe’s following comment: “all urban men are cuckolds”108 (280). The novel’s stance regarding sex is not based on the opposition of urbanites vs immigrants but of good vs bad: only bad characters, due to their loose morals, are open to free sexuality, usually with a profit rather than genuine passion being its motivation. Another point regarding gender and immigration is the feudal notion of pride. As mentioned above, throughout the novel, the peasant migrant is never portrayed as a man of pride. The only times when the immigrant is sensitive about his pride is when he is humiliated in front of women (7, 11). Pointing this out, Mehmet Nuri Gültekin argues that, in the novel, immigrant males’ “perception and evaluation of events is . . . based on gender rather than class”109 (239). The theme of being men and women in Istanbul in Birds can be analysed under the following main topics: a) Istanbulite Women and Male Immigrants In Birds, the reader is introduced to urban legends about women which circulate between immigrants as early as the second page: “then there were broads in Istanbul. . . . . they were easily giggling to whoever comes along, and following whoever makes a gesture” (2)110. “ . . . If you are a laddie and youthful, horse is yours, girl is yours”111 (73). Double voiced discourse in this rendering of anonymous immigrants’ thoughts is not difficult to spot: The narrator presents the viewpoint of the immigrants while simultaneously implying how unrealistic a thought it is in a humorous way.

108 “şeherli erkeklerin tümü de boynuzlu” (280). 109 “Olayları algılaması ve değerlendirmesi, . . . sınıfsal olmaktan çok, cinsiyet temelindedir.” 110 “Sonra karılar vardı İstanbul’da. . . . her önüne gelene gülüveriyor, her işmar edenin ardına takılıveriyorlardı.” 111 “Delikanlı, bir de ergen oldun mu at da sana, avrat da.” 80

Feride Çiçekoğlu, in her book entitled The Prostitute City112 where she traces how the city has been identified with prostitution in cinema, argues that “the image which gave Istanbul’s cinematic face an identity . . . was being a prostitute”113 (18). The novel has an ambivalent position in this respect. On the one hand, it does not surrender to an opposition of chaste peasant women and unchaste urban women, as it includes various immigrants who are not chaste women. On the other hand, all the urban women characters of the novel – Nermin, plus her friends Fifi and Mari, who has a name implying that she is Greek _ are unchaste. In other words, in the novel, all urban women are unchaste, while there are both unchaste and chaste immigrants: Pervin is loose and Ümmü gets seduced by Gafur, who regards this ‘accomplishment’ as his revenge on Memed, depicting the female body as a contest area between men. The novel also depicts the close relationship between the concept of chastity and its potential use as a means of slander against women. Ayşe’s fear and despair about Gafur’s threat of inventing a lie that she is an unchaste girl are depicted with a powerful psychological depth (315). A comparison between urban and rural women should not be limited to the quantity of loose and chaste characters, but also of their significance in the novel: urban Nermin and immigrant Ayşe are constructed as two opposites in the story and there is no counterpart to such a character pair in the novel among men. In the very first instance that Ayşe joins the story, we learn that she does not reveal the secrets of her boss Nermin since “she was only a poor immigrant”114 (110) with no parents and only an uncle who never calls her. After Ayşe’s brief conversation with Hüseyin, the reader is introduced to her inner world through a narrated monologue (111-113); a stylistic gesture to establish the two characters as the opposites of each other. In this narrated monologue, Ayşe criticises Nermin for being unfaithful, and tells her, in her fantasy, that her husband, who is a well-built strong man, is better than her lover. As the narrated monologue continues, the reader is introduced to the other good peasant woman in the novel, Hatice, who sees Nermin as a slut. Nermin replies to this, in Ayşe’s fantasy, that it is Hatice herself who is a slut. Ayşe’s response is a passionate tirade about how it is impossible to call Hatice a slut. She responds to Nermin, in her mind, “even if one wipes harlotry on Hatice it would not get smeared on her”115 (112) and adds what a supportive family woman Hatice is, without whose support building the family shanty would have been impossible, and that she is a perfect housewife and a perfect cook (112). Obviously, Nermin is

112 Vesikalı Şehir 113 “İstanbul’un sinemasal suretine kimliğini veren imge . . . fahişeliklti.” 114 “Garip bir gurbet kuşuydu o.” 115 “Hatice Ablama uruspuluk sürsen bulaşmaz.” 81 an adulteress, and with Ayşe as a maid in the mansion, she never does housework or cooks. So, although in the novel the opposition of bad urban woman and the good peasant woman is mainly built on Nermin and Ayşe, for Ayşe this opposition appears between her boss Nermin and her friend Hatice. The good peasant woman as an immigrant in the city is a great example of the second category in Elizabeth Wilson’s formulation of women’s presentation in the city: “Woman is present in cities as temptress, as whore, as fallen woman, as lesbian, but also as virtuous womanhood who triumphs over temptation and tribulation” (6). An important point in this respect is that the narrator’s voice does not get enmeshed with male immigrants when they talk about urban women and men. In the instances which are quoted above, the double-voiced discourse separates the narrator’s opinion from that of the characters. However, when the reflector is Ayşe and the subject is womanhood, it is difficult to draw a line between the opinions of Ayşe and those of the narrator, who seems to celebrate her purity and curse Nermin as a slut. b) Immigrant Women in the City If the first tremendous step in Memed’s life subsequent to migrating to Istanbul is learning to read and write, the second one is meeting Ayşe. The structure of the relationship and the way the two characters are situated inside this relationship has a significant effect on the novel’s message about the link between gender and urbanisation. At the beginning of Ayşe and Memed’s relationship, the novel seems to be arguing that patriarchal gender roles can change as a result of urban experience. Having been in Istanbul for a long time gives Ayşe confidence, whereas being inexperienced in the city makes Memed shy and embarrassed. The narrator’s first definition of Ayşe attributes male qualities to her: “looking more like a man rather than a woman with her big hands, big feet and . . . face” (110)116, while Memed is described in feminine terms as he first meets her: the workers in the building site all go to Hüseyin’s mansion’s yard to fill a jug, but it is only Memed who asks for permission “feeling shy like a young girl” (191)117. Ayşe delays her response “in the usual manner of her lady boss does to her” (191) and only speaks after walking down the stairs, a symbol of her feeling of superiority over Memed. She likes Memed’s timid way of behaving as he enters the yard and walks to the fountain: “she liked his

116 “Kocaman elleri, kocaman ayakları, ablak yüzüyle kadından çok erkeğe benzeyen . . . ” This description is repeated on a later page as follows: “ . . . Ayşe’nin erkeği hatırlatan kaba yüzü . . . ” [. . . Ayşe’s rough face reminding of a man’s . . . ] (188). 117 “Bir kız gibi utanarak” 82 ways, his embarrassment like a girl”118 (191), and when they make eye contact she feels excited. She likes the way he is “tender”,119 a quality which would usually be regarded as feminine. They have a short conversation, with Ayşe asking the questions and Memed responding. Ayşe is impressed: “Ayşe was staring fascinatedly with her face resembling a boy with her thick, black eyebrows”(193),120 and in line with this masculine expression she tells him to come to fill the jug from now on instead of his fellow builders at the site. She thinks that since he is new to the city he is pure, but after a while he would “get used to the city and its people”121 (194-195) and start flirting with girls like Pervin and he would change. The line of thought in Ayşe’s mind is akin to what men think about immigrant women, that they would lose their chastity and start flirting around in the city. The introduction of the Ayşe-Memed relationship in the novel ends with these reverse gender roles at the level of perception. The relationship between Ayşe and Memed is initiated by Ayşe. The narrator does not make a comment on this, while Veli, one of the characters, reacts as follows: “The boy does not have any blame. The girl got her hands on him!”122 (229) As this relationship progresses and gains greater importance, the novel seems to get confused about what to do with Ayşe being so dominant, primarily because she is more experienced in the city, and how to balance this situation and put the gender roles back in their places. As a solution, the author gives Memed a powerful position by turning him into an object of desire for Ayşe. As her feelings for him grow stronger his image gets transformed for her and therefore for the reader. Ayşe’s daydream which follows is a good example of this transformation. Memed and Ayşe are the only characters whose fantasies and daydreams constitute a significant part of their characterisation in the novel: Memed’s fantasies mostly appear in the first half of the novel, where he dreams about his prestige when he goes back to his village, while Ayşe’s fantasies are mainly about Memed, marriage and having children. In her daydream, Memed covers Ayşe’s mouth as part of a joke and she holds his wrist: “But thick wrist, a thick male wrist, a strong male wrist. . . . mighty male palm calloused because of holding a trowel, and carrying bricks holds the girl’s wrist and twists it, takes the girl under him” (203)123. The fantasy is rendered through the words of the narrator, in which a tone

118 “duruşu, kız gibi utanışı hoşuna gitmişti” 119 “ yumuşacık” 120 “Ayşe erkeği hatırlatan kalın, siyah kaşlı yüzüyle büyülenmiş gibi bakıyordu.” 121 “şehre şehirliye alışır” 122 “Oğlanın bu işte hiç suçu yok. Kız üstüne düştü.” 123 “Lakin kalın bilek, kalın erkek bileği, güçlü erkek bileği. . . . Mala tutmak, daha önce de harç teknesi, tuğla taşımaktan nasır bağlamış kudretli erkek avucu kızın bileğini yakalar, kıvırır, kızı altına alır.” 83 praising male physical power and regarding it as more than just physical power can be felt : the use of the adjective “mighty” rather than, for instance ‘strong’ attributes psychological power to physical strength and the novel puts back the gender roles in their usual places. In the rest of the daydream, Ayşe’s wrist starts hurting and Memed eventually lets it go, but does not show any affection after hurting it. It is striking to see the transformation of Memed’s image from a timid boy with feminine qualities into a highly masculine, almost a macho man within only nine pages. However, at the very ending of the novel, during the time when the couple’s shanty is being demolished, the reverse gender roles will appear once again as Memed sits down crying and Ayşe tries to calm him down, horrified at the idea that Gafur is watching them: “Would [Gafur] show her how her husband her Memed fall down and cry like a woman?”124 (372) closing the novel with an ambivalent position regarding the gender roles in the city. After spending a short time flirting, the couple faces a crisis when Memed reveals his plan to invite his family from the village to live with them after they get married. Ayşe eventually accepts the plan and the couple get married. There is an interesting detail regarding the narration of Ayşe and Memed’s relationship: the couple’s wedding appears as an ellipsis in the plot. As Genette explains in Narrative Discourse Revisited ellipses i.e. “breaks in the temporal continuity” (51) occur in novels when an event happens in the story but it is not narrated, so the reader infers the development from implications (51). After Ayşe and Memed’s conversations about marriage and their plans, the reader suddenly notices that the couple have got married, since Ayşe is being introduced to Yusuf, Memed’s father, as his daughter-in-law at the Haydarpaşa Train Station. Birds is obviously a novel written with realist aesthetics and the important event of marriage being given through a gap in the narration has great significance in its interpretation: traditionally in Anatolian culture, a girl gets requested from her parents by the parents of the groom. Since Ayşe is an orphan, Memed’s father could have requested her from Hüseyin, her boss, at least symbolically. There is no conversation between Ayşe and Memed discussing this issue, or the procedure of their marriage ceremony; and eventually the wedding itself does not appear on the discourse level. Such a gap in the plot might imply the sort of liberty an immigrant woman standing on her own two feet in the city has. Akatlı points out that, “the image of the ‘woman worker’ was introduced into our literature by Orhan Kemal” (“The Image” 229). Earlier in the novel, the reader is informed

124 Kocasının, onun Memed’inin böyle kadın gibi çöküp ağlamasını mı gösterecekti ona? 84 about Memed’s views on women’s working via a narrated monologue when he is a novice immigrant: “If a girl’s father, brother is alive she should not work at all…”125 (81). After a while, Memed gets married to Ayşe who is a working woman and an orphan, so the novel is safe from a conflict in this respect. But, if Memed disagrees with a woman’s working if her parents are alive, he should think the same way for a woman who is married and whose husband is alive. However, this is not the case: after the couple moves into their rented shanty, Ayşe works in a factory for a while, then as they start building their own shanty, she stops working at the factory and takes daily cleaning jobs. Certainly, Memed’s views on the issue get transformed in this sense, but this transformation is not tackled in the novel, it is only implied. Towards the end of the novel the narrator describes Ayşe’s daily routine before she has to quit work in order to guard their semi-built shanty. While her husband was putting up walls all day in building sites with a trowel in his hand, she was running to her work in the early hours of the morning until yesterday. Work until evenings in the factory, then break, on to the woods to be cleaned, laundry of singles to be washed of the houses in Bakırköy, Yeşilyurt, then home, her husband’s feet, dinner, then that sleep… (359)126. This daily routine is significant in terms of exhibiting the limits of women’s liberation in the city; even if a woman works outside the home, inside the household her role as a housewife remains unchanged. The way the narrator describes this situation can be interpreted as a double-voiced discourse: on the surface the narrator sounds neutral about it, however the sentence has the implication that when she comes home she will wash her husband’s feet, prepare the dinner, in brief she will continue working at home while her husband will get a rest. Akatlı argues that Kemal is the first author in the Turkish novel to depict female workers’ double-oppression, as workers and as women (“The Image” 229). Such an approach is valid in Birds. The novel successfully emphasises that not much changes in the city for women. Ayşe will never question why she has to do the housework after coming home from work instead of sharing it with her husband. As long as he is faithful and trustworthy, and keeps all his money for household expenses, Ayşe will be content. The excessively romantic style in Ayşe’s narrated monologues about her dreams of a married life with Memed and the

125 “Kız kısmının babası, ağası, sağsa töbe çalışmamalı...” 126 “Kocası elinde mala, yapılarda bütün gün duvar örerken, o da sabahın erken saatlerinde fabrikadaki işinin başına koşuyordu düne kadar. Fabrikada akşamlara kadar iş, sonra paydos, haydi Bakırköy, Yeşilyurt evlerinin silinecek tahtaları, yıkanacak bekar çamaşırları, sonra ev, kocasının ayakları, akşam yemeği, şöyle bir uyku...” 85 narrator’s descriptions of her feelings draw attention to this ideologically infiltrated sense of romanticism, which makes women accept their subversive gender roles. The passage in the novel where Memed’s father, sister and brothers arrive in the city, the only instance where the arrival of a female immigrant in Istanbul is depicted, is worth a close look. After Memed and Ayşe pick Memed’s family up from the Haydarpaşa Train Station, they arrive at Hüseyin’s mansion. Memed’s sister Ümmü looks around and sees girls of her age in their mini-skirts and short sleeves, so she takes her head-scarf off after a little hesitation. Ayşe praises her saying “Exactly. This is Istanbul, girl…”127 (264). Yusuf does not find anything negative about his daughter’s abrupt change of style. The way Ayşe stresses that they are in Istanbul sounds like she proudly invites her sister-in-law to adjust to life in Istanbul, and to be brave enough to get liberated. However, as discussed above, Ayşe never questions the limits of women’s liberation in the city in terms of gender equality. It is surprising that the novel presents no conflict between Yusuf and his daughter Ümmü in the city. The reader does not know of any confrontation between Ümmü, who is very enthusiastic about getting liberated and goes on to have an affair with a shopkeeper, and her father. What kind of a struggle do the immigrant women in the novel have in terms of gender, even in terms of basic issues such as appearance or daily life? What does this struggle consist of; to what extent do the migrant women in this story resist change, and to what extent are they stopped by their men from changing? The novel does not tackle this aspect of the immigration experience.

5.5 Setting and Related Themes

5.5.1 Appreciating the City The differences between the good immigrants’ and the bad immigrants’ attitudes in terms of appreciating the city environment comes to the fore as an important theme throughout the book. It is an important detail that Memed’s first job at a building site is at the demolition work of Balıkpazarı. This socially and culturally significant area famous for its fish shops and meyhanes was demolished in 1955-56 for the Unkapanı-Eminönü road as a part of the aggressive urban-transformation project launched by the Menderes government. Çonoğlu argues that in the novel, immigrant labourers do not have a sense of the cultural value of the structures which they are demolishing (153). To a certain extent this is true; however this does not explain the whole situation regarding this theme in the novel. For example, the following lines of narrated monologue illustrate Memed’s appreciation of the

127 “Hah şöyle. Burası İstanbul kızım…” 86 city. At one point during the work Memed thinks of his hometown and compares it with Istanbul: “But this Istanbul... The beauty of Kadıköy was something different. Pretty mansions, gardens, trees, girls, women with colourful shırt dresses around the trees...”128 (197) Such an incident is in contrast with the widespread anti-immigrant argument that immigrants cannot appreciate the city’s beauty, and they do not have an understanding of urban surroundings. While contradicting this generalization with Memed’s case, the narrator does not intend to give a message that all immigrants can appreciate the city’s beauty. In fact, the narrator uses this motif to make a comparison between immigrants: There are immigrants who do appreciate the beauty of the city, and there are those who do not. Another example of this point worth quoting is the following passage which tells about Gafur walking out of the building site one night, frustrated having heard of Memed’s hard work to learn to read and write: Gamble was going on fast. He left the building site. Outside sky full of stars, Istanbul under the sky stretching out like a folk song, like a soft folk song! He did not see it. He walked in through the engraved iron door of the mansion, closed the door. (135)129 As would be expected, neither is Hüseyin emotionally connected with Istanbul. He longs for his village as he expresses openly: “ . . . if they give me the streamside, the shade of the walnut on the streamside, they can keep their Istanbul, this mansion and this wholesaling job!”130 (276). He repeats similar words on page 279 as well. Thus, the novel emphasises the detachment of Hüseyin, a bad immigrant, from Istanbul. It also implies that he will never be an urbanite. However, it is also an interesting detail that this is the only instance in the novel of a peasant’s longing for nature being represented. It might be interpreted as a message that close bonds with nature and the soil are traits typical of peasants who cannot adapt to urban life. The comparison between immigrants in terms of their perception of the city environment functions as a counter-argument against the homogenising ‘non-Istanbulites’ discourse. The novel argues that immigrants cannot be accepted as a homogenous category in their relationship with the city: some immigrants appreciate the city, some of them do not.

128 “Lakin bu İstanbul... Kadıköy’ün güzelliği bir başkaydı. Şirin şirin köşkler, bahçeler, ağaçlar, ağaçların aralarında kısa fistanları renk renk kızlar, kadınlar...” 129 “Kumar hızla sürüp gidiyordu.Yapıdan çıktı. Dışarda yıldız dolu gök, göğün altında bir türkü, yumuşak bir türkü gibi uzanan İstanbul! Görmedi. Köşkün oymalı demir kapısından girdi, kapıyı kapadı.” 130 “ . . . memleketimdeki dere boyunu, dere boyunun ceviz gölgesini versinler, İstanbulları da, bu köşk de, kabzımallık da kendilerinin olsun!” 87

5.6 Conclusion In the fifteenth chapter of Birds, a feeling of déjà vu comes to our attention. The narrator explains how every week more trains come to Kurtalan bringing more immigrants, using some of the same phrases and sentences he used in the first chapter of the novel. He narrates the atmosphere at the train station just before the arrival of yet another train from Kurtalan. Since this is a crucial passage regarding the narrator’s stance about the immigration phenomenon, and a lucid example of his use of double-voiced discourse, it is worth quoting at length: Like those arriving earlier, this [the mid-morning train] too will arrive, park itself on the platform, and out of it will come dark, skinny, charmless “homesick birds”, with no one in their best suits, coats and trilby hats waiting to meet them and they will stand there staring in amazement at the grand buildings of the Haydarpaşa Station with its high roof so magnificent to the unfamiliar, creating intimidation, even fear in the stranger. These were people whom the big city didn’t like, even hated. They were disfiguring even dirtying Istanbul with their outfit, wild stares. Citizens etc. they were, they did not have the right to sicken Western tourists who were coming reluctantly, they cannot, they should not. The government should take it seriously, issue a law, and should not let them in the big city! This ugliness, this rust and this dirt, could be our “National shame”; then it should be our “National task” to keep this shame in the countryside, pushing it back to the countryside when it moves from there! “Homesick Birds”, all unaware of this, were flooding into Istanbul with “Mid- morning trains” from Haydarpaşa to Istanbul wagon after wagon, boat after boat, camion after camion, even though they look at Istanbul not with their eyes but with their ears, noses or who knows maybe with the napes of their necks, as they drink the water, breathe the air, eat the bread of Istanbul they were developing, learning how to look with their eyes, how to comb their hair, how to read and write, trying to resemble Istanbulites. Were they resembling? Even though the newcomer “homesick birds” were not, those who are one generation after them, especially if they go to school, did not resemble their parents, but Istanbulites.131 (247-8)

131 “Bundan öncekiler gibi bu da [kuşluk treni] gelecek, raylarda serilip kalacak, fötr şapkalı, tayyörlü, mantolu karşılayıcıları olmayan kara, kuru, sevimsiz “Gurbet kuşları”, Haydarpaşa Garı’nın yabancıya çok muhteşem gelen, çekinme, hatta korku veren yüksek çatılarıyla büyük yapılarına hayran hayran bakacaklardı. 88

In the earlier pages of this analysis, the narrator’s use of adjectives such as “dark and skinny”132 were discussed as examples of double-voiced discourse. Here we see a repetition of such a use, including the same adjectives, “dark”133 and “skinny”134. In this passage, for the only time in the novel, the narrator openly declares his point of view about the immigrants of the city. This also sounds like the message of the novel: if immigrants’ children find the opportunity of education they will adapt to urban life. The word “resemble” draws our attention here. The narrator does not talk about becoming an Istanbulite but resembling an Istanbulite. This sounds like regarding only the old-Istanbulites as Istanbulites. However, if Istanbulite means an urbanite in this context, it is possible for the future generations of immigrants to be Istanbulites rather than resembling them. In this sense, the narrator’s use of the word “resemble” should not be regarded as a manifestation of the limits to the future generations’ process of adapting to urban life. It should also be added that in the novel there are almost no characters who are defined as Istanbulites, and who reflect urban identity. The only Istanbulite in the novel is Clerk Hilmi, who is a minor character. Other than that, Hüseyin’s wife is an urban woman from Ankara. In other words, the only Istanbulites who appear in the novel are those who attack immigrants on the street, and they do not appear elsewhere in the story. In this sense, the lack of urban role models for immigrants is also implied. As quoted above, in the very first chapter of the novel, when immigrants, one of whom is Memed, get off the train at Haydarpaşa, none of them can respond to the insults of the Istanbulites (3). After the time he has spent in the city, when Memed is at Haydarpaşa once again, this time to meet his father and siblings, “urbanites”135 (261) insult immigrants in just the same way. Memed’s reaction is completely different this time, when a man calls them

Büyük şehrin sevmediği, hatta nefret ettiği insanlardı bunlar. İstanbul’u kılık kıyafetleri, yaban yaban bakışlarıyla çirkinleştiriyor, hatta kirletiyorlardı. Vatandaş matandaş, zaten nazla niyazla gelen Batılı turistlerin midelerini bulandırmaya hakları yoktu, olamazdı, olmamalıydı. İşi hükümet önemle ele almalı, kanun çıkarmalı, sokmamalıydı büyük şehre! Bu çirkinlik, bu kir, bu pas “Milli ayıbımız” olabilirdi; bu ayıbın köylerde kalması, taşınınca köylere geri itilmesi “Milli ödev” olmalıydı! Bütün bunlardan habersiz “Gurbet kuşları”, “Kuşluk trenleriyle”, Haydarpaşa’dan İstanbul’a vagon vagon, vapur vapur, kamyon kamyon akıyor, İstanbul’a ilk zamanlar gözleriyle değil, kulakları, burunları ya da ne bileyim belki de enseleriyle baksalar bile, İstanbul’un suyunu içe, havasını koklaya, ekmeğini yiye gelişiyor, gözleriyle bakmayı, saç taramayı, okuma yazmayı öğreniyor, İstanbullulara benzemeye çalışıyorlardı. Benziyorlar mıydı? İstanbul’a ilk gelen “Gurbet kuşları” benzemeseler bile, bir göbek sonrakiler, hele okula da gidiyorlarsa, analarına babalarına değil, İstanbullulara benziyorlardı.” 132 “kara kara kuru kuru” 133 kara 134 kuru 135 “şehirliler” 89

“bears”136 (261): “‘Bears are like you,’ he said. ‘What is bearish about us?’”137 (261) The insulting men explain to Memed that their comments are not meant for him, a remark revealing that Memed does not look like one of the immigrants who have just arrived in the city. Memed tells the men that they cannot say this to others either. Memed has claimed the language within the time he has been in the city, so his response now is just the opposite of his silence when he first arrived. The narrator’s rendering of this conversation has a feeling of praise: “And he repeated what Kastamonulu once said to the city men with a burst of spleen: ‘They are children of this country as much as you are!’”138 (261). This is the moment when Memed reaches Kastamonulu’s level: an immigrant who is aware of his rights as a citizen, and who possesses the language to express this. As discussed above, the narrator explains in the first chapter that the immigrants are not able to say anything about “citizenship, freedom of travel”139 (3). This theme, which is introduced on the third page of the novel, is completed after almost two hundred and sixty pages, with Memed’s furious reply to hostile Istanbulites about his right to the city. In this novel, Kemal manages to be the voice of the voiceless to a certain extent. If throughout the book, Memed’s inner world was given more deeply in its entirety with what he brings from his rural background, then the voice of the voiceless would probably have been heard more. Raymond Williams discusses the “positive identification of intuitions of nature and the values of shared work with human depth” (The Country 203) he finds in the Thomas Hardy novel The Woodlanders (1887). Such a dimension is lacking in Birds, since throughout the novel Memed’s urbanising side is appreciated while his rural side is ignored altogether. The dominant imagery in the novel is of a city in the process of demolition as a result of the Menderes policies, and immigrants supplying the labour force for this. Not only was historical heritage destroyed in this process, many people lost their homes too. At the same time, shanties were being built in the city. Depictions of shanties in the novel are from a positive angle and the demolishing of the shanty neighbourhood where Ayşe and Memed live in the novel’s final paragraphs is narrated with a sympathetic resonance: “They were demolishing. They were demolishing without compassion for human labour, pinched and scraped, cultivated by the light in the eyes of human labour”140 (372). The inevitability of the

136 “ayılar” 137 “ ‘Ayı sizin gibi olur,’ dedi. ‘Neremiz ayı bizim?’ 138 “Ve bir zamanlar Kastamonulunun şehir uşaklarına söylediklerini olanca hıncıyla tekrarladı: ‘Onlar da sizin kadar bu vetanın evladı!’“(261) 139 “yurttaşlık, gezi esenliği” 140 “Yıkıyorlardı. İnsan emeğine, dişten tırnaktan artırılmış, göz nuruyla yoğurulmuş insan emeğine acımadan yıkıyorlardı.” 90 shanty as the only option of accommodation for immigrants is elaborated in the novel as a message related to the right to housing. Very symbolically, as the novel ends with the demolition of shanties, it depicts immigrants’ desperation about losing their homes, as well as their determination to survive in the city. The last sentence of the novel belonging to Ayşe represents this determination in the best possible way: “Stand up man stand up. We will build again, we will build a new one!”141 (372) These words, echoing the Turkish adage ‘nest is made by the female bird’142, are also meaningful in terms of the gender dimension of the novel: full of will and determination, they have a symbolic value promoting women’s power, and their potential to be fulfilled in urban life. Birds, written at an early stage of the rural to urban migration in Turkey, encounters the anti-immigrant rhetoric of elitists with a good immigrant vs. bad immigrant opposition. The issue of symbolic violence against immigrants is an important theme of the novel, which advises immigrants to adapt to urban values by using the standard dialect, dressing in an urban way and by reading newspapers and books in order to survive this violence. Birds proposes literacy and education as the key to urbanisation for immigrants, yet it does not problematise the difficulties of getting a proper education for children of immigrants, given their economic situation, the issue of child labour and the low quality of schools in poor districts. Therefore, in a way, it attributes too much significance to the capability and will of individual immigrants in their quest for a place in urban life, and in their struggle against exclusion mechanisms.

141 “Kalk lan kalk. Gene yaparık, yenisini yaparık!” 142 yuvayı dişi kuş kurar 91

CHAPTER 6

Uncle Halo and Two Bulls: A Sarcastic Look at Rural to Urban Migration and Its Discontents The novel analysed as a counter-point to Birds is Halo Dayı ve İki Öküz [Uncle Halo and Two Bulls]143 by satirist Muzaffer İzgü. The book which is İzgü’s third novel was first published in 1973 by Bilgi, and was reprinted for the ninth time in 2007 by the same publisher. A television drama adaptation was broadcast on TRT, the national public broadcaster of Turkey, in 1979. The novel approaches the idea of the right to the city through the wider perspective of citizenship rights. Emphasizing the serious problems with equal citizenship in Turkey, the novel, albeit indirectly, exhibits the distance to the right to the city when even the most basic rights of citizens are violated so easily. The divide between the East and the West of the country, the exclusion of the people living in Eastern Turkey, and these people’s inability to claim their rights in the 1960s when the novel is set, come to the fore as important themes in the novel. The novel does not regard urbanisation as an ideal, on the contrary it gives the message that life in harmony with nature can be much more fulfilling for some people than living in an urban context. The setting constitutes a crucial element in the novel in giving this message.

143 References in this dissertation are made to the impression by Bilgi, 2007. 92

Fig. 4. The cover of the impression used in this analysis.

93

6.1 Plot Summary Bulls begins in a village in Anatolia where a young boy called İdiris returns home upon completing his military service. İdiris is the only son of Halo, the protagonist. Halo is sixty-three years old (51), and during his military service he fought in the army against the Sheikh Said Rebellion in 1925 when he was in his early or mid-twenties144 (50). Therefore, it can be inferred that the novel is set around the mid-1970s. Soon after the arrival of İdiris, Halo shares with him his dream of having two bulls. Halo explains to his wife that he expects their son to go to Istanbul and earn the money to buy the bulls. As his wife rejects this plan, Halo decides to go to Istanbul himself. His wife and fellow villagers find him unrealistic, due to his age. As Halo departs the village on foot, his wife changes her mind and motivates İdiris to join his father. İdiris catches up with him, and so starts their journey. On the road, everyone who hears that Halo is going to Istanbul to work is extremely surprised. Until the pair arrives at their destination, they get scorned various times by urbanites for being too rural. After a short search for work, they start labouring on a building site while staying in a hut within this site. Halo attracts the admiration of the building site’s owner. Thus Halo is promoted to be the supervisor of the fellow workers. For Halo, despite extremely difficult living and working conditions, life flows in Istanbul as he has planned, while İdiris is in a state of constant shock in the city, mesmerised by the women in their liberated outfits, fancy hair and make-up. Unexpectedly one day, he comes across Murtaza, a friend of his from military service days. This cunning man, manipulating İdiris’s obsession with women, easily makes him agree to marry his wife’s sister. İdiris deserts his father to marry this woman, who is older than him and divorced with two children. He does not see Halo for a long time and eventually when he comes for a visit, he steals all the money that Halo has been saving. Devastated, Halo starts saving up money from scratch, now with the trauma of having been betrayed by his son. After a while, İdiris re-appears, this time with his mother, his sister and her two children. It turns out that he has gone to Mescitli to see his family and brought them to Istanbul to live with Halo. Thus, Halo starts living with his family; he does not tell his wife about İdiris’s betrayal and continues to work with great effort. His daughter, who is a widow, gets married to a friend of İdiris and gets settled in Istanbul. Finally, Halo manages to save the money for the bulls, so he and his wife go back. Holding the two bulls’ tethers in their hands,

144 The age to start military service was 21 in those years. Halo’s service lasted for five and a half years (50), we are not told in the novel in which year of his military service the rebellion broke out. 94 the couple proudly enter their village, unfortunately only to find out that the three fellow villagers who motivated Halo’s obstinacy about his scheme are no longer alive. It should be noted that, as the plot summary also reveals, the style of immigration here is unique. First, the main intention of Halo and Idiris is not immigration but to work in Istanbul temporarily. However, as İdiris stays and establishes his life in the city, the novel becomes an immigration story, at least partially. Second, it is arguable whether the motivation for Halo and İdiris to go to Istanbul can simply be defined as economic necessity. For Furrer, this is not the main reason for the pair to go to Istanbul, she stresses that Halo goes to Istanbul because of his stubbornness, and therefore Idiris ends up following him (293). Furrer’s argument has a point. However, at the beginning, when Halo plans to send İdiris to Istanbul, all he wants is the money to be able to buy two bulls, and he does not have any intention of going to Istanbul himself. For a peasant, not having two bulls to use in farming is a result of poverty. In this respect, the motivation for Halo’s scheme to go to Istanbul has an economic basis. Halo’s bet with fellow villagers which turns the scheme into an obsession for him only adds to this motivation.

6.2 Main Features The four-hundred-and-three-page long novel consists of fourteen unnumbered chapters. “Psychological characterization, detailed descriptions of everyday life, and dialogue that captures the idioms of natural speech” (“Realism” 654) described as dominant elements of realist literature are to a large extent valid for Bulls. The novel is a bittersweet social satire and its certain motifs make it possible to argue that at various moments it is informed by a darker brand of humour, e.g. the irony based on the deaths of the three men in the village at the end of the novel. Yet the novel does not question reality as would examples of black humour, instead, in the manner of social satire it critiques negative aspects of reality: state, society and individuals. Satirizing both political and moral issues, it can be seen as a successful example of gallows humour which is “not humor-for-humor, but humor with a definite purpose—that is, to ridicule with irony, invectives, and sarcasm in order to become a means of an effective social control” (Obrdlik 716). The political objects of satire in the novel are: lack of human and citizenship rights in Turkey, the impossibility of urban citizenship rights within this context, the discrepancy between the state discourse and the reality of citizenship practice in Turkey, the violence of 95 the police and the military. An indirect critique of the social and cultural gap between the East and the West of the country; cultural deprivation; and discrimination against the people of Eastern Anatolia can also be inferred from the novel. The moral objects of satire are the corruption of individuals in their struggle to survive, particularly in the urban jungle; prejudice against immigrants and the poor; men’s weakness related to sexual desires and women’s abuse of this weakness; and betrayal among family members. Men’s obsession with physical power is also mocked in the novel indirectly. Although the novel does not openly suggest an alternative or a solution to the ills of society, the political aspect in it calls for a change in state-citizen relations, while the moral aspect creates an awareness of ethical behaviour in social life as well as within families. Humour is the strength of the novel without which it could have been didactic. Lack of human and citizenship rights unfolds on various levels as the main object of satire in the novel. It satirizes the non-existence of even the most basic human rights, let alone citizenship rights and urban citizenship rights. The style of the novel can be summarised as follows. The narrator uses colloquial language. In the dialogues, which are highly realistic, dialect is used. In the narration, inverted syntax is used occasionally. In the dialogues, word order is unmarked. The novel does not make use of long and complex sentences. The use of punctuation is standard. The novel is narrated in the third-person, by a narrator who is not one of the characters. No information is given about the narrator’s gender or age. Although the novel mainly employs authorial narration, in many chapters it comes close to figural narration with psycho-narrations145 which bring the perspectives of either of the two central characters to the fore, giving them the function of reflector character. In this sense, the novel moves between authorial and figural narration. The narrator is a marked one with his way of describing events, emotions of characters, situations and so forth that is non-neutral, usually coloured with adjectives.

145 Keen lists “the three modes of representation of consciousness” as follows: “psycho-narration, narrated monologue (also called free indirect discourse), and quoted monologue (also called interior monologue)” (60). She defines psycho-narration as “the narrator’s discourse about a character’s consciousness” and notes that this mode is common “in an authorial narrative situation” (60). Keen describes narrated monologue as “the words and modes of expression of the character” given with “the tense and person of the narrator’s language” (61). She notes that when “tagging (with words such as ‘she thought’)” is not used this mode is called free indirect discourse (60). Finally, as Keen points out, in quoted monologue the narration is changed “from the past tense . . . to present tense and from the third person . . . to the first person” (60) and “thoughts, though unspoken, are written in such a way that they could plausibly be spoken aloud without violating the reader’s sense of grammatical speech” (61). She adds that “extended passages of quoted monologue are sometimes called interior monologue or stream of consciousness” (61). 96

6.3 Title and Beginning The humorous title of the novel Uncle Halo and Two Bulls gives us a strong hint about the story: obviously, a bull is a symbol of farming and peasantry, and Halo’s fascination with bulls, the way he dreams and talks about them—all exaggerated for humorous effect, underlines the profound difference between his ambitions and those of other immigrants. He is in Istanbul only for the money to buy two bulls. The novel begins with the following sentence: “Who said it, who called it is unknown, but the name of this village is Mescitli”146 (5). In the very first paragraph, it is explained that under the snow it takes six days for the villagers to reach the town centre; the name of the town is not given. There is snow until May, even June; a detail which renders it possible to assume that the geographical location is the easternmost corner of Anatolia. On the one hand, this is not solely an idyllic picture of rural life, since the difficulties of life in a remote landscape with harsh climatic conditions are obvious. However, the very same narration succeeds in creating a fairy-tale like atmosphere within such challenging living conditions, as in the description “ . . . everywhere becomes pure white, until May, until June…”147 (5) The villagers are entrapped during this cold winter not only in their village but also in their houses; however, they are grateful just to have enough to survive: “ . . . if there is bulgur soup . . . no butter no salt in it but nice and warm” (6); “fortunately we’ve got our turf, we’ve got our goat, may God give patience, strength to those who are out in the cold…” 148 (6) After a brief description of the village, a long winter’s night in one of the village houses is described. The family members sleep in the same room, sharing beds, and they are deprived of proper heating. The people of Mescitli live in destitution and the family whose story is being told is no exception to that: due to the cost of gas, turning the gas lamp on is a luxury kept for special occasions. Other details which are given throughout the first pages of the novel emphasise that the living conditions in the village are extremely poor. The atmosphere at the beginning of the novel is animated owing to elaborate, almost poetic descriptions drawing a picture of daily life in the village. In the short first chapter, the strength people take from oral culture in this remote rural location is stressed: in the long nights of winter, grandfather’s war memoirs commingle with grandmother’s fairy tales, which have been told to the members of the family over and over again, far too many times (5). In this chapter, the narrator’s sympathetic stance towards the

146 “Kim demiştir, kim koymuştur bilinmez, bu köyün adı Mescitli köyüdür.” 147 “ . . . her yer apak olur, ta ki mayısa dek, ta hazirana dek…” 148 “ . . . varsa bulgur aşı . . . yağsız tuzsuz ama sıcacık” (6); “eyi ki tezeğimiz var, davarımız var, Allah dışarda galanlara sabır vere, guvvat vere …” (6) 97 villagers and his perception of life in this village, as very hard yet quaint, are strongly felt, giving the first signals of one of the central messages of the novel.

6.4 Characters and Related Themes

6.4.1 Immigrants to Pity, Immigrants to Be Disgusted By The narration about the two main characters is dominated by affection for the pair, emphasising the hardships they suffer. This sympathy continues in the narration about Halo throughout the book, while it ends for İdiris at the point where he deserts his father in Istanbul. After this event, in a neutral tone, the narrator leaves the decision to the reader whether or not to pity İdiris for his stupidity. Halo is old, honest and chaste, while İdiris is young, dishonest and fully occupied with sexual thoughts. In the first chapter, the humorous characterisation of Halo as an utterly and totally stubborn man, caricatures male obsession with physical strength. Halo takes inspiration from his late father, who has once climbed up to the top of the mountain in the village as an elderly man, a triumph even for youngsters. İdiris is born after four girls, which makes him extremely precious in his family, since this is an environment where families favour their sons over their daughters; however this is not a point emphasised in the story. His fixation on sexuality, which is revealed only on the surface in the opening chapter, foreshadows future events that will determine the direction of their fate in the unfriendly environment of Istanbul. It would be difficult to define Halo and İdiris as a binary opposition in the novel, since İdiris appears as a part of Halo, a child he has to take care of rather than a teenager on his way to becoming an adult. It would be better to call them a pair whose character traits and behaviours can be analysed in comparison with each other. In the novel, the author employs the technique of exaggeration in developing the main character, Halo; while he ridicules the characteristics of Halo’s son, İdiris, turning him into a caricature, especially through his sexual frustration. For Halo, Istanbul only means a giant market where he can sell his labour until he makes the money to buy the two bulls. For him, his time in Istanbul is only a temporary shift of hard work for a specific purpose. He is not interested in the city, rather intimidated by it, does not spend time in the streets of Istanbul, works and spends all of his time on the building site without any curiosity about what goes on outside of it. On the other hand, İdiris the teenager is curious about the city. However, his interest is limited to the young girls and women he sees around as he wanders the city and in places such as brothels or dirty nightclubs. In the novel, the reader is invited to laugh with Halo rather than at Halo; while to laugh at Idiris not with Idiris. As Jill Twark underscores, “sympathetic humor is used to 98 demonstrate sympathy with its object”, and creates the atmosphere “to laugh with the target” (15). This is the case in the novel where Halo is concerned. The difficulty Halo faces when he tries to understand what a Public Employment Office is (109-110), which creates sympathy in the reader, is followed by a description of İdiris’s voyeurism and sexual fixation about the women he sees around. Similarly, in the passage about the train station (131-140) discussed below, sympathy for poor immigrants about the symbolic violence they face, is juxtaposed with the repulsion İdiris’s sexual fixations cause, as he has dirty thoughts about a woman waiting in the train station. This is a central dynamic throughout the novel: Halo creates sympathy and İdiris creates disgust; which is a version of the good immigrant vs. bad immigrant opposition. It should also be noted that the good immigrant in the novel is the one who will eventually go back to where he comes from. When talking about İdiris, the narrator is neutral, the events and thoughts are exaggerated to ridicule him, while even the most absurd moments are narrated as ordinary events. It can be argued that although the novel mainly follows the conventions of traditional social satire, in ridiculing İdiris it is closer to dark humour. The novel presents İdiris as a character who has nothing in his mind other than sex, no dreams other than those related to sexuality, no aims in life, no ethical values, in brief no inner life other than sexual obsessions. His thoughts and deeds related to sex, which are ridiculed in a highly humorous way, are very funny yet have a disturbing aspect as well. Additionally, in dealing with sexual frustration, the novel crosses over to the sphere of a taboo subject, which is another trait of dark humour. Unlike conventional social satire, dark humour does not offer solutions; but rather accepting the inevitability of the negative, it offers humour as a tool to cope with the awful truth. In this regard, the way İdiris is ridiculed has both dark humour and conventional social satire results in the novel. On the one hand, the disturbing behaviour of some immigrant men mesmerised by the more liberated way women dress in the city is regarded as inevitable and humour is offered to cope with that. On the other hand, it is also possible to see a criticism here, calling for an alternative. Satirising the way Anatolian immigrants are shocked at the liberated women of the city, the novel might also be regarded as being cruel to be kind to immigrants, in order to ensure a change in their behaviour by showing them their parodied image through İdiris. Focusing on this dimension of the tension between immigrants and urbanites, the novel treats as a theme a difficult social problem in daily life arising as a result of immigration: the uncomfortable atmosphere rural men create for urban women with their staring as well as their misconceptions about them. In this difficult encounter, İdiris disturbs urban women by staring at them, while he is also disturbed in this environment. In this frame of mind, he 99 victimises his father while he is also victimised by his sexual frustration in a way that could only happen in the city. The novel’s position is in harmony with the dilemma many urbanites feel about immigrants in the city when they see some immigrants gazing at women in the urban setting: to be disgusted by them and to a certain extent to pity them. Before ending this section, it might be useful to note that the gender aspect of the immigration phenomenon enters Bulls only in terms of İdiris’s fixation about urban women. Changes in lives of immigrant women are not elaborated in the novel as a theme. It is simply implied that both immigrant men and women learn to be cunning in the city, as discussed below.

6.5 Setting and Related Themes

6.5.1 ‘Citizens’ Intimidated in the Public Realm Throughout the novel, in the aspects of the story where immigrants are in a position to disturb urbanites, humour is used most dominantly as if trying to soften the prejudice against them. In the aspects related to how immigrants are victimised, however, humour leaves centre stage to realism. Both approaches serve as a call for empathy for immigrants. The novel deals with the theme of the right to the city by locating it in the wider context of citizenship rights, with the message that, in a country where people lack their sense of worth as citizens, and are unaware of their rights, they cannot develop a sense of right to the city. Inevitably, public realm comes to the fore as a significant motif in the novel connected with the theme of citizenship rights and absence thereof. Certainly, an argument on the public realm is outside the scope of this dissertation. Here, public realm is simply regarded as “the parts of a village, town or city (whether publicly or privately owned) that are available, without charge, for everyone to see, use and enjoy including streets, squares and parks; all land to which everyone has ready, free and legal access 24 hours a day”149 (Cowan 312). In the novel, the state’s intimidating magnificence and its omnipotence amalgamates with the unwelcoming atmosphere of Istanbul and makes the city experience for immigrants more difficult. It satirises how people are terrorised by the institutions and representatives of the state, how strongly they feel threatened by the military and the police when they have done nothing wrong at all, and how intimidated they are in the public realm. Some examples are given below.

149 Cowan notes that the concept is “also called public domain and public space” (312). 100

The first stop of Halo and İdiris’s journey is the town their village is nearest to. In his sixty-three-year long life, Halo has been to this town only a handful of times. The detail that, apart from one time in his childhood, each of Halo’s visits to the town has been due to a reason connected with the military, is worth attention. The first one of these visits was in enrol in his five-and-a-half-year long military service, in which he fought against the Sheikh Said Rebellion150 (50). In fact, in those years military service as a gendarme would last three years. It is not stated why Halo did his service for almost twice as long. His second time in town was when he was called up as a military reservist. In the other two experiences, he was taken there by the gendarmes, once as a witness and once for an interrogation about a hidden bandit. During the latter, Halo was beaten by the gendarme for three days: “Uncle Halo saw gendarmes all his life, because he had been beaten by gendarmes quite a lot. Especially once, when he was taken to the town for the bandit, they gave him a beating for three days”151 (57). The seemingly neutral narration here hints at a double-voiced discourse: the unquestioning approach of the narrator to the event in fact emphasises how unquestioningly Halo has lived through this experience. The same style of narration can be detected here as well: “in the south on the Iraqi border for some reason English planes opened fire on them” (50)152. When it comes to İdiris, his only memories of the town are stopping there on the way to and from his military service (51). It might be useful to note at this point that the usage of the short forms of names such as Halo, Haso, Mamo, Gülo throughout the novel, when considered together with the geographical setting of the village, accentuate the possibility of Mescitli being a Kurdish village, a potentiality which is never elucidated in the course of the novel. Additionally, the Kurdish vocabulary includes a word halo which means uncle. Another important detail related to this issue is the enigma about the city which the village of Mescitli depends on. Usually, when people ask each other where they are from, they give the name of the city which their town and/or village is nearest to. Interestingly, in this novel, whenever asked this question, Halo gives only the name of his village, Mescitli. Throughout the novel, he never gives the name of the city, and during one incident, he becomes irritated by a man who, understandably, asks this to him:

150 This was a rebellion that started “on February 13, 1925, [as] the first major Islamic rebellion against the secularizing reforms of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, [which] broke out in the Kurdish-populated provinces of Turkey” (“Şeyh Said Rebellion”). 151 Halo Dayı, tüm yaşantısında jandarma görmüştü, çünkü az dayağını yememişti jandarmanın. Hele bir kezinde eşkıya için kasabaya getirdiklerinde, tam üç gün dayak atmışlardı. 152 “güneyde Irak sınırında nedendir bilinmez, İngiliz uçakları bunların üstüne ateş açmıştı” 101

Where do you hail from? he asked. - Mescitli… - Where is that? Uncle Halo twisted his head as if saying “What’s it to you man!” while he put in the car the big chunk of soil on the tip of his shovel… (153)153 In fact, although never explained in the novel, Mescitli is a village in the İspir county of Erzurum (“İspirin Köyleri”). Erzurum is one of the easternmost cities of Turkey, with a significant Kurdish population. In the novel, neither the narrator nor the characters ever mention the name of the county or the city Mescitli is nearest to. The novelist’s choice not to reveal the name of the city may be a deliberate attempt to hide the fact that it is a city with a significant Kurdish population, in other words to make it less explicit that Mescitli is a Kurdish village. This would make even more sense considered together with Halo’s fear of state institutions. Although all rural people are intimidated by the state, particularly in the 1970s when the novel is set, such a fear is more tremendous where Kurdish peasants are concerned. Upon learning the price of the hotel in the town, Halo and İdiris decide to sleep in a park, as a result of which they get taken to the police station by the watchman. This encounter with the police brings back the bad memories of his three-day-long experience with the gendarmes to Halo’s mind. After this failed attempt to make use of the park, which is the first public realm they attempt to enjoy, they find themselves in the second: the coffee house. As Halo is berated with aggressive jokes by the men in this place, by using his fists he scares them off and leaves with his son triumphantly. The next day they come across another park, but do not find the courage even to go and sit on one of the benches: “You never know, maybe it is forbidden to sit as well . . . ”154 (68) says Halo. “There is no saying which part of the city is forbidden, which part is free. You go and sit, then comes someone, here comes a penalty for sitting. That’s why, let’s go up this slope…”155 (68) The narrator comments: “No one knows, maybe Halo was running away from the city atmosphere, town atmosphere from

153 - Memleket nere? diye sordu. - Mescitli… - Nerenin olur ora? Halo Dayı, “Ne yapacaksın bre herif!” der gibi kafasını kıvırdı, küreğinin ucundaki kocaman bir toprak parçasını arabaya atarken… 154 “Ne olur ne olmaz, bakmışın oturmak da yasakdır . . . ” 155 “Şeher yerinin neresinin yassak, neresinin selbest olduğu heç bilinmez. Geçen oturun, gelir dikilir biri başına, ver baalım oturma cezası. Onun içun biz şu yamaca çıkak…” 102 the very first day”156 (68). This remark implies that the city, even the town is a battleground for a peasant, and also stresses once again that for Halo and İdiris, at this stage of their journey even so small a town is an eerie place. The use of inverted syntax in the sentence invites a feeling of empathy from the reader. The object of satire here is peasants’ cluelessness about their rights as the citizens of the country. They continue their journey to Ankara in the back of a lorry, then change to another lorry that is going to Istanbul. The tale of their journey is infused with instances where they are humiliated for being poor peasants from the East, as well as with numerous first experiences; such as seeing women wearing makeup, crossing the road on the highway, paying to use a toilet and seeing the sea. All these instances are narrated with a feeling of affection, in a way that creates sympathy in the reader, and the comic effect is mostly based on the technique of exaggeration. The two protagonists complete an eye-opening stage even before they step on Istanbul territory, and when they arrive at their destination, as they are seeking a labouring job, they are recommended to go to the Public Employment Office157. Halo feels intimidated by the idea of a government office: - Office? What sort of a place is that? - It belongs to the state, it finds jobs for you… - Does it have a manager at the top? - Of course there is… - Forget it son, we can’t go to such places with managers and all that, we get scared…158 Public realm not only brings a fear of officials, but also of anyone who has some sort of social and economic power. On one occasion, the father and the son are in Sirkeci, sitting on the pavement and watching the sea in fascination. At that point, a car tyre comes to a halt on İdiris’s duvet. Halo and İdiris are afraid to ask the driver, who is also enjoying the view with his girlfriend, to move the car slightly so that the duvet can be freed, since the driver seems like a wealthy man (124).

156 “Bilinmez, belki de Halo Dayı daha ilk günden kaçıyordu kent havasından, kasaba havasından.” 157 İşçi Bulma Kurumu. 158 - Gurum? Ne hal bir yerdir ora? - Devletindir, iş bulur size… - Başında müdürü de var mı? - Var tabii… - Yok oğul, öyle müdürlü yerlere gedemek biz, korkarık … (109-110) 103

At the end of their first day in Istanbul, Halo and İdiris start looking for a place to stay for free, since even the cheapest hotels are too expensive for them. Upon the recommendation of a peddler, they arrive at the waiting room of the Sirkeci Train Station to spend the night indoors. This train station scene, which is prolonged for nine pages (131-140), is one of the two definitive passages in the novel treating the theme of peasants’ anxiety caused by state agencies and the public realm. As analysed below, the narration in these passages has a highly significant function in the messages of the novel. Halo’s reaction as he enters the train station incorporates various themes of the novel discussed here. As they enter the station, Halo sees the train wagons and concernedly says: “Oh my, son, this place belongs to the government, walk on tiptoe . . . ”159 (131) When Halo is about to fall asleep on one of the seats of the waiting room of the station, he is warned by the man in the next seat about the rule which forbids falling asleep in the station. In response to Halo’s surprise, he adds: “This is the decision of the government…”160 The narrator emphasises that these decisions’ enforcement is stronger on people like Halo: “Once the ban is the government’s ban, one would surrender to the verdict, especially those like Uncle Halo”161 (132). Once again, there is a call for empathy regarding the symbolic violence faced by the poor and the uneducated. Soon, the stationmaster comes in and wakes all those who have fallen asleep on their seats and stresses that if they fall asleep again they will be thrown out of the station. As the officer repeatedly comes into the room to wake these wretches, most of whom are not passengers, Halo starts to think that he is a “duty sergeant ”162 (137), a remark reflecting the vague borders between the state and the army in rural people’s minds in those years, a perception which is even stronger for people from Eastern Turkey. The second, even more striking moment in the novel with this theme of peasants’ anxiety caused by state agencies and the public realm is the incident of the letter from the city council. While Halo and İdiris are staying in one of the semi-constructed buildings belonging to their boss under extremely unsuitable physical conditions, one day they receive an official document left by two council officers. The pair go to the coffee-house and ask a man wearing a tie to explain the contents of the letter to them, a detail revealing that they are illiterate. The man explains that the letter orders those people staying in the unfinished building to go to the municipal offices. Halo and İdiris are terrified. The passage is rich with psychological descriptions reflecting the two immigrants’ confusion and fear as a result of this letter,

159 “Amanın oğul, bura hökümatın, ayağının ucuna bas . . . ” 160 “Hükümetin kararı öyle…” 161 “Yasak hükümetin yasağı olunca, insanın boynu kıldan ince olurdu, hele Halo Dayı gibilerin.” 162 nöbetçi onbaşısı 104 rendered in a sympathetic way. As they are on their way to the hall the next morning, they think that the city council is a person. They eventually find the hall but are too intimidated to go in: “ . . . they could not enter at first because of the magnificence of the building”163 (225). The doorkeeper of the hall makes fun of Halo, as he shows him the paper, trying to learn whom he needs to see. They are also reprimanded by a man at the building for not knowing that they have to take their hats off. Finally, they manage to contact the related official. It turns out that the letter has been sent because they have been spotted staying in an inappropriate place, as the official tells them: “ . . . that place is not suitable for a citizen to reside, this report was written because of this…”164 (229) The conversation between Halo and the official is an instance of powerful satire: Halo finds this order incomprehensible as he compares this place with the living conditions back in his village. The sharp contrast between the official discourse on the state’s concerns about its ‘citizens’ health and safety vs. the reality of rural Anatolia creates an almost absurd atmosphere in this dialogue.

6.6 Conclusion The novel’s ending is based on an amusing situational irony: Halo’s main motivation in going to Istanbul to save up money was the three men in the village who think that this is an awkward and unrealistic plan, and make fun of him. Since, after Halo achieves this scheme and comes back to his village all the three men are dead, the story ends in a way Halo has not anticipated at all. In the novel, the one who goes back to his village is considered positively, while all the characters staying in the city are portrayed with a degree of negativity. Murtaza is a cheater, his wife and his wife’s sister whom İdiris marries are selfish and highly unlikeable characters, if not cheaters. İdiris, who is never portrayed as a positive character, is one of those who stay, and it is a very important detail that just as he gets married to an older woman with children, which is regarded as a negative trait among the characters of the novel, he ensures his widowed sister with children gets married with a young and inexperienced immigrant in Istanbul. İdiris who is a naïve country bumpkin when he first arrives in Istanbul, learns to be cunning in the city, and changes his position from the manipulated to the manipulator, at least on this issue. Additionally, the immigrants in the novel who stay in Istanbul do not have an understanding of how to be an urbanite. The reader infers that their only motivation to stay in the city is that they experience better living conditions than in their

163 “… binanın kocamanlığı karşısında birden içeriye giremediler.” 164 “ . . . orası vatandaşın oturmasına uygun değildir, işte bu tutanak onun için tutulmuş…” 105 villages. The immigrants in the book do not question their habits or values within the context of the city. İdiris gets spoiled in Istanbul, the city takes his positive feudal values from him, such as respect for his father, but does not give him any urban values in response. In other words, once he loses his feudal values in the city he is not able to adopt any urban values. Through all of this, the novel provides a solid criticism of immigrants in this city. On the other hand, the novel focuses on the extreme discrepancy between citizenship rights on paper and in practice; as well as on various forms of violence immigrants suffer. The central motifs on which the theme of citizenship is developed are government and military offices and officials, and the vague borders between them in the perception of ‘citizens on paper’. Within this absence of rights in general, the right to the city is not even on the horizon for such citizens, as the novel implies. Therefore, the satire mainly focuses on citizenship at state level. Secor, in her article about the citizenship practice of Kurdish migrants in Istanbul, reminds us that “ . . . cities, as prime sites of ‘public space’ and encounter, are significant locales for the performance of citizenship in daily life . . .” (149). The novel is significant in the way it emphasises how cities as the locus of public space and encounter reveal that citizenship rights in daily life are almost a complete myth in Turkey, especially in the years it is set, and particularly where people from the East of the country are concerned. In addition to that, thoroughly abundant in events and descriptions depicting the ordinary man’s struggle to survive in an environment where hostility is multi-faceted, the novel tackles various sorts of symbolic and economic violence. Throughout the book, Halo and İdiris are marginalised on various levels. They are marginalised in the city because they are peasants. They are marginalised because they come from the East of the country. They are poor, uneducated and deprived of social connections. They do not question their situation, and the narrator efficiently stresses this lack of questioning at the times when narration seems to be neutral and non-committal. In sum, in the novel the idea of the right to the city is developed implicitly through various themes, and the criticism of immigrants does not seem contradictory to such a position within the realistic contours of the work inside an egalitarian and humanistic framework.

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CHAPTER 7

The Homesick Birds and Uncle Halo and Two Bulls: A Comparative Analysis Although The Homesick Birds (1962) and Uncle Halo and Two Bulls (1973) deal with the theme of rural to urban migration with quite different approaches, it is possible to categorise them as examples of the first phase of the Istanbul novels with immigrant characters, where an urban narrator165 talks about rural immigrants. Birds seems to aim at reaching immigrants as potential readers, in addition to other reader groups. Offering its protagonist Memed as a perfect role model for immigrants, it is a novel which immigrants can read and get inspired by. On the other hand, the protagonist of Bulls is Halo who goes back to his hometown, and the other main character İdiris is portrayed as an anti-hero immigrant. Thus the novel does not propose an ideal way to become an urbanite for immigrants.

7.1 Characters and Related Themes In terms of characterisation, whereas in Birds we see Memed’s development similar to that which would be found in a bildungsroman, in Bulls there is no such character development: Halo is already an old man, and the city does not make any changes to his outlook on life. His son İdiris, who could have been a perfect example for character development in the city, does change in his years in the city, but not in a way that can be called growing up and maturing; instead he simply learns to be cunning to survive in the city. Memed’s character development, which goes hand in hand with his adoption of an urban perspective, can be viewed as the core of Birds’s message: the emancipating potential of immigration to the big city. Similarly, the way İdiris cannot develop his personality even slightly in all those years he spends in Istanbul is in line with Bulls’s general stance: scepticism about immigration to big cities as a potential opportunity for a more self-aware and fulfilling life than that lived in the countryside. Additionally, while in Birds the emancipating potential of urban life is signalled not only for men but also for women, the gender aspect of immigration as an opportunity for women does not appear as a theme of Bulls. In Birds, as Memed starts to adopt an urban identity, following the steps of another immigrant, Kastamonulu, he becomes able to claim certain rights as a citizen of the country. First and the most visibly of all, he feels the right to come and live in whichever city of his country he prefers. Owing to this awareness, he becomes able to defend himself against the hostility in the public realm. As a matter of fact, the manifestation of Memed’s new

165 The narrator who is an urbanite, and whose narration reveals this fact. 107 perspective as a member of the urban society first appears in his confidence in the public realm. On the contrary, neither Halo nor İdiris ever comes close to defending himself against discrimination by urbanites, since they never feel that they have the right to be in the city just as a citizen.

7.2 Setting and Related Themes Birds is a novel with a message about internal migration, urbanisation and the development of the proletariat reciprocally. The focus of its setting is the city. On the other hand, Bulls’s message is mainly about the ways peasants, particularly those from the East of Turkey, are isolated from the rest of the country: socially, culturally and economically. Accordingly, while most of it is set in the city, it can best be described as sort of a road novel, at the end of which the main character goes back home while his companion stays in the new place, i.e. Istanbul. The titles of the two books reflect their focuses clearly: The Homesick Birds is about immigrants who find a new home in a faraway place, while Uncle Halo and Two Bulls is mainly the story of Halo, who sets off to the city to only stay there for a short while, by no means with the intention of immigrating. Birds emphasises the inevitability of rural to urban migration in the process of machine-based agricultural reform in rural Anatolia, and the book implies that peasants (both Memed who migrates to Istanbul, and his father who works in Çukurova) have no other chance than looking for bread in big cities. On the other hand, although Bulls emphasises the extreme difficulties of life in the villages of Eastern Anatolia, it does not offer rural to urban migration as the alternative to life in poor villages. While in Birds the city has a strong presence in the setting, in Halo it is not as strong. While in the former, there are many scenes set in different districts of Istanbul, in the latter the setting is usually limited to the building sites where Halo and İdiris work, which emphasises their limited connection with the city. Similarly, while in Birds the social and historical background is constantly stressed, particularly with reference to the period of rule by Menderes, the absence of such a setting in Bulls seems to imply that immigrants in the city live in complete isolation from its social, political and cultural life. While the former setting is in line with an approach to immigrants as potential actors in social, political and cultural life, the latter seems to imply their isolation. In Birds, Memed gets forced to support the Democrat Party, which he is able to reject but not without a cost. Gafur, one of the main characters, keeps making propaganda for Menderes, and eventually uses his ties with the Democrat Party to get the shantytown where Memed and Ayşe live demolished. On the other hand, in Bulls politics never appears as part of the lives of the characters. It should also be noted that Birds 108 was written only a year after the 27th May 1961 military coup where Menderes was dropped and the most democratic constitution in Turkish history was launched, while Bulls was written a couple of years after another military coup, that of 12th March 1971, which created a regime of fear, especially for the left. This might also be a factor in the latter’s apolitical atmosphere, which reflects the times. Within this context, it is not surprising to see that the right to housing as an aspect of the right to the city comes to the fore as an important theme in Birds in various ways, particularly with the shanty’s demolition marking the ending of the novel. In Bulls, Halo and İdiris live on the building site for a long while, and eventually İdiris starts to live in a shanty. However, the process leading to that does not have a place in the story. Therefore, the theme of the right to housing based on the motif of shanties is not treated in Bulls. The book simply points out that not all immigrants are lucky enough to have a shanty, that there are many of them who spend their time in the city in the sheds on the building sites they work at, a motif which underlines the temporality of their existence in the city. In Birds, Memed also lives on a building site in the first phase of his time in Istanbul while Ayşe lives in a mansion as a maid. The development which marks their existence in the city as permanent is their having a shanty, a roof of their own. Housing and shanty is one of the central themes in the book, developed through its various dimensions.

7.3 Additional Points The two novels’ approaches to the culture of the countryside, i.e. oral culture as opposed to the written culture of urban life and the ‘lack of culture’ of the peasants in the city, is completely different: While in Birds, the peasants who migrate to the city are seen as a blank page to be filled with what they can take from the written culture and life in the city, in Bulls their oral culture is implied at the beginning of the novel with reference to “grandfather’s war memories”166 and “old women’s fairytales”167 (5), and they are portrayed as having a distinct way of life of their own in the heart of nature, as depicted especially poignantly in the first chapter of the novel. As discussed in the analyses of the two novels above, in Birds the village is illustrated as a grim place, while in Bulls the Eastern Anatolian village is described with an idyllic charm, despite its extremely harsh natural conditions. Within this context, it might be possible to argue that Bulls, even if not intentionally, comes

166 “dedenin savaş anıları” 167 “kocakarı masalları” 109 close to an anti-modernist discourse which prefers an ecological life in the heart of nature to the benefits of industrialisation and urbanisation. Neither in Birds nor in Bulls do we hear anything about Alevites. In Birds the word “Kurd” appears in one instance (121) while in Halo this word never appears. In both of the eras, using the word Kurd would be similarly risky, so Orhan Kemal’s inclusion of the word in his novel can be evaluated as a courageous gesture. On the other hand, Bulls might also be regarded as a brave novel for its time, since it is open to be read as the story of two Kurdish men outside their village.

7.4 Conclusion The potential contribution of city life to immigrants’ development, adopting an urban identity, creating social bonds and consequently a new perspective in the city is central in Birds. When immigrants become literate, read newspapers and books, drop their rural accent and change their various habits, they will be members of the city as part of the working class. They will be able to defend and fight for their rights, including the right to the city. The main issue Bulls deals with is exclusion on the state-citizen relationship level. The central characters of the novel feel that they have obligations as citizens, but they are not aware of any rights. This is the primary concern of the novel, while the migrant’s struggle for survival, therefore his/her right to the city is secondary. It should also be noted that, in this novel, immigrants’ exclusion in the city by the state through its public officials outweighs their exclusion by urbanites. In Birds, the exclusion immigrants experience is limited to that by the urbanites. Put simply, Birds presents urban living as an ideal within the reach of the rural population of the country, while Bulls has a slightly cynical standpoint regarding the contribution of city life to immigrants, who are far away from even seeing themselves as citizens of the country.

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PART III - INSIDER’S KNOWLEDGE: SURVIVAL IN THE JUNGLE OF ISTANBUL

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CHAPTER 8

Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills: A Satirical Look at Uniform Urbanity In this chapter, Latife Tekin’s second novel Berci Kristin Çöp Masalları [Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills]168, first published by Adam in 1984, will be analysed. The novel came out in fourteen editions from different publishers, the last of which was from İletişim in 2012. It has been translated into numerous languages including Greek, Persian, Dutch and Japanese169. In the novel, certain themes directly related to the right to the city are treated, based on the search for basic material necessities. The novel problematises the urbanisation of peasants in the city, challenging a uniform understanding of urbanity, in its form as well as in its contents. Through elements of oral culture, both in its diction and its form, the novel emphasises the need for a perception of multiple urban identities.

168 References in this dissertation are made to the impression by Metis, 1998. English translations are taken from the impression of the English translation by Marion Boyars, 2004. 169 This information is given on the back-cover of the 13th edition of the book, by Everest. 112

Fig. 5. The cover of the Turkish impression used in this analysis.

113

Fig. 6. The cover of the English impression used in this analysis. (There is a typographical error on the cover: Kristin is erroneously spelled as Kristen.) 114

8.1 Plot Summary The novel is about the birth and growth of an imaginary shantytown called Çiçektepe [Flower Hill] located on the garbage heaps of an unidentified city described as: “ . . . neighbourhoods in the area known as the city’s garbage hills, including Flower Hill . . . ” (70)170. At the very beginning of the novel, some people build the first shanties in the area. After eight shanties are built, garbage collectors are the first people who hear about this development. After the news spreads, more shanties are built which are then demolished by officials. However, people continue building shanties, and three shantytowns appear in Flower Hill: “They called them Factory Foot, Garbage Pit, and Rivermouth” (25)171. The people of the shanties soon build a mosque. The waste from the factory near which the shanties are built harms the people of Flower Hill. In the meantime, they start picking over the garbage on the hills. When the owner of the garbage appears, they start doing the same work for him for very low wages. Consequently, men start looking for jobs, while women and children continue picking over the garbage for the garbage-owner. Meanwhile, the men of Flower Hill start developing problems with their postures due to the strong wind in the town. Workers in the factories on Rubbish Road go on strike, and they ask the Flower Hill folk for support. The Hill folk go and visit them, however after a while they get annoyed with the strikers because of the notices about the strike left on their door-steps. While the strikes continue, a disease due to foul drinking water spreads around the Hill, a problem which is eventually solved with a new source of water. From these strikes and the highly political atmosphere, it can be inferred that the novel is set in the 1970s. Kurd Cemal, a mafia leader who in the past has taken money from the people of Flower Hill for the land on which they built their shanties, and who is a legendary figure in Flower Hill, comes back to town. Thus, new shanties get built in the forest area by workers from factories on Rubbish Road who pay money to him. Soon after this, a man called Mr. Izak opens a fridge factory on the land opposite the Garbage Hills. His factory is similar to the shanties172. He adds new unregistered buildings to it on the cemetery land. The fridge gas released from the factory harms the people of Flower Hill. As hush money Mr. Izak gets a mosque built next to the factory, the basement of which he uses as a depot for his fridges.

170 “Çiçektepe’yi de içine alan ve şehrin çöp bayırları diye bilinen bölge . . . ” (52) 171 “Birinin adı Fabrikadibi, birinin adı Çöpaltı, birinin adı da Dereağzı oldu” (15). 172 The narrator calls it a “kondu fabrika” (62) which literally means a shanty factory. In the English translation it is translated as a “makeshift factory” (82) as well as a “squatter factory” (99). 115

More shanty-like factories are opened on Rubbish Road. Workers working in these factories become unionised. After a while, this phase of shanty-like factories in the area comes to an end. In the meantime, the garbage is put further away and new shanties get built near the emerging garbage heaps. After Kurd Cemal becomes a member of the Town Council, a new factory producing industrial fridges gets opened in the area. Men enrol in Kurd Cemal’s political party in the hope of getting his support to find a job in this factory. However, only ten of them are lucky enough to do so, thus the rest cancel their membership in the party. Then Cemal mobilises the Flower Hill community to make a school all together. When the school is ready, a teacher who has a romantic outlook about the neighbourhood starts teaching there. Meanwhile, the phase of fake factories producing fake products starts in Flower Hill. Both men and women from the Hill start working at these mushrooming factories. The factories expand towards Rivermouth, and the area where they are located gets called “Flower Hill Industries” (106)173. Small textile workshops are also opened in this area. Flower Hill Industries has a great influence on the daily life and culture of Flower Hill. The Hill folk make money but they get harmed badly because of the industrial waste. They stop collecting garbage and they don’t want it to be left around their neighbourhood. Each new shantytown built in the area has this conflict with the garbage truck drivers. Then Roma people come to Flower Hill and claim the top of the garbage heaps. These people who are not welcome in the Hill make shanty like shelters from cardboard, but soon the owner of the garbage sabotages them all. Five Roma people and their bears get slaughtered in this attack, while those left behind make their cardboard shelters again. Strife emerges between the Alevites and the Sunnites of the Hill, at the end of which the Alevites take the control of the only coffeehouse in Flower Hill Industries. After that, fifteen coffeehouses get opened in Flower Hill, where people play card-games. This development results in the spread of gambling in the Hill. People from other neighbourhoods start to come to Flower Hill to gamble, and the famous gambler Lado moves in there. The place eventually becomes a haven of gambling. Meanwhile, with the opening of a bank branch, consumerism enters the Hill: a competition develops between the people of Flower Hill on owning a fridge, having a bank account and buying all sorts of irrelevant furniture and gadgets, such as liquor glasses or red

173 “Çiçektepe Sanayi” (81) 116 curtains. Soon after, a cinema is opened in the town and Flower Hill women watching films there start dreaming of love, while some of them stop wearing a headscarf. Meanwhile, a former dweller of Flower Hill who has left comes back as a prostitute. News about the demolition of the shanties within thirty days spreads in Flower Hill. While the head of the neighbourhood and elders of Flower Hill (151)174 make their way to the municipal buildings, another group of the Hill folk try to find an alternative place to build new shanties. In the meantime, they learn that Flower Hill belongs to a charitable foundation. Therefore, they start building shanties in another area. So the Hill folk give the name “Foundation Hill”175 to the original Flower Hill, while they call their new area “Unity Hill”176 (155) and try to live in both places at the same time. Eventually, they move to the latter collectively and Foundation Hill turns into a rough place with drugs and prostitution prevalent.

8.2 Main Features The one-hundred-and-twenty-four page long novel comprises twenty-one unnumbered chapters. Hills can be categorised as an example of magic realism. Literary works following this movement “incorporat[e] magical or supernatural events into realistic narrative without questioning the improbability of these events” (“Magic Realism” 437). In Hills such a technique is used. The style of the novel is original. In terms of diction, it is highly unique since at many points in the novel the narrator uses words from dialects, words completely unfamiliar to readers who use standard dialect. While the word order is unmarked, the sentences attract attention in terms of length and complexity: the narration in the novel is entirely based on the use of short sentences always in the simple past tense, echoing the oral culture tradition. The dialogues in the novel are in the form of reported speech in which words and expressions used by rural people are heard. The novel is narrated in the third-person by a narrator who is not one of the characters in the novel. No information is given about the narrator’s gender or age. The novel employs authorial narration, there are no reflector characters in the novel. The narrator is not a marked one, the style of narration is unengaged.

174 “İhtiyar Heyeti” (118) 175 “Vakıf Çiçektepe” (120) 176 “Birlik Çiçektepe” (120) 117

The novel not only mimics oral culture traditions, it also includes the characteristics and narrative forms of oral culture tradition. The passing of time in the novel is signified by natural events, such as the use of snow to indicate winter, a characteristic of oral tradition. The narrator uses various words that would not exist in the standard dialect but would be used among rural people. The narrator sounds like a person from the Flower Hill community, since she uses such words. Forms of oral tradition such as mani, koşma, and türkü have a significant place in the novel. For instance, in the first chapter, the birds flying over the newly-built shanties sing the following song: Wee wee rooftops,/ Won’t you wing with me? Drop the babies’s cradles /And fly away free. Fling us out a wee one,/ Wee, wee, wee! (18)177 In the second chapter, the men of Flower Hill invent a game and play it while singing the following song [türkü]: Oh Wind, / My eyes keep running, my poor knees shake, All the time my shoulders ache, / My arms can’t lift, my fingers chill, One of us must leave this hill. (34)178 In the third chapter, two songs [türkü] from Güllü Baba179 are included (T: 28, 29; E: 40, 41). The songs, short poems or rhymes are sung/recited by characters in the novel as well as rendered as a part of the narration. For instance, on the first page of the fourth chapter, a rhyme is included which is sung by a worker: Ding Ding, Dinga Ding,/ Out on strike the chemists went, Keep it going, Dinga Ding,/ By the factory bloomed a snow-white tent. Keep it going, Dinga Ding. (48)180 After two paragraphs, another rhyme appears as part of the narration about the tent used by the strikers which is flying away in the wind. By the factory bloomed a snow-white tent, / Keep it going, Dinga ding, But the wind blew up and away it went. / Keep it going, Dinga ding. (49)181

177 “Cik cik çatıcık uçsana / Beşikten kanat taksana Bize bir bebek atsana / Cik cik bebecik cik cik” (9) 178 “Gözüm akar oldu dizlerim tutmaz / İki kulucumdan sanıc hiç çıkmaz Buydu parmaklarım kollarım kalkmaz / Ya sen git bu tepeden ya da ben rüzgâr” (22) 179 Literally means ‘Father Güllü’. He is a blind man who is believed to be a holy person with supernatural powers. His name is included as ‘Güllü Baba’ in the English translation of the book, therefore used here as well. 180 “Tıng tınga tınga tıng / İlacın işçisi greve çıktı Hele hele tınga tıng / Fabrika önüne ak çadır açtı Hele hele tınga tıng” (34) 118

After this rhyme, the narrator speaks of the strong wind in a paragraph which is followed by a rhyme on this event (E: 50; T: 35). Rhymes and songs such as these, either told by the characters or by the narrator, appear throughout the novel. The use of such forms, in addition to the words and expressions of dialects, reinforce the feeling that the narrator is one of the people of Flower Hill. In fact, there is one direct reference to oral culture within the contents of the novel. As mentioned above, in the novel there is a character called Lado who lives in Flower Hill, and at one point he decides to write a novel about the place. Speaking of him, the narrator makes the following comment: “ . . . Lado’s adventures remained as the finest examples of the squatters’ oral tradition” (129)182. Güneli Gün describes Tekin’s language as built on the legacy of “her own past in the Anatolian hinterland but also from the language of the Turks' Central Asian nomadic past, of tales, boasts, rumors, laments, riddles, ditties, gossip, exaggerations, jokes, adventures told around a campfire” (886). Hills is a novel where “all the forms of [Tekin’s] unique, highly metaphoric, and wryly nonrepresentational language” come together (Seyhan 171). With such a style, as Saliha Paker points out, Tekin manages to write the novel with “‘a language of the deprived’, one that gives expression not only to their way of life but also to their outlook on life, perception of reality, sense of humour and dreams” (12). As discussed at various points below, this language has a significant impact on the overall message of the novel. Hills does not have a classical plot structure but consists of chapters following one another at the centre of which lies Flower Hill the shantytown. John Berger, in the Preface he wrote for the book entitled “Rumour” defines the novel as the first time when “shanty-town had entered literature – had entered written narrative – as an entity in itself” (6). He adds that in the novel “shanty-town community becomes the centre of the world, holding the stage” (6) and defines rumour as the story-teller of the novel (7). This is an apt analysis, stressing the endless repetition of new words of mouth that spread around in the shantytown. The narrator introduces new words of mouth [laf] used in the town one by one, with which a new concept enters into the neighbourhood. However, these concepts always come in a distorted form to the town and take on completely different meanings: word of mouth, or rumour as Berger calls it, is the basic element of communication between the residents of the town, as well as of their communication with the extremely unfamiliar urban culture whose codes they are trying to decipher.

181 “Fabrika önüne ak çadır açtı / Hele hele tınga tıng Rüzgar çadırı aldı da kaçtı / Hele hele tınga tıng” (35) 182 “ . . . Lado’nun maceraları çöp bayırlarında sözlü kondu edebiyatının en iyi örnekleri olarak kaldı” (100). 119

The novel has been widely analysed inside and outside of academia. As mentioned above, the novel has an episodic structure due to which some literary critics argued that it was not a novel. Füsun Akatlı describes Hills as follows: “Not a novel. Little short stories, parables, and as expressed in its name: Fairy-tales…”183 (46) She adds that what is good in the novel ends up not being more than “little inventions”184, since they do not constitute parts of a whole (46). Similarly, Gümüş argues that Hills is away “from a holistic structure”185 and that “causality relationship”186 is extremely weak “between the features of the narrative”187 (“Çağdaş Bir” 129). Canpolat disagrees with Gümüş, and points out that the novel is in fact “holistic”188 but “not organic”189 due to its “episodic structure”190, which for her is “the main reason taking the text away from being a novel”191 (62). On the other hand, Gürbilek describes the novel as having a “ . . . unified structure knitted like a wall carpet no matter how episodic it is . . . ”192 (“Mırıltıdan” 46). In a stream interview Tekin gave many years after the publication of Hills, she notes that she tried to construct Hills as a novel which aspires to be a novel in the way a shanty aspires to be a house, hence its episodic structure (Özer 66). In this analysis, the book is accepted as an experimental novel, pushing the boundaries of the norms in the novel; primarily of plot structure and character. In terms of character, there is no character development to speak of; each chapter has its main character(s) who then might or might not re-appear in the following chapters. Murat Belge makes the following comment on Hills: “[it] was a brand new novel with its structure: it did not have a centre in the usual way, and characters forming the centre”193 and adds: “in a way, the protagonist of the novel was the shanty neighbourhood which was the subject of the novel”194 (“Sevgili Arsız” 224). Gümüş regards this experimenting with the norm of character in the novel as a defect of Hills (129). He describes different characters who appear in different chapters of the novel as “too far away from being literary personalities”195 since they

183 “Roman değil. Öykücükler, meseller, adında ifade edildiği üzere: Masallar…” 184 “buluşçuklar” 185 “bütüncül bir yapıdan” 186 “nedensellik ilişkisi” 187 “anlatının unsurları arasında” 188 “bütüncül” 189 “organik değildir” 190 “epizodik bir yapı” 191 “metni romandan uzaklaştıran asıl neden” 192 “ . . . ne kadar episodik olursa olsun bir duvar halısı gibi dokunmuş bütünlüklü yapısı . . . ” 193 “yapısıyla yepyeni bir romandı: alışılmış anlamda bir merkezi, merkezi oluşturan kişileri yoktu.” 194 “Bir anlamda romanın kahramanı, romanın konusu olan gecekondu semtiydi.” 195 “yazınsal kişikler olmaktan çok uzak” 120 do not bear “growing personality traits”196 (129) and argues that “they remain as a detail, as literary elements”197 (129). Similar to the plot structure of the novel, which does not evolve into a climax and conflict in the usual sense, the characters in the novel do not bear character development patterns which evolve into an epiphany. Given the fact that the main hero of the novel is Flower Hill, a point which Gümüş agrees with as well (129), such an approach to character can actually be regarded as the strength rather than the weakness of the novel.

8.3 Title and Beginning Tekin explains that berci means a shepherd girl, which also symbolises purity (Özer 63). In the novel, Kristin is the name of the first prostitute in the shantytown, the name given to her after she has become a prostitute. In the past, foreign names were given to prostitutes so as not to humiliate other girls having the same name in Turkish. Tekin explains that, with her friend Doğan, they used to describe a type of story they heard in shanties as ‘a berci Kristin story’, implying a transformation from being berci to being Kristin (Özer 63-64). She gives this name to her novel as a salute to her friend Doğan, who was arrested and did not come back for years, and added the subtitle Tales from the Garbage Hills198 to make the title more comprehensible (64). The novel opens with the following sentence: “One winter night, on a hill where the huge refuse bins came daily and dumped the city’s waste, eight shelters were set up by lantern-light near the garbage heaps” (15)199. The first to see this are people picking over garbage on the hills. After them, the simit- sellers at the top of Rubbish Road hear it. Poor folk doing various jobs and immigrants staying with relatives temporarily also come to the hill to make shanties. That night one hundred more shanties are built. A couple of days later demolition men come to the hill. A child called Sırma becomes ill because of her despair when her house is demolished, a holy person named Güllü Baba heals her with his prayer (11-12), an event which gives a glimpse of the magical world in the novel to the readers. Straight afterwards, people start working to build their shanties again, using the garbage from the plate factory. The demolition goes on for thirty-seven days.

196 “çoğalan kişilik özellikleri” 197 “birer ayrıntı, yazınsal unsurlar olarak kalırlar.” 198 Çöp Masalları 199 “Bir kış gecesinde, gündüzleri kocaman tenekelerin şehrin çöpünü getirip boşalttıkları bir tepenin üstüne, çöp yığınlarından az uzağa, fener ışığında, sekiz kondu kuruldu” (7). In the English translation of the novel ‘shelter’ and ‘hut’ are used for a shanty. 121

The first obvious magical/illogical incident is during the height of the demolition: “Three babies died, weary of cold and destruction, and took wing to heaven before the very eyes of the wreckers” (22)200. With the use of the magical element, the harshness of the demolishing experience is expressed in a completely unique way. Eventually people lose all the shanties because the lack of material causes them to become so very small that they fly away in the wind. This is another incident where the magical/impossible is used in depicting a tragic moment. Then the shanty makers decide to pick over the garbage on the hill and sell it to buy material to build homes. The novel, through defamiliarisation201, illustrates shanty buildings and demolition with an entirely novel and fresh approach instead of repeating realist representations. Such a formal trait invites the reader to think of the shanty issue in a way different than she has done before. In addition to that, this formal choice seems to be connected with the feeling in the novel that the narrator is a person from Flower Hill. There is almost the sense that the narrator creates a magical world to be able to handle the difficulty in telling about the harsh realities of shanty life. Little girl Sırma’s appearance as the main character in the first chapter is rather meaningful. The surreal atmosphere of the chapter is enriched by Sırma’s daydream: Wide awake, Sırma gazed into the dark and retraced a long train journey. She sat waiting with her mother under a stone bridge thinking all the passers-by looked like her elder brother. Gazing only at her brother’s face, she saw neither the houses lining the wide streets nor the sea, and so she was utterly bewildered when they entered a house in the city far smaller than their home. She was embarrassed and all day avoided her father. (23-24) 202 People call the area “‘Battle Hill’” (24)203, symbolic of their battle for their right to shelter. After one month, a sign saying “Flower Hill”204 (24) is hung by officials. The reader is not told what happens during this one month. Then more people arrive, make their shanties

200 “Üç bebek yıkımdan, soğuktan usanıp kaçtı. Yıkımcıların gözlerinin önünde kuş olup göğe çıktı” (13). 201 Defamiliarization is “a theory and technique, originating in the early 20th century, in which an artistic or literary work presents familiar objects or situations in an unfamiliar way, prolonging the perceptive process and allowing for a fresh perspective” (“Defamiliarization”). 202 Sırma uyku tutmayan gözlerini karanlığa dikti. Karanlıkta upuzun bir yolu trenle geçti. Annesiyle birlikte taş bir köprünün altında oturup bekledi. Beklerken gelip geçen insanların tümü ağbisine benzedi. Sırma geniş yollar boyunca sıralanmış evleri, denizi hiç görmedi. Gözlerini ağbisinin yüzünden başka yere çevirmedi. Bu yüzden en çok, şehirde, köylerindeki evlerinden daha küçük bir eve gelip girdiklerinde şaşırdı. Şaşkınlığından utandı. Babasının yanına o gün hiç sokulmadı. (14) 203 ‘Savaştepe’ (14) 204 ‘Çiçektepe’ (14) 122 and share the land around the shanties: “The owners arrived in ones and twos, laden with belongings from their villages” (24-25)205. Thus starts life in the shanties of Flower Hill. This first chapter of the novel makes it clear that the stories of Flower Hill will be told within an unnatural storyworld. As Jan Alber et al describe, “an unnatural storyworld contains physical or logical impossibilities that concern the represented world’s temporal or spatial organization” (116). The unnatural storyworld of the novel almost functions as an allegory for the ‘unnaturalness’ of urban life for poor immigrants, inviting readers to look at the urban setting through the eyes of those for whom many events and phenomena in the city are totally unfamiliar, even incomprehensible.

8.4 Characters and Related Themes

8.4.1 Urbanization of Immigrants Murat Belge, referring to Tekin’s first novel Dear Shameless Death (1983), points out that Tekin, similar to Yaşar Kemal, tries to bring the mind and the heart of peasants to the pages of her novels; and points out that peasants’ mind-set and outlook on life are difficult to grasp with the rationalism and enlightenment of a Westernist-progressivist stance (“Türk Roman” 223). Such a position which Belge identifies in Tekin’s first novel is valid for Hills as well. Murat Belge’s point is a compact clarification of a complex issue: certainly Tekin has a problem with the uniform conceptualisation of urbanity, in other words with the way immigrants are expected to urbanise. This is actually part of the problem which Meral Özbek describes as Turkish cultural modernisation’s failure to “consider regional, class-based and ethnic differences”206 since it is not based on “a pluralist cultural policy”207 (40). Tahire Erman’s study, which divides the shanty studies in Turkish academia into periods, is useful in understanding the urbanisation aspect, a critique of which appears in Tekin’s first two novels. Erman acknowledges that in the 1950s and 60s there was “a structural-functionalist-modernist explanation” in studying the shanty dwellers who were expected to urbanise in the city (992). She notes that such an approach gave way to a “structural Marxist explanation” in the 1970s and early 1980s (992). However, the Marxist perspective about the expected urbanisation of immigrants in shanties still bore various ills from the earlier perception. First of all “it play[ed] down the negative attitude of the modernisation approach to the persistence of rural values and communal existence in the city” (992) and “there was no attempt to focus on the experiences of rural migrants or to present migrants as individuals who were entitled to their

205 “Çevrilen yerlerin sahipleri birer ikişer köylerinden eşyalarını yükleyip geldiler” (15). 206 “yöresel, sınıflar ve etnik farklılıkları gözönünde tutan . . . “ 207 “çoğulcu bir kültürel siyasadan” 123 own ways of thinking and living” (993). This seems the very point against which the form and content of Hills seem to throw a powerful cry. As mentioned above, a critique of the concepts of the ideal way to be a member of the city population, to become an urbanite, the means of progress from rural to urban culture, is visible both in the contents and in the form and style of the novel. With its language enmeshing local language with ‘standard’ Turkish, and its techniques bringing together folk literature via inserted genres such as mani and koşma into a modern narrative, the novel through its very aesthetics seems to suggest a perspective critical of what Erman describes as the approach of the 1950s and 60s. The novel, which also criticises the binary opposition of rural vs. urban implies that a monist approach to the immigration phenomenon is problematic in terms of disrespecting pluralism, therefore alternative ways of becoming urbanites. As such, the novel offers a new perspective for looking at immigrants in the city: one that invites sympathy for immigrants’ alternative lifestyles in the urban context as well as for their strategies of survival, some of which are despised by the elite and criticised by the left.

8.4.2 The Left and the Flower Hill People In the years when the novel is set, the highly political era of the 1970s which ended with the 12 September 1980 coup, the radical left was powerful in shantytowns. In those years, there were various shantytowns which were actually established by radical left groups which believed in people’s right to housing (Ş. Aslan 85). As Şükrü Aslan acknowledges, the number of such neighbourhoods was around twelve. Additionally, the left had members and organisations in other shantytowns which they did not control (Personal Interview). The novel’s approach to this fact can be analysed under two headings: a) The Hill folks’ encounter with the unionised workers of the factories on Rubbish Road and their strikes. b) The Hill folks’ struggle for their right to the city which is developed in the novel as something unrelated to the leftist urban social movements of the times. a) The Flower Hill People and Class Struggle In the third chapter of the novel, Güllü Baba predicts the future of the Flower Hill shanties: “on their foreheads were inscribed, in deep black letters, factories, wind and garbage” (46)208. He predicts that numerous factories will be opened on the Hill, the folk will work there and stop picking over garbage, they will be better off but they will have sores all the time and the factory waste will change the soil colour. This paragraph reveals that the

208 “Çiçektepe kondularının alnında kara derin harflerle, fabrikalar, çöp ve rüzgâr yazılıydı” (32). 124 novel is about immigrants as potential members of the proletariat as much as it is about life in the shanties. The immigrants’ process of familiarising themselves with the proletariat is elaborated in the novel through their up and down relationship with the strikers and therefore the unions. The first crucial part of the novel problematising this issue is the fourth chapter. At the start of the fourth chapter, the workers in the medicine factory on Rubbish Road go on strike. This is the first strike on Rubbish Road after Flower Hill is founded. In the first pages of the chapter, the way the Hill folk try to make sense of the strike is presented209. The Flower Hill people discuss what a strike is and try to guess why people come to the picket line (E: 52; T: 38). Some of them believe that the strikers have some supernatural expectations. In the next paragraph, they try to guess what the Union means: “While everyone was asking one another what ‘The Union’ (sendika) meant, Güllü Baba explained that the name derived from the word ‘box’ (sandık)” (53)210. After a while, just like the banners of the workers on strike, the Flower Hill people write down their wishes such as “work, roads, buses and schools”211 (54) on pieces of cloth and put them next to the banners. Kara Hasan, one of the Flower Hill people, makes a song about the problems of Flower Hill and sings it to the workers and makes them cry. He also recites what he hears from workers and union members to the Hill folk, thus making them know some of the difficulties of workers’ lives (E:55; T: 39-40). A lot of things are spoken amongst the Hill folk about the factory and new words such as ‘class’ get circulated, but they cannot fully grasp what all these mean: . . . the Flower Hill folk heard that the workers of Rubbish Road were a ‘class’, and that the Union would appropriate the factories on their behalf. Rumour spread that the workers had a power that could shake the world, and after Kara Hasan had explained the writing on the picket line banners, an epidemic of stories broke out in the community along with legends about the factory owners, the songs and customs of the workers, and things unimaginable. (55)212

209 Two of the rhymes included in the narration on this point are quoted above as examples of oral tradition forms, taken from pages 48 and 49 of the English translation. 210 “Herkes birbirine sendikanın ne demek olduğunu sorarken Güllü Baba sendikanın adının sandıktan gelme olduğuna dair açıklamalarda bulundu” (38). 211 “iş, yol, otobüs, okul” (39) 212 . . . Çiçektepe’de çöp yolundaki işçilerin sınıf olduğu, sendikanın fabrikaları işçilerin üstüne yaptıracağı duyuldu. İşçilerin dünyayı yerinden oynatacak bir güçlerinin bulunduğuna dair laflar yayıldı. Kondular, Kara Hasan’ın grev yerinde asılı duran bezlerde yazanları açıklamasından sonra da Çöp Yolundaki fabrikalarda dolaşan türlü türlü hikâyelerin, fabrika sahipleriyle ilgili efsanelerin, işçi âdetlerinin, türkülerinin, duyulmadık lafların salgınına uğradı. (40) 125

After a while, notices written on yellow pieces of paper about the strike are left on the doorsteps of the shanties. The folk of the Hill get annoyed by this, and they question why these notices have been left instead of a proper conversation. They feel suspicious of Kara Hasan, but then get convinced of his innocence. They become cross with the strikers. In the meantime, independent of this development, the strikers start to lose their energy and the picket line starts turning into a boring and unhappy place. The chapter ends with the following rhyme: “The leaves of the strike year have faded away, / O my heart’s full of sorrow! (58)213 As the summary and the quotes reveal, this chapter of the novel which focuses on an encounter between leftists and the Hill folk ends with the cutting of their limited communication through a misunderstanding. For the Hill folk, to receive written pages on their doorstep leaves a negative feeling: maybe too official and therefore unfriendly. This event seems to have a metaphorical meaning as well. Not only is the language of the left unfamiliar to immigrants, but also the medium of the message might seem cold, distant and unfriendly, which can put them off. Eventually, the chemical factory workers go back to work. In chapters nine and ten, life at Mr. Izak’s shanty-like fridge factory and the workers’ struggle are related. Workers fighting for their rights get badly beaten up by guys called Bully Boys (87)214. Despite that, the number of unionised workers in the factories on Rubbish Road keeps increasing. Mr. Izak’s factory has a new manager who makes the working conditions even worse. The new manager tries to fire four worker representatives and strives to get workers to leave the union. At this point, in a digression, legendary stories of Master Gülbey215, a legendary union member and activist are told. Workers occupy Mr. Izak’s factory. Master Gülbey and Taci Baba lead the occupation. They go to the shanties to ask for women and girls to protest in front of the factory. Granny Dursune216, who becomes a legend during the demolition days, goes to support them. In the next chapter, it is understood that the occupation is over. The makeshift factories era comes to an end with many question in the heads of the Hill folk. The imam of Mr. Izak’s mosque claims that the strike is against God’s will. Mr. Izak disappears, however it is said that he will found a new factory producing industrial refrigerators. In these two chapters where exploitation of workers and class struggle is the focus, the workers’ world and the Hill folk seem to be separate. The reader is only told that the watchmen at the factory are from the Hill

213 Grev takviminde kağıtlar soldu / Kalbimin içi hicranla doldu (42) 214 Dayakçı (66) 215 Gülbey Usta 216 Dursune Nine 126 folk (E:97; T:74). It is not said whether there are workers at the factory who are from the Flower Hill people. It can be inferred that there are not. The fact that the Hill folk have many questions trying to make sense of the strikes, implies a separateness between the world of the workers and that of the Hill folk: “The era of the squatter factories on the garbage hills ended with these hundreds of unspoken questions” (99)217. In the next (eleventh) chapter, a new fridge factory belonging to Mr. Izak is opened, and ten young men from Flower Hill start working there. After a short while, factories producing imitation products start to be opened in Çiçektepe one after the other. In these factories, the Hill folk find jobs. The narrator explains the situation as follows: “The sham factories went on spreading, reaching from the huts right down to the Rivermouth Neighbourhood. And in time the site was given the name of ‘Flower Hill Industries’. Small textile workshops opened on the site, and from them blue, green and red smoke blew into the sky” (105)218. The narrator also adds: “Flower Hill Industries produced new songs and customs for the hut people . . . ” (106)219. People start making money but they have sores just as Güllü Baba predicted. The narrator’s explanation “for a long time after the sham factories were founded, until the founding of the strike factories . . . ”220 (T:81) makes the three eras of industry in Flower Hill clear: the squatter factories era, the fake factories producing fake products era, and the strike factories era. The strike factories are not explained as a separate era. The next chapter is about an important strike and the related protest. It is also important to see here that in the fake factories where the Hill folk work there are no strikes. The thirteenth chapter starts with a demonstration by striking fridge workers. It is not explained if this is the old or the new fridge factory. From the information in the earlier chapter, the reader knows that ten men from the Hill folk work at the new fridge factory. As the slogans of the demonstrators are heard in the shanties, rumours spread that the protesting workers do not have homes, and plan to attack the shanties in order to take them. There is also a rumour that these workers beat people who do not participate in their protest. The people of the shanties and cardboard shelters gather together in panic. They soon hear gun-shots and understand that there is clash between the workers and the police. One of the protesters gets

217 “Çöp bayırlarında kondu fabrikalar dönemi konducuların kafalarındaki bu bin türlü soruyla kapandı” (76). 218 “Sahte fabrikalar durmadan çoğaldı. Konduların içinden Dereağzı Mahallesine doğru uzandı. Zamanla bu fabrikaların olduğu yer ‘Çiçektepe Sanayi’ adını aldı. Çiçektepe Sanayi’de küçük tekstil atölyeleri açıldı. Sanayi’den gökyüzüne mavi, yeşil, kırmızı dumanlar savruldu” (81). 219 “Çiçektepe Sanayi konduların adetlerini, türkülerini yeniledi” (81). 220 “Sahte fabrikalar kurulduktan sonra uzunca bir zaman, grev fabrikalarının kuruluşuna kadar . . . ” Translationby the author of the dissertation. 127 killed. Honking Ahlas221, similar to his comments about Roma people, this time announces that communism has arrived in Garbage Hills, and life in the shanties will change for the worse. On the other hand, Bayram of the Pine222, a member of the Hill community, tries to convince the Hill folk that this is not true; workers carrying Turkish flags had only intended a peaceful protest. Simit-seller Mikail223 supports him and talks positively about the protesting workers. He stresses that the workers had only got angry when the women among them were beaten (117-8). Talks about the protest go on in the shanties. As this summary reveals, this chapter, based on the encounter of the shanty people and the workers, also stresses their separate worlds and the lack of communication between them. Finally, in the penultimate chapter of the novel, the factories on Rubbish Road fire men and employ women. In their application, women are asked if they plan to get married or have a baby soon. Some women end their engagement or pregnancy to get a job. The passage on this event (E:154; T:120) is the last time in the novel the exploitation of workers in the factories enters the novel. When all these treatments of the encounters between the Flower Hill people and the leftist workers are taken into account together, the novel seems to stress the lack of communication between the two groups. There are those members of the Hill community with prejudice against leftist workers, as well as those with sympathy. However, the definitive dimension is that the language of the left is unfamiliar to the shanty people, since they are not yet members of the working class. The era when the fake factories and textile workshops are opened on Rubbish Road seems like a metaphor for the contracted work system: working in these factories does not make these people a class. Class consciousness can only be gained while working in factories where unions are strong. Until that time, the discrepancy between the immigrants and workers will be wide. The novel neatly stresses this point by making use of rumours spreading around the shanty people about strikes and unions, all with reference to supernatural events as the examples above demonstrate.

b) The Hill Folk and Urban Social Movements The main thread of the book which connects the seemingly separate chapters to each other is the Hill folk’s fight for their right to the city; there is one issue after the other under this umbrella. The first battle of the Hill folk is the battle for the right to housing. After that comes their struggle for other rights to the city: a place of worship, services of the

221 Hınık Ahlas 222 Çamlı Bayram 223 Simitçi Mikail 128 municipality such as water and electricity, public transport, a school. The Hill folk build their own mosque and school. To request a public bus service, they make an official application with no result. For water and electricity, they expect the mukhtar’s help. Throughout the novel, in each of these struggles the Hill folk are on their own, they do not get any guidance or support from the members of the radical left. In fact, there are large numbers of leftists in the area since they work in factories on Rubbish Road. If we leave the realm of the novel for a moment and go to the realm of reality, we will remember that in the 1970’s, the years in which the novel is set, radical left groups had a great impact on the organisation of urban social movements. As Ş. Aslan stresses, “these movements were either starting with an organized attempt, or through time they were creating their own organization”224 (73). He adds that, “no matter their motivations, urban social movements were increasingly gaining a political character”225 (76). In the novel, there is no reference to radical left groups’ influence on shanty dwellers’ struggle for their right to the city.

8.4.3 Who Is More the Immigrant in the Struggle for Survival? Erman stresses that primarily owing to “the emergence of identity politics in Turkish society in the mid-1980s”, shanty dwellers in academic studies were “no longer exclusively seen as a homogeneous group based on their common rural origins. Instead, they were seen as comprised of diverse sub-groups based on their different ethnic and sectarian backgrounds” (993). As clarified above, Tekin’s awareness about and preference for a pluralist perspective about immigrants was visible in Hills, which was written at the beginning of the 1980s, and therefore should be regarded as ahead of her time in this sense. She was on the side of “diversity and difference rather than to similarity and uniformity”, to borrow the phrase which Erman uses for academic studies about shanties after the mid-1980s (993). It is an obvious fact that immigrants from ethnic groups such as Kurds or Roma people, or sectarian groups such as Alevites were subject to a double exclusion in the city: first because of their rural background and then because of their ethnic and/or sectarian background. But this was not the whole story. Equally important was the exclusion among immigrants based on these differences. Representation of this issue appears in the novel in the chapters about the Roma and Alevites.

224 “Bu hareketler ya doğrudan bir örgütlü girişimle başlıyor ya da zaman içerisinde kendi örgütlülüğünü oluşturuyordu.” 225 “Hangi saiklerle gerçekleşirse gerçekleşsin, kentsel toplumsal hareketler giderek politik karakter kazanmaktaydı.” 129

As mentioned earlier, the narrator of the novel is made to resemble one of the Flower Hill people rather than someone outside and above them. As Ayten Sönmez points out, in her first novel and in Hills “the narrator most of the time creates the impression that she/he is a part of the collectivity”226 (29), and adds that in these novels there is not “an outsider gaze from above which categorizes, maps, putting itself in the centre”227 (30). Therefore, throughout the novel the narrator seems not to have any intentions to balance the discriminating discourses and prejudices of the Flower Hill people. Additionally, a couple of choices in the plot structure and character construction, as will be discussed below, are in line with discriminating discourses. As a result, the novel at various moments ends up, most likely unintentionally, reproducing the discriminating discourses adopted by the immigrants depicted in the novel. Let us start with the most apparent ones; these are related to choices of characters: the leader of the mafia which rules Flower Hill is Kurd Cemal228; and apart from this evil man there is no other Kurdish character in the novel as far as the reader knows. The owner of the factories in Flower Hill which poison people is a man named Mr. Izak229 who is obviously a member of the non-Muslim minority, and this is the only character in the novel with a name signifying that he might be from the Jewish, Armenian or Greek minority of Turkey; probably Jewish since Isaac is a name common among Jews. Secondly, the novel’s attitude to Roma people is worth mentioning. In the final chapter, the sad story of Foundation Hill is told. The reader is not told how many of the Hill folk stay there after Flower Hill is divided into two, and why those who stayed there choose to do so, but it can be inferred that some families stay there: “Soon after Emel came to Foundation Hill the squatter women in their homes were giggling and mimicking her walk” (157)230. Emel is the new prostitute, who becomes unpopular after a rumour that she is a transsexual, so Crazy Gönül231 becomes popular again, and starts to be called Kristin like the female singers in the ‘Knocking Shops’232 opened in Flower Hill and who change their names to foreign ones such as “Angele, Marie” (157)233. ‘Night Clubs’234 are opened in Flower Hill,

226 “ . . . anlatıcı çoğu zaman anlattığı kolektivitenin bir parçasıymış izlenimi yaratır.” 227 “kategorileştiren, haritalaştıran, kendini merkeze koyarak dış bir gözle üstten bir bakışın . . . ” 228 Kürt Cemal 229 Bay İzak 230 “Emel’in Vakıf Çiçektepe’ye gelmesinden kısa bir zaman sonra konducu kadınlar toplaştıkları evlerde onun yürüyüşünü taklit edip gülmeye başladı” (122). 231 Deli Gönül 232 “Dükkan evler” (122) in the Turkish original: literally, shop houses. Translated as ‘Knocking Shops’ (with inverted commas) (156) in the English translation. 233 “Anjel, Mari” (122-23). 130 where the Roma make music as they do in the ‘Knocking Shops’. Here, customers are given dope and they keep company with the Roma. “After some time the gypsy way of life overshadowed the squatters who lived on Foundation Hill. Fragments of the gypsy language passed into the squatters’ slang . . . ”235 (158). Although it is added that Roma men try to make money with bingo games and women sell bootleg cigarettes, it is obvious that once the former Çiçektepe gets dominated by the Roma, it becomes a centre of drugs and prostitution, under its new name ‘Foundation Hill’. Therefore no matter its intentions the novel reproduces the dominant discriminating discourse which equates the Roma people with drugs and prostitution. The situation is not much different when it comes to the novel’s stance about the Alevites of Flower Hill. The fifteenth chapter starts with a snowy Ramadan day when a Ramadan drummer236 is kicked out of one of the neighbourhoods in Flower Hill. A rumour that those who did this were “Kızılbaş” people spreads around the neighbourhood. Kızılbaş is a pejorative word for an Alevite237. In the novel there is no preference for using the word Alevi in narration and limiting the use of Kızılbaş only with the reporting of the Flower Hill people’s speech. Instead, both Flower Hill people and the narrator refer to Alevites as Kızılbaş. The annoyed Ramadan drummer gathers up his friends and they go all together and play music in front of the Alevite people’s shanties. The sarcasm about Alevite tolerance in the narration of this event is worth attention: “The man who had cursed the drummer panicked and boarded up his door and window. Demonstrating the famous Kizilbas [sic] tolerance he lay sweating under five layers of quilt, taking refuge in daydreams” (127)238. They have a fight and eventually the people in the area divide up based on their hometown villages. Thus, the separation among immigrants based on sectarian differences evolves to include separation based on regional differences as well. As a result of this event, the Alevis of Flower Hill take control of the only coffee-house in the neighbourhood. At this point of the chapter, in a digression, a story about an Alevite dede239 is told. The narrator tells about “ . . . elders who

234 “Gazino Otels” (123) in the Turkish original: literally, night-club hotels. Translated as ‘Night Clubs’ (with inverted commas) (158) in the English translation. 235 “Vakıf Çiçektepe’de yaşayan konducular bir zaman sonra Çingene yaşantısının gölgesinde kaldı. Çingene dilinin kalıntıları konducuların argosuna yerleşti” (124). 236 A Ramadan drummer is a man who, during the Ramadan month when Muslims fast, walks the streets playing his drums in order to wake them for Sahur, the early breakfast after which fasting starts. 237 “Alevism is a branch of Shi’a Islam that is practiced in Turkey and the Balkans among ethnic Turks and Kurds . . .” (“Alevism”). A person who follows Alevism is an Alevite. 238 “Davulcuya söven konducu korkusundan kapısına, penceresine destek çaktı. Kızılbaşlığın engine hoşgörüsüyle beş kat yorganın altına yattı, ter içinde hülyaya daldı” (98). 239 Translated as “elder” in the English translation (127). An Alevite dede is a holy man highly respected by Alevites. 131 circulated the huts begging for handouts of money and gifts” (127)240 and explains that one of them “brought along an impressive stick to beat the Kızılbaş who did not observe their duties” (127-128).241 The narrator adds: “For a time they wandered about appearing at people’s doors hoping for handouts” (128)242. The narration here reflects the attitude of the Flower Hill people rather than a narrator who criticizes such an attitude. Since the narrator in the book does not judge the Flower Hill community regarding their beliefs and ways of life, this neutrality in narration leads to an unintended reproduction of discriminating discourses regarding the Roma people and Alevites. Seyhan acknowledges that the way the character Mr. Izak is built is in line with the “greedy Jew” stereotype (175). She also points out “questions of representational bias” (175) in the novel concerning, Roma people and Alevites, yet adds that at least the Roma “are portrayed as unjustly persecuted yet talented and colourful people” (175) and regards the stance of the novel towards Alevites as harsher. However, as discussed above, rather than this pathos, the stance about the ‘Knocking Shops’, gambling and drug dealing is definitive in terms of the novel’s depiction of the Roma. Despite these examples, it would be unfair to argue that the novel deliberately reproduces discriminating discourses and prejudices. Because, for instance, while the holy Alevite men are portrayed sarcastically with an emphasis on their manipulation of people’s respect, the muezzin who is a Sunnite holly man is also portrayed as a con-man (E:147-8; T:115). Or for instance, the novel includes passages which depict the prejudice of Flower Hill people against the Roma when they first arrive: Honking Ahlas’ long speeches about them (E: 110-111; T: 84-87) are a parody of widespread prejudicial discourse against the Roma people in Turkey. Similarly, the rumours circulating among the Hill folk about Alevites (T: 97-98; E:125-126) ridicule the urban myths about the traditions and worshipping habits of Alevites, which is an ongoing problem of discrimination in Turkey. The choice in the plot of Foundation Hill becoming a centre of drugs and prostitution with the domination of the Roma population; and the choices in the construction of characters of Kurd Cemal and Mr. Izak might be regarded as a lack of sensitivity in the novel in terms of refraining from reproducing dominant excluding discourses.

240 “ . . . para ve armağan umarak konduları dolanan . . . Dede’ler “ (99) 241 “ . . . Kızılbaşlığın gereklerini yerine getirmeyenleri dövmek amacıyla, haşmetli bir ‘Dedelik sopası’ getirmişlerdi” (99). 242 “Bir zaman Çiçektepe’de onun bunun kapısında armağan umunarak dolandılar” (99). 132

8.4.4 Being a Woman in Flower Hill The narration about women in the novel is also neutral. However, even through this neutrality it depicts the ills of the patriarchal society. In the fifth chapter “ . . . Fidan of Many Skills who gave the women of the community ‘Evening Classes’ in the arts of the bed . . . ” (60)243 is introduced. The women of Flower Hill learn from this woman that it is not only men but also women who can get sexual satisfaction, as well as various other points regarding sexuality: “ . . . for every new thing the women learned from her they took a beating from their husbands” (63)244. Consequently, Garbage Grocer’s245 wife complains to her husband that she has never had sexual satisfaction; however her husband reacts aggressively and the subject is closed (E:64-65, T:46-47). In the eighteenth chapter, a cinema gets opened in Flower Hill, and the women of the town watching films in this cinema are influenced by the lives they see in the films. Similar to the story about Fidan’s evening classes, the narration on this issue is extremely neutral, without any hint of sympathy for women or damning the male violence against them: [Women] shed many a tear on the roads until they discovered that the film stars had not really died, but once the tears were dried the young girls started to go about with bare arms and legs like film stars and the women cast off their headscarves. Fired with the desire for pleasure after Tirintaz Fidan’s night lessons, women now clung to their husbands’ hands and feet begging for love. They trembled and swooned with upturned eyes and uttered strangled sobs at not being loved, but their men who were gambling their lives away in the coffeehouses brought them back down to earth with a beating. (146)246 As these two motifs demonstrate, the novel stresses that life in the city might have an emancipatory influence on women’s perspective, while their men who do not want any difference in gender roles most of the time stop them from making any changes in their lives. These motifs are introduced in the novel with a dark brand of humour.

243 “ . . . konducu kadınlara ‘Gece Dersi’ veren, yatıp kalkmanın ilmini öğreten Tirintaz Fidan . . . ” (44) 244 “Kadınlar ondan öğrendikleri her yeni şey için kocalarından dayak yedi” (46). 245 Çöp Bakkal 246 “Filmlerdeki artistlerin sahiden ölmediğini keşfedinceye kadar kadınlar kondu yollarına çok yaş döktü. Yaşlar kuruyunca artist gibi kol bacak açan genç kızlar, başörtü tanımayan kadınlar çıktı. Tirintaz Fidan’ın gece derslerinden sonra keyif isteğine tutulan kadınlar bu defa kocalarının eline ayağına aşk isteğiyle yapıştı. Kahvelerde kumarı yaşayan erkekler, aşksızlıktan hıçkırığa boğulan, gözbebeklerini yana devirip bayılan, tir tir titreyen karılarını dayakla ayılttı” (113). 133

8.5 Setting and Related Themes

8.5.1 Flower Hill: Garbage Hills of Which City? When published in 1984, researchers and commentators as well as readers automatically regarded the novel as being set in Istanbul. For instance, when Gümüş mentions that the novel is about a shanty town, he, parenthetically, adds: “of course in Istanbul”247 (128). However, there is no concrete fact in the novel that shows that Flower Hill is in Istanbul. The imaginary city in which the novel is set is associated with Istanbul primarily because Istanbul has always been the main centre of rural to urban migration. On the other hand, the influence of a connection made by the readers between Tekin’s life and the novel cannot be ignored. When she was nine years old, Tekin immigrated to Istanbul with her family from the Anatolian city of Kayseri. Although the Tekin family did not live in a shanty, the fact that she immigrated to Istanbul, not another city, motivates the reader to think that the city where the novel is set is Istanbul, rather than another city. Obviously, the autobiographical material cannot lead us to a concrete equation between the real realm of the author’s life and the imaginary realm of the novel, thus the city in Flower Hill should not simply be associated with Istanbul. If it is associated with it, this should not be as a deduction based on Tekin’s life story. The novel is set in an imaginary city in Turkey which attracts a high amount of migration, and which, as the following excerpt demonstrates, is on the coast. When the Flower Hill people look for a new site to build shanties on, the place they find is described as follows: “The committee explored the far reaches of the city for three days and found a flat hilltop which overlooked the dazzling blue sea from among the pines” (151)248. Therefore, the novel could have just as well been associated with İzmir, Adana or Mersin, other coastal cities of Turkey receiving a high number of immigrants. So, the following questions arise: why is the city where the novel is set undisclosed, and what is the significance of this choice? Simply, with this choice the novel might want to expand its possible coverage area to all cities receiving immigrants rather than one particular city. However, on another level this choice might mean much more than that. That there are no clear indicators of Istanbul in the novel might imply the disconnectedness of immigrants in the novel with the city they have migrated to. In other words, as the novel might in fact be set in another city rather than Istanbul, a point the reader

247 “tabii İstanbul’da” 248 “Heyet üç gün şehrin uzaklarını dolandıktan sonra, çamların arasından mavi parlak denizi gözleyen üstü dümdüzlek bir tepe buldu” (118). 134 can never be sure about, the novel implies that if the immigrants in the novel were in another city, there would not be so much difference in their lives since they are in many ways isolated in their shantytown without much connection with the rest of the city. At the Being an Istanbulite249 conference in 2012, Arus Yumul stressed that in all surveys about being an Istanbulite, people are asked if they have ever seen places such as the Bosphorus or the Topkapı Palace; but we never ask ourselves if we have ever seen places like Sultanbeyli or similar varoş parts of the city (2012). Despite being set in Flower Hill, and never naming the city in which it takes place, imaginary or real, the novel seems to be saying something similar to Yumul’s point. The title of Yumul’s talk was “city is a place where differences meet”250. Certainly, these words instantly bring to one’s mind Sennett’s apt observation quoted in Chapter 2 on how the diversity in the city is a great opportunity for the expansion of urban citizens’ horizons (“Capitalism” 114). In the novel, differences meet, but only to a certain extent. The people of Flower Hill never go to see the Bosphorus or the Topkapı Palace, and nobody living in the central parts of the city comes to visit their neighbourhood. The city where Flower Hills is set remains a mystery for the reader akin to the way it is a mystery for the immigrants living in this shantytown.

8.6 Conclusion This book with an insider’s perspective brings a fresh outlook to representation of the immigration experience in Turkish literature. The world of immigrants living in a shantytown is a colourful one in the novel, depicted within an unnatural storyworld. This unnatural storyworld in the book implies that the way immigrants feel confused when confronted with the lives of urbanites, urbanites should get confused when face to face with the lives of immigrants; and the way immigrants try to understand urbanites, urbanites should try to understand them as well. This brings Arus Yumul’s words to mind: if the city is a place where differences meet, this cannot be one-directional, with newcomers to the city trying to understand the urban way of life; but should be reciprocal, bi-directional with urbanites also trying to understand immigrants who are new members of the city’s population. Hills manages to give this message in its very form, a form which exhibits the culture of immigrants, i.e. oral culture. Since many immigrants are illiterate when they arrive, not having the written culture makes them look like they do not have culture at all. In fact, they have their oral culture which is ignored in the urban setting. The novel emphasises this fact that immigrants might have a rich oral culture.

249 İstanbullu Olmak 250 “Kent Farklılıkların Buluştuğu Yerdir” 135

Throughout the book there is an ongoing battle between capital and labour. Workers struggle against the owners of capital, the Flower Hill people have their own struggle: when the factory owners poison them with the industrial waste of their companies, when the garbage owner tries to keep them away from his garbage, and when they have their own jobs and do not want the garbage around their neighbourhood. Immigrants witness the workers’ struggle against the capital owners. Although they do not connect with the workers, the bridge that connects them with urban culture is the culture of the working class and members of the radical left who are there to support the workers on strike. The novel depicts this tie between immigrants and the urban working class more as a lack of communication and confusion, and this choice reflects pessimism about immigrants’ struggle for their right to the city. The life we see in the novel thus seems to take place in three spheres. The first one is the sphere of Flower Hill the shantytown. The second is the sphere of the factories on Rubbish Road with its workers, some of whom are leftists. The third is the sphere of the city space which almost never appears in the novel, except for a couple of visits by the Hill folk to the civil authorities. Put simply, the way Flower Hill is described in the novel tells us a lot about, semi-metaphorically, the condition of immigrants in the city: stuck between the urban sphere which does not accept them and the working class they should belong to but have not yet done. That is why in their struggle for the right to the city, which mainly appear in terms of material needs in the novel, they are on their own rather than becoming a part of urban movements. This dilemma seems like the dilemma of the immigrants in Flower Hill that results in their outsider position in the city. In this respect, as a counterpoint to Orhan Kemal’s Birds which in a modernist/Marxist stance points out the way for immigrants to become part of the working class and thus integrate into the urban culture, Hills, criticizing a monotype perception of urbanity, celebrates alternative ways of becoming urbanites. The novel therefore has in its focus “respect for plurality”, as described in the World Charter for the Right to the City’s list (2). With its ever-fresh perspective, this unique work, included in the reading lists of sociology courses in the 1980s (Özbay 67), justly continues to attract great attention both for its form and content.

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CHAPTER 9

Heavy Roman(i): An Alternative Urbanity in the Dionysian City The counterpart to Berci Kristin in this analysis is Ağır Roman [Heavy Roman(i)]251 by Metin Kaçan. The debut novel of the author, first published by Metis in 1990, was reprinted for the 15th time, by Everest, in 2014. Roman(i) was adapted into a movie in 1997 by Mustafa Altıoklar, and into a dance version by Aysun Aslan, under the title Heavy Roman(i): East Side Story252 in 2003, performed by the Istanbul State Opera and Ballet. Dokuz Eylül University and Yüzüncü Yıl University theatre groups performed a theatrical adaptation of the novel in 2003 and in 2013, respectively. In 2012, a TV drama series entitled Ağır Roman Yeni Dünya [Heavy Roman(i) The New World] written as a follow-up to the novel, starting thirty years after the novel ends, was broadcast in ten episodes on Star TV253. The novel has been translated into German, and its French translation is in progress (Muhidine). The idea of the right to the city appears in the novel not in terms of material necessities but in terms of inhabiting the city in the Lefebvrian sense. Through the characterisation of its protagonist, and its setting which is the most outstanding formal element of the novel, it gives the message that the right to live in the city centre belongs not only to the rich but also to the poor. The novel also emphasises that the heritage of the non- Muslim minority can be a central element in the culture of poor neighbourhoods that are discriminated against as dilapidated, challenging the elitist hegemony in claiming the cosmopolitan heritage of the Istanbulite identity.

251 References in this dissertation are made to the impression by Gendaş, 1999. 252 Ağır Roman Doğu Yakasının Hikayesi 253 The focus of the drama series was the changing lives of the neighbourhood people because of the urban transformation project in Kolera, representing the urban transformation in Tarlabaşı. 137

Fig. 7. The cover of the impression used in this analysis.

138

9.1 Plot Summary The first part of the novel starts with a day in Gıli Gıli Salih’s254 life, setting out on his way to help his father in his barber shop in their neighbourhood Kolera [Cholera]. Based on various details, it can be inferred that the novel is set in the 1970s-1980s (Arslan 122). Sitting in front of the shop, Gıli witnesses a fight between some boys and the church caretaker Panayot. Gıli helps Şenol, son of Kolera’s coffee-house owner, who gets hit in his eye by an arrow in the fight. At night, Gıli’s father Ali beats up thieves trying to steal a carpet from the balcony of the family house and delivers them to the police. On the way back, he stops at the home of Tıbı, a broken-hearted man whose horse Şermin means everything to him. Thief Fethi255, a popular figure among the Kolera folk, collects money in the neighbourhood to pay for the glass-eye Şenol will have to wear. On his way back from Ali’s shop, Arab Sado256, one of the kabadayıs257 of the neighbourhood, gets stabbed by gang members who aim to rule Kolera. As he dies, Sado declares that he wishes Gıli to take over his legacy. Gıli takes Sado’s knife as a token of accepting this. In the following days, more people get murdered by the gang in Kolera. The second part of the novel starts with a description of the changes in the social life in Kolera. The number of religious fanatics in the neighbourhood increases, while Ali becomes the fourth person in Kolera reading a leftist paper. The Kolera community starts to be divided into leftists and rightists. Members of the gang who killed Sado now rule the underground world of the neighbourhood, and extort money not only from the rich gambling houses and brothels but also from the poor shopkeepers of Kolera. One day, three well- dressed men come to Ali’s shop and tell him that the reis [chief], the leader of the gang, needs a shave. Ali answers them abruptly and says that if so the chief should come to the shop himself. While weak people in Kolera accept the chief’s power, Tıbı and Ali are not scared of him. Shops in Kolera start losing money because of the extortion. One day, Ali’s shop windows get smashed and Tıbı’s horse Şermin is stabbed by the chief’s men. Ali finds the chief, cuts him on the cheek and slaps him. While watching all this, Gıli leaves the door of the barber-shop open and it gets robbed. That night Ali commits adultery with Eleni, who lives in a house opposite his shop.

254 From here on Gıli. 255 Gaftici Fethi 256 Arap Sado 257 “A kabadayı, literally ‘rough uncle’ is a gangster, but bound to a code of honour, who protects his home quarter” (Hess 59). 139

With the help of Fox Orhan258, who works at Elephant Hamit259’s car-repair workshop, Gıli starts working there as an apprentice. When Orhan, who is gay, makes a move on Gıli, Gıli stabs him, but they both immediately forgive each other. In the meantime, women in Kolera start gambling, encouraged by Puma Zehra. Gıli’s brother Reco now has friends from outside Kolera who are left-leaning boys. Members of leftist groups start writing slogans on the walls of Kolera and give speeches in the coffee-houses there. Around this time, the open- air cinema is closed, as a result of the spread of televisions, which leads to an interest in football. Reco leaves home without explanation. İmine catches her husband with Eleni. Meanwhile, Gıli becomes a skilful mechanic and is now regarded as “the youngest emperor of Kolera” (71)260. Unhappy about this, Ali scolds him for his ways. Gıli gets upset and attempts suicide by taking pills. After surviving, he isolates himself at home and does not speak to anyone. Eventually, he decides to become a bitirim261. He leaves home and work. The third part of the novel starts with a description of İmine’s situation. She is depressed as both of her sons have left home. Gıli is now a respected bitirim. Reco misses him and feels guilty about leaving him behind. One day there is a fire at Hamit’s shop while Thief Fethi and Fox Orhan are having sex. Gıli rescues Orhan, Fethi survives, while one of the apprentices dies in the fire. Gıli is appreciated for his courageous behaviour. Tina, a high- class prostitute living in Kolera, takes care of him in her home after the events of that day. At night, there is another fire in the stable where forty horses get killed. There, Gıli finds Tıbı dead, seemingly due to a deliberate morphine overdose. Gıli and his friends raid the chief’s gambling-house and extort money from him. With this money, they go to a bar in the city centre where they have a fight, and then to a brothel where Gıli has sex for the first time. That night, two young boys working as apprentices at a fabric workshop in the neighbourhood get stabbed to death with a skewer. Gıli and his gang promise to find the murderer. Soon after, a woman in Kolera gets killed in exactly the same way as the two apprentices. The next morning, the teacher at Kolera’s primary school is also found murdered. İmine’s depression deepens and her behaviour becomes stranger. Consequently, Ali burns all their furniture and the couple move to a rich neighbourhood. To be able to pay the

258 Tilki Orhan 259 Fil Hamit 260 “Kolera’nın en genç imparatorunu . . . ” 261 Aktunç defines bitirim as follows: “Külhanbeyi, kabadayı, gangster” [Ruffian, kabadayı, gangster] (62). 140 rent Ali starts dealing drugs in his barber shop. In the meantime, Reco and his friends open a cartoon library in Kolera, but Gıli does not go to its opening. Gıli declares his feelings to Tina. They have sex and start having an affair. One night, they go to a Romani wedding in Kolera. Here, Tina’s pimp, angry with her for rejecting a customer cuts her cheek. Gıli kills him. As a result of this, Tina falls in love with Gıli. One day, some Kolera people find Zehra’s body in pieces in the garbage, apparently stabbed to death like the other three victims. Eventually, Gıli manages to catch the murderer, and to his surprise the murderer turns out to be the peddler Taner. Gıli cuts off his ears to punish him before the police arrive, and he dies there. This event gives him the nickname ‘Gıli Gıli’. Tina starts to have an affair with Hamit. Hearing this is extremely disappointing to Gıli. On the other hand, Eleni is angry with Ali, who has lost interest in her after he started drug dealing. To take her revenge, she sleeps with the police commissioner and makes him take Ali to the police station for interrogation. Ali gets tortured by the police and when he is released he does not go back home. Reco comes to Kolera, learns his parents’ new address and goes to visit them. Finding out that İmine is on her own he decides to stay there with her for a while, which pleases her very much. In the closing part of the novel, Gıli isolates himself in the bitirimhane262 and uses drugs in fatal amounts. Eventually, cutting his wrists with the knife he inherited from Sado, he commits suicide.

9.2 Main Features The one-hundred-and-forty-four-page long novel comprises six unnumbered chapters. As Türkeş brings to our attention, similar to Tekin’s first two novels there are fantastic elements in Roman(i) (“Romanda” 118), which are discussed below. However, such elements are not to the extent that would make it possible to describe the novel as an example of magical realism. In terms of the storyworld, characters and dialogues, the novel is rather realistic. When these realistic and fantastic aspects of the novel are considered together, it can be said that it is a novel realistic in a peculiar way. As a matter of fact, Michael Hess describes Roman(i) as “a further step away from traditional Turkish realism . . . towards a freer literary treatment of reality” (66). Roman(i) is a novel about a young boy from the end of his childhood through his first couple of years as a teenager, his mental and physical changes in that period. Therefore, it can be categorised as an example of a coming-of-age story. However, this is only partly possible.

262 “Meyhane, içkievi” [Meyhane, drinking house] (Aktunç 62). 141

If it is a coming-of-age novel, it can only be an ‘aborted’ coming-of-age novel since its hero commits suicide long before the process of coming-of-age is complete. Although sometimes the novel is regarded as a best-seller due to its high number of impressions, it can best be categorized as an example of cult fiction. Whissen asserts that “a cult book first appears within the framework of a conventional genre. Only later does it acquire the label of cult literature” (xii). As mentioned above, the conventional genre which Roman(i) belongs to can be accepted as coming-of-age fiction. In order to discuss to what extent it can be categorized as a cult book, the following explanations from Whissen are useful. Whissen explains that “romantic hope and longing as well as romantic disillusion and melancholy” are common traits of cult novels even when they are quite different in terms of “plot or setting, characters or time periods, symbols or themes” (x). He adds that, in examples of cult fiction the “dream of a different, usually better, world” is significant. He adds that such books divide readers: people either love or hate them (x). These are to a large extent valid for Roman(i). Whissen emphasises that “a book acquires cult status on the basis of reader response rather than the author’s intention” (xi). Therefore, cult fiction theory is mainly a reader response theory. However, Whissen still manages to find certain themes and characteristics common in cult fiction and identifies seven traits. These traits, except for idealisation which he describes as the “idealization of the androgynous” (xxvii), appear in Roman(i), as discussed below. As these points are mostly connected with reader response, difficult verification of which is outside the scope of this work, below, simply the potential of Roman(i) as a cult novel is pointed out. Whether this potential is released or not could be verified with a survey among its readers which might be the subject of an interesting piece of research. Alienation: “The hallmark of the cult hero has been his detachment from the world, his rejection of and by society, his self-consciousness, his alienation” (Whissen xxvii). Gıli alienates himself from his family when he decides to become a bitirim, and then after Tina’s betrayal he isolates himself in the bitirimhane in the period that leads to his suicide. Ego-reinforcement: According to Whissen, the reader of a cult novel identifies himself/herself with the hero of the cult novel who he/she sees as a “tortured outcast condemned by virtue of his superiority” and this will “enhance [her/his] self-image” (xxx). Whissen adds that the hero may be “a victim . . . of jealousy or fear” and “has the look of the lost innocent” (xxx). Actually, these words sound like a description of Gıli: he is a young man who risks his life to take revenge on the men who hurt the woman he loves. However, after a 142 while this woman cheats on him, which breaks his heart and pride. Eventually, he commits suicide as a victim of that disappointment; in other words, of jealousy. Suffering: Whissen argues that suffering may be seen as “the very theme of many cult books”, adding that the heroes of cult novels suffer “as a result of mental and emotional anguish rather than external threats” (xxxiii), and he defines “rejection, alienation, and loneliness” as the basis of this suffering (xxxiv). These are valid for Gıli, especially in the way his rejection leads him into alienation and loneliness. Behaviour modification: As Whissen points out, cult fiction “provides its readers with a program for altering the way they look and act” (xxiv). Roman(i) has a strong potential to influence the spread of the use of various slang words among its readers. (Obviously, verifying such a claim is extremely difficult and outside the scope of this work.) Vulnerability: Whissen observes that in cult fiction there is “someone a little too good for this world but whose charming innocence tempts us to follow in his path” and he adds: “when vulnerable reader meets vulnerable hero, their identities literally fuse, and a cult reader – and thus a cult book – is born” (xxxvi). Gıli’s courageous behaviour, his being madly in love with Tina, his charm are all traits which make him an adorable hero. His suicide is not easy for the reader to follow; however, for many readers who have had a similar devastating experience of betrayal in love, Gıli’s tragic ending has a great potential for sympathy. Consequently, as the characteristics above demonstrate, Roman(i) has a great potential to be categorised as a cult novel. The suicide of the author in 2013, twenty-three years after he wrote the novel, might reinforce this cult dimension. The novel’s style is one of the main characteristics which make it such an idiosyncratic piece of fiction. The diction in the novel is based on a unique and striking use of slang. Slang is not only used in conversations between characters but also in the narration of the novel. Some literary critics argue that Roman(i) is the first novel in Turkish literature to do that (Ecevit 5, R. Aslan 31). The use of slang in narration creates the impression that the narrator is a person from Kolera. The narrator’s approach as an insider, in terms of knowledge as well as feelings, is felt strongly throughout the novel. In addition to the use of slang by the narrator, some characters, unsurprisingly, use slang. The Kolerite people’s relationship with slang appears as a significant theme in the novel, as discussed below. It should also be noted that most of the characters have nicknames, a trait which appears as a reference to oral culture in the novel. The novel includes a couple of instances where short sentences from Romani language (32, 34, 50, 138) and Greek (22, 29, 96) appear. Both in the narration and in the 143 dialogues the word order is unmarked, i.e. inverted syntax is not used. The novel does not make use of long and complex sentences. The use of punctuation is standard. The novel is narrated in the third-person by a narrator who is not one of the characters in the novel. No information is given about the narrator’s gender or age. The novel is somewhere in the middle of the authorial-figural continuum. The narrator narrates various events happening at the same time, which is a characteristic of authorial narration. On the other hand, at many points the main character Gıli functions as the reflector character of the novel which brings the novel to the realm of figural narration. This is a marked narrator who reveals his feelings in narration. There are various comic incidents depicting daily life in Kolera, which bring humour to the novel. However, the main humorous aspect of the novel is based on the use of the literary device of anthropomorphism, “the showing or treating of animals, gods, and objects as if they are human in appearance, character, or behaviour” (“Anthropomorphism”) in narration. This characteristic of the novel reinforces its fantastic aspect. Examples are included mainly in section 9.3 below; while more examples appear in quotes from the novel throughout the analysis. The fantastic aspect of Roman(i), manifest mainly in the use of anthropomorphism as well as in various imagery, presents ‘a stoned mind-set’, reflecting the influence of dope consumed in major amounts in Kolera on the atmosphere of the novel. This trait of the book is noteworthy as an impressive example of form and content complimenting each other. The novel is unique for the soundscape it creates. It does this with the use of auditory imagery, as well as through the inclusion of events connected with music in the story; in other words in its form as well as in its content. There is a constant description of sounds in the novel, and music is always to the fore. The goblet drum, an instrument highly popular among the Roma population in Turkey, is the main constituent of this music. The title of the novel, as will be discussed below, also suggests this. As a matter of fact, Özgüven makes the following observation on the novel: “Metin Kaçan caught something very significant about the city in ‘Ağır Roman’, the music of the city… That was the music of neighbourhoods we were not that familiar with, true. Yet, rather than content it was rhythm”263 (Par. 1). Olfactory imagery is also widely used in the novel. Examples of auditory and olfactory imagery are included throughout the analysis, particularly in section 9.5.4.

263 “Metin Kaçan ‘Ağır Roman’da şehre ait çok önemli bir şey yakaladı; şehrin müziği… Az bildiğimiz mahallelerin müziğiydi bu, evet. Ama içerikten çok da ritmdi.” 144

9. 3 Title and Beginning The title of the novel Roman(i) is actually a double entendre. However, unlike most examples of double entendres, none of the meanings here has a sexual connotation. The title literally means “heavy novel”, which is also a homonym for slowly/heavily played Romani music. Since in a double entendre there is an obvious meaning and a subtle meaning, here, for most readers the obvious meaning is a heavy novel, while the subtle meaning is the Romani music. We as readers have no way of knowing which of these meanings was the primary one for the author. In this opening chapter, Kolera264 is depicted as a colourful neighbourhood where the eternal battle between good and bad continues. The way this topos appears in the introductory chapter is reminiscent of mythical stories. The people of Kolera live happily under Sado’s wings. Then, some bad guys kill Sado and start ruling the neighbourhood. Sado leaves Gıli as his heir. The use of anthropomorphism catches our attention in these first pages of the novel. The following are only a couple of the examples of the device appearing in the first chapter: “Even time, admiring this fast gesture of Gıli, stopped for a moment”265 (12); “laundry which spoke to their hearts on the street” 266 (13); “ . . . the picture of the helicopter and flying man Reco drew on the mirror got scared of Ali’s toughness”267 (13); “as [he] shook the razor, the eagle on one side of the device bit and bit again the snake on its other side and then set it free”268 (29). The use of auditory and olfactory imagery, examples of which are included below in section 9.5.4, are also noticeable in the early pages of the novel.

9.4 Characters and Related Themes

9.4.1 Slang and Urbanity The narrator derides the immigrants living in Kolera who look, behave and talk in the way they would do back in their villages. Many Kolerites like Ali have come to Istanbul and therefore to Kolera from a part of Anatolia. The narrator’s stance is quite explicit: one can be a Greek or Assyrian269 who was born in Kolera, or can end up there as an immigrant: as long

264 Readers might be curious whether the name of the neighbourhood is an allusion to Gabriel García Márquez’s novel Love in the Time of Cholera (1985). No such reference was detected in the novel in this regard. 265 “Zaman bile Gıli’nin bu süratli hareketine hasta olup bir an duraksamıştı.” 266 “sokağa gönül vermiş çamaşırlar” 267 “ . . . Reco’nun aynaya çizdiği helikopter ve uçan adam resmi, Ali’nin sertliğinden ürküp buharlaştı.” 268 “Usturayı önlü arkalı salladıkça, aletin bir yüzündeki kartal, öteki yüzündeki yılanı ısırıp ısırıp bıraktı.” 269 Christian people also known as Syrians, Syriacs, Chaldeans, or Arameans. 145 as he/she adapts to the life there he/she is a Kolerite. Köksal stresses the urbanity of Kolerites: “They were poor, uneducated, lumpen; yet they were urbanites”270 (Par. 3). The narrator does not call someone a peasant simply because this person has a rural background; only those who act like they are still in the village are labelled as peasants. Language is stressed as the fundamental condition needed to adopt a Kolerite identity. The following words from the literary critique and poet Adnan Özer, bosom friend of Metin Kaçan, explains this in a poetic manner with references to expressions used in the novel: In fact Kolera Street is a geography of language and action. In the mysticism of poor neighbourhood it corresponds to “Realm”. “In this realm those whose chin-wag is phony get on their horse.” “Again it is such a realm that, there is no place for those who cannot perform the king of the action.” In this way, the realm makes its criticism of the worlds on whose periphery it is.271 (33) The Turkish word âlem means a “realm”. It also has the meaning of carousal, revelry. In the novel the word âlemci, which can be translated as “carouser”, is repeated numerous times, but since the word âlem also means a mystical realm, “carouser” signifies much more than simply someone who goes out drinking. As mentioned above, the main Kolerite language is slang. Slang is also the language of the novel. In this novel, the narrator narrates in slang, not in the standard dialect. The narrator belongs to the same world as the characters who speak in slang. In other words, the narrator and the characters all belong to Kolera, a fact emphasised though the use of slang. The slang of Kolera used in the novel includes words from various languages; it is a combination of languages. Hence, the narrator describes the Kolera folk as “carouser people of Kolera speaking eight languages . . . ”272 (62). The peasants are lacking in the slang used in Kolera, although they sometimes try, an effort described by the narrator as follows: “dummy peasants trying to speak slang”273 (42). In certain instances, since peasants cannot comprehend the slang of Kolera, they cannot

270 “Yoksuldular, eğitimsizdiler, lumpendiler ama şehirliydiler.” 271 “Kolera Sokağı bir dil ve hareket coğrafyasıdır aslında. Kenar mahalle mistisizminde karşılığı ‘Âlem’dir. ‘Bu âlemde muhabbeti kofti olanlar aynen ikilerler.’ ‘Yine öyle bir âlemdir ki bu, hareketin kralını yapamayanlara yer yoktur.’ Âlem, kenarında kaldığı öteki dünyalara eleştirisini böylelikle getirir.” 272 “Kolera’nın sekiz dil bilen âlemci insanları . . . ” Here the narrator means that words from languages spoken by the multicultural inhabitants of Kolera exist in the slang of the neighbourhood. The definitions, in Hulki Aktunç’s slang dictionary, of various slang words used by Kolerites reveal that Greek, Romani language, as well as Italian, because of the Levantines, are certainly among these languages. Additionally, it can be inferred that Semitic words from Assyrian people, as well as words from the Laz, or Georgian because of the immigrants from the Black Sea region might also be contributing to the slang of Kolera. Kurdish might not yet be there since the novel is set in the 1970s. 273 “argo konuşmaya çalışan aval köylüler” 146 understand what is happening. A good example is their confusion when Gıli promises to avenge the attack on Tina: “Gıli promised revenge in the most comprehensible way according to the customs of Kolera. Somebody explained this to the peasants and the softa!”274 (105). The narrator describes peasants based on the way they (cannot) speak: “peasants who cannot put two words together and speak”275 (142). The discrepancy between the cultures of the peasants and Kolerites is an obstacle against the peasants’ socialization with the Kolerites. The following passage is worth quoting at length as a vivid instance of the peasants’ isolation, and in this case the Kolerites’ effort not to exclude them: When the bride and the groom passed on to the “have a long-lasting marriage” stage, Kolera’s talented musicians started to make their original instruments weep. After darbuka player Fish Ayhan said “bro here live peasants too; let’s play something that will sound nice to them as well. Gabies do not get Romani style. For instance, we can play ‘don’t go my crane, don’t go’ in our way”. He made his goblet drum speak with his magical fingers and by distorting the track started to play in the language both sides would understand.276 (102) As seen here, it is not only the narrator but also the Kolerites who refer to these immigrants as peasants. Here the Kolerites have a friendly, if a little patronising, way of approaching the peasants. However, if a peasant does not know his/her place, then this might be reminded to him/her in an unpleasant manner, like in the case when Tina is walking back home from the wedding in the arms of two other women: “One of the peasant women who feels she has rather matured on the streets shouted out [in a rural accent] ‘What time is it?’ When the shrewdest of the babes, without looking at her watch, replied in mesmerizing foxiness “mallet past six”, the peasant woman blushed a deep red and went inside277 (105). “What time is it?”

274 “Gıli, Kolera’nın geleneklerine göre en anlaşılır şekilde intikam yemini etmişti. Birisi bunu köylülere ve softalara açıkladı.” The word “softa” literally means “someone associated with the religious activities of a Turkish mosque; especially: a beginner in theological studies” (“Softa”). Throughout the novel this word is used as a derogatory term for Islamist bigots. From here on “softa” is translated as “bigot”. 275 “iki kelimeyi yanyana getirip konuşamayan köylüler” 276 “Gelin ve damat ‘bir yastıkta kocayın’ durumuna geçtiğinde Kolera’nın yetenekli müzisyenleri original aletlerini ağlatmaya başladılar. Darbukacı Balık Ayhan, “Abe burada köylüler de oturuyor; onlara da güzel gelecek bir şey çalalım. Roman havasından anlamıyor kerizler. Mesela ‘Gitme turnam gitme’yi kafamıza göre döktürebiliriz.” dedikten sonra darbukayı sihirli parmaklarıyla konuşturup parçayı bozarak her iki tarafın da anlayacağı dilden döktürmeye başladı.” 277 “Sokakta epey piştiğini zanneden köylü kadınlardan biri ‘Seet gaç?’ diye seslendi. Cıvırların en kurnazı saate bakmadan “Altıyı tokmak geçiyor,” diye bayıltıcı bir tilkilikle cevap verince köylü kadın, morun en tatlı tonuna bürünüp içeri girdi.” 147 in a rural accent278 emphasises that this woman with her peasant accent has a long way to go to become a Kolerite despite her illusion of having accomplished this. To have matured on the streets is a perfect way of describing the process of becoming a Kolerite, and as is clear in the passage, it is not as easy as it may seem. At one point in the novel, Father Acem279 writes a poem about being a bitirim inspired by Gıli’s transformation: “Our youngster is recognized from afar/ We are carrying a concealed piece under our arm/Whatever you say our peasant friend/ Our breaths are counted from pre-eternity! Why should our lives be wasted?”280 (116) Father Acem is a poet who feels himself close to bitirims in terms of outlook on life. In his poem, it is worthy of notice how he defines this outlook as opposed to the peasants’ perspective. Being a Kolerite is being an urbanite. Similar to the way immigrants in Istanbul who cannot speak in the standard dialect are regarded as peasants, those who cannot speak in the slang of Kolera are regarded in the neighbourhood as peasants. The standard dialect i.e. Istanbulite Turkish is replaced with the slang of Kolera in the neighbourhood. This is the emphasis of the alternative urban identity: slang is urban. As Aktunç aptly puts it: “the widest slang treasure of a language is born and bred in the metropolis of that language”281 (“İstanbul Argosunun” 383). In Kolera, there is an alternative urban identity. The exclusion of immigrants as peasants in this way by the Kolerites, who might be immigrants themselves, is a claim to an urban identity. This underscores the fact that being an urbanite is not an issue of being born in the city but choosing to adapt to the city and to an urban way of life. The novel stresses this in the language of narration i.e. through its form, as well as problematising the issue of slang as a significant theme of the novel, i.e. with its content. As a result, the claim of Kolerites to an urban identity rescues the legitimacy of deciding who is an urbanite and who is not from the hands of the elitist hegemony.

9.4.2 Women on the Streets and Indoors in Kolera As illustrated in the examples above, both peasant men and women are portrayed as rude, ignorant and highly different from Kolerites. However, the differences between Kolerite women and peasant women are even more striking. The differences between Ali and İmine can be a good place to start. In order to freely have sex with prostitutes living in Kolera, Ali keeps his wife at home. He does that by scaring

278 “Seet gaç?” rather than “saat kaç?” 279 Acem Baba 280 “Uzaktan tanınır delikanlımız/Koltuk altındadır emanetimiz/ Sen ne söylersen söyle köylü kardeşimiz/Ezelden sayılıdır nefeslerimiz! Niçin boşa geçsin ömürlerimiz?” 281 “Bir dilin en geniş argo hazinesi, o dilin metropolünde doğar, gelişir” (383). 148 her about the city. Ali and his sons Gıli and Reco are Kolerites; however, when it comes to İmine it is different. Although not degraded as a peasant or put in the category of peasant, İmine is frequently associated with rural culture in the novel. It seems easier for men to adapt to urban culture than women, whose connection with the streets, with life outside the home is much more limited. The depiction of the scissors at Gıli’s house at an early stage of the novel is an example of İmine’s depiction as a character whose ties with her rural culture are strong and vivid: “the big carpet scissors she brought from the village”282 (20). After Sado gets killed, seeing Gıli in despair, İmine sings a “funny rhyme which she learned in the village”283 for him (32). The rhyme is quoted fully as an inserted genre, accentuating the influence of oral culture in Kolera and in the novel. On the following page, İmine uses incense sticks to rescue Reco from the evil eye. The detailed description of this somehow shamanistic act appears as a way to emphasise İmine’s belief in the supernatural, a trait stemming from her rural culture, as opposed to the rationality of the urban context. After Ali and İmine move to a rich neighbourhood, İmine starts to put on make-up and speak like polite, even elite urban women. After moving to a rich neighbourhood, she suddenly becomes an urban woman. The ease with which İmine adopts an elite Istanbulite way of speaking is in harmony with the novel’s stance about the cultural capital of elites, a point discussed below. Here, the novel seems to argue that not much cultural capital is needed to survive among the elite once one has money. İmine, who is associated with rural culture throughout the novel, succeeds in adopting an urban identity towards the end. However, this is not developed in the novel as a process with different stages. On the contrary, it is included more as a comic element, since at the stage when İmine becomes a completely different woman with urban manners she is also a mad woman. In this sense, the novel does not offer an argument regarding how immigrant women living claustrophobic lives in Kolera are able or not able to adopt an urban identity. When it comes to the women of Kolera who do not stay indoors like İmine but outside on the street, it is a completely different story. The excerpt below, introducing this as an important theme already on the second page of the novel is worth a close look: As the sun was wriggling through the clouds, the carouser women of Kolera started chatting like lions with car repairers, carpenters and turners in front of their houses, which looked like they would fall down with a shoulder charge. Meanwhile, they

282 “köyden uğur olarak getirdiği büyük halı makası” 283 “köyde öğrendiği komik tekerleme ” 149

started preparing filters for the craftsmen, whose hands were shaking as they were welding, to smoke their joints more grandly. Some peasant women were watching from the window like prisoners, since they were frightened by the scare stories about the neighbourhood told by their husbands.284 (10) Carouser woman285 refers to women who are involved in nightlife. These women may, now or in their past, have worked as prostitutes, B-girls286, singers or dancers in bars; they might also have (had) connections with drug dealers. This is not certain. What is certain is that they enjoy alcohol and dope. On a later page, the phrase “respectable senior sister carousers”287 (94) is used. Not all carouser women are described as “respectable senior sister”, this is a more prestigious category. Still, carouser woman has a positive connotation in the novel. These are strong and respected women who are practically equal to respected men. When the serial killer appears in the later pages of the novel only they and the bitirims have the courage to go out (94). In the above passage, the narrator uses a praising simile “like lions”288 describing their way of chatting with the men of Kolera. The paragraph also draws attention to their supportive behaviour towards the men, since they help them by preparing their joints. The final sentence of the quote makes the huge gap between them and peasant women very clear. A point should be elaborated here: “peasant women” might include all women who are indoors, like İmine. In other words, women whose husbands are categorised as Kolerites may also belong to the peasant women category. The relationship of İmine and Ali is such a case. İmine is implied to be a peasant woman, while Ali is a Kolerite man. This is so, because for men in Kolera there are various ways of being out on the street in the neighbourhood. As implied in the paragraph, they can be car repairers, carpenters or turners and so on. The wives of these men, on the other hand, are told to stay indoors. So these women stay as peasants while their husbands transform into Kolerites, adopting an urban identity. Half-way through the novel, Puma Zehra, a former B-girl who is a highly respected woman in Kolera, decides to dedicate herself to educating the “ignorant women of Kolera”289

284 “Güneş buluttan sıyrılırken Kolera’nın âlemci kadınları bir omuz darbesiyle yıkılacakmış gibi duran evlerinin önünde oto tamircileriyle, marangozlarla, tornacılarla aslanlar gibi muhabbete koyuldular. Bir yandan da kaynak yaparken elleri titreyen ustalara, esrarı daha kallavi içmeleri için zıvana hazırlamaya başladılar. Köylü kadınlar, kocalarının mahalle hakkında anlattıkları korku hikâyelerinden tırstıklarından mahkûmlar gibi camdan bakıyorlardı.” 285 Âlemci kadın 286 “A woman employed by a bar, nightclub, etc., to act as a companion to male customers and induce them to buy drinks” (“B-girl”). 287 “âlemci ağır ablalar” 288 “aslanlar gibi” 289 “Kolera’nın cahil kadınları” 150

(60); “ . . . she would make them break the cruel rules of the men’s world”290 (60). The wording “ignorant women” is repeated once again in the following sentence, where it is explained that these women’s husbands cannot react to Puma Zehra’s visits to their homes. “Ignorant women” seems to define women with a rural culture whose husbands are not categorised as peasants. After these women are educated by Puma Zehra they become bitirim- like within a very short time, start hanging out in the underground coffee-houses: “they have become regular clientele of the coffee-houses to which even men would enter faint-heartedly after thinking more than twice”291 (60) and become perfect gamblers. Late at night they walk on their own in the streets, having fun with the rough guys who try to hassle them. They refuse to have sex with their husbands if they don’t feel like it. Such a transformation of women solely as an outcome of Zehra’s guidance seems like a humorous gesture based on exaggeration. Once again the theme of the transformation of the isolated women of Kolera is expressed with humour in the novel. To sum up, Kolera has a significant number of women who are strong and respected, and not a step behind the men. These are not mundane housewives; they have a very different life-style. However, when it comes to the immigrant women who are isolated in their homes spending their lives as housewives, connecting with the neighbourhood they live in and therefore with the city is very difficult. Living in an edgy neighbourhood like Kolera makes things more difficult for them, compared to the women who live in ordinary poor neighbourhoods where they can safely go out shopping and for other reasons. The novel stresses their isolated condition in this sense, but does not elaborate on their possibilities of adapting to an urban life.

9.5 Setting and Related Themes

9.5.1 Cosmopolitan Kolera Türkeş describes Kolera as “a neighbourhood at the heart of Istanbul, yet very far away from it”292 (118). In line with Türkeş, in her analysis of the novel, Ecevit describes the people of Kolera as “people who, despite living in a metropolis of culture, cannot establish a connection with that culture . . . ” (3)293. Although she praises the novel, Ecevit cannot avoid reproducing an exclusionary and elitist discourse, which is also present in Türkeş’s remark. First of all, what is “the culture of Istanbul”? It is unclear what Ecevit means by “a metropolis

290 “ . . . bu kadınlara erkekler dünyasının acımasız kurallarını çiğnetecekti.” 291 “erkeklerin bile binbir hesap yapıp çekinerek girdiği kahvelerin değişmeyen elemanı oldular” 292 “İstanbul’un göbeğinde, ama İstanbul’a çok uzak bir semt ” 293 “Bir kültür metropolünde yaşamalarına rağmen o kültürle bağlantı kuramayan . . . insanlar . . .” 151 of culture”. If she means elite schools, exclusive social circles, then, true, the people of Kolera cannot connect with ‘that culture’. Or, if she means being a patron of the arts in the city i.e. opera, theatre or exhibitions, in that case it is also true. However, connecting with culture is not that clear-cut an issue. Obviously, culture is a highly contested concept. If Raymond Williams’s definition of culture as “a whole way of life”294 (“Culture is Ordinary” 11) is taken into consideration, it can easily be argued that the people of Kolera are highly connected with the culture of the metropolis in which they live; in fact more than many people who go to the city’s prestigious schools and keep up with the arts. This point is argued below. Kolera is a neighbourhood where people from various religious and ethnic backgrounds live. As mentioned above, the slang used in the novel includes words from various languages used in the neighbourhood. Hess explains that Roma people are called şopar in the novel, which is the Romani word for boy (57). He continues: “ . . . besides the Roma there are Romani speaking Greeks (Rum), Syrians (Süryani), Armenians (Ermeni) and Jews (Yahudi). In contrast to the Romany, they are identified explicitly by their ethnic names. While Jews occur once and in passing, the three other groups mentioned play an important role throughout the whole book” (58). At the very beginning of the novel, a conflict between the non-Muslims and the bigots of Kolera takes place. Sitting on a chair in front of the shop, Gıli witnesses bigots’ attack on the Greek community going to their church. The description of the event emphasises the narrator’s sympathy with the Greeks and his hatred for the bigots. “The rich and the bigot crew who intervened in anything happening in Kolera didn’t feel good until they were hurting the Greeks, who were going to their church in their spotless outfit unhindered”295 (15). The emphasis throughout the novel on the presence of non-Muslims in Kolera is a claim to the cosmopolitan legacy of the city. The novel constantly stresses that the non- Muslim minority and immigrants from Anatolia live together in Kolera. This emphasis confronts the elitist old-Istanbul nostalgia discourse which sounds like it was the rural to urban immigrants who pushed the non-Muslim minority out of Istanbul. A memory from Gıli’s childhood is a good example of the cosmopolitan heritage which is a fundamental aspect of life in Kolera: “Salih, in his babyhood, when he was slowly mastering walking,

294 “We use the word culture in . . . two senses: to mean a whole way of life – the common meanings; to mean the arts and learning – the special processes of discovery and creative effort. Some writers reserve the word for one or other of these senses; I insist on both, and on the significance of their conjunction” (“Culture is Ordinary” 11). 295 “Kolera’da olup biten her şeye karışan zengin ve softa takımı, hiç aksatmadan tertemiz giyinip kiliselerinde [sic] Rumlara bir pislik yapmadan rahat edemiyorlardı.” (In the English translation, the error has not been taken into account.) 152 climbed up the bell tower, and hanging his bare feet down the tower gazed into space”296 (16). The novel depicts Kolera as a place where the cosmopolitanism of Istanbul is still alive and there is nothing elite about this cosmopolitanism. By making the minority visible, the novel accentuates a meeting of different cultures in Kolera. People in Kolera are divided into three main groups by the narrator: Kolerites, peasants, and bigots. On the one hand there are the Kolerites, and on the other the peasants and bigots. The Kolerites have a culture of their own which is an amalgamation of all the cultures of the neighbourhood, and this is an urban culture. On the other hand, the peasants and bigots are isolated from the people of Kolera, they are hostile to it. They have not adapted to urban culture, they are dogmatic. This dichotomy of Kolerites vs. peasants and bigots is one of the central issues of the novel. Hess draws attention to the fact that, in addition to the bigots and the peasants, “the ‘coppers’ (zarbolar)” are also “continually denominated with derogatory denominations” (59) in the novel. It should be noted that there are no policemen living in the neighbourhood, at least none that the reader knows of. As mentioned above, in the novel Kolerites include everybody in the neighbourhood except for the peasants and the bigots. The word “Kolerites” is repeated numerous times in the novel, which stresses the significance of being from this neighbourhood in these people’s lives. Who are the Kolerites? Let us begin with Gıli’s family. At the beginning of the novel the narrator describes Ali as “ Barber Ali from Yıkıkköprü”297 (10) and explains that: “He could never be separated from this neighbourhood which he had seen during his military service; and then moved away from his fellow townspeople and settled in Kolera with his wife”298 (14). As mentioned earlier, immigrants in Istanbul usually dwell in places where people from their hometown live. However, under the spell of Kolera, Ali moves away from his fellow townspeople. Such a decision shows that Ali refuses to live in the comfort zone of his hometown community, and prefers to discover other ways of life in the city. This is an important step in claiming an urban identity.

296 “Salih yürümekte yeni yeni ustalaştığı bebeklik günlerinde kilisenin çan kulesine tırmanmış, çıplak ayaklarını kuleden aşağıya sarkıtıp boşluğu seyre dalmıştı.” 297 “Yıkıkköprülü Berber Ali” 298 “Askerliği sırasında gördüğü bu mahalleden bir daha kopamamış, hemşehrilerinden uzaklaşıp karısıyla beraber Kolera’ya yerleşmişti.” 153

Towards the end of the novel, there is a small-scale pogrom in the neighbourhood under the influence of a war that is not named.299 In this event, the bigots and the peasants attack the covinos300 and push them away from Kolera. The passage depicting the event is worth quoting at length: Shicers, who start in the first light of the morning to realize the trick plans they prepared the night before, staring dirtily at the faces of covinos, scattered seeds of torment. Tradesmen who were fraternal with covinos until yesterday turned into chameleons for the sake of goods and chattels. Covinos, leaving Kolera with their small suitcases under protection of the bitirims, wore their shoes out on the dark roads of the future. When they looked, as they were going, at the neighbourhood to which they had given their lives, they saw clothes freed from their ropes, plaster fallen down from the building and fishes hung out to be dried flying in the air! Those who went through the buildings and goods of covinos for mere chickenfeed threw their honour and fixer mentality up in the air. And peasants who are normally unable to string two words together , finding the injustice done to the covinos right, approved of the bigots of Kolera using words they had long saved: [in a rural accent] “What are you saying man, it is too late now! That’s just the way it is.301 (142) Kolera, being a melting pot of all these people from different religious and ethnic backgrounds, is very characteristic of Istanbul before the events that pushed its non-Muslim minority away. Kolera, the melting pot consists of not only the non-Muslim minority but also the Roma and immigrants from various parts of Anatolia. And as long as they adapt to Kolera, they are all Kolerites. One cannot be a Kolerite and a peasant, cannot be a Kolerite and a bigot. A Kolerite is an urbanite who is against religious dogmatism. Kolerites can have

299 Arslan argues that this undefined war might be an allusion to the 12 September 1980 coup (122). 300 The word covino comes from the Italian word giovane meaning young. In slang it means a Christian (Aktunç 75). 301 “Gecenin [sic] hazırladıkları üçkağıt planlarını, sabahın ilk ışıklarıyla uygulamaya geçen tokatçılar, covinoların suratlarına pis pis bakarak eziyet tohumları saçtılar. Daha düne kadar covinolarla kardeş gibi geçinen esnaflar, mal mülk uğruna bukalemun kesildiler. Covinolar, ağır bitirimlerin koruması altında, küçük valizlerle Kolera’yı terk edip geleceğin karanlık yollarında pabuç eskittiler. Giderken, yıllarını verdikleri mahalleye ve evlerine baktıklarında, iplerinden kurtulmuş çamaşırları, binadan kopmuş sıvaları ve kurutulmak üzere asılmış balıkları uçuşurken gördüler! Covinolardan üç kuruş paraya kaptıkları binalara ve eşyalara konanlar, Kolera’daki şereflerini ve iş bitiriciliklerini gökyüzüne yükselttiler. İki kelimeyi yan yana getirip konuşamayan köylüler de covinolara yapılan haksızlığı doğru bularak, sandıktan çıkardıkları sözcüklerle Kolera’nın softalarını onayladılar. ‘Ne diyon hemşerim, atı alan Üsküdar’ı geçti! Öyle, iş bilenin gılıç guşananın!’” 154 different occupations; they might also be involved in petty crime. These are subcategories involved in being a Kolerite. “The identification of Kolera with the Dolapdere quarter is placed beyond any doubt by the mention made in the novel of the Polish poet Adam Mickiewicz” (Hess 56). The author himself, a man from Dolapdere, created Kolera as a reflection of Dolapdere, with an emphasis on its cosmopolitan character. He rescues the cosmopolitan character of the city from the elitists and old-Istanbul nostalgia, and shows that a cosmopolitan atmosphere can be present in the city in a neighbourhood which is looked down on as a poor neighbourhood, or even stigmatised as a dilapidated neighbourhood. However, the pogrom that happens towards the end brings a highly pessimistic feeling to the novel, the significance of which is discussed in the conclusion section.

9.5.2 City as Oeuvre in the Poor Neighbourhood Kolera is much more than a place where people live. This can best be described by Lefebvre’s concept of “inhabit”, which he explains as “to take part in a social life, a community, village or city. Urban life had, amongst other qualities, this attribute. It gave the right to inhabit, it allowed townsmen-citizens to inhabit” (“Right” 76). Earlier in this dissertation, Lefebvre’s concept of the city as oeuvre, which he describes as the use-value of the city was discussed. It might be useful to refer to him once again for an explanation of the concept. For Lefebvre, the city, “with its streets and squares, edifices and monuments” should primarily be used for “la Fête (a celebration which consumes unproductively, without other advantage but pleasure and prestige and enormous riches in money and objects)” (66). The novel poignantly illustrates this pleasure as felt by a character who lives in a poor neighbourhood which is regarded by many as disconnected from the city. Gıli’s obsession with historical buildings is a perfect example: “ . . . he was a building freak. Daydreaming while gazing at buildings with oriel windows and ornaments and inlaid iron doors of stone buildings was his occupation”302 (35). The narrator’s anger in the passage below is also closely related to the oeuvre of the city: “When the general elections approached, the ruling party, in order to win votes, phonily asphalted the streets and threw dust in the voters’ eyes. And good old cobblestones of Kolera Street were swallowed up in the horrible asphalt”303 (50). The resentment pouring from the narration in the passage about the transformation of the

302 “ . . . o bir bina manyağıydı. Cumbalı ve desenli binalar, taş binaların işlemeli demir kapılarına bakıp hayale dalmak onun işiydi.” 303 “Genel seçimler yaklaşınca, iktidardaki parti oy kazanmak için sokakları koftiden asfaltlayıp seçmenlerin gözlerini boyadı. Kolera Sokağı da güzelim parke taşlarının üstüne iğrenç asfaltı yedi”. 155 open cinema of Kolera into a car-park is yet another impressive illustration of feelings related to city as oeuvre: “Bigots collaborating with the chief who rules the underground world, and making a bargain with the foundations304, rented the site occupied by the cinema for ninety- nine years, and used it for the rich pimps’ cars in those beautiful places” (63)305. The charitable foundation which owns the place is supposed to use it for public good. Instead, it uses it to make money and help some other people make money. This event comes to the fore at a significant moment in the novel, emphasising the close ties between city as oeuvre and the right to the city. While the novel depicts the cosmopolitan character of the historic neighbourhood of Kolera and emphasises the oeuvre of the city in the neighbourhood, it also draws a line between Kolera and the rest of the city. As visible in various excerpts from the novel, the narrator describes Kolera as a poor neighbourhood306. This can be a derogatory term, depending on the usage. In the novel, it is not derogatory at all; on the contrary, it has a positive connotation. Throughout the novel, places are categorised as follows: poor neighbourhoods, the city, and rich neighbourhoods. Kolera is a neighbourhood in the poor neighbourhood category; other poor neighbourhoods are not named but implied, for instance: “ . . . Tina, she was the most hot- blooded of the poor neighbourhood girls who had grown up with three olives and a quarter loaf of bread”307 (124); “typical poor neighbourhood incident”308 (123). A poor neighbourhood is a world only known to those who inhabit it. Throughout the novel, Kolera people are depicted as wise people since they have an extensive knowledge of life, while residents of the rich parts of the city are depicted as shallow. Standard school education does not mean anything in this comparison, it is the school of the streets that counts. The knowledge of the streets gained in the poor neighbourhood is very precious as it cannot be acquired anywhere else. Customers bringing their cars to Hamit’s repair shop are described by the narrator as “ . . . getting free-ride knowledge about life on the periphery”309 (56). Sometimes, outsiders are described in a more hostile way: “one of those hairy- arseds who

304 The “foundations” here refers to the Directory of Foundations, the legal authority which deals with estates belonging to charitable foundations. 305 “Yeraltı dünyasını yöneten reisle işbirliği yapan softalar, vakıflardan da işi bağlayıp doksan dokuz seneliğine sinemanın arsasını kiralayıp o güzelim yerlerde, zengin pezevenklerin arabalarına hizmet verdiler.” 306 kenar mahalle 307 “ . . . Tina, o üç zeytin, çeyrek ekmekle büyümüş kenar mahalle kızlarının en ateşlisiydi!” 308 “klasik kenar mahalle hadisesi” 309 “ . . . kenardaki yaşam hakkında inanılmaz bir bilgiye bedavadan sahip oluyorlardı.” 156 have come to Kolera to buy drugs”310 (108). The novel’s message is, if you have money you can move into a rich neighbourhood and survive there, as for example Ali and İmine move into a rich neighbourhood with the money Ali makes from drug dealing. İmine easily passes as upper-class. This detail is an indicator of the novel’s stance about the upper classes: education and background do not really count, if you have money you can always become a member of the upper-class. However, to be able to survive in the poor neighbourhood you need knowledge of the streets and great courage. In other words, in the novel cultural and social capital of the people of Kolera, which is only gained in the streets of Kolera is appreciated, while the cultural and social capital of the upper classes is downgraded. The upper classes are represented as having nothing apart from money. Consequently, in the novel, the elite, the nouveau-riche and the people with dirty money are equated with each other. In the novel, the city is not presented in a dichotomous relationship with Kolera. The people of Kolera go to the cinemas and bars in the city centre. Although a line between Kolera and the rest of the city is emphasised, Kolera vs. the city is not presented as a binary opposition. The binary opposition is between Kolera the poor neighbourhood and the rich neighbourhoods of the city as depicted in the following examples: the first television in Kolera is the one which Fethi steals from a rich neighbourhood. The narrator describes it as the one Fethi “ripped off from one of the rich neighbourhoods”311 (58). After the serial murderer Taner is killed, the narrator says: “If Taner’s dice throw was a double six everything would have been different. Maybe he would be living the life of a dummy in one of the rich neighbourhoods”312 (122). At another moment, he makes the following comment: “Gıli would stop by the rich neighbourhoods where Imine lives to claim lives”313 (135). The line between Kolera and the rest of the city is discussed in the next section.

9.5.3 Kolera and the Rest of the City In the first chapter of the novel, when the officials come to Kolera to catch unregistered workers, the bosses tell their apprentices to disappear for the day, so Orhan and his friends go to the movies: “Fox Orhan, together with his workfellows in oily clothes, with calloused hands, but only rudimentary knowledge of life, made his way to the cinemas in the

310 “Kolera’ya uyuşturucu almaya gelmiş hödüklerden biri” 311 “zengin semtlerinden birinden arakladığı” 312 “Taner’in zarı düşeş gelseydi her şey başka bir şekilde gerçekleşecekti. Belki de zengin semtlerinden birinde aptal hayatı yaşıyor olacaktı.” 313 “Gıli, İmine’nin oturduğu lüks semtlere can almak için uğrardı!” 157 heart of the city”314 (23). The area in the city centre with many movie theatres is Beyoğlu, however the narrator prefers to call it the “heart of the city” rather than giving it a name. Similarly, when the narrator relates that “bigots, to celebrate winning the match, went to the arcade and sat down for drinks”315 (66) it is most likely that this arcade is Çiçek Pasajı316 in Beyoğlu, but its name is not given. Throughout the novel, “the city” is a frequently repeated phrase. The novel is set in Kolera and almost all the events happen there. When the characters go outside of Kolera, the place where they go is almost always referred to as “the city” although in fact Kolera is within walking distance of Beyoğlu. The first time the reader witnesses Gıli outside of Kolera is in his early days as a bitirim, after he and his friends extort money in the chief’s gambling den: “Gıli and his friends dispersed to the stomach of the city with the bonus cash they screwed out of the chief”317 (85). This adventure of Gıli and his friends in the third part of the novel is told in a two-page long, highly amusing passage. They first go into a bar where some elderly gay men, who are interested in young boys, buy them beers. When Gıli realises that these men are actually touching his friends, who are not aware that they are gay, he and his friends attack them and break glasses and plates. The narrator goes back over the moment: “ . . . four cronies were talking about how they avoided getting fucked in the perfumed streets of the city”318 (86). They continue their adventures in the city: “Breathing in the smell of the perfume they entered the central knocking shop of the city”319 (86). Here Gıli has sex for the first time in his life, and steals the prostitute’s fancy slippers (earlier in the novel his mother wants to buy fancy slippers but cannot afford them). The narration continues as follows: “When Gıli arrived at the knocking shop’s door which opens onto the city with his friends, he laughed like a dog until his guts ached”320 (87). The passage ends when they come back to Kolera: “The four cronies came down screamingly to Kolera after fooling around in the streets until dogs invaded the city”321 (87). Gıli throws the slippers onto his parents’ balcony wrapped in his shirt, and with a few tears in his eyes walks to the bitirimhane to spend the night. In this passage, although it is obvious that where Gıli and his friends go to the brothel is Karaköy, the

314 “Tilki Orhan, iş arkadaşlarıyla beraber yağlı elbiselerle, nasırlı ellerle, kulaktan dolma hayat bilgisiyle şehrin göbeğindeki sinemalara doğru ilerledi.” 315 “Softalar maçı kazanmanın şerefine pasaja çıkıp içkiye oturdular.” 316 Flower Passage: A famous historic arcade with meyhanes and restaurants off Istiklal Street in Beyoğlu. 317 “Gıli ve arkadaşları reisten kopardıkları avanta parayla şehrin karnına doğru uzandılar.” 318 “ . . . dört kafadar, şehrin parfümlü sokaklarında düzülmekten kurtuluşlarını konuşuyorlardı.” 319 “Parfüm kokusunu soluyarak şehrin merkez kerhanesine girdiler.” 320 “Gıli arkadaşlarıyla birlikte kerhanenin şehre açılan kapısına gelince, köpekler gibi mide sancıları geçirene kadar güldü.” 321 “Dört kafadar, köpekler şehri istila edene kadar sokaklarda sürtüp çığlıklar atarak Kolera’ya indiler.” 158 quarter of the city where all the brothels are, once again the name of the place is not mentioned. Throughout the passage “the city” is repeated many times but the names of the places the characters go to are not mentioned. Another point worthy of analysis in this sense is the relationship of Reco, Gıli’s brother, with the world outside of his neighbourhood. The way this relationship is depicted in the novel emphasises the line between Kolera and the rest of the city: “Reco was gripped, so to speak, by this music [La Bamba] he got used to when with the friends he met outside Kolera. Reco started by saying ‘Boys looking like the prophet’ when his friends from outside the neighbourhood was the subject of discussion” (55)322. The narrator adds: “Reco, who was not that successful at card games, was gaining his reputation in the coffee-house by educating the bitirims with his knowledge gained from the outside world”323 (55). Later in the novel, the moment of Reco’s departure from Kolera is explained thus: “Wrapping his books and tapes up in his jacket he set off to meet the friends he met outside Kolera” (66)324. Here, his books and music tapes are an important indicator of his interests. Eventually, he returns to Kolera to open a cartoon library which appears as the topos: the boy from a poor place fortunate enough to get an education outside of this place comes back to contribute to his people via education, culture and the arts. However, the neighbourhood does not warmly welcome him when he comes back to do that, which seems indicative of the novel’s stance about depicting Kolera as a self-sufficient world without needing the knowledge or the culture of the rest of the city. As mentioned earlier, Kolera is described as a poor neighbourhood in positive terms. It has been argued above that the opposition in the novel is not between Kolera and the city but between Kolera and rich neighbourhoods. However, this argument is not to ignore the significance of the line marked between Kolera and the rest of the city. There is a continuous emphasis on the separation between Kolera the poor neighbourhood and the centre of the city as is obvious in descriptions such as: “Youngsters who put on Fethi’s clothes went up to the heart of the city and put on airs around the loaded dickheads”325 (48); “in Kolera’s asphalt road extending to the heart of the city . . . ” (127)326. In one example, the centre of the city and its rich neighbourhoods seem to overlap when the narrator describes Ali and İmine’s new

322 “Reco, Kolera’nın dışında tanıştığı arkadaşlarından alıştığı bu müziğin [La Bamba] adeta tutsağı olmuştu. Reco, mahalle dışındaki arkadaşlarından söz açılınca ‘Peygamber gibi çocuklar,’ diye söze başlıyordu.” 323 “Kağıt oyunlarında pek başarılı olamayan Reco, kahvedeki itibarını dış dünyadan öğrendiği bilgileri bitirimlere öğreterek sağlıyordu.” 324 “Kitaplarını ve kasetlerini ceketine sarıp Kolera’nın dışında tanıştığı arkadaşlarına doğru yola çıktı.” 325 “Fethi’nin elbiselerini giyen delikanlılar şehrin göbeğine çıkıp zengin zamalifkalara hava bastılar.” 326 “Kolera’nın kentin göbeğine uzanan asfalt yolunda . . . ” 159 house as “the house at the centre of the city” (134)327. However, there is a fine detail here that might be worthy of attention: in all instances where the narrator talks about the city, he calls it “şehir” [city] or “şehrin göbeği” [heart of the city]: this is the city which the Kolerites have a close connection with: Beyoğlu, heart of the nightlife as well as the culture and arts of the city is within walking distance of Kolera. In the instance when the city centre is equated with the rich neighbourhoods, the narrator uses the word “kent” rather than “şehir” (127). Both words mean “city”, however “şehir” is slightly more colloquial than “kent”. Such a word choice might be in line with the argument above: the former word might be suggesting the city the oeuvre of which is shared by those in the poor neighbourhoods as well, while the latter might have the connotation of an alien urban area belonging to the rich and the elite. In brief, although Kolera is created as a world unto itself in the novel, it is an Istanbulite world that could only exist in this city. Its gates are open to those who want to go out but not for those who want to come in. Outsiders might come to the neighbourhood to get their car fixed or to buy some dope. But they cannot be a member of the Kolera community.

9.5.4 Challenging the dilapidated neighbourhood discourse The concept of dilapidated neighbourhood, despite sounding objective on the surface, makes poor neighbourhoods prone to harsh urban transformation projects serving neo-liberal interests. In many cases, the concept is used together with the issue of crime serving the stigmatisation of poor neighbourhoods such as Dolapdere, Tarlabaşı and Sulukule. These neighbourhoods are presented as hubs of crime by politicians and officials, who want to start urban transformation projects in these areas. With the support of the mainstream media, this leads to a widespread prejudice against these neighbourhoods. Roman(i) confronts such a stigmatisation by realistically creating Kolera, based on Dolapdere, as a neighbourhood where various different types of people, including criminals, live together. The following passage depicting an ordinary morning in the neighbourhood is worth quoting at length in this respect: Night, howls of the sea, whinnies of horses, screams of morphine addicts in crises slashing themselves with razors gradually became morning. While the sun was rubbing its sleepy face towards roofs on the horizon, B-girls who have got tired in bars hit Kolera one after the other. The giant door of the shipyard opening stridently, like a crocodile’s mouth, caught the workers who set off from the metal streets. Meagre, dark and dry children in the metal streets pushed up

327 “kentin göbeğindeki ev” 160

the shutters of the workshops they work at angrily as if they have all agreed to do so simultaneously. (22-23)328 What is described here is not a hub of crime. Although there are outcasts such as morphine addicts or B-girls, the passage reveals that there are also workers on the docks, shopkeepers, apprentices who live and/or work here. The narrator presents them all as the people of Kolera without any prejudice against any of them, without a hierarchy. The neighbourhood of Kolera is illustrated as a place which enfolds people from different walks of life, none of them excluded. This way of presenting Kolera, and therefore Dolapdere which is one of the most stigmatised neighbourhoods of Istanbul, can be seen as an opposing argument to the pro- urban transformation discourse. Roman(i) was written twenty years before the violent gentrification process that has been ongoing in the Tarlabaşı-Dolapdere area since 2010. The novel, as if anticipating such a transformation, defends the neighbourhood against stigmatisation by including characters from a wide array, thus giving a vivid picture of Dolapdere in the guise of Kolera. The novel manages to depict the Dolapdere neighbourhood as an arena of multiple colours where good and evil live side by side. The evil in the novel is not those people involved in petty crime or drugs. The evil is the mafia who hassle poor people, and those who collaborate with corrupt officials who take advantage of the assets of foundations and with policemen who use their power for their own interests. In the novel, and in Kolera, crime is not the criterion of being good or evil, the honour code is. As opposed to the discourse which stigmatises the place as solely a hub of crime, the novel stresses the heterogeneity of the Kolera community. In fact, for many Kolera people, crime in the neighbourhood is as scary as it would be for someone living in a quiet part of the city, as the following quotations depict: “streets which the good people of Kolera would not dare to go into”329 (30); “Kolera’s good people would not dare to walk in the daytime in the streets where these faceless men were wandering at night”330 (40). The depiction of barber Ali’s life in the neighbourhood is also a good example. As noted very early in the novel, Ali gets drawn to Kolera when he is a young boy on military service, and eventually moves there

328 “Gece, denizden gelen uğultular, at kişnemeleri, kriz geçirip kendini jiletleyen morfinmanların çığlıkları sabaha ilerledi. Güneş bir ufuktan uykulu yüzünü çatılara sürerken, pavyonlarda yorulan konsomatris kadınlar, birer ikişer Kolera’ya döküldü. Tersanenin gıcırtıyla açılan dev kapısı, metal sokaklardan yola çıkan işçileri timsah gibi kaptı. Metal sokakların çelimsiz, kara kuru çocukları, çalıştıkları atölyelerin kepenklerini sözbirliği etmişçesine öfkeyle kaldırdılar.” 329 “Kolera’daki iyi insanların geçmeye cesaret edemediği sokaklar” 330 “Bu meçhul adamların gece dolaştığı sokaklarda, Kolera’nın iyi insanları, gündüz dolaşmaya cesaret edemezlerdi.” 161 as a married man. His life there is described thus: “In order to defend himself from pill-heads, psychos, freeloading rowdies, and at the same time to be able to get a toehold in Kolera, he was battling with his life in his hands”331 (14). When in front of his shop he sees the blood of men killed by the chief’s men, Ali comes to the end of his tether: “These are not places where proper people would live”332 (34) he yells. However, it is when his wife goes mad that he can eventually make the final move to leave Kolera. It is a place that is difficult to live within yet more difficult to live without. Reco’s departure from the neighbourhood is an event in the novel implying Kolera’s addictiveness and indispensability: “When Reco approached the edge of Kolera his feelings were mixed. Separating from the people of the neighbourhood who made laughing and living impassionedly a part of their life, touched him badly”333 (66). On a later page, Gıli’s feelings about Kolera are described: “He understood that a neighbourhood like this was impossible to leave despite everything”334 (106). After some time he spends outside of Kolera, Reco decides to come back to Kolera: “ . . . leaving the newspaper he worked for, he ran to find the soul which he had left in the street. Reco ran to Kolera for nothing, he did not know that a soul which is left for a long time will never come back to the body”335 (138). As he walks in the streets of Kolera, drunken poets are reciting their poems out loud, the Roma are saying funny words. However, Reco is no longer able to hear them. On the first night that is depicted in the novel, gamblers arrive at Orso’s coffee-house, which has a secret top floor for gambling games; the police chase prostitutes while dope smokers dance and have fun. Thieves make cats jump onto carpets to steal them, Ali catches them under his balcony and the narrator comments: “For the people living in the neighbourhood such incidents were nothing but midnight fun” 336 (20). A couple of examples depicting the life in Kolera might enrich this picture. “ . . . Kolera’s children who have grown up in the shade of broken syringes”337 (15), “ . . . Kolera’s streets with the sounds of knives, dices and seductive screams”338 (55), “the smell of paint thinner, burned tyres, paint that is

331 “Papikçilerden, psikopatlardan ve haybeci kabadayılardan korunmak için, aynı zamanda Kolera’da tutunabilmek için kelle koltukta çarpışıyordu. Bu da Kolera’da yaşamanın cabasıydı.” 332 “ . . . ‘İnsan olan insanın yaşayacağı yerler değil buralar!’ . . . ” 333 “Reco, Kolera’nın sınırına yaklaşınca duyguları birbirine karıştı. Her türlü sertliğe rağmen gülmeyi ve coşkulu yaşamı hayatlarının bir parçası haline getirmiş mahalle halkından ayrılmak Reco’ya fena dokunmuştu.” 334 “Herşeye rağmen böyle bir mahallenin asla terk edilemeyeceğini anladı.” 335 “ . . . çalıştığı dergiyi terk edip sokakta bıraktığı ruhuna koştu. Reco, Kolera’ya boşuna koşmuştu, uzun süre terk edilen ruhun bir daha asla bedene dönmeyeceğini bilmiyordu.” 336 “Mahallede oturanlar için bu gibi vukuatlar gece yarısı eğlencesinden başka bir şey değildi.” 337 “ . . . kırık şırıngaların gölgesinde büyüyen Kolera’nın çocukları . . . ” 338 “Kolera’nın bıçak sesi, zar sesi ve şuh çığlık sesi gelen sokaklarına ” 162 always in Kolera”339 (43), “Kolera’s streets with the sound of the darbuka”340 (71), “Kolera’s tough night- and daylife . . . ”341 (98); “bell chimes from the church filled the air mixing with a soft odour of marihuana and the sound of the azan”342 (13); “the regular hammer beats of the smiths, junk dealers and ‘emperors’ dispersed into the air like the sound of a good quality darbuka”343 (23). As the excerpts reveal, the use of auditory and olfactory imagery, a significant feature of the novel, have an important function in the depictions of the neighbourhood as well. Sennett, interpreting Nietzche’s The Birth of Tragedy344 in correlation with the city explains that Dionysian rites “could be practiced best among strangers: the drinking, dancing, and fucking is more intense if no one knows who you are or where you come from” (The Conscience 238). In Kolera, however, Dionysian rites are carried out even though the people know each other very well. Kolera is a unique version of Sennett’s Dionysian city. At the same time, it is yet another poor neighbourhood where poor people from all walks of life live together and try to survive on their labour. Kolera carries much more in its bosom than the pejorative concept of dilapidated neighbourhood suggests. The novel, facing up to stigmatisation by emphasising this fact, is a loud cry for the right of the poor to inhabit their neighbourhoods in the city centre.

9.6 Conclusion At one point in the novel, the narrator relates: “Neither in Kolera, nor in other peripheries of the world was there someone who would dare to say a word to Puma Zehra”345 (60). “Other peripheries of the world”, a poetic phrase from the author, is laden with meanings: a poor neighbourhood appears in the novel as a way of being, a world unto itself. At another moment of the novel, the narrator describes Fethi as “the only person in Kolera with healthy and shiny teeth”346 (34) in yet another touching use of words. The novel has numerous examples of such articulations of the lives of poor people in the poor neighbourhood of Kolera. Such lives, as mentioned earlier, have been depicted in the modern Turkish novel by writers such as Orhan Kemal. What makes Roman(i) unique is the way the

339 “ . . . Kolera’da her zaman var olan tiner kokusunu, yanık lastik kokusunu, boya kokusunu . . . ” 340 “ . . . Kolera’nın darbuka sesi gelen sokaklarına . . . ” 341 “Kolera’nın sert geçen gece ve gündüz hayatı . . . ” 342 “Kiliselerden gelen çan sesleri, kısa bir zaman sonra hafif esrar kokusu ve ezan sesiyle karışıp havayı kapladı.” 343 “Demircilerin, hurdacıların, imparatorların düzenli çekiç darbeleri Kolera Sokağı’na kaliteli bir darbuka sesi gibi dağıldı.” 344 The work, originally titled Die Geburt der Tragödie aus dem Geiste der Musik, was first published in 1872. 345 “Puma Zehra’ya laf söyleyecek bir insan ne Kolera’da ne de dünyanın diğer kenarlarında yoktu.” 346 “Kolera’nın dişleri sağlam ve parlak tek insanı” 163 narrator presents himself as one of the inhabitants of the poor neighbourhood by narrating in the slang of Kolera. As discussed above, the novel has such a vivid and colourful variety of characters that it could only be written by someone from inside. The author positions all these characters in the novel as indispensable parts of the life in Kolera. In his last interview Kaçan, the author of the novel explained: As a person who grew up in Dolapdere, I have never ever judged or humiliated either homosexuals, or murderers, or religious fanatics, or prostitutes. For me they all had a story to tell. They were all people who set off with beautiful stories at the beginning. Accepting them as they are, not judging them were among those things living in Dolapdere has taught me. Most of these people, in time, became my friends.347 (11) “Having not looked down on any of them” is an important way of explaining what Kaçan did in the novel. As discussed above, throughout the novel the author stresses the line between immigrants who have adapted to an urban way of life and those who have not. He has “not looked down on any of them, judged any of them”, that is true. However, it should be noted that the emphasis on the line between urbanised immigrants and peasants in the novel could be interpreted as a means of judgement, had it appeared within another context. Roman(i)’s originality is the way it talks about its peasants while positing the route to become an urbanite as a road open to everyone: one does not need to have parents who were born in the city to be an urbanite, neither a good school education nor a petit bourgeois social circle: one has to appreciate the city as oeuvre to be an urbanite; this is the message of the novel in between the lines. The novel depicts a poor neighbourhood of Istanbul as a place where differences meet without the feeling of nostalgia for old-Istanbul, in a manner opposed to an elitist attitude. In this respect, the following words of the author in the same interview are worth quoting at length: The people, events, streets I tell about, I would like to tell about, all of them have Istanbul in the lead role. Istanbul is a stage where my characters exhibit their talents. A grand stage that loves, hates, opens its bosom and at the same time excludes. Dolapdere, where I spent my childhood, was in a way a microcosm of Istanbul for me. Murderers, thieves, immigrant families, Armenians, Greeks all of them were there as

347 “Dolapdere’de büyümüş biri olarak ne eşcinselleri ne katilleri ne yobazları ne fahişeleri asla yargılamadım, asla aşağılamadım. Bana göre hepsinin bir hikâyesi vardı. Başlangıçta hepsi güzel hikâyelerle yola çıkmış insanlardı. Onları oldukları gibi kabul etmek, yargılamamak Dolapdere’de yaşamanın bana öğrettiklerindendi. Bu insanların çoğu, zaman içinde benim arkadaşım oldu.” 164

large as life, in a way impossible to deny; they were accepted and at the same time excluded, otherised.348 (11) Unfortunately, this Dolapdere will be a memory from the past in the very near future. It is fading out of sight with the Tarlabaşı project gentrifying it with an incredible intensity and speed, transforming it into a completely different, ultra-fancy neighbourhood. At the end of Roman(i) no member of Ali’s family is left in Kolera: he has disappeared, his wife lives on her own in a rich neighbourhood, Reco has long departed from the neighbourhood and Gıli has committed suicide. The beautiful cobbled-stone streets of Kolera are covered with asphalt, and the open-air cinema has been transformed into a car-park. The grim ending of the novel seems to foreshadow the ruthless urban transformation that is now destroying the city, particularly neighbourhoods like Dolapdere, within around two decades of the publication of the novel. As stressed throughout the analysis, the idea of the right to the city is developed in the novel in terms of oeuvre and the claim to the city centre where one can inhabit and appreciate this oeuvre. Therefore, the way the novel surpasses the material needs aspect of the right to the city is worthy of attention. In addition to this, with its unique narration and wise foreshadowing, this book will always have a special place in modern Turkish literature as a key novel about Istanbul.

348 “Anlattığım, anlatmak istediğim insanlar, olaylar, sokaklar, hepsinin başrolünde İstanbul var aslında. İstanbul benim karakterlerimin hünerlerini sergilediği bir sahne. Seven, nefret eden, onlara kucak açan ve aynı zamanda dışlayan büyük bir sahne. Çocukluğumun geçtiği Dolapdere, bir nevi İstanbul’un minyatürü gibiydi benim için. Katiller, hırsızlar, göç etmiş aileler, Ermeniler, Rumlar hepsi inkâr edilemez bir şekilde tüm varlıklarıyla oradalardı; kabul edilmişlerdi ve aynı zamanda dışlanmışlardı, ötekileştirilmişlerdi.” 165

CHAPTER 10

Berji Kristin: Tales from the Garbage Hills and Heavy Roman(i): A comparative analysis Both Hills (1984) and Roman(i) (1990) are books based on an insider’s perspective. They can be regarded as examples of the second phase of the Istanbul novels with immigrant characters, where either the first or the second-generation immigrant author writes about life in Istanbul as experienced by immigrants and their families. Temizyürek lists Tekin’s works among the most significant novels dealing with first generation immigrants, while he refers to Roman(i) “as an example of the output of the second generation”349 (17). As discussed in the analyses of the novels, both in Hills and Roman(i) the autobiographical aspect is very much to the forefront, and critics as well as readers have been very much interested in this dimension in their reception of the novel. In terms of their novelistic form, the two novels are extremely different. Hills is a highly experimental novel with an episodic structure, while Roman(i) has a simple and linear structure. The narration is unique in both novels in a similar way to each other. In Hills, the use of words from dialects by the narrator and in Roman(i) the use of slang by the narrator have the same effect: the narrator sounds like an insider, someone from the community she/he describes. Thus the insider approach is not only in the content but also in the form of the novels. In Hills, the Hill folk, by some extraordinary alchemy, turn concepts of urban culture into a language of their own in their magical universe. Urban elements enter Flower Hill in a distorted form, as if in a phantasmagoria. It is mainly a rural culture in a semi-rural and semi- urban, amorphous setting, which could only be possible in a magic realist novel like this one. On the other hand, in Roman(i) slang, which is an urban phenomenon, is at the centre of the novel. At certain moments, through the main character’s mother’s beliefs and traditions, references to rural oral culture appear in its contents, but it has a minor place in the novel. The face of Roman(i) is turned to urban culture, while the face of Hills is turned to rural culture and its transformation in the city.

10.1 Characters and Related Themes The community in Flower Hill are all first generation immigrants, while in Kolera, many of the characters, including the central character Gıli, were born in Istanbul as the children of immigrants. Additionally, while in Flower Hill the Hill folk are immigrants who

349“ikinci kuşağın edebiyatının bir örneği . . . “ 166 have very recently arrived in the city, the first generation immigrants who live in Kolera, such as Ali, have been in Istanbul for a long while. In addition to this, while Flower Hill is a closed circuit isolated from the rest of the city, Kolera is located in the centre of the city. This difference also has an impact on the characters’ process of adopting an urban identity. The Hill folk are portrayed in complete perplexity in Hills, completely unfamiliar with the life going on around them as if they have been dropped off from another planet by a spacecraft. They try to make sense of a union, a strike, the way men and women socialise on the picket line, protests and many other things. In contrast with that, the people of Kolera, apart from the housewives who spend their lives indoors, the peasants and bigots, feel at home in the city. In Hills, which does not focus on a specific character, it is not possible to observe a character’s dynamics as regards the urban identity, while in Roman(i) the urban identity of being a Kolerite is central to Gıli's and Reco’s characterisations. The urban identity of being a Kolerite as presented by Gıli is somewhat nihilistic, very different from the urban identity signalled by Orhan Kemal. Gıli commits suicide in the end and his father starts drug dealing to finance a new life in a rich neighbourhood. On the other hand, where Reco is concerned, the Kolerite identity is not equated with nihilism and an edgy life style, and quite in line with Orhan Kemal’s ideal. Reco, as a Kolerite, taking full benefit from living in the city centre, meets people from different parts of Istanbul with different lifestyles, thus gets involved with culture and the arts and leftist politics. However, as he does this, he leaves Kolera. After a while, he comes back to his neighbourhood, and opens a cartoon library there as if showing youngsters there an alternative to killing time in the bitirimhane. The novel is ambivalent in its message about Reco. Does he keep his Kolerite identity, and enlarge it in the way it includes his new lifestyle and interests? Or does he simply replace his Kolerite identity with another sort of urban identity? Once he moves out, he no longer belongs to Kolera in the way he used to do in the past, the novel makes this clear. Still, this does not mean that he is punished because he left the place, nor is he depicted as a sell-out. At the end of the novel, Reco is the only character in the family who does not have a tragic ending. The reader is not told about his ending, it might as well be a positive one, a fact that brings a spark of hope to the novel. At this point it might be meaningful to make a few comparisons between the two novels as regards the politicised atmosphere of the late 1970s and class struggle. In Roman(i), Kolerites who are labourers have high visibility. They are not workers in factories, they are apprentices who are implied to be working informally. In Hills, the Hill folk are not depicted 167 as labourers, they are mostly unemployed, picking over the garbage to survive. In this sense, the people of Kolera are much closer to being part of the proletariat than the Hill folk. Both novels seem to be set a short while before the 12th of September coup, and the discourse of the radical left groups, with a vocabulary loaded with Marxist terms about class relations, appears as a comic element in both of them. While in Hills this motif is developed deeply as a criticism of the left for not being able to find a language in common with immigrants, in Roman(i) it appears only once with a humorous effect, when some teenagers in Kolera get completely lost as they are listening to a couple of radicals speaking passionately about capitalist exploitation (62). However, in Roman(i) not all the Kolerite people get confused about the radical left discourse. As the political polarisation of the country is experienced in the neighbourhood, some Kolerites, such as Gıli’s father, have sympathy for the left. On the other hand, the Flower Hill folk have a much more problematic relationship with the left, as discussed in the analysis chapter in detail. The ways these themes appear in the two novels emphasise their distinct messages in terms of the possibilities of an urban identity for immigrants. In Roman(i) there are strong women, “heavy senior sisters” whose existence emphasises the urban culture in Kolera. In Hills there are no such women, apart from one, Tirintaz Fidan. In fact, Tirintaz Fidan in Hills and Puma Zehra in Roman(i) are very similar to each other, as both of them at one point feel a responsibility to educate the women of their neighbourhood. However, at the end of their duty, the women they inspire face quite opposite destinies: the women of Flower Hill who get enlightened by the teachings of Fidan get beaten by their husbands when they claim certain rights, while the women of Kolera following Zehra as their guru start to be treated equally to the men in some respects. Of course, this is a small group of Kolerite women, but still the way the theme gets developed is once again an emphasis on the strength of an urban perception in Kolera, as the results are rather different from the results of a similar incident in Flower Hill.

10.2. Setting and Related Themes In both novels, the neighbourhood the novel is set in appears like the protagonist of the novel: Flower Hill in Hills and Kolera in Roman(i). Belge, in his comment included in the analysis chapter above, stresses that Flower Hill appears like the protagonist in the novel (“Sevgili Arsız” 224). Similarly, Ecevit underscores that Kolera is created in Roman(i) “almost like an organic being which breathes”350 (“Metin Kaçan’dan” 215). In both novels,

350 “neredeyse soluk alıp veren organik bir canlı gibi” 168 events happening in the neighbourhood appear like phases the neighbourhood goes through akin to stages of character development. After each important development in the neighbourhood, the place seems to become more experienced, like a novelistic hero. Therefore, the way the neighbourhood develops and changes is a central issue, just like that of a character, in these two novels. In Hills, this becomes more striking since the reader follows Flower Hill from the day of the first shanties until the day it falls from grace, like the story of a character from the day of her birth until the time of her death. Additionally, the fact that in Hills there is no hero, no person as a central character, enforces Flower Hill’s position as the protagonist of the novel; while in Roman(i) despite Kolera’s significance in the novel, Gıli is the protagonist. Additionally, unlike Hills, in Roman(i) the story of Kolera’s development is not included: the reader is introduced to a ‘mature’ neighbourhood. Therefore, such a statement as that the role of the setting constitutes the main character of the novel is more valid for Hills than Roman(i). It can be useful to remember that both Flower Hill and Kolera are fictional places inspired by actually existing neighbourhoods. However, in Roman(i), the inspiration of Dolapdere in the creation of the fictional Kolera is much more direct and explicit than the case of Flower Hill in Hills. Although both Flower Hill and Kolera are neighbourhoods where immigrants and poor people live, they have significant differences from each other. Flower Hill is a shantytown on the periphery of the city, while Kolera is a poor neighbourhood in the city centre. The lifestyles experienced in the two places are almost entirely different. In Flower Hill, the Hill folk are isolated from the city centre and its urban atmosphere, where people from different walks of life come across each other. On the other hand, in Kolera the cosmopolitan heritage is a very central aspect of the life in the neighbourhood, and people from different religions and backgrounds live together there. Furthermore, the people of Kolera have a very close connection with Beyoğlu, the heart of culture and the arts, as well as the night-life of the city. Put simply, a significant portion of the Kolera people have adopted urban identities, with their lifestyles and perceptions, while in Flower Hill this is not the case at all. The Hill folk have yet to start their process of urbanisation. These central differences constitute the basis for the dissimilar elaboration of the idea of the right to the city in the two novels as discussed below. Firstly, in both novels, there is a fight for place. In Hills, this theme is filtered through the right to housing: Flower Hill’s people fight against the forces of the state, i.e. demolishers, to stay in their shanties, therefore to stay and live in the city. In Roman(i) there is a fight for place, too. This one is the fight of the good people of Kolera against the mafia who try to rule 169 the neighbourhood. In the former, the people of Flower Hill are deprived of the minimum physical conditions to survive in the city. In the latter, the people of Kolera had long before reached these minimum standards, some of them poor, some of them better off, they all have a roof over their head and earn enough to stand on their own two feet. Their existence in the city is not limited to being able to survive there, it is much more than that. Through Gıli’s life and inner world, the novel illustrates a way of being in the city which is close to what Lefebvre describes as “to inhabit”, that is “to take part in social life” (76). Gıli perceives his neighbourhood, therefore the whole of Istanbul, as the city as oeuvre, the central concept from Lefebvre as discussed earlier, as something created by all its inhabitants. His admiration of old buildings is a wonderful example of this perception, as discussed in the analysis of the novel. On the other hand, in Hills the city is not a place inhabited by the Hill folk, they simply try to stay alive there; a deeper connection with the city is not yet on the horizon. The absence of a central character in Hills, such as Gıli in Roman(i), reinforces this message of the novel. The city is not a place yet where immigrants can develop their identities in the way the anonymity of the urban context requires. They live as a community, as in the rural context. With this choice of not creating individual characters, the novel seems to imply the reciprocity between individuality and urban identity. Put simply, in Hills being part of a community, a trait of the rural context, is dominant, as opposed to the individuality of the urban context. On the other hand, in Roman(i), the individual aspect, presented through Gıli’s story of growing up, is very much at the centre of the novel.

10.3 Additional Points The two novels have differences that are noteworthy as regards their depictions of the otherised people of the country. In Roman(i), the Roma appear with their positive and negative traits, while in Hills their image is closer to negative. When it comes to the non- Muslim minority, Roman(i), with its characters, story and narration praises, without nostalgia, the non-Muslim minority of Istanbul as a central aspect of the cosmopolitan fabric of Istanbul. On the other hand, in Hills, the non-Muslim minority is presented in only one character in the novel: Mr. Izak, who is most probably Jewish, is depicted as a greedy factory owner. There is no reference to Alevites in Roman(i) while in Hills, as discussed in the analysis chapter in detail, the narrator’s choice of words about Alevites does not represent a positive approach. Regarding the way crimes such as drugs and prostitution enter the novels, the two novels are again quite dissimilar. While in Hills, the people involved in them are solely symbols of 170 degeneration, Roman(i) refrains from depicting such people as a homogenous category and presents both bad and good characters involved with drugs and prostitution.

10.4 Conclusion The differences in the approaches of the novels to the possibilities of urbanity are in line with the way the idea of the right to the city is developed. In Hills, immigrants who are trying to figure out the urban context are fighting for the material necessities in terms of the right to the city. While in Roman(i), the right to the city is perceived in terms of the right to inhabit the city, to experience the city as oeuvre. In conclusion, the two novels are similar in their use of an authentic language by the narrator, therefore abolishing a hierarchy between an urban narrator and immigrant characters. However, in terms of the messages they give about the process of adopting an urban identity and the struggle for the right to the city they are rather different from each other.

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PART IV - ISTANBUL’S THRESHOLD: ALIENATION AND PERIPHERY EXPERIENCE

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CHAPTER 11

On the Periphery: Existence in the Grim City In this chapter, Ayhan Geçgin’s debut novel Kenarda [On the Periphery]351, first published by Metis in 2003 and with its second edition in 2013 from the same publishers company, will be analysed. Since it took a decade for a second impression of the novel to come out, for all that time it had been a book difficult to access, a precious piece in the second-hand book-stores of the country. The novel deals with the idea of the right to the city both in terms of material necessities, and opportunities for immigrants’ social and cultural development in the urban setting. Themes of alienation and isolation are elaborated, in connection with the lack of such opportunities. The imagery and atmosphere reinforce the themes of alienation and isolation in a unique manner throughout the novel.

351 References in this dissertation are made to the first impression of the novel. 173

Fig. 8. The cover of the impression used in this analysis.

174

11.1 Plot Summary The novel starts with information about an anonymous character. Referring to this character as “o”, which means “he/she” in Turkish, the narrator explains that this person lives in a place called İncirköy. From various details discussed below, it can be inferred that the novel is set in the 1990s. As the novel proceeds, it is implied that the person about whom the narrator speaks is a man. Memories from his childhood, his family’s and extended family’s stories of immigration to Istanbul and their struggle to survive in this city are related in the first book. The similarity of these immigration stories is noticeable. The second book starts at the train station where the main character looks at the Taşlıbağ graveyard, where his father rests. Through reminiscences about the past, the progression of the illness which led to the man’s death a year before is described. In the second chapter of the second book the main character takes a train to Sirkeci and then starts a long walk, ending up in a bar on İstiklal Street. The next morning, he wakes up in this area with a cut on his wrist about which he does not remember anything. In the final chapter of the second book he continues his stroll through Gezi Park finally ending up in Beşiktaş in the evening.

11.2 Main Features The one-hundred-and-ninety-nine page long novel consists of two sections described as the first and the second book: “First Book: Restlessness of the Earth” (pages 7-136); “Second Book: Restlessness of the Moon” (137-199)352. The two books consist of six chapters and three chapters respectively. Gün Zileli and Ceren C. Gündoğan observe that Ayhan Geçgin’s novels are reminiscent of the works of Kafka, as well as Camus and Sartre (54). Certainly, Periphery has characteristics which bring it close to an existential vein of literature. Atheism, freedom, guilt and innocence, identity and self, and alienation are among the main themes of existential literature (“Existentialism” 228-230). In Periphery, alienation has a dominant place, while themes of freedom, identity and self also appear in various forms. “ . . . a persona who is a stand-in for the author, with similar life experiences and views” (230) is usual in existential novels, which is also the case for Periphery. The “grim, depressing and hopeless” (231) nature of existentialist novels is another main feature of Periphery. Examples of existential novels “seldom use the linear, chronological plots”, since in such novels characters are not regarded “as the products of past events” (231). The plot structure of Periphery reflects such

352 “Birinci Kitap: Yer Tedirginliği”; “İkinci Kitap: Ay Tedirginliği” 175 an approach, since the novel constantly moves between the past and present of the main character. As Zileli and Gündoğan point out, among the main inspirations for Geçgin in Turkish literature, there are modernists such as Ferit Edgü, Demir Özlü, Bilge Karasu, and Yusuf Atılgan (54). All these authors have strong ties with existential fiction. The style of the novel can be summarised as follows. The narrator uses colloquial language. There are very few dialogues in the novel, in some of which dialect is used. Both in the narration and in the dialogues, the word order is unmarked, i.e. inverted syntax is not used. The narration mostly depends on long and complex sentences. The use of punctuation is standard. As Kıran aptly puts it, “the language of Periphery is cold, distant and metallic”353 (19). The novel is narrated in the third-person by a narrator who is not one of the characters of the novel. No information is given about the narrator’s gender or age. Figural narration is used in the novel, where the main character remains as the reflector from the beginning to the end. The narrator has a solid presence in the novel with his non-neutral tone and comments on events, characters, environment, anything and everything throughout the novel, thus a marked one. The novel is interesting with its narrative situation since it is almost impossible to separate the narrator and the main character who functions as the reflector. Reading the novel one cannot help thinking that the main character is writing about his feelings and observations in the third person. Due to the lack of an explicit plot and the frequency of complicated, extremely long sentences with detailed passages of description, the novel was regarded as a difficult read by readers as well as critics: “a book extremely difficult to read”354 (Büke 3); “a difficult and beautiful book”355 (Ayvaz). The novel was received positively in literary circles. Emre Ayvaz argues that Periphery should have been written as a novella rather than a novel, since the material in it would be stronger on a smaller scale. “‘Periphery’ does not have a story that develops around a clear subject”356 as Gümüş explains, “ . . . it refuses from the start to tell the story of a situation or people”357 (“İlk Kitapları” 90). Asuman K. Büke prefers to call Periphery “an experiment of a novel”358 since it is “ . . . written with a

353 “Kenarda’da kullanılan dil soğuk, mesafeli, metaliktir.” 354 “son derece zor okunan bir kitap” 355 “zor ve güzel bir kitap” This review published in Zaman Kitap has been retrieved from the website of Metis, the publisher of the book. Therefore, page numbers are not given. 356 “Açık seçik bir konu çevresinde gelişen bir öyküsü yok ‘Kenarda’nın.” 357 “ . . . bir durumu ya da kişileri öykülemeyi baştan yadsıyor.” 358 “roman denemesi” 176 perception of novel far from the classic novel”359 (3). Accepting only examples of the classic novel as novels would result in leaving most of the modernist and avant-garde works outside. To refrain from such a plot-centric approach, it would be best to describe Periphery as an experimental novel rather than an experiment of a novel. As the excerpts throughout the analysis reveal, olfactory imagery is widely used in the novel.

11.3 Title and Beginning The novel’s title Kenarda [On the Periphery] has various layers of meaning. It seems to be referring to the concept of poor neighbourhood [kenar mahalle], as well as periphery as the edge or outskirts of the city. It might be useful to remember at this point that the Turkish phrase kenar mahalle, translated as “poor neighbourhood” in this dissertation, implies the edge of the city-centre, or inner city, not the outskirts of the city. Therefore, the novel’s title might be referring to both meanings of periphery. Additionally, being on the periphery might also refer to alienation and existence, with the feeling of being on the periphery of life. This concept will be further analysed below. The first paragraph of the novel starts as follows: “He was back at home. However, home was not the peaceful harbour or a peaceful place where serenity was found in the end. It has never been so”360 (9). The first four paragraphs describe the inner world of this anonymous person who is the protagonist of the novel. Like the home not being a home, there is something missing in this person as well: “Like the home not being a peaceful place, the longed-for reunion, the one who returns home was not that human either” (10)361. The second part of the first chapter starts with an explanation of this person. The reader learns that he/she, there is no clue about the protagonist’s gender at this stage, goes to visit a person called N. on certain days. Then a depiction of the train station and the railway line he uses is given. The station the protagonist uses is on the Sirkeci-Halkalı line. Opened in 1955 and out of use since 2013, due to upgrading works for compatibility with the Istanbul metro, this line was also called the Istanbul commuter railway. The train stopped at the neighbourhoods of Cankurtaran, Kumkapı and Yenikapı on the Sarayburnu shore of the city, continuing to Kocamustafapaşa, and Yedikule, which included the historic city walls, then at Kazlıçeşme, Zeytinburnu, Yenimahalle and Bakırköy and continued to

359 “ . . . çünkü klasik romandan uzak bir roman anlayışıyla yazılmış.” 360 “Eve dönmüştü. Ama ev sonunda dinginliğin kazanıldığı sakin liman ya da barışçıl bir yer değildi. Hiçbir zaman öyle olmamıştı.” 361 “Ev barışçıl yer, özlenen sıla olmadığı gibi eve dönen de pek insansı değildi.” 177

Halkalı, stopping at seven more stations before terminating there. Throughout the novel, the stations on the railway in the Kazlıçeşme-Bakırköy area appear various times. In the first chapter, impressions giving the railway a depressing timbre, which is the case in its later depictions as well, appear: “ . . . the train was running forward and backward by the coast from Halkalı to Sirkeci connecting numerous, almost identical quarters from the morning until the night. As years pass by . . . the city was expanding, poverty was leaving here and intensifying there, shanties were . . . leaving their places to buildings with a few or many storeys”362 (12). He adds: “Misery was running . . . from one neighbourhood to the other”363 (12). Various depictions of the neighbourhood the protagonist lives in, as well as impressions about the city appear in this first chapter of the novel, introducing all the main themes, as well as formal characteristics of the novel: long and complex sentences giving detailed descriptions of the setting, and a grim atmosphere reinforced by visual and olfactory imagery, are present in the chapter. The protagonist’s family members and relatives are mentioned in this chapter with references that underscore that they are immigrants in the city.

11.4 Characters and Related Themes

11.4.1 An Anonymous Protagonist The novel does not give much information about the main character. Even the most basic information such as age and gender are not revealed. However, there are a couple of clues to infer that this person is male. The most important of these clues is the question Ghost 364 asks the main character: “Brother, you are studying, right?”365 (33) Bıra is the Kurdish word for “brother”. Additionally, the main character’s accompanying İs as they idle in and around their neighbourhood would not really be possible for a girl. Based on these, it is possible to infer that this person is male. No information is disclosed such as his physical appearance, education or occupation. Passages about the members of his family and relatives, both on his mother’s and father’s side, as well as various other figures from related villages or neighbourhoods, appear throughout the book. This is the way characters enter the novel, not as figures acting in a plot line but as heroes of separate stories that surface through memories.

362 “. . tren kıyı boyunca Halkalı’dan Sirkeci’ye aşağı yukarı birbirinin benzeri birçok semti birleştirerek sabahtan geceye gidip geliyordu. Yıllar geçtikçe . . . kent genişliyor, yoksulluk buradan çıkıp orada yoğunlaşıyor, gecekondular yerlerini az ya da çok katlı binalara . . . bırakıyordu.” 363 “Bir semtten diğerine . . . sefalet akıyordu.” 364 Hortlak. This is the nickname of a friend of the family. 365 “Okuyorsun ha bıra?” 178

It should be added that the novel does not give any information about where the village of the main character’s father and mother is located. This village is near the town of “Dağcık” which is mentioned a couple of times in the novel (78, 119). However, this seems to be a fictitious place, since there is no record of such a town in the official town database of Turkey (“Belediyeler”). There are two instances which may imply that they come from a Kurdish and/or Alevite background. There is an implication about the possibility of Kurdish identity in Ghost’s question quoted above. However, this Kurdish word might imply that it is Ghost who is Kurdish, rather than the main character who he is asking the question to. . Another implication within this context is a rather obscure one: in a passage about how Grandfather 366 and his close and distant family immigrated to Istanbul, the following expression is used: “Villages either got empty gradually or they have been evacuated”367 (35). In the modern history of Turkey, depopulation of villages is mainly an issue about Kurdish villages, due to the war between the PKK guerrillas and the Turkish army. However, it is not clear in the passage whether the narrator is specifically referring to the villages of the protagonist’s parents when he says these words about depopulation. He might simply be talking about other villages under the general topic of rural to urban migration. The implication about Alevite identity comes in an expression Hasan, a relative of the main character’s grandmother on her mother’s side, uses during a conversation (89). This is on a night when the main character, his mother’s brother Seyid, and Hasan, with whom Seyid hangs out, go to visit Binali, the husband of the main character’s aunt. Hasan tells of a striking experience he has had and expresses his shock in the following words: “I was very surprised . . . , I said ‘ya Muhammed ya Ali’, started walking back”368 (91). “Ya Muhammed ya Ali” is an expression Alevites use to express faith, when in a state of shock or for other reasons. This might imply that Hasan is an Alevite. Since Hasan is related to the main character’s mother’s family, if he is an Alevite than she would also be an Alevite. Since Alevites, especially rural ones, more often than not marry Alevites, this would also mean that the main character’s father and his family would also be Alevites.

11.4.2 Identical Stories of Immigrants Throughout the novel, there are various immigration stories which are remarkably similar. The first one of these is Grandfather’s story, which is told in the final section of the first chapter. As he immigrates to Istanbul, he leaves his two sons in the village to look after

366 Dede 367 “Köyler ya kendiliğinden boşaldı ya da boşaltıldı.” 368 “İyice şaşırdım . . . , ya Muhammed ya Ali dedim, gerisin geri yürümeye başladım.” 179 his land. One of his older sisters would be responsible for taking care of his sons. In Istanbul, Grandfather worked in factories in the daytime and as the watchman of an inn at night, where he had a tiny, dark room to stay in. His older son (it is inferred that he is the main character’s father) gets married and immigrates to Istanbul, where he starts staying in his father’s room. Grandfather’s ill health forces him to leave his job in the factory. After a while, Grandfather takes over the tea shop at the inn, with his and his son’s savings. He makes good money and rents a shanty with a garden. His son’s pregnant wife joins them. Grandfather gets married as well. Then his younger son arrives. Grandfather’s younger brother and his older nephew also come. “Not only they but their wives, sons, daughters, daughters-in-law, sons-in-law also came”369 (35). Their close and distant relatives also come in due course. Some of them moved in here some of them in other quarters. In those quarters, they lived in specific neighbourhoods in houses close to each other. Some lived in other big cities, multiplied there. In villages, very old people stayed, and once they died nobody was left there. Towns and cities became bigger and over-crowded.370 (35) The mechanical style in this passage, summarising a whole process of rural to urban migration in the country, is worthy of attention. In the third chapter of the first book, the immigration story of the main character’s mother’s family is told, with a focus on İs, his mother’s brother. After his father’s death, İs leaves the deeds at the village to his three sisters and one brother, all of whom are younger than him, and comes to Istanbul: “ . . . he walked off from the village and came here”371 (62). Eventually, all his siblings, together with their mother immigrate to Istanbul and rent “a semi- complete house in an area at the periphery of the city” 372 (62). His sisters start working in textile workshops and his brother in a factory. Gülistan, one of the sisters of the main character’s mother, is married to Binali, who is her uncle’s son. When Gülistan is pregnant with their second daughter, Binali decides to follow his brother, who has immigrated to Istanbul. So Binali, his wife and daughter come to the city and stay with Binali’s family in their shanty for a while. During this time, he works in Grandfather’s tea-shop and then finds a job in a leather workshop, and they rent a shanty. Their four daughters start working in textile workshops and only one of them is allowed to

369 “Sadece onlar değil onların karıları, oğulları, kızları, gelinleri, damatları da geldiler.” 370 “Kimi buraya kimi başka semtlere yerleştiler. O semtlerde belli mahallelerde birbirlerine yakın evlerde oturdular. Kimisi başka büyük kentlere yerleşti, orada çoğaldı. Köylerde çok yaşlılar kaldılar, onlar da ölünce kimse kalmadı. Köyler ya kendiliğinden boşaldı ya da boşaltıldı. Kasaba ile kentler büyüyüp kalabalıklaştı.” 371 “ . . . köyden buraya çekip gelmişti.” 372 “kentin kenarında bir mahallede yarı yarıya bitmiş bir ev” 180 study. Another story of immigration belongs to Grandfather’s younger brother Uncle Hüseyin373. He comes to Istanbul four or five years after Grandfather and settles near Halkalı. He gets a job as a worker in the white goods factory there, where he works until his retirement. Their brother’s son also comes with his wife and gets a job at the same factory with Hüseyin’s help and like him he retires there. In all these passages, the similarity of immigration stories is striking. These stories in the book create an atmosphere of a documentary on the process of rural to urban migration, with all the details about the immigration phenomenon, about kinship relations, shanty housing and so forth. A couple of sentences come to our attention within this context, with their powerful insight into the dynamics of working class immigrant life in the city. The first of these sentences is the one about close or distant relatives who work in Grandfather’s tea-shop. The passage about these young people tells tens of immigrants’ stories as one single story: when they first arrive, they stay at a relative’s place, they save up money, they get married and move to their own place. After this point, they might proceed in different directions, depending on how much they could adapt to the urban economy: “Some of them would spend all their lives as workers, some would sometimes be a worker sometimes unemployed, some go-getters would go into trade after working for a while, start a business, and if he lands on his feet he would also be an employer whose relatives would come and work for him”374 (31). Another such sentence is the description of the outlook on life of immigrants who “ . . . have worked all through their lives, adopted work as a virtue, built all their values on this . . . ” (60)375. Such extracts, with their neutral narration free of emotions do not bless hard work. They simply show that upward economic mobility is possible with hard work. The times of the main character’s childhood, roughly the 1970s, were when it was relatively easy for immigrants to find steady jobs. That was the time before flexible and precarious employment: both Hüseyin and his brother work in the same white goods factory all through their lives and retire from there. In the novel, shanty-owners whose standards of living go up when getting apartments built over their shanties are also mentioned.

373 Hüseyin Amca 374 “İçlerinden bazısı bütün ömrünü işçi olarak geçirir, kimisi bazen işçi bazen işsiz geçirirken, girişken olan bazısı bir süre çalıştıktan sonra ticarete atılır, bir iş tutturur, şansı da yaver giderse o da akrabalarının yanında gelip çalıştığı bir işveren olurdu.” 375 “ . . . bütün yaşamları boyunca çalışıp durmuş, çalışmayı bir erdem olarak benimsemiş, tüm değerlerini bunun üzerine yükseltmiş . . . ” 181

Changes to immigrants socially and culturally do not appear as an explicit theme in the novel. The main character’s family members are portrayed as having a social network mainly comprising their relatives. Not much is said about Binali’s daughter who studies at university. Hüseyin’s son, who becomes an engineer, becomes an anti-social figure who almost never leaves his room. The main character also studies yet we are not told at which level (34). İs’s social life is described in detail, as discussed below. Before finalizing this section it might be useful to add that although the gender aspect of the immigration phenomenon does not come to the fore as a significant theme in the novel, there are a couple of remarks within the context of labouring in the city that can be analysed in connection with it. In the novel, stories of men are predominant when compared with stories of women. Some of these men, such as the main character’s father, İs and Dağiçili have been involved with alcohol and night-life. On the other hand, there are other men who came to the city and have worked hard and saved money. In addition to the predominance of male stories, another reason why gender remains in the shade could be the absence of a usual sense of character development in the novel, which would make it possible to track the changes in women after their immigration to Istanbul. Within the context of the immigration stories of Gülistan and Binali; and Hüseyin and his family, the theme of girls’ education is briefly touched on. Binali sends his daughters to primary school simply because it is compulsory (82). He allows one of them to study further and makes the other three girls continue working in the weaving workshops. Similarly, Hüseyin does not send his daughters to school: “ . . . girls had worked in weaving for a long time and eventually got married, while he got his son schooled”376 (119). Put simply, the novel implies that there is not much change in women’s lives upon immigration. It can even be argued that weaving workshops, which come to the fore as an important motif in the novel, are a counterpart of fields in the rural areas of the country. In Turkey, women living in villages work in the fields all day, and in the evening they come home and do all the housework, childcare and cooking. Not much is changed in their routine upon immigration: in the city women work in the weaving workshops all day, and then come home to do everything necessary for daily life. Slavery at home is unchanged and the slavery in the fields is just replaced with the slavery in the “weaving workshops in the basements where hundreds of young girls work” (18)377, or other workshops and factories. This too is narrated with indifference, with a detached approach devoid of any criticism, and the novel does not hint at

376 “ . . . kızlar uzun süre konfeksiyonda çalışıp sonunda evlenmiş, erkek çocuğunu ise okutmuştu.” 377 “yüzlerce genç kızın çalıştığı bodrumlardaki konfeksiyon atölyeleri” 182 any sort of transformation in women’s mentality, as they become members of the working class, or even at an awareness of this similar position they have within the constraints of production. Nothing is said about immigrant women who are not allowed to work by their conservative husbands.

11.5 Setting and Related Themes

11.5.1 Another Way of Looking at Istanbul The novel is set in Istanbul with references to the hometown or the village of the characters through memories. The primary setting of the novel is the neighbourhoods of İncirköy, where the main character and his family live; Taşlıbağ where members of his family used to work; and Bakırkule which is a more developed area, and therefore the centre of social and cultural life for the nearby neighbourhoods. Taşlıbağ is a representation of the Kazlıçeşme neighbourhood of Zeytinburnu district. It was an industrial area which was the centre of the leather factories in Istanbul until they were removed to Tuzla. The tomb (129) refers to the Ali Baba Tomb and the fountain with figures of a goose (130) refers to the Kazlıçeşme [The Fountain with a Goose] which gives the area its name. İncirköy seems to be referring to a residential part of Kazlıçeşme. At the very beginning of the novel, İncirköy is depicted as “one of the neighbourhoods lined up like teeth along the coast at the periphery of a non-existent centre”378 (12). Then, it is described as a typical former shantytown, where shanties get given to builders, who demolish them and build apartments on the site, giving a flat or two to the shanties’ owners. In İncirköy, high-rise buildings were built, shops were opened on the ground floor and thus: “ . . . the neighbourhood took on an appearance that fits today’s world, with a slowness that spread out through the years”379 (12). The narrator continues describing other developments in the neighbourhood which made it look “almost ‘modern’”380 (12). In the novel, Bakırkule seems to be the fictional counterpart of Bakırköy, as the train station and the boulevard signal381. Güzkonan, another shantytown on the periphery of the city, where some members of the main character’s family live, might be inspired by one of the neighbourhoods of the Gaziosmanpaşa district, because of the following clues: İs and the main character go to Güzkonan, using the minibuses from Topkapı, and the place has a stream

378 “olmayan bir merkezin kenarında kıyı boyunca dişler gibi dizili semtlerden biriydi.” 379 “ . . . semt yıllara yayılan bir yavaşlıkla günün dünyasına uygun bir görünüm kazanmıştı.” 380 “hemen hemen ‘çağdaş’” 381 Literally, “Bakırkule” means “copper tower”, while “Bakırköy” means “copper village.” 183

“where sewage waters flow with intolerable smells”382 (79). The narrator describes the houses in the area by saying they “have become the typical architecture of the neighbourhood with their incompleteness, half-finished appearance”383 (72). These clues for the counterpart of Güzkonan in reality are not as strong as those for İncirköy, Taşlıbağ and Bakırkule. In addition to the above-mentioned settings, there are two more fictitious areas of Istanbul in the novel. One of these is Tozkapı, which represents a neighbourhood on the Sirkeci-Halkalı railroad. In the case of Tozkapı, within the same sentence a real name and a fictitious name are used together: “In Kumkapı and Tozkapı, a tightly-packed group of workers would be waiting for the train impatiently”384 (25). The other fictitious area of Istanbul in the novel is a place called Düzgöl. This place is near Halkalı, which appears under its real name in the novel (118). So, the question arises: why are some neighbourhoods disguised in the novel? One can argue that the gesture of giving these neighbourhoods fictitious names stresses their peripheral location: these places enter the novel disguised, implying the ambivalent position of the periphery neighbourhoods being both in and out of the city. But then it is very easy to counter this argument: the areas of Kazlıçeşme, Bakırköy and Gaziosmanpaşa which are represented under fictitious names in the novel have their own characteristics and are difficult to categorise together. Moreover, many neighbourhoods of the Bakırköy district are inhabited by socio-economically privileged people, and Bakırköy Square is an important social and cultural hub. In conclusion, the novel does not give enough clues to answer the question. Another characteristic of the novel in terms of the setting is the way it turns upside down the general perception of Istanbul as a beautiful city, with the Bosphorus, the Golden Horn and many other sights, as well as its fascinating historical heritage. For instance, as the main character sits in Karaköy and stares at Galata, normally a sight people admire, what he sees is described as: “a deadlock was expanding as far as the eye can see”385 (152-3). There is no notion of an aura of historical heritage in the narration as he looks at the Topkapı Palace, sitting on a bench (156). Galata Tower is depicted as “rising with a wizened pride . . . with its darkness which kept appearing and disappearing”386 (160). Historical heritage and artefacts may even function as imagery depicting the city as a ghost town: “ . . . a grand building in ruins and a five-hundred -year-old historic building was rendering this feeling of desolation

382 “dayanılmaz kokular saçarak lağım sularının aktığı” 383 “tamamlanmamışlığı, yarımlığıyla semtin tipik mimarisi halini almış” 384 “Kumkapı ve Tozkapı’da kalabalık bir işçi topluluğu sabırsızlıkla treni bekliyor olurdu.” 385 “bir kördüğüm göz alanı boyunca genişliyordu” 386 “pörsümüş bir gururla . . . bir yitip bir ortaya çıkan karaltısıyla inatçı yükseliyordu” 184 even stronger . . . ”387 (20); “defunct marble fountain with a dome which is not worth noticing despite its largeness”388 (192); “far away run-down fortifications, with their walls cracked, towers eroded or destroyed, would extend to the coast like a rusty saw”389 (67); “old structures of Galata with their plasters, ornaments fallen down”390 (98). It should also be added that in the descriptions of all these places, homeless people, tramps, glue sniffers, children selling tissue-paper, or a figure such as a miserable extremely old woman looking for help (158) come to the fore as the dominant figures of the environment. Various kinds of beggars appear, especially in the city centre, and pathetic stray animals are also included various times in the novel. The novel depicts Istanbul as a place comprising an ugly and sombre periphery and a chaotic and grim city centre. While in the first instance such depictions simply sound like the expression of the grimness of existential fiction, they also seem to signal the way the ‘beautiful’ city appears for the poor, the homeless, all those who are pushed out to the periphery of the city. John Freely, the co-author of the acclaimed Strolling Through Istanbul, in an interview describes Istanbul as “the ugliest beautiful city of the world”391 (29). In Periphery, the ugliness of this beautiful city is constantly stressed.

11.5.2 Life on the Periphery In the novel, being on the periphery both physically and mentally are constantly juxtaposed. Existential anxiety, which is “a natural reaction to the vastness of choice and isolation, a predictable response to the loneliness of individual life and the choices the individual must make” (Deurzen and Kenward 7) according to “existential thinkers” (7), is at the heart of the novel, together with the theme of alienation, which can be defined as “feeling of isolation, of not belonging, of standing alone” (“Existentialism” 230). The novel emphasises how alienation and existential anxiety reinforce each other. Alienation is explained in the Marxist sense as alienation from the work one does in the capitalist system (230), and in the psychological sense “as a rift between the conscious and unconscious aspects of self” (230). From a psychological approach, existentialism appears “as a response to . . . alienation”, a view which focuses on the disconnection between the individual and society

387 “ . . . artık harabeye dönüşmüş büyük bir yapı ile beş yüz yıllık tarihi cami bu ıssızlık duygusunu daha da güçlendiriyor[du] . . . ” 388 “kubbeli, büyüklüğüne rağmen göze batmayan, artık kullanılmayan mermerden çeşme” 389 “İlerde duvarları çatlamış, burçları aşınmış ya da yıkılmış harap surlar paslı bir testere gibi sahile kadar uzardı.” 390 “Galata’nın sıvaları, süslemeleri dökülü eski yapılarının ” 391 “Dünyanın en çirkin güzel şehri İstanbul.” 185 rather than a connection and harmony (230). It is possible to find reflections of alienation both in the Marxist and in the psychological sense in the novel. Periphery combines the themes of disconnection between the individual and society and being isolated on the periphery of the city. As such, the periphery of the city appears both as setting and imagery in the novel. With a protagonist who is a second-generation immigrant, the book elaborates themes of existential anxiety and alienation, in correlation with themes such as immigrants’ struggle for survival in the city, the difficulties of working class life and life on the periphery of a metropolis, all in conjunction with the right to the city. a) A Shanty of One’s Own As mentioned above, Taşlıbağ in the novel is a representation of Kazlıçeşme. “The first shanty in İstanbul was spotted in Kazlıçeşme, Zeytinburnu in 1945”392 (Gökçen 196). By 1947, the area became the first shanty settlement in Istanbul (Akbulut, “Zeytinburnu’nda” 210). Throughout the novel, shanty housing is depicted as the norm for immigrants. To have a shanty of one’s own is depicted, realistically, as the ultimate ideal of working class immigrants. A sentence at the end of the passage about Gülistan and Binali’s immigration story is noteworthy in this respect: “The whole house having worked for a long time this way, having saved up money for years, have achieved the thing they valued the most, have accomplished goal just like others who have immigrated to the city, they have become homeowners, bought a small house in one of the neighbourhoods in the upper part”393 (82). The sentence reflects an implicit yearning by shanty owners for shelter, despite its neutral- sounding narration. The correlation between owning a house, either a shanty or a flat, and the feeling of belonging to the city seems to be hidden in the sentence. It is not simply a shelter but has an emotional and mental dimension as it implies immigrants’ belonging to the city. While shanties used for shelter are described as being in harmony with nature, since they had gardens, former shantytowns which develop as the result of shanties being used for rent, are depicted with the ugliness of half-built apartment buildings and lack of infrastructure. Grandfather tells the main character that when he first came to the city there were fig and olive trees all around their neighbourhood, before factories covered the area (28). Including such an anecdote, the novel might be giving the message that the number of trees cut down to build factories was much bigger than those cut down for shanties. In brief, the novel has a positive stance towards shanty as shelter and a negative stance towards shanty as rent.

392 “İstanbul’da ilk gecekondu, 1945 yılında Zeytinburnu Kazlıçeşme’de görülmüştür.” 393 “Bütün ev böyle uzun süre çalışıp, yıllar boyunca para biriktirerek tıpkı kente göç eden diğerleri gibi en önem verdikleri, amaç edindikleri şeyi sonunda başardılar, bir ev sahibi oldular, yukarı mahallelerden birinde küçük bir ev aldılar.” 186

The motif of idling discussed in the following pages is also connected with the theme of the right to shelter in another context: the homeless. b) Neighbourhoods of the Proletariat As mentioned above, both the past and the present of Taşlıbağ are included in the novel. The past of Taşlıbağ as a heavy industry area is described as “a vast neighbourhood comprising only male workers”394 (22). The area is described as follows: “This was a place very different from the houses, neighbourhoods they return to in the evening or the outside world where they go on some weekends to visit and have a stroll . . .”395 (22). This “outside world where they go on some weekends” is apparently the city centre. The recurring theme of the relationship, or the lack thereof, between workers and city life is juxtaposed with the theme of the impossibility of individualisation under such working conditions, and disconnection with urban life. The depiction of workshop workers waiting for the train in Kumkapı or Tozkapı is a perfect example: “ . . . they were identical with workers in the leather factories in Taşlıbağ years ago or with those workers who work in the factories which have now come together in Çorlu or Gebze, living in their ghettoes established around factories under the control of military areas. With the same faces, same postures they were multiplying as if one and the same . . .”396 (25). At the time the narrator speaks, the leather factories had long before been moved to Gebze and Çorlu, districts in Istanbul’s neighbouring cities of Kocaeli and İzmit, respectively. The narrator draws attention to the similarity between the workers in the factories of Taşlıbağ in the past and the workers in the factories of Çorlu and Gebze at the time he is speaking. The lack of individualisation, as underscored in the description of the crowd of workers, is worthy of attention: “An indistinguishable mass consisting of bodies working and existing only to work . . . ”397 (25). The following excerpt is also worth noticing in this respect: “ . . . they were working in the factory, taking the train and coming back home, sleeping, the next morning waking up and coming to work, completing the same cycle. . . . a huge world other than theirs was neither meaningful, nor significant nor certain enough”398 (25). The narrator adds: “They existed as long as they

394 “ . . . yalnızca erkek işçilerden oluşmuş koca bir semt.” 395 “Kuralları da ilişkileri de akşamları döndükleri evlerin, mahallelerin ya da bazen tatil günlerinde gezintiye çıkıp dolaştıkları dış dünyanınkinden çok farklı olan . . . bir yerdi.“ 396 “ . . . yıllar önce Taşlıbağ’da deri fabrikalarında çalışan işçilerle ya da şimdi kent dışında Çorlu ya da Gebze’de toplanmış fabrikalarda çalışan, fabrikaların çevresine kurulmuş asker bölgelerinin denetimi altındaki gettolarında yaşayan işçilerle aynıydılar. Aynı yüzler, aynı duruşlarla birbirlerinin aynısı olarak çoğalıyorlardı . . .” 397 “Çalışan ve sadece çalışmak için varolan bedenlerden oluşmuş ayırt edilmez yığının . . . ” 398 “ . . . fabrikada çalışıyor, trene binip eve dönüyor, uyuyor, ertesi sabahı uyanıp işe geliyor, aynı döngüyü tamamlıyorlardı. . . . kendi dünyaları dışındaki koca bir dünya ne yeterince anlamlı, ne yeterince önemli ne de yeterince kesindi.” 187 worked, and to exist they had to work . . . The same thing rendered them both alive and deadly weak399 (25). The wording “a huge world other than theirs was not certain enough” once again brings to the fore the disconnectedness of the working class from the urban fabric. Sounding in the same tone as Lefebvre’s famous comment “urban alienation contains and perpetuates all other forms of alienation” (Urban Revolution 92), lack of individuality here is based on alienation on the one hand and isolation from the urban social and cultural life on the other. Workers define factories which they leave on Saturdays as a “semi-open prison”400 (32); such a metaphor is in line with both the theme of isolation and the theme of alienated labour turning workers into robots. This connotation of being locked in, stuck in the workplace comes to the fore numerous times in the novel: “Children who would start working as apprentices behind small machines . . . would then go behind looms after a couple of years and would stay there until the end of their lives”401 (29). The harshness of working conditions is also added, reflecting the ordinariness with which it is received in real life. The narrator explains that in the leather factories “nicknames such as Armless Hasan, Fingerless Veli, Cripple Süleyman were very common”402 (29). The depictions of the leather workshops and factories (26-29, 51) and weaving workshops (76) stand out in the novel as vivid and impressive passages, with realistic descriptions in fine detail. The deindustrialisation of Taşlıbağ is one of the central tenets of the difference between the past and the present in the book. The demolishing of the Kazlıçeşme factories enters the novel in a poignant passage describing the demolition of the factories in Taşlıbağ. Before looking at this passage, it might be useful to briefly remember the historical context. Kazlıçeşme had become an industrial neighbourhood by the end of the1940s, and in 1949 it was officially announced as a “heavy industry area” (Akbulut, “Zeytinburnu’nda” 207). From 1955 to 1973, three-hundred-and- twenty-five factories and workshops in the leather sector were established in this area (208). In line with a plan dated 1982, by the end of the1980s, these factories started to be transferred to Tuzla, which brought an end to the five- hundred-year long history of the leather trade in the area (209). The final demolition of the remaining factories in the area was in 1993 (“Kazlıçeşme Semti”).

399 “Çalıştıkları sürece vardılar, varolmak için de çalışmak zorundaydılar . . . Aynı şey onları hem canlı hem de ölesiye güçsüz kılıyordu.” 400 “yarı açık cezaevi” 401 “ . . . küçük makinelerin başında çıraklık ederek işe başlayan çocuklar birkaç yıl sonra dokuma tezgahlarının başına geçer, ömürlerinin sonuna kadar da orada kalırlardı.” 402 “Kolsuz Hasan, Parmaksız Veli, Topal Süleyman gibi lakaplar çok yaygındı.” 188

In the related passage, the main character walks by the historical city walls and ends up in the last remaining street of Taşlıbağ. There he comes across a ruin of a building of which only the outer walls remain. He sees that this building is now used by a couple of homeless people who have put a plastic roof on top, brought a chair and a table and also made a stove from stones. The imagery of ruins is intensified as he continues his walk: “[He] was walking on the road, both sides of which were covered in debris, piles of stones and dust, with the howl in his ears ascending”403 (129). As he walks, he tries to make out the area’s history in the vast empty space that lies in front of him: “ . . . with a desire rising from the rustling grass, he was trying to recall the former site of the inn, entrance gateway, narrow streets covered in leather dust between factories, the site of the shops, the tea house”404 (129). He remembers how people used to talk about the expected demolition as something to think about later on: “The thing talked about for many long years . . . was over and done with at an unbelievable speed, the demolishing was completed with machines in a couple of weeks. Nothing was left behind, except stones and sewer rats”405 (130). In the quote above, the main character seems to be looking around in the vast space left after the demolition. Unfortunately, the space in Kazlıçeşme left after the demolition of the leather factories, which was intended to be used as a recreation area, has never been properly transformed for such a purpose by the municipality (Akbulut 209). In the passage, it can be inferred that the empty vast space in Taşlıbağ, the fictional counterpart of Kazlıçeşme, reinforces the main character’s existential anxiety, with feelings of drifting in time, without a past and a future, without a purpose. The deindustrialisation of the area wipes away the working class culture, while the demolition erases the memory of it. The vast empty space is like a powerful motif here, stressing the harsh severing of the history of the neighbourhood.

11.5.3 The Urbanity of Life This theme can be analysed under the topics below.

a) Access to Municipal Services Lack of municipal services and infrastructural problems is filtered through imagery in the novel, rather than treated as a theme. To draw attention to the condition of the place as a result of neglect, the novel uses visual and olfactory imagery. A description of Taşlıbağ as “he

403 “İki yanı molozlar, taş yığınları, tozlarla kaplı yolda kulaklarındaki uğultu artarak yürüyordu.” 404 “ . . . hışırdayan otlardan yükselen bir arzuyla hanın eski yerini, girişi, fabrikaları, fabrika aralarındaki dar, deri tozuyla kaplı sokakları, dükkanların çay ocağının yerini kestirmeye çalışıyordu.” 405 “Çok uzun yıllar boyunca hakkında konuşulan . . . şey birdenbire inanılmaz bir hızla olup bitmiş, yıkım makinelerce birkaç haftada yerine getirilmişti. Geride taşlardan, bir de lağım farelerinden başka birşey kalmamıştı.” 189 was walking past . . . muddy waters running through the gutters alongside the street, mice that were coming out from one hole and disappearing in another, the smell, the dense dust that was falling down like fog, greyness . . . and entering the inn”406 (49) or the narrator’s mentioning of the smell of the sewage waters in Güzkonan (79) and the sewage rats in Taşlıbağ (130) are only a couple of examples. At one moment, the sewage is mentioned directly after the depiction of the strolling area on the shore (150). In Taşlıbağ, at the exit of the park, there is an underpass which is described as: “The underpass . . . was smelling faeces, as if the whole quarter, all of this city was smelling in the same way”407 (45). Here, it is possible to find a double meaning. This whole area smells this way and so does the whole city: because for the people living in this part of the city, the neighbourhood they live in means the whole city; or it might mean that the whole city smells this way, at least metaphorically. b) Access to Green Areas Parks and shores keep appearing in the novel, as a shelter from the grimness of the city and the anxiety of existence (45, 96-7, 125, 144, 150). The public realm where idlers stray, families and people from all walks of life stroll in their free time, has an important part in the setting of the novel. The main character and İs usually end up in the park in their neighbourhood. The touch of nature there means a lot to İs, as he calls it “the best thing in life”408 (65). The coastline close to İncirköy is also a significant setting in the novel: there are tea-gardens and beer houses, and it is also possible to stroll (68). Similarly, the main square of Bakırkule is an important place for the pair when they are idling: They were getting off as they come close to Bakırkule. Walking past the square, those who crowd in the square, sitting on concrete benches in the sunshine, those seeking freshness in the shade, those who stand leaning on a column or a tree, those idling in the square, joining the afternoon crowd who are out for shopping or wandering aimlessly, and walking down the street where arcades, magazines, shops line up towards the seaside.409 (85)

406 “ . . . cadde kenarındaki oluklardan akan çamurlu suların, bir delikten çıkıp başka bir delikte kaybolan farelerin, kokunun, bir sis gibi çöken yoğun tozun, griliğin arasından geçip . . . hana giriyordu.” 407 “Geçit . . . dışkı kokuyordu, sanki bütün semt, bütün bu kent aynı biçimde kokuyordu.” 408 “hayattaki en güzel şey” 409 “Bakırkule’ye yaklaşırken iniyorlardı. Meydanı, meydanda birikenleri, beton sıralara oturup güneşe yatanları, gölgede serinleyenleri, bir sütuna ya da ağaca yaslanmış dikilenleri, meydanda aylak aylak duranları geçip, öğle sonrasının alışverişe ya da bir ileri bir geri turlamaya çıkmış kalabalığına katılarak, pasajların, mağazaların, dükkanların sıralandığı caddeden aşağıya deniz kıyısına doğru yürüyorlardı.” 190

The fifth chapter of the first book of the novel starts with a long passage describing the area around the old city walls, the small patches of green there used as a picnic area. The narrator also adds that in the hills near this area, tramps and homeless people sleep at night. Gezi Park and Maçka Park have a significant place in the setting of the final chapters, as the main character takes a long walk over two days from Karaköy to Eminönü. The description of Maçka Park in this part of the novel is a perfect manifestation of the function of parks in the metropolis: “Usually people from back quarters, from poor neighbourhoods of Şişli, from further away were coming to the park, they were filling the park especially at weekends. . . . those who can’t go where indoors to sit down, broke people who can’t go to the cinema, poor people were hanging around here. Parks wherever they are belonged to them”410 (184). He adds: “Young boys and girls from poor neighbourhoods were coming here for their dates, they were meeting each other here. Homeless people were staying here as long as the police did not spot them and send them away, or if they ignored them. The unemployed were spending their daytime here”411 (184). This novel was written before the Gezi Resistance movement of 2012. It is striking to see in the lines quoted above a foreshadowing of the events that would lead to the national uprising: the rent economy of the globalising city trying to seize the only space in the urban area that belongs to the poor i.e. the parks. It should also be noted that various points of the shore in Sarayburnu area (where İs and the main character idle in the novel) have been occupied by private companies in one way or another in the last decade, as the building mania in Istanbul has reached its peak. Small tracts of nature appearing within the city are the only recreational areas for people who do not have money to spend on pleasure; immigrants living on the periphery of the city are such people. They might spend time in the parks and on the shores in the area where they live or in the city centre. Going to the parks and the seaside in the city centre is the only way for the poor to pass their time there, in other words the only means of finding a place for themselves in the city centre. The novel elaborately emphasises these points through setting and various descriptions.

410 “Genellikle parka Şişli’nin arka semtlerinden, kenar mahallelerinden, daha uzak semtlerden insanlar geliyor, özellikle hafta sonları burayı dolduruyorlardı. . . . bir yere girip de oturamayan, sinemaya gidemeyen parasızlar, yoksullar buralarda geziniyordu. Parklar nerede olursa olsun onlara aitti.” 411 “Kenar mahallelerin genç erkekleri, kızları buluşmak için buraya geliyor, burada tanışıyorlardı. Evsizler polis görmediği, kovmadığı, göz yumduğu sürece burada kalıyordu. İşsizler gündüzlerini burada geçiriyordu.” 191

c) Access to the Social and Cultural Life of the City As included in the previous section, the narrator describes İncirköy as located “at the periphery of a non-existing centre”412 (12). This view of the city without a centre is emphasised in the following extract as well. Or on a public holiday , leaving their own turf, hundreds of teenagers were going to Taksim or another central part of the city to benefit from the blessings of urban life , in a deserted city centre encountering those similar to themselves, they were turning right back, going down from Yüksek Kaldırım and mixing with the maddening crowd of Eminönü. There was neither a place nor a thing to reach. There was no city centre. Maybe there was even no city...413 (12-13) The narrator describes the people of the periphery who are immigrants, going to “Taksim or another central part of the city” and coming across people who are similar to them, and then returning home. They go to the city centre in the hope of becoming part of the urban social life, “to benefit from the blessings of urban life.” The novel makes the reader ask what these urban blessings are, what teenagers from the periphery would expect as they go to the city centre, to a place like Taksim. They would expect to socialise with people of their age, for friendship and for flirtation. They would expect to spend a pleasant time strolling around, sitting in a café; to watch a sports match, or maybe participate in one. See a movie in a theatre, and for those who are interested in cultural activities, see a play or a concert. The extract stresses the impossibility of such an integration of the people of the periphery with the urban culture. Such integration is a right to the city. In an ideal urban setting, even teenagers who have a small amount of pocket money to spend on pleasure, most of the activities listed above could possibly be reached through urban amenities. Social recreation centres and similar areas would be available for the youth, where they could get involved in sports or culture and arts; or find space for hobbies through clubs. These would also serve as a venue to socialise with other teenagers. The extract above indicates that in the absence of such social/welfare organisations, all that the poor teenagers of the periphery end up doing in the city centre is come across other people like them and then return home. This is why the passage ends with an emphasis on the absence of a city centre. The absence of a city centre is

412 “olmayan bir merkezin kenarında” 413 “Ya da bir tatil günü yüzlerce yeniyetme kendi çöplüklerinden çıkarak kent nimetlerinden yararlanmak için Taksim’e ya da başka bir kent merkezine akıyor, terk edilmiş bir kent merkezinde kendi benzerleriyle karşılarak gerisin geri Yüksek Kaldırım’dan inip Eminönü’nün çıldırtıcı kalabalığına karışıyorlardı. Ulaşılacak ne bir yer ne de herhangi bir şey vardı. Bir kent merkezi yoktu. Belki bir kent bile yoktu…” 192 almost equated with the absence of a city: there is no way of feeling the existence of the city if one is disconnected with the city centre. Another point worthy of attention in the extract is the narrator’s stance regarding the position of immigrants. On the surface, it looks like a neutral narration without sympathy for immigrants. However, with a closer look, authentic feelings are found in the passage. Rather than an outsider’s sympathy, using words of compassion, the resentment of an insider is visible in the narration, manifest in word choices such as “leaving their own turf” or “turning right back.”

11.5.4 The City of Idlers, Outcasts, Tramps and the Homeless Idling comes to the fore as a strong motif from the very start of the novel. The childhood and adolescent memories of the main character are dominated by the time he spent idling with his uncle İs. In the present time, he is idling in the city on his own. This is the globalising Istanbul. In a passage depicting a journey of the main character back from visiting N., the Karaköy area is described as follows: . . . [he] was diving into a river of sound, made up of those selling little ornaments on the cloth they spread out on the floor, little objects made of leather, birds’ nests (these were usually from the place called the Turki Republics), clocks, perfume, little statues, masks (and these were usually youngsters from Africa), those selling foreign cigarettes, hand-rolled tobacco from Van or Urfa, amid bellows, voices talking, screams, ships’ horns, ferry noises.414 (102) This is a city where immigration is no longer limited to rural to urban migration on the national scale; it includes international immigration as well. A similar emphasis is made in the following sentence: “ . . . in the streets, Russian, Moldavian, or Romanian women, young boys working in lowlife nightclubs and bars, and staying in bed & breakfasts or rented rooms, prostitutes, idlers, Arabs, Blacks, those looking for any kind of a job, alcoholics, thieves, hoodlums, vendors, those who have immigrated from every part of the country were walking around”415 (107).

414 “ . . . yere serdikleri bir bez üzerinde küçük süs eşyası, deriden yapılma küçük eşyalar, çantalar, heybeler, yelekler satanların (bunlar çoğunlukla Türki Cumhuriyetleri denilen yerden gelenlerdi), saat, parfüm, küçük heykeller, maskeler satanların(bunlar da genelde Afrika’dan gelen gençlerdi), yabancı sigara, Van ya da Urfa’dan gelme sarma tütün satanların, bağırışların, konuşmaların, çığlıkların, vapur düdüklerinin, motor seslerinin oluşturduğu bir ses nehrine dalıyordu.” 415 “ . . . sokaklarda Rus, Moldavyalı ya da Romen kadınlar, pavyonlarda ya da gece kulüplerinde çalışıp pansiyonlarda, kiralık odalarda kalan delikanlılar, fahişeler, işi gücü olmayanlar, Araplar, Siyahlar, herhangi bir iş arayanlar, ayyaşlar, hırsızlar, kabadayılar, seyyar satıcılar, ülkenin her yerinden göçüp gelmiş insanlar dolaşıyordu.” 193

In the novel, there is one reference to gentrification, a phenomenon closely related to globalisation. It appears in the passage when the main character is in Galata, looking around the square. In the tourists he sees around there is also a reference to the globalisation of Istanbul. Upwards stretched buildings whose plaster had fallen off, and reliefs had faded, that were rented room by room, used as shops, workshops or depots, where families with many children lived. Actors and actresses, painters, musicians, journalists, lovers of historical places , moderately rich ones, foreigners, who fool around in bars all night long were also renting, buying houses around here, thus the neighbourhood was like an animated Arabic picture where all motifs enmeshed in a disordered way.416 (160) Although gentrification is touched upon only in one passage in the novel, it is an important symbol in relation to the changes in the city, and also significant in terms of identifying the times when the novel is set. As mentioned above, when the main character was younger he used to idle in the city with İs, “they were hitting the road to idle like a spirit inside the city”417 (79). As an idler, İs is comfortable outside: “İs was walking relaxed, straight, confident, as if the streets belonged to him, with his body leaning to the side with each step”418 (86). Although İs does not work and is criticized for this, he is accepted in this way. He and other men like him have a way of surviving this way in the city. He knows the owners or waiters in the tea-gardens or beer-houses where they take their breaks. They walk endlessly in the crowds until they are exhausted and stop in a park: “İs . . . felt at home in the park419 (65). They idle in the streets in and around İncirköy where they live, in the main street, on the coast, in tea-gardens and beer- houses on the coast, they sometimes take the minibus to Güzkonan to visit their relatives, and sometimes they go to Bakırkule to hang around there. Walking endlessly in the city appears somehow to be their way of claiming their right to the city: the parks, the coasts, the squares; they constantly make use of the public realm. In addition to idlers like İs, without a steady job but having a permanent place to stay, idlers without a place to live are also visible in the novel. They are either characters who are

416 “Yukarılara doğru oda oda kiralanan, dükkan, atölye ya da depo olarak kullanılan, çok çocuklu kalabalık ailelerin kaldığı, sıvası dökülmüş, kabartmaları silinmiş binalar uzanıyordu. Oyuncular, ressamlar, müzisyenler, gazeteciler, tarihi mekan düşkünleri, zenginceler, yabancılar, gece boyu barlarda dolananlar da buralarda ev kiralıyor, satın alıyor, böylece semt karışık, tuhaf, abartılı, tüm motiflerin düzensizce iç içe girdiği arabesk bir görüntüyü canlandırıyordu.” 417 “. . . kentin içinde bir ruh gibi dolaşmak üzere yollara düşüyorlardı.” 418 “İs kalabalığın içinde rahat, dik, sokaklar onunmuş gibi kendinden emin, her adımda gövdesi de o yana eğilip sallanarak yürüyordu.” 419 “İs . . . parkta kendini evindeymiş gibi duyardı.” 194 able to find temporary places to stay, or those completely homeless living in the streets: “the homeless, outcasts, or lunatics who were themselves a sort of garbage”420 (11); “ . . . a winter in which a couple of the homeless had frozen to death . . . has passed”421 (146); “on the coast there was no-one except for a couple of early walkers and homeless people sleeping on the benches”422 (149). The homeless as a recurring motif in the book can obviously be interpreted as connected with the theme of the right to housing. In addition to that, on a deeper level, as regards the existential aspect of the novel, this motif seems to be connected with an outcome of alienation which results in the rejection of life itself. It is also interesting that, as the following quotation reveals, the novel depicts the line between being an idler and a homeless person as very thin, especially for those who have immigrated to the city lacking a network support based on kinship relations: “ . . . the homeless were taking shelter in deserted inns, dilapidated rooms; the unemployed, fallen ones doing temporary jobs, those who are new to the city were staying in cheap, dingy hotels and rented rooms”423 (161). In the second book of the novel, the main character comes across an acquaintance from the past, Engin who stays “either in a flat, in a room or at a hotel depending on his financial situation”424 (164). The passage depicting the conversation between the two, as the main character treats Engin to lunch is worthy of attention, as it brings different forms of idlers together. As Engin talks about his plans to leave Istanbul, “a beggar woman covering her face with a scarf”425 (166) gets expelled from the door of the diner. Engin complains about the city, says that he can’t stay there any longer, and mentions an event of assault he experienced a couple of days before as an example of how terrible a place it is. He adds: “I will go back to my hometown . . . ”426 (167). As he leaves, he asks for money to pay for the room in the hotel he is staying at. This passage, about three-and-a-half pages long, appears as a way of bringing the focus closer to the story of one of the idlers in the novel who is on the verge of being completely homeless. In his story, there is not the alienation that leads to a rejection of life, he is simply not accepted by the city, he cannot survive in the city, and therefore his only solution is going back to his hometown.

420 “kendileri de bir tür çöp olan evsizlerin, kimsesizlerin ya da delilerin ” 421 “ . . . birkaç evsizin soğuktan donarak öldüğü . . . bir kış geride kalmıştı.” 422 “Sahilde birkaç erkenci yürüyüşçü ile sıralarda uyuyan evsizlerden başka kimse yoktu.” 423 “ . . . evsizler terk edilmiş hanlara, döküntü odalara sığınıyor, ucuz, izbe otellerde, kiralık odalarda işsizler, geçici işler yapanlar düşmüşler, kente yeni gelenler kalıyordu.” 424 “Para durumuna göre bir evde, bir odada ya da bir otelde kalıyordu.” 425 “ . . . yüzünü tülbentiyle örtmüş bir dilenci kadın . . . ” 426 “Memlekete döneceğim . . . ” 195

Beggars, children selling paper tissues and glue sniffers also keep appearing in the foreground of this city of urban poverty, unemployment, exclusion and homelessness depicted in the novel. All these appear both in the first book, which mostly focuses on the past, and the second book set in the present time. At one point on his long walk, the main character stops at a tea-garden at the bottom of the Galata tower, and the depiction of an ordinary afternoon there is noteworthy for bringing together all these issues as they intertwine with each other: “In the small space, a group of glue-sniffer children were playing a football match with a burst ball they had found. Most of them were swinging at the ball where they stood, like a sleep-walker hitting the ball that comes to their feet with their cross-eyes, every now and again sniffing inside the palms of their hands made into fists”427 (159). He adds: “Street vendor children and beggars were chasing tourist groups. A bit further away, a couple of children were looking at the sky lying on benches; a couple of unemployed people were sleeping”428 (159-160). As he continues his walk on İstiklal Street, it is evening time now: “Children selling paper tissues, chewing gum or flowers and shoeshine boys were walking around; in front of shops or doors, those without arms, feet, the blind, cripples, oldtimers, those with swollen feet, those with irregular, flawed organs, those with half bodies, deaf mutes, the hungry, the ill, and children were begging”429 (162-163). Among numerous moments in the novel when beggars, the homeless and so forth are mentioned430, various passages focusing on figures such as glue-sniffers or tramps, and the character’s perceptions about them come to the fore in impressive passages. One such incident is when he is in Gezi Park. After he gives some change to a bunch of glue-sniffers who ask him for money, he gives his remaining coins to a man who approaches him and tells him that he hasn’t eaten anything for two days. Then he recalls a past moment: on a silent road, a tramp approaches him and asks for money. The only money he has in his pocket is a note which he needs to get back home, so he cannot give it to him. However, after a couple of steps he changes his mind and walks back to give it to the man, only to find that he has gone. He looks for him in a couple of streets, but cannot find him. It seems that if he did find him he would have to walk a long way home with no money left for transport. In the second example,

427 “Küçük açıklıkta tinerci çocuklardan oluşan bir küme buldukları patlak bir topla maç yapıyorlardı. Çoğu oldukları yerde sallanıyor, kayık gözleriyle yarı uyurgezer ayaklarına gelen topa vuruyor, ara sıra yumruk yaptıkları avuç içlerini kokluyorlardı.” 428 “Satıcı çocuklar, dilenciler turist kümelerinin peşine takılıyordu. Ötede birkaç çocuk sıralara uzanmış gökyüzünü seyrediyor, birkaç işsiz uyukluyordu.” 429 “Kağıt mendil, sakız ya da çiçek satan çocuklar, boyacı çocuklar dolaşıyor, dükkan ya da kapı önlerinde kolsuzlar, ayaksızlar, körler, topallar, yaşlılar, şiş ayaklılar, yamuk, bozuk organlılar, yarım gövdeliler, dilsizler, açlar, hastalar, çocuklar dileniyordu.” 430 Such as those in the following pages: 45, 104, 115, 126, 127, 146, 150, 159, 161, 170, 179, 180, 183, 194. 196 the setting is Maçka Park, where a glue-sniffer boy plays with a dog who is being walked by its upper-class owner. After a couple of minutes of allowing the boy to play with his dog, the man rudely tells him to go away. So the boy goes under the trees and continues watching the dogs at a distance. As the main character walks by him, the boy asks for a cigarette, he gives it to him and continues walking (186-7). Such instances rendered in the metallic language of the novel, to borrow Kıran’s description, use style in a creative way: on the one hand the depiction is so objective and neutral that it sounds as if within the scope of living in a metropolis, all these are ordinary instances. As Georg Simmel explains: “ . . . the metropolitan type . . . creates a protective organ for itself against the profound disruption with which the fluctuations and discontinuities of the external milieu threaten it. Instead of reacting emotionally, the metropolitan type reacts primarily in a rational manner . . .” (12). However, the contents of the two instances explained above imply that the main character is not that immune to what Simmel calls “the fluctuations and discontinuities of the external milieu”, and his emotions may sometimes be dominant over his rational side. He keeps noticing such people who are ignored by the large majority of the men and women in the street. As discussed above, the title of the novel can be translated as “on the periphery.” In the novel, the periphery appears on various levels: on the first level, as discussed at the beginning of the section, there is the overall theme of the main character being on the periphery of existence. On another level, there is a more direct and literal existence of periphery in the book: the neighbourhoods which are on the periphery of the city. However, the engagement of the novel with the concept of periphery is not limited to these. The main concern of the novel, as illustrated in the examples above, is those who are stuck on the periphery of the social, economic and cultural life of the urban setting. The motif of idling can therefore be examined within the framework of its strong resonances with Walter Benjamin’s focus in his urban sociological works. Graeme Gilloch lucidly explains that Benjamin strives “to give voice to the ‘periphera’, the experience of those whom modern forms of order strive to render silent and invisible” (9) and adds: “The sauntering flâneur431, the self-conscious dandy, the loud- mouthed beggar, the suffering prostitute, the wretched rag-picker: marginal, disregarded figures inhabit Benjamin’s pages on the city” (9). Gilloch describes Benjamin’s objective as “empower[ing] the marginal and the oppressed” and “to this end, the cityscapes offer a

431 A man who saunters around observing society (“Flâneur”). The concept will be explained further in the analysis of A Strangeness in My Mind. 197 phenomenology of the marginal figures of the metropolitan environment. They relate the experiences of the child, the prostitute, the beggar, the rag-picker and others” (15). Those sorts of “marginal, disregarded figures” (9) are constantly present in Periphery. Their existence as a leitmotif brings issues such as the right to work and the right to housing to the pages of the novel. But not just these. There is also a philosophical dimension to their presence in the novel. The novel depicts such figures through the lens of existentialism, which can be seen as “the ultimate form of Humanism because it takes all responsibility for human happiness and achievement out of the hands of fate and places it in the hands of human beings” (“Existentialism” 232). The main character’s awareness of marginal figures seems closely related to existentialists’ “ . . . commitment to human responsibility over reliance on outside influences” (232).

11.6 Conclusion Periphery is a novel about rural to urban migration, with various facets of the phenomenon appearing as its themes. The novel is unique in the way it brings these themes together with alienation and existential anxiety, which appear mainly in the descriptions of the main character’s inner world. As being on the periphery of the city and being on the periphery of life are juxtaposed, the themes of rural to urban migration and themes of alienation and existential anxiety get fused. As discussed earlier, the main character is an idler. It is as if to get attached to life, he tries to get attached to the city. The lack of these attachments seems to be reciprocal for him, one intensifies the other in a completely grim city governed by chaos: “ . . . the bottomless well at the heart of the city called Istanbul, grey chaos, gnawing ghost appearing and disappearing, that was what really existed. That was what governed the city”432 (18). At one point in the novel, the narrator stresses that the main character’s village no longer exists, since all the remaining people there have moved to the town (116). In another instance, villages are described as “either emptied by themselves or were depopulated”433 (35). His grandfather spends his last summer in his village and gets buried there. This is a powerful symbol of his ties with his village, with his rural background, with the Anatolian soil. On the other hand, the main character’s father gets buried in Istanbul, in the Taşlıbağ graveyard. This is also a symbol of equal significance. With his father buried in the soil of

432 “ . . . İstanbul diye adlandırılan kentin bağrındaki dipsiz kuyu, gri karmaşa, belirip yiten kemirici hayalet, işte asıl var olan oydu. Kenti yöneten oydu.” 433 “Köyler ya kendiliğinden boşaldı ya da boşaltıldı.” 198

Istanbul, maybe the main character will eventually feel a stronger sense of belonging to the city, there is no way to tell. The main character’s inner world is characterised with melancholia and nausea: “he was feeling a deep sadness, the reason for which he didn’t know” (170)434. He feels disconnected from his family and relatives, from the working class which are portrayed mostly as hard-working people full of life (25; 32), and from the city as well: “He was feeling like someone in exile in an unfamiliar land . . . ”435 (144). Such a depiction seems to function both on a literal and a metaphorical level. The main character always ends up in Maçka Park: “He was walking back and forth and eventually finding himself in this park” (185)436. Unlike a flâneur who enjoys walking through arcades, he seems to find peace in parks. As discussed earlier, the parks in the city are mainly used by people who cannot spend money for recreation in the city. We are not given enough information as to whether this is also the case for the main character. However, his deep connection with parks, green spaces and the sea seem to imply a multidimensional motivation. His fondness for green might, to a certain extent, imply a heritage from the rural background of his parents. It also seems to be an implication of the lack of green space in the city, which acts as yet another reason for his detachment from it. In this respect, Gezi Park, which appears in a long passage (179-182) in the final chapter of the novel, appears almost as a foreshadowing of the Gezi Resistance of 2013, ten years after the novel was written, people’s fight for their rights to the green area and in general their right to the city. The sea as a motif seems to appear when the themes of detachment from/attachment to the city come together. On the one hand, it symbolises a feeling of infinity, something which calls for contemplation on existence. On the other hand, it is an accessible beauty of the city, at least for most of its inhabitants. Simply sitting on a bench or strolling on the shore makes it possible to enjoy it. The novel ends with the sea motif, as the main character looks around at the Beşiktaş harbour. This is a moment where contemplation of existence meets with daily life in the city. There is a couple sitting on a bench holding each other, three people are having their beers and speaking in whispers as they stand by the boats, and at the other end there is one person watching the sea. Today the tea-gardens next to the Beşiktaş harbour are no longer there, and the area has been full of police buses, since the president took over the ex-mayoral office there. The park in its yard, which used to be called the Mayor’s Park by dwellers of

434 “Nedenini bilmediği derin bir üzüntü duyuyordu.” 435 “Bilmediği topraklarda sürgüne yollanmış biri gibi duyuyordu . . . “ 436 “Dönüp dolaşıp kendini bu parkta buluyordu.” 199

Beşiktaş, is now closed to the public. The novel poetically brings images of the parts of the city that used to be open for the enjoyment of all, which are being lost today as shopping malls and luxury hotels are invading the best parts of the city. Set at an early stage of Istanbul’s globalisation, the book depicts an extremely gloomy city, which almost reads like a warning on the devastating effects of the globalisation process, the parks and shores shown as the only places where one can breathe in this gloomy city. The novel draws attention to the right to the recreation areas as a primary right to the city, in addition to other rights as discussed throughout the analysis. Seaming together stories of immigration, working class life, periphery neighbourhoods, deindustrialisation, homelessness and so forth, Periphery offers a kaleidoscopic look at the realities of a globalising city, filtering them through the central themes of this existential novel.

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CHAPTER 12

It Takes All Kinds: The Istanbul Forgotten in the Varoş The novel analysed as the counterpart of Periphery is İnsan Kısım Kısım Yer Damar Damar [It Takes All Kinds437]438 by Hatice Meryem, first published in 2008 by İletişim. The second impression of the novel was published by the same company in the same year. This is the first novel by the author, who had previously had three short-story books published. In the novel, themes directly related to the right to the city appear in terms of material necessities, particularly services of the municipality and infrastructure. Through its setting, an ex-shantytown, themes of isolation on the outskirts of the city and people’s unawareness of their right to the city are treated reciprocally. The intensive use of free indirect discourse enables the novel to refrain from an authoritative attitude, and depict life in an ex-shantytown through the eyes of those who experience it. Owing to its satirical edge, the novel extends its themes without sliding into agitation, and invites readers to question the dominant discourse on the so-called varoş neighbourhoods and their population without being assertive.

437 The English translation of the book’s title is taken from the translation excerpt by İdil Aydoğan and Amy Spangler (“It Takes”). 438 References in this dissertation are made to the second impression by İletişim, 2008. 201

Fig. 9. The cover of the impression used in this analysis.

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12.1 Plot Summary In the first chapter of the first part of the novel, Zümrüt, one of the two main characters of the novel, is planning a family picnic for the evening. Her sister Elmas is the other main character of the novel, and she lives with Zümrüt and her family. From various details discussed below, it can be inferred that the novel is set in the 2000s. The two sisters prepare stuffed vine-leaves for the picnic they will go on in the evening. As the chapters proceed, the reader learns that Zümrüt has two sons and a little daughter Aynur, who has a chronic illness. Her husband Cavit’s brother Coşkun, who has been in prison for a while and recently released, lives with them as well. In the flat above, Cavit’s other brother Nurettin, his wife Seher and their children live. On that day, Coşkun’s dog, Löp Et has an accident and dies. At the end of the first part of the novel, the family members are ready to get in the pickup truck to go on the picnic. The second part focuses on Coşkun’s story. His contemplations about his past, the process which led to his imprisonment and his view of life, which has been entirely transformed in the prison, are introduced. His friend Cansın tries to prove that he was innocent in the incident which got Coşkun into trouble, causing his imprisonment. In the third part, the stories of Sami and Cansın, as well as the story of the friendship between Coşkun, Cansın and Sami are told. The stories of two figures important in Coşkun’s life also appear in this chapter: Communist Cemal and Commander Duran. The picnic constitutes the fourth part of the novel. During the picnic, Coşkun and Elmas go to the fairground near the picnic area. In the final part, Nurettin’s wife Seher finds a babysitting job for Elmas. However, on her first working day, Elmas slaps the girl she is hired to look after. Meanwhile, Coşkun comes home with his face covered in blood because he gets beaten up at the coffee-house where he has tried to preach to people. Elmas runs away with Coşkun, taking Aynur with her as well. Coşkun leaves a farewell letter to Cavit, in which he criticises him for not being respected by his wife Zümrüt. Cavit, devastated by these words, gets drunk and his inner world is briefly introduced based on this drunken state. In the last chapter of the novel, it is the first day of a religious holiday, so Cavit and Zümrüt go out in the pickup truck to visit their relatives. The novel ends with Cavit’s contemplation as he drives the pickup over the Bosphorus Bridge.

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12.2 Main Features The book has an introduction by the author, which is quite unusual for a novel, something that would rather be expected in a piece of non-fiction. In addition to this three- page long introduction, the two-hundred-and-eighty-six-page long novel comprises sixty-one chapters distributed into five parts: I: “A Long Afternoon” (chapters 1-24); II: “Coşkun and the Rest of Them” (chapters 25-29); III: “Respect for the Past” (chapters 30-43); IV: “Picnic Time” (chapters 43-53); V: “Winter’s Almost Arrived” (54-62)439. Kinds follows conventions of the realist novel, such as “psychological characterization, detailed descriptions of everyday life, and dialogue that captures the idioms of natural speech” (“Realism” 654). The novel can also be categorised as an example of dark humour. Elements such as Zümrüt’s chronically ill daughter, Coşkun’s experience in the prison, and the accident that kills Löp Et the dog in boiling water, bring a dark shade to the humorous edge of the novel, manifest particularly in the sarcastic comments of Zümrüt. The style of the novel can be summarised as follows. The narrator uses colloquial language. In the dialogues, which are highly realistic, dialect is used as well as a couple of expressions that can be categorised as slang. Adages have a significant place in the novel, as will be discussed below. Both in the narration and in the dialogues, the word order is unmarked, i.e. inverted syntax is not used. The novel does not make use of long and complex sentences. The use of punctuation is standard. The novel is narrated in the third-person by a narrator who is not one of the characters of the novel. No information is given about the narrator’s gender or age. Figural narration is dominant in the novel, where the reflector characters vary in different chapters. Thus, like Birds, this novel has “serial reflectors” (Keen 63). The narrator is not a neutral one, she reveals her feelings in the narration by including certain adjectives, and also makes comments on actions, characters, events and so forth; thus, a marked narrator. Throughout the novel, the use of digressions and flashbacks stand out. Although the novel has not received great attention from literary circles, it has not altogether been ignored, either. Prominent literary critic Metin Celal described the novel as “masterly in telling the life in varoşes”, in his column in Cumhuriyet (“Edebiyatta 2008’den”)440.

439 I: “Uzun Bir Öğleden Sonra”; II: “Coşkun ve Diğerleri”; III: “Geçmişe Hürmet”; IV: “Piknik Zamanı”; V: “Eli Kulağında Kış”. 440 Reviews of the novel have appeared in Zaman Kitap, by Serdar Güven; Okuduğum Kitaplar (literary blog), by Metin Celal; www.sol.org.tr, by Hüseyin Çukur; www.insanokur.org, by Fazilet Karahallı Avcu. Additionally, 204

12.3 Title and Beginning The novel’s title is an adage in Turkish, which can literally be translated as: humans have many kinds, soil has many veins. The adage is uttered by Zümrüt towards the end of the novel, reflecting her shock and disappointment to see that her sister and brother-in-law have run away, taking her sick daughter with them (273). This title, when combined with the novel’s narrative technique analysed below, suggests that the fact that there are many sorts of humans leads to separateness and a lack of communication among them, even within the same family. The first chapter of the novel is entitled “Zümrüt with a rose on her tongue and Elmas who wants to swallow her tongue”441 (15), and it begins with Zümrüt’s suggestion of cooking stuffed vine leaves to eat on the seaside. At this very first moment, Zümrüt’s incredibly rich vocabulary is introduced, as she recites a verse about stuffed vine leaves442, following her suggestion to cook some for the evening. Her sister Elmas thinks that Zümrüt is pregnant and that’s why she fancies stuffed vine leaves, and in the rest of the beginning paragraph of the novel, the narrator explains Zümrüt’s story of eating coal during her former pregnancy. The next paragraph explains how great a speaker Zümrüt is; examples of adages she uses are given, to explain how colourful her expressions are and how rich her vocabulary is. The narrator describes her tongue as “colourful and vivacious like a circus, like a fair, like a market place”443 (16), she is described as capable of making rhetoricians jealous (17). The chapter ends with Zümrüt’s comment about her sister Elmas, that she is so silent because she knows she is guilty. This beginning demonstrates a couple of central issues of the novel, as it presents the two central characters. The power of speech and possessing language, which is a central theme of the novel, is introduced at this very first point of the novel. The beginning also hints that the two women at the centre of the novel are unhappy people. The power of Zümrüt over Elmas is explicit in this opening chapter, as well as their disconnectedness, and the degree of selfishness dominating their relationship. Zümrüt appears as an exaggerated figure here, if not ridiculed, which has a humorous effect. The narrator uses free indirect speech extensively at this point in rendering Zümrüt’s words. The following remark in the free indirect speech form

interviews with the author on the novel have appeared in Yeni Şafak Kitap, by Hale Kaplan Öz; in eyozgurluk (current topics blog), by Murat Sayım (bibliographical info included in Works Consulted.) 441 “Dili Güllü Zümrüt ile Dilini Yutmayı Düşleyen Elmas” 442 “ . . . gelinlik kıza yapıştır para pul, sarmayı sofraya koy, geç karşısına kurul!” [ . . . give the young bride gifts, put the stuffed vine leaves on the table and sit in front of it ] (15). 443 “ . . . dili bir sirk,dili bir panayır, dili bir pazar yeri gibi rengarenk ve capcanlı . . . ” (16) 205 encapsulates the characterisation of Zümrüt in this beginning phase of the novel: “One would not be right by staying silent. One who stays silent would always suffer. It was necessary to fight for one’s rights”444 (17).

12.4 Characters and Related Themes

12.4.1 Sisters of Different Languages As explained above, Elmas is the exact opposite of Zümrüt with her silence. This repulses Zümrüt, since “one thing she could not stand was a person who does not speak”445 (20). Zümrüt can use words like weapons while “Elmas was scared of words”446 (24). The fifth chapter is entitled “One can only swear in one’s own language”447 (35). At the beginning of the chapter, Elmas is on her way back from the shop. She comes across a cardboard box with a couple of books inside, and on the cover of one of the books it is written in English: “My First Dictionary, The Beginner’s Pict…” The rest of the book’s title is unreadable, since the cover page is torn. The narrator explains that Elmas does not speak English, but speaks in another foreign language which she has learnt from her mother. She adds that Elmas has never seen a person speaking in that language reading a book (36). What follows is a digression of a page-long passage describing that language. After this passage of digression, the chapter continues with Elmas finding more books in the box, one of which is a cookery book. The passage of digression begins with the remark: “This was such a language that perhaps it was only good for speaking”448 (36). The passage describes various ways the language is used orally, implying the centrality of oral culture where it is used: “However [speakers of that language] had never thought of writing even one line down. Neither had it ever occurred to them that a grudge would be borne against their language, which served so many purposes”449 (37). Then fires started in the place where this language is spoken. People could not put those fires out. They had to flee to other cities. Elmas’s mother is one of these people, and when asked about this event, she does not want to talk about what happened. She no longer uses this language, apart from when she is angry, when she curses others in that language.

444 “Susmakla haklı çıkmazmış insan. Susan her zaman ezilirmiş. Hakkı savunmak gerekirmiş” (17). 445 “ . . . tahammül edemediği bir şey varsa o da konuşmayan insandı.” 446 “Kelimelerden korkardı Elmas.” 447 “Yalnız Ana Dilinde Küfreder İnsan” 448 “Öyle bir dildi ki bu, galiba yalnızca konuşmaya yarıyordu.” 449 “Ancak akıllarına tek bir satır olsun yazmak gelmemiş. Bunca işe yarayan dillerine düşmanlık besleneceği de düşmemiş akıllarına hiç.” 206

Vagueness, if not an actual contradiction, can be found here. The previous paragraph ends in telling us that this is a language Elmas learned from her mother. However, in this passage it is explained that her mother has left her mother tongue behind: “Since she assumed a pose as if she left her mother tongue behind intentionally among all those things which burnt furiously, she looked like the final representative of a people which has lost everything apart from their pride”450 (37). The parallel between this unnamed language in the story and Kurdish is quite obvious. The description of the way Elmas’s mother and other people in the village had to run away because of the fires is an explicit reference to the village evacuations in Eastern Turkey. Elmas’s perception of the unnamed language as being only spoken and never written sounds like a reference to the illegality of publishing in Kurdish in Turkey in the past, which results in the fact that she has never read anything in this language. There are a couple of points worth analysis regarding this unnamed language. Although Elmas and Zümrüt are sisters, therefore the woman who speaks that language is the mother of both of them, it is Elmas, the silent one of the two sisters, who is associated with that language through this digression. The reader almost forgets that the mother who had to leave her native tongue behind is also Zümrüt’s mother. Zümrüt is a master of theTurkish language, with all sorts of adages, idioms and sayings in Turkish. The novel does not give any information about whether Zümrüt, like Elmas, learned that unnamed language from her mother at one point. Whether she did or not, this does not seem that important. Zümrüt, who has been in Istanbul for a long time, is associated with the Turkish language. She speaks endlessly in an amazingly rich Turkish. Elmas, who has recently migrated to Istanbul, is associated with the other language. She is always silent. This silence of Elmas can be interpreted in terms of the connection between immigration and the assimilation of the ethnic minority. On the way to an urban identity, the immigrant from the ethnic minority has to, first of all, leave her language behind. Otherwise, one gets excluded and cannot survive in the city. Hence, assimilation takes on a further dimension upon immigration. The novel develops this theme through the characterisations of the two sisters in an implicit manner.

12.4.2 The Women of Kozluk: Consumers on the Periphery Female characters are located at the centre of the novel. The inner worlds of Zümrüt and Elmas are more explicitly introduced than those of other characters. Zümrüt has four

450 “Cayır cayır yanan onca şeyin arasında ana dilini bile isteye bırakmış gibi kararlı bir tavır takınması yüzünden, gururundan başka her şeyini kaybetmiş bir halkın son temsilcisine de benzerdi biraz.” 207 sons, the years of whose birth she can’t remember. She is not happy with her husband’s high libido, and much of the time tries to find excuses to avoid sex. The explanation of how Coşkun, Cavit’s brother, sees Zümrüt is an important aspect of her characterisation. He doesn’t like the way she behaves towards her husband Cavit, and he hates the way she does not cover her cleavage. It is difficult being a woman in Kozluk. ‘Honour’ can easily be manipulated and used against women. For instance, Cansın, whose mother was killed by her husband for ‘honour’ goes as far as slandering domestic worker women for doing ‘other’ things than cleaning (145). According to Zümrüt, the men of Kozluk all beat their wives and the women think they deserve it (153). In various instances in the novel, it is implied that some kind of prostitution goes on in the Kozluk Center, the shopping mall of Kozluk, and Elmas is also involved in it (100, 237). This may not be sex for money in the full sense of the word, but some sort of flirtation in exchange for material benefit. Since shopping malls are the ultimate symbol of consumerism, the setting of this prostitution-like activity being at the Kozluk Center is worthy of attention. Additionally, shopping malls give an urban look to ex-shantytowns like Kozluk, and create the illusion of an urban life. The close relationship between consumerism and an urban identity comes together in this symbol of the shopping mall. The way the novel develops them in connection with each other is worth a close look. The women of Kozluk live on the periphery of the city, almost side by side with gated communities. A fancy urban upper-middle class life is within eye-sight, yet as far off as another planet. Kozluk women go to the apartment buildings in these gated communities to clean their stairs. They envy the lives there, a glimpse of which they get this way. This aspiration is depicted in the novel as an issue of class with a strong spatial dimension, as analysed below. Kozlukite women’s consumerist desire appears as a significant theme at various stages of the novel. In the introduction to the book, signed by the author, Meryem states that a high number of Kozlukite women have been following “the fashion”451 of giving birth in private hospitals “which have been mushrooming on every street”452 in Kozluk (9). This is also the main clue in inferring the times the novel is set in. The chapter which chronicles the development of Kozluk ends with the information that the year Elmas moved to Kozluk was also the year when the women of the neighbourhood put guipure lace curtains on their

451 “moda” 452 “her sokak arasında mantar gibi bitiveren ” 208 windows, became acquainted with women’s programmes on television, some of them even went to television studios as audiences on these programmes, and got used to using mobile phones (34). There is an entire chapter on Borcam, a glassware dish that can be put in the oven, which Zümrüt regards as a fancy piece of kitchenware (78). For Zümrüt, it is a highly precious item about which she dreams for a long time. Eventually, she manages to buy one from the local street market on the never-never. As she pays the first instalment and holds her Borcam in her hands, her manner is described thus: “She looked like a completely different woman, one who lives very far from Kozluk”453 (80). Unfortunately, after a short while, Elmas breaks the Borcam accidently. The theme of consumerism, intertwined with the theme of Kozlukites’ aspiration to live like rich people, is a recurrent theme in the novel. The reader learns from Elmas that Kozlukites use laminated flooring, satin paint and PVC window frames when they are turning their shanties into apartment buildings, although they can’t afford the basic needs of the buildings, such as banisters and stove pipes (70). The highly humorous chapter entitled “Another Life’s Dream is Hidden in Guest Rooms”454 (94) is a good example of the combination of the two themes. The door of the guest room at Zümrüt’s family home is always locked and only gets opened for guests who come to visit them on religious holidays. The room is full of stuff bought and kept by Zümrüt but never used: Duralex tea cups, an electric coffee grinder, a hoover, fake silver saucers, nesting tables, plastic flowers and so forth. When Zümrüt enters this room, even the way she walks and sits changes (95). The room is described humorously as “having transformed into the depot of a store which sells household goods”455 (95) by the narrator. According to Zümrüt, the stuff in the room should be used by people who are worth it, and none of her family members are (95). Like her sister Zümrüt, Elmas has dreams about a middle-class life. As mentioned in the previous section, one day she finds a couple of books on the street on her way back home from the shop. Among these books, apart from the English book and the cookery book, there is a third book about motherhood and raising children. These three books she comes across accidentally create a bridge between her life and the urban middle-class living nearby: for the immigrant Elmas living in Kozluk, such a bridge is formed through the garbage of those who she admires. Among the three books, Elmas takes only the cookery book home. She reads all the recipes in it and fantasises about opening the cupboards in the picture on the cover of the

453 “Kozluk’tan çok uzaklarda yaşayan bambaşka bir kadına benzeyip çıkmıştı.” 454 “Bir Başka Hayatın Hayali Saklıdır Misafir Odalarında” 455 “ev eşyası satan bir mağazanın ardiyesine dönen” (95) 209 book, taking ingredients whose names she has never heard of before and cooking them in the bright cooking pans she sees in the picture. In the next chapter, Elmas brings the book to the kitchen before they start stuffing the vine leaves for the evening picnic. Zümrüt decides to hear Elmas read out the recipe in the book, although she actually knows how to cook it. However, she gets frustrated, since the recipe in the book calls for olive oil and some other expensive ingredients. Elmas regrets not anticipating her sister’s frustration. Looking at the book, she starts day-dreaming about “‘that beautiful day’ ”456 (44). She does not know what she will do, wear or eat on that day, but she knows that she will be very happy. She also reminds herself that she will never go to the Kozluk Center after that day. The Kozluk Center was built around the time Elmas moved into the neighbourhood. The women of Kozluk like strolling through it, even if they can’t shop there. This is the place where Coşkun, Cansın and Sami go pickpocketing. According to a friend of theirs, it is an easy place to do that because people who don’t have any money have become “shopping maniacs”457 (178). These people are described by the narrator as “this crowd who would get into debt bigger than their bodies, with the credit cards in their pockets”458 who “want to touch nothing but money and fancy new stuff”459 (178) . The Kozluk Center comes to the fore as an important motif related to the theme of consumerism in Kozluk, as well as the changing social life in the neighbourhood analysed in the conclusion section. The novel seems to imply that the people of Kozluk living on the periphery of the city try to connect with the modern urban culture by consuming products similar to those bought by the members of the urban middle class. They are vulnerable to the effects of the consumer culture, and they look up to the way wealthy urban people live. This theme is refined particularly through the female characters in the novel. Kozlukite women’s admiration for the life of the rich is different from the admiration of women, for instance, far away in an Anatolian town getting stunned by the lives they see in the soap operas on television. Since the women of Kozluk do not see these lives on television, but live side by side with it, what they aspire for cannot be explained only in terms of admiration for the lives of the upper classes. The fact that Zümrüt looks like a woman living very far away from Kozluk as she carries the Borcam (80) is a perfect example of the issues of identity that are intertwined with the spatial dimension of the problem. For first or later generation immigrants living on the periphery, the aspiration to the life of the higher classes not only derives from the desire

456 “‘o güzel gün’” 457 “alışveriş manyağı” 458 “cüzdanlarındaki kredi kartlarıyla boylarından büyük borçların altına giren bu güruh” 459 “paradan ve cicili bicili yeni şeylerden başka hiçbir şeye dokunmak istemeyen” 210 for a dream-like luxurious life, but also from a search for an urban identity, since their only role models for this identity are these upper-class women. They are not familiar with women who are modern and urban yet close to them in terms of socio-economic strata, such as progressive members of the proletariat, women working in different sectors and levels active in unions or other progressive causes. No such role model exists for them. The only urban women they can imagine are the members of the upper-middle class. The novel hints at this through the use of symbols of the consumer culture and through depicting what they mean to Kozlukites, especially with the use of the pyscho-narrations of Zümrüt and Elmas, rather than getting a smart aleck narrator make such comments.

12.5 Setting and Related Themes

12.5.1 Understanding Kozluk There are three instances in the novel where comments on Kozluk and Kozlukites are at the very forefront. The first one of these belongs to the author since it is in the introduction signed by Hatice Meryem. The second one is a chapter based on the narrator’s comments on Kozluk. In the third one, the reader is introduced to Zümrüt’s views on the neighbourhood she lives in, reported by Elmas. Additionally, there are instances when other characters’ opinions about the place where they live are introduced. It can be useful to start with Zümrüt and other characters’ opinions of the neighbourhood. a) Kozluk by Kozlukites The thirteenth chapter of the first part of the novel focuses on Zümrüt’s views on Kozluk. In fact, in a former chapter, Zümrüt’s comments about Kozluk are briefly introduced: “ . . . all Kozluk and whoever lives in Kozluk were wastrels. . . . if the whole of Kozluk flew away, nobody would feel it”460 (50), but the latter is much wider in scope. In this instance, Elmas reports Zümrüt’s speech on Kozluk: “With her sister’s colourful description, this was a place where layabouts and loafers, stony-brokes and hoodoos, sauceboxes and thieves, downs-and-outs, bad lots, hangdogs and the barelegged settle down”461 (67). Elmas continues by saying that according to Zümrüt, “the women of Kozluk with their mannish faces”462 (67) are concerned about what to cook for the evening and reflect their stress onto their husbands and children. According to her, the men of Kozluk can be divided into “those with a job and

460 “ . . . tüm Kozluk ve Kozluk’ta yaşayan kim varsa hepsi işe yaramazmış. . . . bütün bütün uçuverseymiş koca Kozluk, kimsenin haberi olmazmış.” 461 “Ablasının renkli anlatımıyla, işsizin güçsüzün, çulsuzun uğursuzun, arsızın hırsızın, fakirin fukaranın, itin kopuğun, sefilin baldırı çıplağın yurt tuttuğu bir yerdi burası.” 462 “Kozluk’un erkek suratlı kadınları” 211 those without”463 (67), and those without a job are many in Kozluk. The women of Kozluk see their husbands as “‘half-formed men’”464 (68) The children who do not have any warm clothes suffer from cold in the winter, but they have a great time in the summer making some money by selling water, paper tissues and bus tickets, and playing until late at night. On the youngsters, Zümrüt speaks negatively: “ . . . almost none of them would mend their ways, they would become either thieves or rascals”465 (69). Zümrüt also compares the early days of Kozluk with today. Although they used to have excessive water and electricity cuts, and after every rainstorm the streets would be muddy as they had no asphalt on the roads, still many women long for their shanties, which they used to look down on in the past. At least they had some chickens, and they could grow some vegetables in front of their homes. Besides, all open pieces of land in Kozluk have now been turned into junkyards (70). Nostalgia for old Kozluk is an important feeling in Zümrüt’s psyche. In a later example, when she goes to visit her new neighbours, she tells stories about the past of the neighbourhood, longing for the green Kozluk with animals such as chickens and sheep, despite frequent electricity and water cuts (103). Through these comments of Zümrüt, the sympathy of the novel for shanty as shelter is explicit: if the first tenet of the pro-shanty position is its inevitability as shelter in the absence of welfare housing policies, the second one is its harmony with nature. Once again, the novel’s position is transmitted through the comments of its characters, rendered via free indirect discourse, rather than through a narrator speaking with authority. Other characters’ comments about Kozluk are introduced in various parts of the novel. Towards the end of the book, Coşkun comes across his friend Sami, who has not been around for a while. When they start chatting, Sami says “‘God damn Kozluk’”466 (264) and “in agony”467 he says that “he will never set foot here again”468 (264). At the end of their chat, Sami tells Coşkun: “you too, run away from this hell!”469 (265) His words are connected with his fear of Cansın, who plans revenge, but they also show his feelings about his neighbourhood. For Elmas, Kozluk is a terrible place she is stuck in: “she . . . understood that there was no door opening to a “beautiful day” from the Kozluk hell”470 (270).

463 “İşliler ve işsizler.” 464 “‘erkek müsveddesi’” 465 “ . . . neredeyse hiçbiri adam olmaz, ya hırsız ya da hayta olurmuş” (69). 466 “’Allah Kozluk’un bin belasını versin’” 467 “kahırla” 468“buraya bir daha ayak basmayacağını” 469 “’Sen de kaç git bu cehennemden!’” 470 “Kozluk cehenneminden “güzel bir gün”e açılan bir kapı olmadığını . . . anladı . . . .” 212

When Coşkun transforms into a different person in the prison, he wants to show everyone that he has changed, and wants to become a role model for the children of Kozluk: “there were even times when he thought that he would be a role model, a year zero for Kozlukite children struggling against impossibilities . . . ”471 (112). In the same chapter, which focuses on his inner world, the psycho-narration of his thoughts on Kozluk are striking. He sees it as “a place of cowards”472 who never trust each other and who are scared of everything: “Would be scared of their next-door neighbour, their mother, their father, their own child, their best friend, with whom they walk arm in arm . . . the forces of security, the municipality . . . scared of one and all”473 (116-7). Echoing the title of the novel, these thoughts of Coşkun emphasise the separateness of Kozlukites. This is an important detail, since in many neighbourhood novels set in earlier decades, a sense of neighbourhood community is dominant, at least among the majority of the people of that place against the hostile ones. Kinds, as demonstrated in its title, constantly stresses the lack of such community bonds. The novel’s preoccupation with its characters’ feelings about Kozluk is given direct expression through dialogues, free indirect speech and psycho-narration.

12.5.2 A Look at Kozluk from Outside In the novel, the narrator comments on Kozluk and its people as well. Kozluk is a place which would in a pejorative manner be described as a varoş by those looking at it from the centre. Writing about the concept of varoş, Tan stresses that “theft, murder, prostitution, drugs, radical leftist tendencies and terror are the discursive codes the state and the media use to criminalize the varoşes” (344-345). Islamist fundamentalism is also added to these at times. As discussed below, the narrator’s standpoint is different from the dominant discourse otherising places like Kozluk as varoşes. Before analysing this, it would be useful to have a look at the introduction. The introduction has bitter-sweet humour. At the beginning of the introduction, Kozluk is described as: “ . . . a little past [Istanbul], a little before it, a little to the right of it and a little to the left – but by no means in the centre . . . ”474 (9). The introduction starts with humorous observations on trends among Kozlukite women, such as giving birth in private hospitals. The subject moves from here to the babies and children in Kozluk. The author tells

471 “İmkansızlıklarla boğuşan Kozluklu çocuklara bir örnek, bir milat olacağını düşündüğü zamanlar dahi oluyor[du] . . . ” (112). 472 “ödleklerin yurdu” 473 “Kapı bir komşusundan, anasından, babasından, öz evladından, en yakın arkadaşından, kol kola yürüdüğünden . . . zabıtadan, belediyeden . . . hep korkardı.” 474 “ . . . [İstanbul’un] biraz sağına bira soluna düşen – ama asla ortasına düşmeyen – . . . ” 213 us about how Kozlukite children do not hesitate to swim in inappropriate places such as dirty streams, channels and the Bosphorus. She adds that, when they swim in the Bosphorus, “ . . . Istanbulites who travel on intra-city ferries and live tender lives . . . ”475 (10) react negatively towards them; a remark which signals a dichotomy between Istanbulites and Kozlukites. In the introduction, the people of Kozluk are always referred to as Kozlukites, which may be an implicit reference to this dichotomy. The author explains that Kozlukite mothers send their children to learn the Koran or how to sew in their free time, however children dream of “judo and tae-kwon-do courses and the glossy windows of large shopping malls”476 (10). The discrepancy between the life they live and the one they aspire to signals their state of being both inside and outside of the city. The author continues by telling us that the children of Kozluk start working at a very young age and cannot go to school, and stresses that some of these children turn to crime while some become policemen and soldiers. The fact that Kozlukite people get married early, and have children and grandchildren at a young age, and then start expecting death early, is told in a sympathetic and humorous manner. What is noticeable in the introduction is the perception of their way of life as a struggle for survival. The introduction does not portray Kozlukite people in a way to motivate pity for them. On the contrary, the use of humour calls attention to their ability to survive despite all the hardship they suffer from. This is the approach in the whole of the novel, which is particularly stressed in its ending as discussed below, in the conclusion section of this chapter. It should be noted that there are a couple of instances in the introduction477 where the author, probably unintentionally, gets close to reproducing the pejorative varoş discourse, such as in comments on the issues of Kozlukite children’s unwillingness to study, or Kozlukite men’s tendency to crime. However, when the introduction is taken as a whole, furthermore when it is interpreted together with the novel, these minor instances seem insignificant. Similar to the author’s approach in the introduction, the narrator of the novel has a sympathetic approach to the main characters, as well as to the people of Kozluk in general. The narrator’s presence is most strongly felt in the chapter entitled “Where is Kozluk, Who is Elmas?”, where the story of the foundation of the neighbourhood is told. This chapter also explains that the people who founded the neighbourhood were rural to urban immigrants. In

475 “şehir içi vapurlarda seyahat eden ve mülayim hayatlar süren İstanbullular” 476 “Judo, tekvando kurslarıyla büyük alışveriş merkezlerindeki mağazaların pırıltılı vitrinleri” 477 As explained above, the introduction is signed by the author of the novel. 214 this chapter, the history of Kozluk is told humorously, with realistic details reflecting the similarity of shantytowns with each other. Similar to the introduction, this is far from depicting Kozlukites as people to pity, and Kozluk as a horrible, grim place. Rather, the place is depicted as a place where no one would get bored. The narration about the shops that were opened in the first years of Kozluk is a good example of this. The narrator lists the names of the shops in one breath, in a manner reflecting the way the shops were opened one after the other within a short time. With the wide range of shops listed, the atmosphere these shops brings to the neighbourhood is animated in the narration. This mentioning of shops also makes it clear that if that many shops were opened in Kozluk, then people living there have a certain income and standard of living, as they were opened before credit cards were widely available. In short, the narrator’s approach to Kozluk is not negative, an attitude which becomes clear especially in comparison with the Kozlukites’ approach to the place, described in the above section. The dynamism and energy of the place appears as a positive trait of Kozluk in the book, bringing to one’s mind Lefebvre who says, “working-class neighbourhoods have a ‘liveliness’ that makes them interesting and which we would like to find elsewhere” (“The Other Parises” 157). The chapter also emphasises that physical conditions and infrastructure in the neighbourhood have been developing. In some parts of the narration, it is possible to infer that there are some criminal people living in the place, or life in Kozluk may result in a disposition to crime. However, it can be inferred that the majority of the people living there do not have anything to do with crime or rough ways, they are simply poor people trying to survive in the city.

12.5.3 Rights in the Invisible Side of the City In the novel, the theme of the right to the city appears in terms of physical necessities and environmental problems. The latter is introduced through Zümrüt’s words: “[She] was often complaining: ‘A Junkyard, and a shitty stream!’”478 (36) People throw metal junk into an empty site in Kozluk, and despite their efforts Kozlukites cannot find a solution to this. They apply to the municipal authorities; they even talk on television programmes but cannot achieve anything. Similarly, a stream mixed with sewage water is another serious problem. As the novel proceeds, it comes out that, at one point, when the candidate for municipal mayor is in Kozluk, Zümrüt complains to him about this. She explains that the mayor does not have time to fix the problem since he is too busy smartening up the rich people’s streets (63). She adds that this stream carries the sewage water of the expensive gated communities near

478 “ . . . ‘Bir hurdalık, bir de boklu dere!’ diyordu sık sık” (36) 215

Kozluk (63). She expects fellow Kozlukites to appreciate her rebellious behaviour. However, they get scared thinking that if this man becomes mayor, he will cut off their water. Therefore, they are worried and don’t appreciate the courage of Zümrüt. Obviously, Kozlukites’ fear of their water being cut by a new mayor who gets annoyed with a Kozlukite is a significant detail, stressing the Kozlukite people’s perception about their existence in the city: they consider even the most basic services as a favour rather than a right. Unsurprisingly, on the other side of the favour they see punishment, which they expect as a result of even a minor complaint. The other aspect of the right to the city that finds a place in the novel is related to Kozlukites’ lack of access to recreational areas. As mentioned above, at the centre of the story there is the preparation for and the experience of a picnic. As the time for the picnic approaches, Zümrüt is concerned that they will not be able to find a place at the seaside, and end up next to the highway like all other times before, and have their picnic with exhaust fumes. In Istanbul, where parks and similar recreational areas are not widespread, to spend time in a nice green atmosphere is rather a challenge for the underprivileged. Many poor people have picnics on little green patches next to highways. Zümrüt’s tension about finding a place at the seaside is a fine detail that in fact says a lot. People having picnics in ‘extraordinary places’ is something that disgusts elitists. For them, this is behaviour revealing that immigrants are not aware that urban life has its rules. The novel, through Zümrüt’s comments, depicts how in fact having picnics in such areas is actually the result of the lack of recreational space, a central right to the city. All these issues of the metal junk, the dirty stream, the limited or no access to recreational areas are elaborated through the narrated monologues or dialogues of characters, without the narrator making comments on them. Such a technique allows the novel to depict the problems of the right to the city from the standpoint of the characters, through their experiences, in other words through the eyes of those who suffer from these problems, rather than by a narrator who speaks on behalf of them.

12.5.4 Experiencing Istanbul The novel does not give any explicit reference to where the imaginary neighbourhood of Kozluk is located. However, this setting seems to be inspired by neighbourhoods in the district of Arnavutköy, since the neighbourhood of Hadımköy, which is also in this area, appears in the novel (164). Other places mentioned in the novel are Bakırköy (184) and Yenikapı (202), which supports this guess. Beyoğlu gets mentioned a couple of times within 216 the scope of Cansın’s relations with theatre circles. It is referred to in the conversations of Coşkun, Cansın and Sami as a remote place, a completely different world from Kozluk. Kozluk seems to be depicted as an isolated place on the outskirts of the city. For instance, minibuses, an important part of daily life in such places, connecting them with the city centre, never appear in the novel. Almost all the novel is set in Kozluk, and the most important exception to this is the chapter entitled “The Man Who is Larger than Palaces”479 (202-208). This chapter is about Cavit’s friendship with a sophisticated fisherman called Hicabi, who eventually commits suicide. Moments from this friendship are told via flashback within the frame of the story of Cavit’s blue pickup, which he inherited from Hicabi. Cavit meets Hicabi at a coffee-house in Yenikapı. They instantly get on and have a walk on the shore from Yenikapı to Çatladıkapı. Here, Hicabi points out Topkapı Palace and asks Cavit if he has ever seen a palace. Then he invites him into an imaginary palace and they both act like they are in Topkapı Palace. After that little game, as they continue their walk, Hicabi tells Cavit stories about the Bosphorus, as well as about fishing boats. He talks about the past of Istanbul with nostalgia, as the rendering of his words by Cavit reveals: “ . . . those were the times when Istanbul was Istanbul!” (204)480. He makes up some stories about these past times with a powerful imagination. Their friendship deepens as time passes. Cavit learns that in the past Hicabi used to read a lot and was engaged in a theatre group. This surprises Cavit who has never been to theatre. Telling Cavit about his theatre days, Hicabi refers to a past Istanbul as quoted by Cavit: “ . . . if you put together the whole Istanbul of those times, a peddler would be able to carry it on his back . . . ”481 (205). Cavit and Hicabi drive around Istanbul in Hicabi’s blue pickup: “One day they were going to Eyüp and praying before the holy men buried there, one day they were tossing back their wine bottles with the fishermen in Sarıyer, thanks to this pickup. They were either swerving round the bends over the remote rocks of Şile, or chatting with peasants in the coffee houses of villages around Çatalca”482 (206). Owing to his friendship with Hicabi, Cavit experiences a very different face of Istanbul. In other words, he makes a bond with the city and its history during the time he spends with Hicabi. It is important to see that the only character in the novel who appreciates living in Istanbul and puts this appreciation in the centre of his life is Hicabi, a man nostalgic

479 “Saraylara Sığmayan Adam” 480 “ . . . İstanbul’un da İstanbul olduğu zamanlarmış o zamanlar!” 481 “ . . . o zamanların bütün İstanbul’unu derlesen toplasan bir bohçacı taşırmış sırtında . . . ” 482 “Bir gün Eyüp’e gidip oradaki mübareklerin huzurunda dualar ediyor, bir gün Sarıyer’deki balıkçılarla şarap şişelerini tokuşturuyorlarmış bu pikap sayesinde. Kah Şile sahillerinin ıssız kayalıklarında demleniyor, kah Çatalca taraflarındaki köylerin kahvelerinde köylülerle hasbihal ediyorlarmış.” 217 about the past of the city. However, the novel successfully distils the nostalgia for a past Istanbul through a character like Hicabi, who is not an elite man at all. As discussed various times until now, the nostalgic discourse about Istanbul is widespread among the elite targeting the immigrants in the city. However, it is possible to long for the disappeared beauties of Istanbul without blaming immigrants for the loss. This is what Hicabi does. Introducing Hicabi, the novel turns two central clichés of the Istanbulites vs. ‘non-Istanbulites’ dichotomy upside down: first, it is not only the elite who are sorry for the negative changes in the city. Second, people who have not been born in this city can appreciate its beauty and heritage.

12.6 Conclusion At a very early stage in the novel, the narrator comments that after feeling insecure in the city at the beginning, immigrants “ . . . were able to challenge Istanbul”483 (32). Such a wording can first be perceived as slightly on the side of the anti-immigrant discourse: that immigrants come and then they become demanding. However, when the novel is taken as a whole, it is clear that this phrasing is a reference to the way immigrants struggle and fight for their various rights in the city. The expression implies a certain strength in immigrants: the novel finds them strong and also stresses that they see themselves as strong, since they can survive in the city. The book emphasises the hardship rural to urban immigrants face in the city, and depicts them not in terms of a call for pity, but emphasising their will to survive in the urban setting. The ending of the novel is particularly powerful in this respect. In the final chapter of the novel, entitled “Life Flows like the Water of The Bosphorus” (284)484, it is the time of a religious holiday, although it is not specified whether it is Eid or The Feast of the Sacrifice. All Kozluk people are in their best outfits to visit their relatives and neighbours. Zümrüt, Cavit and their children are in the blue pickup on their way to their visits. In the final scene of the novel, the pickup is in the middle of the Bosphorus Bridge and Cavit is driving fast. The narration of Cavit’s feelings as he drives over the bridge is noteworthy: “Cavit was content. At one point, he took a glance at the mansions, each glittering like a piece of jewellery in the sun, the palaces and again the still waters of the straits of the city of Istanbul, which expanded on the two sides of the two gigantic continents. . . . Cavit was astonished. . . . was not life running like the waters running through the straits?”485 (285) Straight after these feelings of Cavit, some parts of which are rendered through psycho-narration, the

483 “ . . . İstanbul’a kafa tutar hala gelmişlerdi kısa zamanda.” 484 “Boğazdan Akan Sular Gibi Akıyor Hayat” 485 “Memnundu Cavit. Bir ara gözü aşağıda, iki dev kıtanın iki yakasına yayılan şehr-i İstanbul’un, güneşin altında her biri birer mücevher gibi ışıldayan yalılarına, saraylarına ve yine boğazın durgun sularına takıldı. . . . Hayret etti Cavit. . . . boğazdan akan sular gibi akmıyor muydu hayat da?” 218 narrator’s comments are heard: “They were going to visits on every holiday. . . . [they were] melt[ing] mint or cacao-flavoured cheap sweets on their palates . . . They were exhibiting that they could stand up against that tide, all that distress, aside from all that nuisance and worry . . . rather than life prevailing over them, they were prevailing over life, sort of defying each other a little bit”486 (286). These are the final words of the novel, which ends with Cavit’s contemplation over the Bosphorus Bridge487. As the narrator describes Cavit’s contemplation, his thoughts as he looks at the view of the Bosphorus while he is driving over the Bosphorus Bridge, she uses the Ottoman phrase of “şehr-i İstanbul” [the city of Istanbul] (285). This word choice in narration seems to imply Cavit’s pleasure, as he enjoys the view, arising from the awareness of living in a historical city which served as the capital of the Ottoman Empire for hundreds of years. The two central tenets of the novel are combined in this ending: the way the people of Kozluk live in an isolated way from the city centre, and the hardships they face to survive in the city. The ending of the novel presents these two central themes through their reciprocity: after all the hardships they suffer in the city, in an isolated place like Kozluk, there are times they can enjoy the city, with its views and historical heritage, at least on a special occasion like a religious holiday. The bridge here seems to be a metaphor for the connection between the city centre and isolated ex-shantytowns: the city centre, the historical buildings, palaces and mansions as well as ex-shantytowns on the outskirts of the city, they all together constitute the city of Istanbul. This way the novel also implies that the city belongs to everyone living in this city. Throughout Kinds, there are a couple of instances when the use of humour might seem slightly leaning to an anti-immigrant and/or elitist discourse. As mentioned earlier, the passages about Kozluk children’s unwillingness to go to school and their tendency towards crime are the main examples of this. Another such instance is at the very beginning of the novel, when the narrator uses the word “karikatürize” [caricatured] for the hair style of Kozlukite brides (11). However, when the novel is perceived as a whole, it becomes clear that the use of humour is with the intention of laughing with Kozlukites rather than laughing at them. This is the very position of the novel, looking at the life of immigrants in remote

486 “Her bayram ziyaretlere gidiyorlardı. . . . damaklarında naneli ya da kakaolu ucuz şekerleri eriti[yor] . . . Şu akıntıya karşı ayakta durabildiklerini, onca sıkıntı, onca dert tasa bir yana . . . hayatın kendilerine değil de, kendilerinin hayata galebe çaldıklarını sergiliyor, eh biraz da nispet yapıyorlardı.” Gaz pedalına sonuna kadar bastı Cavit.” 487 It is not specified whether they are going from the European to the Anatolian side of Istanbul. However, if Kozluk is near Hadımköy, they must be going from the European side to the Anatolian. 219 corners of the city. It is realistic and objective, yet sympathetic, and calls for empathy rather than pity. The novel looks at Kozluk with empathy, an imaginary place which in reality would be looked down on and stigmatised as a varoş, and to its people who would be humiliated as varoş types. At one point in the novel, the semi-pejorative and semi-elitist but at the same time humanist anti-shanty discourse in the intellectual and academic context is satirised: “ . . . while modern urban planners who regard having been born in this city as bad luck keep organizing forum after forum, discuss over and over again that these structures, which partly look like a shanty and partly like an apartment building, destroy the silhouette of the city . . . ” (33)488. Obviously, the sarcasm here aims at the limited perspective of the majority of urbanists, who perceive the shanty issue only in terms of the look of the city, while ignoring the rights of and hard facts about people living in these shanties. The final passage of the introduction comes to the fore almost as a poetic expression of the novel’s approach to people living in places like Kozluk. “Once Kozlukite mothers and fathers also have the grandchildren whom they were looking forward to, they start talking about the next world like they are talking about the next street”489 (12). She adds: “. . . when they silently die under their heavy wool duvets or in the dim corridors of state hospitals, no one will be any the wiser. This story is theirs”490 (12). The novel does not idealise the place nor depict its people as heroes or angels. It simply approaches them with empathy while depicting, in a realistic manner, the negative aspects of life in a place like Kozluk, the banal sides of its people, the degenerate ways of the lumpen proletariat, without being judgemental. It achieves this through the use of humour, and emphasises the possibility of approaching the amorphous looking ex-shantytowns dismissed as varoşes, and their poor and mostly uneducated people with an overall different attitude from that pumped out by the mainstream media.

488 “ . . . bu şehirde doğmuş olmayı bahtsızlıklarına yoran modern şehir planlamacıları panel üzerine panel düzenlerken, kısmen gecekonduya kısmen de apartmana benzeyen bu yapıların şehrin siluetini bozduğu hususunu uzun tartışırken . . . ” 489 “Kozluklu ana babalar, dört gözle bekledikleri torunlarına da çarçabuk kavuştuktan sonra, öte dünyadan adeta bir sokak öteden bahseder gibi bahsetmeye başlar.” 490 “ . . . ağır yün yorganların altında yahut devlet hastanelerinin loş koridorlarında sessizce öldüklerinde kimselerin ruhu duymaz. Bu hikaye onların.” 220

CHAPTER 13

On the Periphery and It Takes All Kinds: A Comparative Analysis On the Periphery and It Takes All Kinds have periphery at their centre: as a theme and as a setting. Therefore, themes of alienation and isolation are central to both novels. However, in terms of plot as well as style and other formal characteristics, the two novels are considerably different. Periphery is a totally serious and rather grim novel, while Kinds is highly humorous and light-hearted. The former does not have a plot in the usual sense of the word, as it focuses on states of mind rather than events, while the latter has a plot, with well- defined central and kernel events, developed in a non-linear structure with flashbacks and digressions. In Periphery, the narration is almost transparent, creating a feeling as if the main character is talking about his own experiences in the third-person narration. There is neither an outsider’s empathy, nor prejudice in this narration. On the other hand, Kinds introduces the perspectives of all the central characters, and the narrator also has a distinct presence throughout the novel. Yet the perspectives of the sisters, Zümrüt and Elmas, come to the fore, leaving a female mark on the novel. Life is not easy for these women, more difficult than it is for their men, since they carry their men on their shoulders. With elaborate realism, the novel opens a gate on life on the periphery as a closed circuit, primarily through the eyes of women.

13.1 Characters and Related Themes The two novels take the life of first and/or second generation immigrants on the periphery of Istanbul as their subject matter in disparate ways, both in content and form. Periphery is a novel dominated by the perspective of the main character. This is a man, probably an intellectual, who comes from an immigrant family. He is a loner and he feels estranged from his family and relatives. He feels alienated in the city, which seems to him like a jungle. The reason for his alienation does not have anything to do with his background of coming from an immigrant family. He belongs to the centre as much as he belongs to the periphery, or better put he lacks a belonging to the centre as much as he lacks one to the periphery. The novel makes the readers see the city from his perspective, as a claustrophobic place, not only for immigrants and poor people but for everybody. It is an over-crowded, chaotic city, where the ultra-fast rhythm of life drives people wild. A comparison between the class positions of the people in the two novels leads to an insight into the mechanisms of isolation and exclusion in these two versions of periphery. In Periphery, periphery is not equated with isolation. İncirköy and various other working-class neighbourhoods on the same railway route, seem to be connected with each other and with the 221 city since the people living in them are an active part of the labour-force, they produce for the city. In other words, the city needs them, and they are a part of it. On the other hand, in a place such as Kozluk, the labour potential is redundant and this results in the isolation of the place and its people. For the most part, Kozluk and its people are not needed by the city, therefore they cannot connect with the city, since they have no role in it. The men find odd jobs in the vicinity, the women go to houses in the gated communities nearby as daily cleaners and that’s all. Additionally, physical location intensifies this situation: Kazlıçeşme, the model for İncirköy, is around ten kilometres from the central areas of the city such as Taksim or Beşiktaş, but Kozluk is implied to be much further out than that. Kozluk seems to be a representation of neighbourhoods near Hadımköy, which is forty-four kilometres from Taksim, and can best be described as the periphery of the periphery. When immigrants are far from their right to work in the urban context, the scale of isolation and exclusion is much greater. The approaches of the two novels to the theme of urban identity is disparate. While in Periphery, immigrants mostly appear as members of the working class, in Kinds they are depicted as lumpen proletariat. While both Kozluk and İncirköy represent ex-shantytowns of Istanbul, where shanties were replaced with apartment buildings, mostly in the 1980s, they have significant differences. İncirköy, one of the primary locations of the setting in Periphery, is an old working-class neighbourhood mostly inhabited by workers who have been employed in the factories of Taşlıbağ. Eventually, these factories get removed from this area, but this does not change the identity of İncirköy as a working-class neighbourhood. In other words, the majority of İncirköy’s population comprises immigrants who have managed to establish a life in Istanbul with steady jobs as labourers in the formal sector. Kozluk, the setting of Kinds, on the other hand, is mostly inhabited by people who can only find opportunities to work in the informal sector. At one point in the novel, it is mentioned that there is only one woman in Kozluk who has a “‘documented’491” (245) job which means a job with social security. Kozluk men are usually unemployed, and when they have jobs these are mostly informal and flexible. Simply put, İncirköy is a neighbourhood of the proletariat, while Kozluk’s community is mainly lumpen-proletariat. The norm for İncirköy people is working hard, and, idlers, like İs, are a deviation from this norm; while the norm for Kozluk is a permanent unemployment, thus idlers are almost standard. This difference between the profiles of the two neighbourhoods’ communities also lays the basis for the way the issue of crime appears

491 “‘kağıtlı’” 222 in the two novels. In both novels, idlers are portrayed as having a tendency to crime, mainly petty crime. In Periphery, this theme is briefly touched on in the story of İs, whose crime, details of which are never given, does not seem to have any connection with any gang, either inside or outside of the neighbourhood. It does not seem to have any connection with the place he lives in either, rather it appears as an outcome of his eccentricity. In Kinds, crime has a quite central place in the story, since Coşkun, one of the main characters, has recently been let out of prison. His closest friends are also involved in petty crime. What is implied here is a tendency amongst the youngsters of Kozluk for forming gang-like groups, as there are many young people there with no jobs, no hopes for the future and no role models in life. In Periphery, the gender aspect of immigration is not elaborated as an explicit theme. The novel simply hints that women’s lives do not change much with the shift from the rural to the urban context. In Kinds, women’s obsession with consumerism is depicted as the only way, to their mind, of adopting an urban identity.

13.2 Setting and Related Themes In Periphery, near İncirköy there is Bakırkule, inspired by Bakırköy, an important centre of social and cultural life, while in Kinds there is no such urban centre for the people of Kozluk, where they can easily go without spending a lot of time and money. When the two novels are read comparatively, the relativity of the concept of periphery invites attention. Periphery as a location and periphery life can have significant differences, depending on one’s standpoint. In Periphery, there are various references to the Byzantine and Greek past of Kazlıçeşme, the model for İncirköy. With a rich history and the legacy of a cosmopolitan heritage, this is a place with an identity. Therefore, although it is a periphery neighbourhood, it is a constituent of the identity of the city. On the other hand, Kozluk, inspired by ex- shantytowns nobody except for their dwellers know about, does not have a history and therefore an identity that can connect it with the history and identity of the city. This is another central factor in its isolation. Despite that, the similarities of life in the settings of the two novels, as regards the unimplemented right to the city are significant. In both novels, limited access to municipal services comes to the fore as an important theme. Related to that, water and electricity cuts, as well as problems with industrial waste appear as motifs in Kinds. Periphery uses similar motifs, such as sewage problems and rats, to develop this theme as well as to reinforce a depressing atmosphere. Looked comparatively, Kinds develops this theme in its humorous 223 sarcastic manner, giving a message of the struggle for survival of the immigrants, while in Periphery such details stand out as central elements of the novel’s dark imagery. The need for urban recreational spaces, such as parks, is another aspect of the right to the city theme similarly elaborated through the setting in both novels. The opportunity, or the absence thereof, to benefit from public space, particularly green areas, is an important theme in both novels. In Periphery, parks have a central place in the lives of the main characters. In Kinds, the absence of parks and similar areas is noticeable, both in the incident of the picnic and in the appearance of the Kozluk Center, a shopping mall, as the locus of free-time activity in the neighbourhood, especially for youngsters. In both novels, the lack of community centres where adults, especially young individuals can meet new people and socialise with each other without spending money, where they can be productive with hobbies or get new skills, comes to the fore as another dimension of the limited recognition of the right to the city. This theme is endorsed through the empty and purposeless daily lives of the teenagers. Thus, idleness appears as an important motif in both novels, also connected with the theme of the right to work.

13.3 Additional Points It might also be useful to add that various motifs related to the neo-liberalisation and globalisation of Istanbul enter the two novels, inevitably, since they are both set after the end of the 1980s. Urban rent is one such theme appearing in both novels: in Periphery, the removal of the leather industry from Kazlıçeşme implies it, while in Kinds it is given more direct expression, as Zümrüt explains that after the Kozluk Center was built, the apartments of Kozluk became more valuable (104). In this novel, gated communities appear as a motif related to both urban rent and urban fragmentation. Gentrification finds direct expression in Periphery, with descriptions of the changes in the Tünel neighbourhood, as the main character walks around in the area. The novel also introduces foreign immigrants and a large number of tourists as motifs related to the globalisation of the city. Urban poverty, another phenomenon related to the neo-liberal city, is also a strong theme in this novel, emphasised with the presence of children selling paper tissues, glue-sniffers, beggars and the homeless throughout the story.

13.4 Conclusion The endings of both novels are in the centre of the city rather than on the periphery, which is an interesting similarity, despite all their differences examined above. Furthermore, in both endings, the characters contemplate life as they watch the Bosphorus, the ultimate 224 symbol of Istanbul’s aura. In Periphery, the main character ends up in Beşiktaş after a long walk, and just as he is about to take a dolmush to go back home, he changes his mind and stays. He starts gazing at the pier, the sea and the people around. Rather than what he thinks, what he sees is given in detail, inviting the reader to gaze at the same view with him as the waves hit the shore, emphasising a bond that connects people in the city as they gaze at the same view and reflect upon life. In the closure of Kinds, Zümrüt, her husband and their sons are in their pick-up on their way to visit relatives for the religious holiday. As they are driving over the Bosphorus Bridge, Cavit, mesmerised by the way the water runs in the Bosphorus, contemplates life with optimism, thinking that despite all the difficulties, he and his family are still standing. The novel, which is almost entirely set in Kozluk, stressing its disconnectedness with the centre of Istanbul, ends in the very centre of the city. Furthermore, the setting of this closure is not just any place in the centre of the city: it is on the Bosphorus Bridge which bonds two continents together, a powerful symbol of integration. As it comes to its close, the novel seems to imply a connection between the centre and the periphery, bringing its characters from Kozluk to the Bosphorus Bridge. Although the two novels develop the theme of centre and periphery in quite dissimilar ways, in their closure they seem to meet in a mutual message: the people of the periphery belong to Istanbul and Istanbul belongs to them, as much as it does to those living in its centre.

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PART V - CHANGING IMMIGRANTS, TRANSFORMING ISTANBUL

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CHAPTER 14

A Strangeness in My Mind: A Love Story of a Man and His City Kafamda bir Tuhaflık [A Strangeness in my Mind]492, Orhan Pamuk’s ninth novel and his second since winning the Nobel Prize in 2006, was first published in December 2014 by Yapı Kredi Publishers (YKY). According to information from YKY, by May 2016 it had come out in its fourth edition, and by July 2016, approximately two hundred and forty thousand copies had been sold (Kalyoncu 2016). The book has been translated into thirty- eight languages (“‘Kafamda Bir’”). The idea of the right to the city enters the novel in various ways. Primarily, it is implicitly developed through the elaboration of the theme of the quiet encroachment of the ordinary as a survival strategy of immigrants. The concept evolves into the quiet encroachment of the unordinary in the book, distilled through the Lefebvrian notion of the city as oeuvre, owing to its sophisticated protagonist. In the novel, Tarlabaşı, a so-called dilapidated neighbourhood on the verge of urban transformation has a significant place. Based on this setting, various themes related to the right to the city are treated. With its unique approach to the narrative situation, where characters share the task of narration with the narrator, the novel invites readers to look at its issues through the eyes of immigrants rather than follow the authority of an urban narrator.

492 References in this dissertation are made to the first impression of the novel. English translations are taken from the first impression of the English translation of the novel. 227

Fig. 10. The cover of the Turkish impression used in this analysis. 228

Fig. 11. The cover of the English impression used in this analysis.

229

14.1 Plot Summary The novel starts with introductory information by the narrator about the protagonist Mevlut, and the structure of the novel. In 1978, Mevlut attends the wedding of his cousin Korkut with Vediha. There, he is attracted to one of Vediha’s two sisters, whose names he does not know. For three years, Mevlut writes love-letters to this girl. Süleyman, Korkut’s brother, passes these letters on to her. Having received all the letters, the girl agrees to elope with Mevlut. Süleyman helps Mevlut to organise the elopement. When the plan is realised in June 1982, Mevlut notices that Rayiha is not the girl he was attracted to but her older sister. It comes out that Korkut has cheated Mevlut by telling him that the name of the girl he liked was Rayiha. In fact, the girl Mevlut liked was Samiha, the pretty sister. Rayiha is not pretty at all. However, having been cheated by Korkut, Mevlut has eloped with Rayiha. He hides the situation from Rayiha, who when they first meet again feels there is something wrong, but soon after is convinced that everything is fine. The second part of the novel starts on March 30th, 1994, on a night when Mevlut is out in Gümüşsuyu, a quarter close to Taksim Square, selling boza493. That night he gets robbed and decides to quit selling boza, which he has been doing for twenty-five years. The third part of the novel covers the time between September 1968 and June 1982. Mevlut, born in 1957, finishes primary school in the summer of 1968. At the end of the next summer, when he is twelve years old, his father Mustafa, who works in Istanbul, comes home to his village and takes Mevlut to Istanbul to work together with him. Their shanty is in Kültepe (a fictional neighbourhood) in the vicinity of Zincirlikuyu (a real neighbourhood). Mevlut’s uncle Hasan, who immigrated to the city with Mustafa, and his family have recently moved to the nearby shantytown of Duttepe (a fictional neighbourhood). Mevlut’s father has an ongoing conflict with his brother regarding a shanty they were building together, and feels resentment at being betrayed by Hasan, who now lives in a much better shanty than his. Therefore, he does not want Mevlut to have a close relationship with his uncle. Soon Mevlut starts school, working as a yoghurt vendor at the same time. On 12th March 1972, there is a coup which drastically changes daily life and makes things difficult for street vendors. However, after a while they find ways to survive this situation. In the meantime, Mevlut becomes friends with Ferhat, a fellow student with a rebellious attitude, who sells games of chance in the street. Mevlut graduates from secondary school and starts

493 “Boza is a fermented drink made from grains such as corn, barley, rye, oats, wheat or millet. It has been produced and consumed for over 8000 years, therefore it is one of the most historical drinks known in Turkish culinary culture.“Boza” comes from the word “buze” which means millet in Farsi language” (“Boza”). 230 high school. However, at the end of his first year at high school, he fails all the classes. That summer, he refuses to go back to the village for the summer holiday, and has a great time selling games with Ferhat. He eventually passes his first year exams in the summer of 1974. As a result of the highly politicised atmosphere, tension occurs between Duttepe, dominated by right-wing Sunnites, and Kültepe, dominated by left-wing Alevites and home to a significant number of Kurds. Mevlut is influenced by Ferhat, who is an Alevite and a leftist. In the meantime, Mevlut’s cousins living in Kültepe join the far-right organization the Grey Wolves. One night, the police, together with the Grey Wolves, attack the Alevites in Kültepe and Duttepe, and arrest many of them, as a result of which many Alevites leave these neighbourhoods. In the summer of 1977, Mevlut is still at high school, being the oldest student there. He makes an application to the school administration to suspend his studies for a year. However, he does not submit a health report to be used as his excuse for this request. This practically means that he drops out of school. Around that time, his uncle Hasan and his sons Korkut and Süleyman, who have a good relationship with the building contractor Hacı Hamit Vural, a man with mafia connections, take the piece of land which was originally chosen by Mustafa and Hasan together. Next spring, Mevlut learns that his cousin Korkut is getting married. At Korkut’s wedding, he falls in love with the bride’s sister. His father is annoyed with Mevlut, because he has been to the wedding. As a result of the accumulated tension, Mevlut leaves home, and starts working in the restaurant in Beyoğlu where Ferhat works, and starts staying in the dorm with other waiters and washers-up. In this dormitory, Ferhat writes love letters on behalf of Mevlut to the girl he has fallen in love with. Mevlut is now twenty- two years old, and he can no longer get out of doing his military service. So he spends two years in the army, sixteen months of it in Kars, a town on the Turkish-Russian border, and completes his service. During his time in Kars, the 12th September 1980 coup takes place. Meanwhile, Mustafa dies in his sleep, and Mevlut gets a week’s leave to attend the funeral of his father. Mevlut completes his military service in March 1982, comes back to Istanbul and rents a place in Tarlabaşı. Soon afterwards, he starts preparations for his elopement, together with his cousin Süleyman. The fourth part of the novel starts where the first part ends: as Mevlut and Rayiha make their way to Tarlabaşı. Initially they have a religious marriage. Rayiha’s parents forgive them for their elopement, and for their official marriage the couple has a wedding ceremony in Istanbul. After working as an ice-cream vendor, in 1982 Mevlut starts working as a rice vendor. After a while, he starts selling boza at night. Mevlut and Rayiha have two daughters: 231

Fatma, born in 1983; and Fevziye, born in 1984. In the meantime, Samiha, Rayiha’s younger sister, whom Mevlut was in fact initially attracted to, decides to elope with Ferhat, although she had first given hopes to Süleyman. In his seventh year as a rice vendor, in 1989, Mevlut’s rice stall gets stolen. He spends the summer as an ice-cream vendor. After a while, he starts working in a cafe near İstiklal Street, which continues until early 1994 when it gets shut down. The fifth part of the novel starts with the story of the boza shop which Mevlut and Ferhat open together in Beyoğlu. Their wives also help them in the shop. However, the shop does not make enough money. This is not a problem for Ferhat, who has a job at Yeditepe Electricity. Rayiha starts to get jealous of Mevlut about his feelings for her sister Samiha. Their relationship enters a more difficult phase when Rayiha gets pregnant but decides to have an abortion despite Mevlut’s unwillingness. Ferhat wants to close the shop since its rent becomes higher, so it is closed, and Mevlut starts selling boza at night again while looking for a daytime job. After a short time, he finds a job as a watchman at a car-park. However, his life gets turned upside down as Rayiha, who has missed the legal abortion phase, dies when she is trying to abort the embryo herself. Soon after this, Ferhat offers Mevlut a job at Yeditepe Electricity and he accepts it. Even though he makes good money from that, Mevlut continues selling boza at night. In the meantime, Samiha leaves Ferhat, who was being unfaithful to her for some years. After some time, Ferhat gets killed. Mevlut quits the electricity job and starts working in the community centre for immigrants from the town of Beyşehir in the daytime. Fatma graduates from high school and gets accepted into the tourism management department of a university in Istanbul. Soon afterwards, she gets married to a fellow student and the couple moves to Izmir, hometown of the groom, and continue their studies there. In 2001, Fevziye elopes with a young taxi driver. Mevlut gets very upset at the beginning, but he soon forgives his daughter. He becomes good friends with the boy’s father Sadullah, and the two organise a wedding for the couple. Around that time, the relatives start to talk about how in the past Mevlut wrote love letters to Samiha which mistakenly went to Rayiha. They comment that Mevlut and Samiha should get married now, since they are both bereaved. Mevlut refuses to admit that he intended the letters for Samiha. However, after a while, to share his loneliness he decides to marry Samiha. He confesses to her, upon her insistence, that he initially wrote the letters to her. Mevlut and Samiha get married in 2002 and move to the shanty where Mevlut lived with his father when he first came to Istanbul. In the sixth part of the novel, after the couple lives in the shanty in Kültepe for seven years, Mevlut sells it to Vural in return for a flat in the building to be built on the same land. 232

The couple moves to Mecidiyeköy temporarily, until they move to their flat in the apartment building where Korkut and Süleyman also live with their families. In the seventh and last part of the novel, Samiha starts to sense that Mevlut had loved Rayiha much more than he will ever love her. They decide to move to the flat in Çukurcuma which Samiha inherited from Ferhat, since she wants to stay away from their relatives. The novel ends on a night, soon before they move there, when Mevlut is selling boza, telling a customer that he will do this until the end of the world. As the novel comes to its close, he walks the streets of Istanbul thinking that he had loved Rayiha more than anyone in this world.

14.2. Main Features The book is four-hundred-and-fifty-three pages long, consisting of seven parts. Parts I, II, VI and VII comprise a single chapter, while the rest of the parts comprise multiple chapters: Part III: 19, Part IV: 18, and Part V: 16 chapters. Each chapter has two titles: the main title is about the events which take place in this section, while the subheading is most of the time a quote from a speaking person in the chapter. Parla finds inspiration from the picaresque novel in this book, since it is the story of the main character’s survival in the city. The book has the sub-heading: “Being the Adventures and Dreams of Mevlut Karataş, a Seller of Boza, and of His Friends, and Also a Portrait of Life in Istanbul Between 1969 and 2012 from Many Different Points of View”, which Parla describes as a pastiche of the first pages of picaresque novels (121). However, she adds that Mevlut is rather an “anti-picaro”, since he does not become a trickster in his struggle for survival (121). The novel has several characteristics of postmodern fiction such as metafiction, intertextuality, elements of detective fiction, pluralism and humour (Yaprak et. Al 665-680). It also has, in many respects, a realist approach to setting and characters, as well as dialogues. In this sense, it is not possible to simply place the novel in either category. The style of the novel can be summarised as follows. The narrator uses colloquial language. In the dialogues, dialect is not used.494 Both in the narration and in the dialogues, the word order is unmarked, i.e. inverted syntax is not used. In the novel, at some points long and complex sentences are used, but such sentences do not dominate. The use of punctuation is standard.

494 Pamuk said in an interview that he deliberately avoided the use of dialects in the novel (“Mesele Duyguyu” 26). 233

In the novel, a mixture of first and third person narrations are used. At the beginning of the first-person narration parts, the name of the narrating character is given. However, this is more like speaking rather than narrating, since these characters are aware that they are novelistic characters. It is as if they hear what other characters say and what the narrator narrates, and then reply to these. When there is a transition within a chapter from the first- person narration to the third-person, a boza-vendor icon appears, a gesture which might encourage the reader to associate Mevlut with the narrator. These parts are narrated by a narrator who claims that he personally knows Mevlut. However, the narrator does not appear as a character in the storyworld. No information is given about the narrator’s gender or age. The parts narrated by this narrator are close to figural narration since Mevlut as the reflecting character is emphasised more strongly than the narrator. This is for the most part an unmarked narrator, who mainly narrates in an unengaged manner with only a little commentary or non-neutral adjectives.

14.3 Title and Beginning The title of the novel Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık [A Strangeness in my Mind] signals the unique inner world of Mevlut, the protagonist of the novel. Throughout the book, the nature of this strangeness is slowly revealed based on his psychological dynamics, as the reader is introduced to his inner world. At the centre of this world lies Istanbul, as discussed below. The first part of the novel is about Mevlut and Rayiha’s elopement. The sole chapter of this part starts with three paragraphs of general information about the novel. In these three paragraphs, the narrator addresses the reader and makes comments about the structure of the novel. The passage introduces the narrator as a person who personally knows Mevlut. The narrator also says that all the events in the novel are real (T:15; E:3-4). The ending of the first chapter, particularly with the narration, gives important clues about the general themes of the novel. Rayiha had already been to Istanbul once for her elder sister’s wedding. But still she humbly asked, “Is this Istanbul now?” “Kartal counts as Istanbul, I suppose,” said Mevlut, with the confidence of familiarity. “But there’s still a ways to go.” He pointed out the Princes’ Islands ahead of them and vowed to take her there one day. Not once during Rayiha’s brief life would they ever do this. (13-14)495

495 “Rayiha İstanbul’a ablasının düğünü için dört yıl önce bir kere gelmişti. Ama alçakgönüllülükle gene sordu: ‘Burası İstanbul mu?’ 234

The narration in the passage, including words such as “humbly”, and “confidence of familiarity” regarding the conversation about Istanbul, signals the prestige of having spent time in Istanbul. The emphasis on Rayiha’s humbleness here, which indulges Mevlut with the opportunity to reveal his familiarity with the city, is a foreshadowing of the way their relationship will evolve: Rayiha’s good-natured, humble and supportive character will make Mevlut feel safe and secure around her. The setting at this point, Kartal, the outskirts of the city, with the Princes’ Islands just across the sea, one of the most picturesque areas of Istanbul, appears almost as imagery hinting at the different faces of Istanbul. Living in Istanbul might mean commuting for hours every day from a place like Kartal to the centre of the city, yet it might mean the pleasure of visiting the islands. The city offers them all, as living in Istanbul can be like torture as well as pleasure. The very last sentence is an indication of Rayiha’s early death. The sentence might also hint at a counterargument to the anti-immigrant discourse, which suggests that because of ignorance, immigrants do not go sightseeing or visit historical places in Istanbul. The sympathetic tone in the sentence seems to imply the economic and other factors preventing Mevlut and Rayiha from ever visiting the islands. Such a tone is a sign of the novel’s stance regarding the new citizens of Istanbul.

14.4 Characters and Related Themes

14.4.1 Quiet Encroachment of the ‘Unordinary’ Asef Bayat, in an article where he searches for a way out of the dichotomy of “elite rule and subaltern’s failure” (“Politics in the” 110) in times of neo-liberal urbanity, stresses that the left sees the “neoliberal city [as] a lost city” (116) where subaltern do not have hope for better lives (116) and “where the ideal of the right to the city is all but vanished” (116- 117). While agreeing with various aspects of these arguments, Bayat draws attention to the need for surpassing “categorical dichotomies as passive-active, or win-lose” and examining “what possibilities the neo-liberal city may unintentionally furnish for subaltern struggles” (119). He defines streets as “indispensable asset/capital” for the subaltern where they can “subsist and reproduce economic as well as cultural life” (119). He defines this as a form of “street politics” (119) and describes it as follows: “Street vendors who spread their business in the pavements, poor people who extend their lives into the sidewalks, squatters who take over public lands, or protestors who march in the streets are all involved in street politics” (120).

‘Kartal artık İstanbul sayılılır,’ dedi Mevlut konuyu bilmenin güveniyle. ‘Ama daha var.’ Rayiha’yla karşıdaki adaları gösterdi. Bir gün mutlaka Adalar’a gezmeye gideceklerdi.” Ama bunu Rayiha’nın kısa hayatı boyunca bir kere olsun yapamadılar.” (24) 235

Bayat defines their strategies as “encroachment” (“Politics in the” 120), as well as “quiet encroachment of the ordinary” (Life 80). He explains that “ . . . the reclamation, by the poor people, of public space through encroachment, stretching out, functioning, and subsisting constitutes an expression of street politics, while simultaneously feeding into and accentuating the political street. In other words, through this encroachment, the dispossessed are constantly engaged in struggles in and about the urban space” (“Politics in the” 120). Obviously, this quiet encroachment of immigrants in their struggle to survive in the city appears in this or that way in almost all the novels analysed in this research. Encroachment on land by building shanties for shelter appears in many of them, as is the case in Strangeness. Vending in the street, which is another form of quiet encroachment, has always been an important phenomenon in the lives of immigrants in the city, since it is a way of self-employment in a place where there are not enough jobs for everyone. As a matter of fact, these two phenomena, together with the self-organised public transport of immigrants in the form of the share-taxi appear in the title of an important book on rural to urban migration in Istanbul: Gecekondulu, Dolmuşlu, İşportalı Şehir [The City with Shanty, Share-taxi and Vendors] (Tekeli, Gölüksüz, Okya 1976). Vending in the street, a form of quiet encroachment, appears as a central motif in Strangeness. Working as a street vendor is central to the psyche of Mevlut, the protagonist of the novel. Mevlut, who is a rural to urban migrant, a poor man trying to survive in Istanbul, is a unique novel character since he is portrayed as a sophisticated individual. In an interview, Orhan Pamuk argues that the novel of the poor person as an individual does not get written (Oral, Günay, Ak). Metin Celal, responding to this claim in his review of the novel, stresses that various authors from different parts of the world, as well as from Turkey, particularly those who follow a socialist realist tradition, have elaborated the individuality of their poor characters (“Kafamda Bir” 10). It is difficult to disagree with Celal. However, Pamuk does not seem to claim to be the first person in literary history to have written the novel of the poor individual. In order to understand what he might mean by these words, we need to understand what makes Mevlut, the protagonist of Strangeness, such a unique character. Towards the end of the novel, at the beginning of the seventh part, there is an epigraph from J.J. Rousseau: “I can only meditate when I’m walking” (561)496. Throughout his life, Mevlut feels better when he is working outside rather than indoors. He works as a street vendor, selling yoghurt or rice in the daytime, and goes out to sell boza at night as an extra

496 “Ben yalnızca yürürken düşünebilirim” (447). 236 job. Selling boza at night is not something Mevlut simply does to make money, as the pleasure aspect is predominant. In fact, selling boza is not that profitable an occupation. At night, when he feels stressed, unhappy or melancholic, selling boza makes him feel better, since to do that he walks in the streets of the city for hours. During these long nights, he feels that the city is speaking to him. Either in his daytime jobs, or at night selling boza, he feels free when he is outside. Mevlut is like a flâneur in this sense. Belge points out that “neither [Mevlut’s] culture, nor his income is suitable to describe him as a ‘flaneur’; yet he is a ‘porteur’, a ‘carrier’ at least as much as a ‘flaneur’ ” (“Usta İşi” 21). No matter how far he is from a flâneur socially and culturally, Mevlut is close to one psychologically. It is striking to see how Keith Tester’s words describing Baudelaire’s poet, probably the most characteristic flâneur in cultural and literary history, are also valid for Mevlut: “ . . . a man who is driven out of the private and into the public by his own search for meaning. He is the man who is only at home existentially when he is not at home physically” (2). Unlike a flâneur, who strolls in the city for pleasure, Mevlut is out in the city as a vendor; this includes the times when he is out selling boza as, despite the predominance of pleasure in this act, he is still a vendor in the streets. Unlike the middle class flâneur who strolls in arcades, Mevlut is in the streets, around apartment buildings. This is the outer reality. On the other hand, where the inner reality is concerned, Mevlut carries the soul of a flâneur, of Baudelaire’s poet. Tester underscores that “the Baudelairean poet” has “an ability to make for himself the meaning and the significance of the metropolitan spaces and the spectacle of the public” (4). Mevlut is just like that. On his walks, Mevlut perceives the world around him with a sophisticated outlook, in a manner many educated urbanites would not be able to do. Parallels between Mevlut and the flâneur do not seem to be a random choice. As Belge stresses, it is difficult to think that an author like Pamuk, who has a vast knowledge of world literature, would not be aware of the resemblance between Mevlut and the flâneur (Personal Interview). Embodying Mevlut, the poor immigrant with the outlook of the flâneur, a highly middle-class, even elite figure, Pamuk blurs the distinctions between the elite urbanite vs. the rural immigrant in this novel. As mentioned earlier, Mevlut’s passion for Istanbul is usually distilled through the motif of his walks in the city. Selling boza at night is a way of life for Mevlut: “ . . . his long nightly walks weren’t just part of his job anymore; they were something he felt he needed to do” (350)497; and when he is working at Binbom, he feels a sort of claustrophobia: “ . . . he

497 “Her gece sokaklarda uzun uzun yürümek artık mesleki bir alışkanlıktan çok bir ihtiyaç olmuştu” (285). 237 may as well have been chained to the shop” (362)498. His feelings about selling boza at night are described as follows: “He sensed, now, that the streets on which he sold boza in the night and the universe in his mind were one and the same” (363)499. Via psycho-narration his views are rendered: “of course the only antidote to the loneliness of the streets was the streets themselves” (373)500. The narrator adds that working at Binbom for five years have made Mevlut a melancholic person. At one point, Mevlut tells Ferhat that he would always want to continue selling boza (T:312; E:382). Mevlut is a vendor who enjoys walking in the streets of the city with a rich fantasy world based on the historical heritage of the city. The narrator explains with empathy how historical things remind Mevlut of the existence of “another realm within our world” (391)501. While other immigrant characters in the novel take pride in their material achievements in the city, Mevlut is interested in connecting with the soul of the city. Remnants of history, enigmatic artefacts reflecting the rich historical heritage of the city such as “a mossy old wall” (271)502, and a gravestone “dating all the way back to Ottoman times” (273)503 appeal to him. All of these excite Mevlut the ‘non-Istanbulite’, details which many Istanbulites would not even notice, or simply ignore as usual and ordinary elements of the city, maybe because they are too accustomed to them. As a protagonist, he is very much developed on the terms of his relationship with the city. To sum up, certainly authors such as Sait Faik or Orhan Kemal created characters who were poor people with an urban identity. Indeed, Mevlut is one such character. Pamuk has developed Mevlut the poor man and his idiosyncrasies in great depth. With the words above, Pamuk might be referring to the scale of his project of developing Mevlut, the poor man as a unique individual in love with urban life. Bayat’s conceptualisation of the survival strategies of the poor, the quiet encroachment of the ordinary can be perceived on a further level, based on a character like Mevlut. Here obviously, there is the quiet encroachment of the poor immigrant in the city, in his shanty, on the streets with his stall. However, there is much more than that. What we see here is a man who has a passion for the city. In Mevlut’s case, the quiet encroachment not only makes it possible for the immigrant to survive in the city, but also enables him to become an urban individual with a strong bond with the city. In the novel, Mevlut the immigrant is not

498 “bir dükkana zincirlenmiş gibi” (295) 499 “Geceleri boza satarken yürüdüğü sokakla kafasının içindeki âlemin artık tek bir bütün olduğunu seziyordu” (296). 500 “Sokakların verdiği yalnızlığın asıl ilacı tabii ki gene sokaklardı” (304). 501 “bu dünyanın içinde gizli bir başka âlem” (318) 502 “taşları yosun tutmuş eski duvar” (223) 503 “Osmanlı zamanından kalma . . . mezar taşı” (225) 238 portrayed simply as someone who prefers to live in the city because he can earn his daily bread here. His real tie with the city is one of passion. He is in love with the historical heritage of the city, with its aura. This aspect is emphasised over and over again in the novel. As a result of this, the right to the city does not appear in the novel simply in terms of material needs. The right to the city in Mevlut’s case involves a social and cultural belonging to the city, which once again can be explained in terms of the city as oeuvre. Mevlut is in love with the city as oeuvre. He has neither the money nor the social circles to be a part of the high culture and art world of the city, or to go sightseeing like a tourist. He never does this kind of strolling through the city. However, in the very centre of the city he simply enjoys old buildings, graveyards, crowds, simply the soul of the city, as he pushes his stall or carries his boza basket. He invents his very own lifestyle which makes it possible for him to experience the city as oeuvre. This makes Mevlut a unique immigrant character. Bayat stresses the urban poor’s potential to find alternative ways to survive, as opposed to those who see them as simply passive. Pamuk’s novel stresses this point, and takes it to a further dimension: that of individuality. The immigrants in the city struggling to earn their daily bread can develop an urban identity though their experiences in the city, as opposed to living as peasants in the city. In Mevlut’s case, the quiet encroachment of the ordinary, it might be argued, takes the form of the quiet encroachment of the unordinary.

14.4.2 Men and Women in the City During the summer of his last year as a student, Mevlut falls in love with a woman he keeps meeting in the street. He calls this woman Neriman, and after a while he starts following her. A passage where Mevlut’s thoughts about her are rendered via free indirect discourse is particularly important in stressing how Mevlut appreciates the city as an entirely different place from his village. Here, Mevlut is thinking that if his sisters were followed by a man in the village, the way he is following Neriman right now, he’d want to beat them up, “but Istanbul was not a village” (106)504. Mevlut’s awareness of being in the city is stressed here, as if encountering the anti-immigrant discourse that immigrants are not aware that they are in the city. However, Mevlut imagines his sisters being followed in the village, yet he does not imagine them being followed in the city. No information is given about what he’d feel in that case. As such, the novel leaves unanswered how much his perceptions on such issues are changed. However, from the way that Mevlut’s daughter Fevziye has the freedom to study at

504 “Ama İstanbul bir köy değildi” (98). 239 university, it can be inferred that his views about women’s independence is quite in line with urban perceptions. He also admires Fevziye for her effortless ways in socialising in the city. However, Mevlut never encourages Rayiha to be a part of urban life. They never appear together going sightseeing in the city, or enjoying the city together. Rayiha is always at home, in the domestic, private sphere. His daughter, as a second-generation immigrant woman, has much more liberty than her mother. In the novel, the characters other than Mevlut whose love for Istanbul is mentioned are women. Samiha is the most significant character in this sense. She explains her feelings about the city as follows: “ . . . the crowds, the people dodging buses as they run to the other side of the road, the girls in skirts, the horse-drawn carts, the parks, the big old apartment buildings; I love it all” (252)505. The resonance of the city as oeuvre in Samiha’s words, especially in her inclusion of old apartment buildings, is worthy of attention. The way she describes how and why she loves the city also reflects her desire to get liberated as a woman in the city, surpass male hegemony on what to wear and how to behave. The feeling of freedom is an important reason for her attachment to the city, as her words reveal. In fact, in the Turkish original, she says she likes “girls wearing skirts freely”506 (T: 208), a nuance lost in the translation above simply rendering it as “the girls in skirts” (E: 252). After marrying Ferhat, Samiha works as a domestic worker in apartments in the city centre, and enjoys being in central areas of Istanbul. Similar to Mevlut, she also thinks that the city talks to her (237). She admires Ferhat for having grown up in Karaköy. “It was nice to think that Ferhat had spent his childhood in Karaköy, right in the middle of the city, and when I got home I would ask him to tell me about those days” (289)507. Like Samiha, Vediha, the oldest of the three sisters who is married to Korkut, loves travelling in the city, as mentioned by Süleyman when he describes their visits to seek out eligible girls for marriage: “Vediha loved being out of the house so much . . . ” (299)508. Vediha explains that visiting candidates for Korkut is the easiest way for her to get permission from her husband to go out in the city (T: 246; E: 300). Korkut eventually ends up with a female singer, to his family’s disgust. Other than these insignificant details, the novel does not deal with the gender dimension of immigrants’ life in the city.

505 “Şehrin kalabalığını, otobüsler arasında karşıdan karşıya koşarak geçen insanları, özgürce etek giyen kızları, at arabalarını, parkları ve eski büyük apartmanları; her şeyi seviyorum” (208). 506 özgürce etek giyen kızları 507 “Ferhat’ın çocukluğunu Karaköy’de, şehrin tam ortasında geçirdiğini düşünmek hoşuma gider, evde ona o zamanları anlattırırdım” (237). 508 “Evden çıkıp gezmeyi o kadar severdi ki Vediha . . . ” (245) 240

14.5 Setting and Related Themes Bayat observes that “the neoliberal city is a ‘city-inside-out,’ where a massive number of urban residents, the subaltern, become compelled to operate, subsist, or simply live on the public spaces—in the streets, in a substantial ‘out-doors economy’” (113). Throughout the novel, with Mevlut’s occupation as a vendor, this aspect of the neoliberal city is constantly stressed. The importance of being and living in the centre of the city is also implied in the novel. If Mevlut was not living in a central area of the city like Tarlabaşı, butfor instance, in Gazi like Ferhat, he would not be able to sell boza at night in places like Şişli and Feriköy. The areas of Istanbul where the characters of the novel live can be analysed in two sections: Kültepe and Duttepe; Tarlabaşı and Gazi.

14.5.1 The Shanties of Kültepe and Duttepe Like in most novels which deal with the theme of rural to urban migration, the shanty, both as a setting and as a theme, has a significant presence in Strangeness. In the novel, the setting of shanty has a central function in the representations of Mevlut’s feelings of solitude and isolation during the first phase of his time in Istanbul. The problems of housing in the city enter the novel through the physical conditions of shanties and flats where immigrants are accommodated, and through the difficulties of life in neighbourhoods where these shanties and flats are located. The third part of the novel covers the period between 1968 and 1982, from Mevlut’s arrival in the city until his marriage with Rayiha. The first chapter of this part ends as Mevlut and his father arrive in their shanty. In fact, because of their luggage they are not accepted on buses, therefore they end up walking for four hours after they get off the ferry they take at the Haydarpaşa pier. The second chapter is entitled “Home”509, with the subheading: “The Hills at the End of the City” (46)510 and opens with the following sentence: “Home was a gecekondu, a slum house” (46)511. The narrator explains that Mevlut’s father most of the time refers to the place as a “gecekondu” [shanty] and rarely as home. The shanty is a one-room place with a dirt floor and has a primitive toilet outside (47). There are only the following pieces as furniture: “an old table, four chairs, two beds (one with bedsprings and one without),

509 “Ev” (52) 510 “Şehrin Bittiği Yerdeki Tepeler” (52) 511 “Ev bir gecekonduydu” (52). 241 two cupboards, two windows and a stove” (47)512. Obviously, these are difficult physical conditions, and the atmosphere of the shanty is grim. Shanty housing and being on the periphery are juxtaposed in the beginning section of this part of the novel. “Their house was at the edge of the city, on the lower part of a balding, muddy hill dotted with mulberry trees, and with a fig tree here and there (49)513. Mevlut’s father takes him to the highest point in the area to show him around: From here, you could see the slums that were rapidly taking over the surrounding hills . . . , the city’s biggest cemetery (Zincirlikuyu), factories of all shapes and sizes, garages, workshops, depots, medicine and lightbulb manufacturers, and, in the distance, the ghostly silhouette of the city with its tall buildings and its minarets. The city itself and its neighborhoods – where Mevlut and his father sold yogurt in the mornings and boza in the evenings, and where Mevlut went to school – were only mysterious smudges on the horizon. (50)514 Here, being on the periphery is emphasised. However, Mevlut is not presented as an unhappy person feeling that he is living in misery, in a shanty on a hill at the edge of the city. He is rather portrayed as a self-sufficient person, always capable of finding entertainment for his mind, owing to his rich imagination. The novel explains the informal procedures for building a shanty in detail (T: 60-62; E: 57-59). This passage is important, since it stresses the difference between those who build shanties for shelter and those who build them for rent. It also emphasises the fragility of shanty dwelling life, always living with the possibility of demolition. Some pages later, the fact that some people use shanty for rent is explained in detail by Korkut (T:106-107; E:117- 119). The narrator describes the shanty as “four walls and a ceiling” (281)515. In this way, the novel accomplishes a difficult mission: giving a realistic picture of the evolution of shanties without appraisal or condemnation. The novel’s stance on the shanty phenomenon is one of empathy for those who build them for shelter. Readers of the novel who are totally unfamiliar with life in shanty housing get a glimpse of shanty life through the novel, where it is depicted with great potential for sympathy. In addition to the descriptions of the shanty where Mevlut

512 “Eski bir masa, dört sandalye, biri somyalı diğeri somyasız iki yatak, iki dolap, iki pencere, bir de soba vardı” (52). 513 “Ev, şehrin bittiği yerde, üzerinde dut ağaçları ve tek tük incirler olan yarı kel, çamurlu bir tepenin aşağı kısmındaydı” (54) 514 “Buradan, gecekondularla hızla kaplanmakta olan diğer tepeler . . . , şehrin en büyük mezarlığı (Zincirlikuyu), irili ufaklı pekçok fabrika, araba tamirhaneleri, atölyeler, depolar, ilaç ve ampül fabrikaları ve uzaklarda şehrin hayaletimsi gölgesi, yüksek binaları ve minareleri gözüküyordu. Şehrin kendisi, babasıyla sabahları yoğurt ve akşamları boza sattığı ve okula gittiği mahalleler uzaklarda, esrarengiz birer leke gibiydiler.” (55) 515 “dört duvar bir dam” (231) 242 and his father live, the novel introduces Samiha’s comments on the shanty where she lives with Ferhat (T: 229; E: 278), enriching the way the theme is developed in the novel. Towards the very end of the novel, the narration of Mevlut’s feelings, as he watches the demolition of the shanty where he lived with his father in his first years, come to the fore in a passage where the emphatic stance of the novel about shanty housing is at its strongest: When the time came for his own one-room house, Mevlut felt his heart breaking. He observed his whole childhood, the food he’d eaten, the homework he’d done, the way things had smelled, the sound of his father grunting in his sleep, hundreds of thousands of memories all smashed to pieces in a single swipe of the bulldozer shovel. (559)516 The difficulties immigrants face in the city as they try to find accommodation options other than the shanty are included in the novel in a realistic manner. Immigrants not living in shanties either live in janitors’ flats in the basements of the apartment blocks which they look after, or in the run-down apartments of poor neighbourhoods called dilapidated neighbourhoods in a pejorative manner. While shanties and poor neighbourhoods have a significant place in the novel, the janitor way of life appears once, when Samiha is talking about her friend Zeliha’s place: “ . . . the doorman’s quarters, which were smaller than the room we lived in lacking even a window (285)517. If the narrator described the place using such squalid details, it could have sounded like sympathy from above. However, when such comments come from an insider, the effect is much different: the call for empathy is effortless. The comparison of living in run-down houses in poor neighbourhoods with living in a shanty on the periphery, which are the most common housing options for immigrants, appears as a minor theme in the novel. At one point, Mevlut, expecting Süleyman’s visit to the apartment where he lives with his family, wants to open the windows because of the smell in the room. Rayiha, concerned that their daughters will feel cold, asks him: “Doesn’t their house in Duttepe smell exactly like this?” (263)518 Mevlut’s response reflects his resentment towards his uncle Hasan for his selfishness in the past during the conflict about the shanty. However, it also has a connotation of satisfaction about living in the city centre: “It doesn’t. They’ve got that huge garden, they’ve got electricity and running water, it’s all like

516 “Sıra kendi bir odalı evine gelince Mevlut’un kalbi kırıldı. Buldozerin tek bir kepçe vuruşuyla çocukluğu, yediği yemekler, çalıştığı dersler, kokladığı kokular, horuldayarak uyuyan babasının sesi, yüz binlerce hatıra, her şey bir anda parçalanıp yok olunca gözleri nemlendi” (446). 517 “Bizim tek oda gecekondudan da küçük ve tek penceresi bile olmayan bodrumdaki kapıcı dairesinde . . . ” (234). 518 “Onların Duttepe’deki evi de aynen böyle kokmuyor mu?” (216) 243 clockwork. But we’re much happier here” (263)519. Here, the bad physical conditions of apartments in Tarlabaşı are implied as the cost of living in the city centre.

14.5.2 Stigmatised Neighbourhoods and Immigrants Two of the most stigmatised neighbourhoods in Istanbul play an important part in the setting of the novel: Tarlabaşı and Gazi. As discussed above, in the earlier parts of the book, the fictional shantytowns of Kültepe and Duttepe are central to the setting. This situation changes after Mevlut moves out of his father’s shanty. After he rents a flat in Tarlabaşı, a stigmatised neighbourhood, this area becomes the locus of his life, therefore of the novel. Gazi is another stigmatised neighbourhood, albeit in entirely different ways, since it is a completely different urban setting from Tarlabaşı. This neighbourhood also has a significant presence in the novel. The way these two neighbourhoods appear in the book is worth a close look.

a) Tarlabaşı520: The representation of the neighbourhood of Tarlabaşı has a function in more than one context in the novel: Tarlabaşı as a stigmatised neighbourhood; and urban transformation and Tarlabaşı. In this part, the focus is on Tarlabaşı as a stigmatised neighbourhood. Tarlabaşı, an area near the Grand Rue de Péra, was a place where almost only Greeks and Armenians lived and ran businesses until the 1930s. In the 1930s, Muslim families started to move into the area, renting or buying houses there. In the 1940s, there was an increase in the number of Muslims moving into the area; however, in this period, Pera and Tarlabaşı were still dominated by minorities and Levantines. After the Wealth Tax (1942-43), various businesses in the Beyoğlu area, including Tarlabaşı, were transferred to Muslim owners from minorities. After the 6-7 September Pogrom of 1955, minorities, particularly Greeks, started to leave the country, selling some of their properties (Üsdiken 218). With the enactment of the 1964 Decree, 35-40 thousand Greeks were expelled from Turkey (Demir and Akar 157-8). Since these people had to leave the country very quickly, they could not sell their properties, and eventually these started to be rented to third parties by unauthorised people. These developments had a direct and massive impact on Tarlabaşı: Especially after the 1960s Tarlabaşı and surroundings became an area inhabited by low income groups due to internal migration and the changes in the property structure.

519 “Kokmuyor. Duttepe’de, kocaman bahçeli evde, elektrik, su, herşey püfür püfür oturuyor onlar. Ama biz burada çok daha mutluyuz” (216). 520 For those who are not familiar with Istanbul, it might be useful to note that Dolapdere, which is mentioned numerous times in the analysis of Roman(i), is a neighbourhood next to the Tarlabaşı neighbourhood. 244

Low-income immigrants from Anatolia, the unemployed and so forth started to move in as renters or squatters, into low-standard residences of Tarlabaşı, some of which were abandoned.521 (Akbulut, “Tarlabaşı Bulvarı” 219) M. Rıfat Akbulut adds that the running down of the neighbourjood and degradation of the buildings of the area, the moving in of people working in the nightlife of Beyoğlu, as well as various illegal activities finding a place in Tarlabaşı, pushed the neighbourhood into a “complete dilapidation”522, and created discomfort in public (219). As a result of a rehabilitation project, turning Tarlabaşı Street into a boulevard, a massive and controversial demolition programme took place in the area in 1986-1988. A total of 368 buildings, 167 of which were registered as historical heritage, were demolished (219). In March 1982, Mevlut comes back to Istanbul upon completing his military service and moves to Tarlabaşı, renting “a second-floor apartment . . . in an old Greek house . . . ” (197)523. In a passage depicting Süleyman’s visit to Mevlut’s place, there is a long section where Süleyman explains, with great enthusiasm, how after the 12th September coup, the carpenters and mechanics were pushed out of Tarlabaşı by the new mayor and the bachelor dormitories were shut down, and he adds: In the last five years, this whole place has been overrun by drifters and castaways, and there are so many poor rural migrants, Kurds, Gypsies, and foreigners who have settled on these streets that the neighbourhood is worse than Duttepe was fifteen years ago. Only another coup could clean this place up now. (264)524 The five-year period mentioned here is the period after the 1982 coup. In Süleyman’s comments, discrimination against ethnic minorities and rural to urban immigrants can easily be felt, but not the discourse stigmatising Tarlabaşı as a hive of criminals. Süleyman also adds that the Vural family has attempted to buy a couple of precious buildings here cheaply, but then stepped back because of title deed problems. His discriminatory discourse concludes with a wish for a forceful, inhumane transformation of the neighbourhood which will, as a matter of fact, serve capitalist interests. It should be remembered that the time is 1987, the period of Tarlabaşı’s demolition. The choice of adjectives in the narrator’s words in the quote

521 “Özellikle 1960’lardan itibaren Tarlabaşı çevresi iç göç ve mülkiyet yapısındaki değişikliklere bağlı olarak alt gelir gruplarının yerleştiği bir bölge haline gelir. . . . Anadolu’dan göçle gelen dar gelirliler, işsizler vb Tarlabaşı’nın bir kısmı terk edilmiş düşük standartlı konutlarına kiracı ya da kimi zaman işgalci olarak yerleşmeye başla[r] . . . .” 522 “tam bir çöküntüye” (219) 523 “ . . . eski bir Rum evinin ikinci katını kiraladı” (167). 524 “Beş yılda yersiz yurtsuz gariban takımı doldurmuş buraları, Anadolu’dan İstanbul’a gelen yoksul kalabalık, Kürtler, Çingeneler, göçmenler öyle bir yerleşmiş ki, sokaklar bizim Duttepe’nin on beş yıl önceki halinden daha da beter olmuş. Artık buraları iyice temizlemek için bir askeri darbe daha lazım” (217). 245 below stresses the use of a stigmatising discourse for the legitimisation of the demolishing process: The program of demolitions was announced as an effort to clean up and modernize the city, an approach that appealed to everyone. Criminals, Kurds Gypsies, and thieves currently squatting in the neighbourhood’s vacant buildings would get kicked out; drug dens, smugglers’ warehouses, brothels, bachelor dormitories, and ruined buildings that served as hubs of illegal activities would be demolished, and in their place would be a new six-lane highway taking you from Tepebaşı to Taksim in five minutes. (317)525 In the quote, the argument of the public officials about the neighbourhood, given as indirect discourse, is much harsher than Süleyman’s discriminatory words. Here, the case is not only discrimination but also stigmatisation. The narrator’s stance about Tarlabaşı is neutral. In an early paragraph in the twelfth chapter, the situation in the neighbourhood is described thus: As the conflict in Eastern Turkey grew more violent, Mevlut watched the streets of Tarlabaşı fill up, one family at a time, with Kurdish migrants. These newcomers were tough people, nothing like easygoing Ferhat. Their villages had been evacuated and burned to the ground during the war. They were poor and never bought any boza, so Mevlut rarely went to their neighbourhoods. He stopped going altogether when drug dealers and homeless, glue-sniffing young men began to frequent the area. (310)526 At this point, a historical fact should be remembered. The excerpts above are taken from the passage about Tarlabaşı in the period during the late 1980s, shortly before the opening of the Tarlabaşı Boulevard in 1988. However, the arrival in Tarlabaşı of Kurds whose villages were burnt down, is a phenomenon of almost a decade later, of the mid-1990s. In this case, this might be an authorial decision to enmesh the atmospheres of Tarlabaşı in different periods, or simply some important facts might have been overlooked in the writing process of the novel. The reader has no way of knowing this. In this quote, after the description of the arrival of the Kurds in Tarlabaşı (T:253-4; E: 310), the paragraph draws attention to the stigmatising

525 “Yıkımlar, herkese hoş gözüken temizlik, modernlik sözleriyle ilan edildi. Sahipsiz evlere yerleşen haydutlar, Kürtler, Çingeneler, hırsızlar temizlenecek, esrar ve uyuşturucu yuvaları, kaçakçı depoları, randevuevleri, bekar odaları, kanunsuz işlere yataklık eden viraneler yıkılacak, yerine Tepebaşı’ndan Taksim’e beş dakikada gideceğin altı şeritli bir yol yapılacaktı” (259). 526 Doğu’daki savaşın kızışıp büyüdüğü yıllarda Mevlut Tarlabaşı’nın aile aile, sokak sokak Kürt göçmenlerle doluşunu gördü. Bunlar Ferhat gibi ılımlı değil, sert insanlardı. Savaşta köyleri boşaltılmış, yakılmıştı. Mevlut o mahallelere bu yeni ve yoksul insanlar hiç boza almadığı için az gidiyordu artık. Daha sonra esrar, hap ve uyuşturucu satanlar, tiner koklayan yersiz, evsiz çocuklar da bu sokaklara dadandığı için de oralardan uzaklaştı. (253-4) 246 discourse about the neighbourhood (T:253; E:310), with an emphasis on how Kurds and Roma are included alongside drug dealers, robbers and prostitutes as potential criminals within this discourse. At a later point in the book, in the 1990s Ferhat tells Mevlut: “You can’t live in this neighbourhood anymore unless you’ve got a gun,” (442-443)527 and adds: “Drugs, prostitutes, transvestites, all kinds of gangs…” (442-3)528. Ferhat’s comments are not based on ethnic and/or sectarian prejudice; he observes the dangers in the neighbourhood, without wishing for an iron fist to change it. He may or may not be exaggerating the situation, this entirely depends on which streets and alleys of Tarlabaşı he is talking of. Introducing such comments, the novel manages to include the dominant discourse about the area. Towards the end of the novel, when the date is the early 2000s, about a decade before the start of the massive Tarlabaşı urban transformation project, rumours about the project pervade the neighbourhood. At this point, it is explained that Mevlut has never actually felt as if he belongs to Tarlabaşı. However, with the recent changes in the neighbourhood, he feels more estranged there. The narrator explains: The old carpenters, blacksmiths, repairmen, and shopkeepers trained by the Armenians and the Greeks had all left, as had those hardworking families ready to do any job to survive, and now the Assyrians were also gone, replaced by drug dealers, immigrants moving into abandoned apartments, homeless people, gangsters, and pimps. (524)529 The narrator goes on to explain the rise of gangs in the neighbourhood in an objective manner. The overall position of the novel about Tarlabaşı can be regarded as being against a stigmatising discourse. It underlines that there were and are people engaged in minor or major illegal activities in this neighbourhood. However, there are also many people living there who have nothing to do with such a lifestyle, just poor people who are trying to survive in the city. The novel also stresses the benefits of capitalists in the two transformation operations in the neighbourhood, and that the stigmatising discourse is used as a vehicle for legitimising these operations. b) Gazi: Gazi is one of the areas of Istanbul which has a significant place in the setting of Strangeness. The first point to discuss about the depiction of Gazi in the book is the way it has

527 “’Artık bu mahalleye silahsız girilmez,’ . . . ” (357) 528 “’Uyuşturucular, orospular, dönmeler, her türlü çete ...... ” (357) 529 “Ermenilerin, Rumların yetiştirdiği eski marangoz, demirci, tamirci ustaları, dükkan sahipleri, şehirde tutunmak için her işi yapan çalışkan aileler, en son Süryaniler uzaklaşmış, yerlerini uyuşturucu satıcıları, metruk evlere yerleşen göçmenler, evsizler, haydutlar, pezevenkler almıştı” (420). 247 been fictionalised. As mentioned earlier, the novel includes numerous events from history adhering faithfully to historical data. In an interview, Pamuk explains that “in the novel Turkey’s, particularly Istanbul’s transformation in the last forty years is told” (quoted in Parla 121)530. The fact that the shantytowns of Kültepe and Duttepe are fictional is an exception to the realistic, chronicle-like stance of the novel. However, it must be noted that Kültepe [Ash Hill] and Duttepe [Mulberry Hill] are depicted as representations of neighbourhoods such as Kuştepe [Bird Hill], Gültepe [Rose Hill] located in similar places, near Mecidiyeköy and Zincirlikuyu; and obviously, the “hill” [tepe] in their names is an open reference to these real neighbourhoods. Celal argues that Pamuk’s decision to give fictional names to these realistically depicted shantytowns might be simply because he did not want to deal with discussions of precise compatibility with reality (10). However, when it comes to the appearance of Gazi in the novel, the situation is unique. In the novel, Gazi, a real neighbourhood, appears in a form which is semi-fictional. Before discussing the results of such a gesture in the novel, it might be useful to give brief information about Gazi, a periphery neighbourhood of Istanbul. Pérouse draws our attention to the mythology about the Gazi Neighbourhood based on catastrophism and sensationalism (72). He asserts that this mythology has three main constituents. Based on this mythology, Gazi is an Alevite, leftist and Kurdish neighbourhood (73). Pérouse stresses that within such a framework, “Gazi is a dangerous . . . ‘stigmatized’ neighbourhood”531 (73), and adds that the events in March, 1995532 contributed to this perception about Gazi (73-74). Depending on his research in the register’s office archives as well as his fieldwork in the area, Pérouse observes that Gazi is not a Kurdish neighbourhood (82). He adds that although Alevites are the majority, there is a significant Sunnite population in Gazi (85). From his conversations with Gazi people, Pérouse underscores that “Gazi can neither be described as a ‘leftist neighbourhood’”533 nor as a “‘liberated area’”534, as the majority of the Gazi residents are far from supporting the armed radical leftist groups (91). However, he stresses that constant psychological agitation by the police in Gazi, both before

530 “ . . . bu romanda Türkiye’nin, özellikle de İstanbul’un son 40 yıllık dönüşümü anlatılıyor.” 531 “Gazi, tehlikeli . . . ‘damgalanmış’ bir mahalle.” 532 “In March 1995, Sunni radicals opened fire on several coffee houses” in the neighbourhood, and as a result of the unrest arising consequently “some thirty people died” and the government had to send soldiers to the area to maintain order (Zürcher and Linden 130). 533 “’solcu mahallesi’” 534 “’kurtarılmış bölge’” 248 and after the events of 1995, lead to a “consciousness of difference stemming from a mutual feeling of ‘oppression’”535 (92). The Gazi that appears in the novel is an amalgam of the Gazi Neighbourhood and another neighbourhood in Istanbul called 1 Mayıs Mahallesi [1st of May Neighbourhood]. As Ş. Aslan explains in detail, 1st of May Neighbourhood was established under the leadership of leftist groups in the second half of the 1970s (87-115). In other words, the story of 1st of May Neighbourhood is adapted to Gazi in the novel. Two points call for an answer here: What is the reason for such an adaptation? What is its effect on the overall message of the novel? Making speculations about the author’s decision might lead us to intentional fallacy, so this might as well be avoided. In an interview, Pamuk makes it clear that, in connection with Ferhat’s existence in the story, Gazi neighbourhood was one of the places he visited in the city for this book (Oral, Günay, Ak 23). In the novel, there is a three-page long passage on the establishment of the Gazi neighbourhood (230-233). However, in real life Gazi was not established in this way, the establishment story related here belongs to the 1st of May Neighbourhood. In another interview, Pamuk replied with the following words when asked whether the story of Gazi in the novel is true: Yes, but this is the story of 1st of May Neighbourhood. There had happened sort of a socialist uprising. Like in all shanty quarters, in that quarter, too, there was an agha who had his gunned men in charge of distributing the land, and who had connections with the state. People, primarily university students have an uprising, take the papers in the mukhtar and give them to the excluded Alevites.536 (“İnsanlar Biraz”) Put simply, the identities of Gazi and 1st of May neighbourhoods are juxtaposed in the novel to create a fictional Gazi. As discussed above, this is an interesting gesture in a novel which is extremely faithful to historical facts. Certainly, the Duttepe and Kültepe neighbourhoods are a deviation from real life events. However, the existence of these two places in the novel cannot be compared with that of Gazi. Duttepe and Kültepe are fictional neighbourhoods which are inspired by the shantytowns founded on the hills in the vicinity of Mecidiyeköy and Zincirlikuyu in the 1970s. However, Gazi is a real-life neighbourhood which is partly fictionalised in the novel. The crucial point about such a move is that the way Gazi is fictionalised in the novel is completely in line with what Pérouse calls mythologies about the

535 “ortak ‘ezilme’ duygusundan kaynaklanan bir farklılık bilincini” 536 “Evet ama bu, 1 Mayıs Mahallesi’nin hikayesidir. Orada bir çeşit sosyalist halk isyanı olmuştur. Tüm gecekondu mahallerinde olduğu gibi orada da arsaları dağıtan silahlı adamları ve devletle ilişkisi olan bir ağa vardır. Üniversite öğrencileri başta olmak üzere halk ayaklanır ve muhtardaki makbuzları alarak, dışlanan Alevilere verirler.” 249 neighbourhood: that it is a Kurdish, Alevite and left-wing neighbourhood. Most probably, many of the readers of the novel will not check whether the story of Gazi in the novel is based on real events or fictionalised. It is very likely that they will assume it is based on historical facts. In this way, the novel, probably unintentionally, contributes to the reproduction of these mythologies about the stigmatised neighbourhood of Gazi.

14.5.3 Istanbul and the Minority Heritage It is difficult to elaborate themes related to the minority heritage in the city without creating an atmosphere of old-Istanbul nostalgia described in Chapter 2. Since the disappearance of the non-Muslim minority, once a significant element of the city population, was a great loss, it is difficult to completely avoid a feeling of nostalgia when writing about related themes. Strangeness finds a balance and manages to treat the non-Muslim heritage without an overdose of nostalgia. Mevlut has a direct connection with the Greek past of Tarlabaşı through the members of the remaining community who are not more than a handful. He has chats with “ . . . Greek ladies who lived in moldy, gloomy, ancient apartments around the Çiçek Arcade, the fish market, and the British consulate” (315)537. Old, rusty and dark facades are images which emphasise the condition of the minority heritage today. There are various instances in the novel where the memories of the minority past suddenly appear, usually with similar imagery: in the case of Mevlut’s search for a place to park his rice-stall in Talimhane: “ . . . between a stack of timber meant for a construction site and an old abandoned Greek house” (336)538; when Vediha tells her daughters to play in the “ . . . fairy courtyard of the Assyrian church” (328)539, or when Rayiha talks about the “herbal tea with leaves [she] picked from the tree in the courtyard of the Armenian church” (241)540. In the novel, there is a three-paragraph long passage about the shameful incidents in Turkish history which resulted in the departure of the majority of the non-Muslim population. The passage opens with the following sentence: “Though no one likes to think or talk about it anymore, Tarlabaşı used to be a neighborhood populated by Greeks, Armenians, Jews, and Assyrians” (315)541. In the passage, the Wealth Tax, the Istanbul Pogrom and the exile of the

537 “Çiçek Pasajı, Balık Pazarı, İngiliz Konsolosluğu arasındaki yüz yıllık eski, küflü, karanlık apartmanlarda yaşayan ihtiyar Rum kadınlar” (258). 538 “ . . . bir inşaatın kalaslarının yığıldığı köşeyle terk edilmiş eski bir Rum evinin arasında . . . ” (275) 539 “perili Süryani kilisesinin avlusu . . . ”(268) 540 “Ermeni kilisesinin avlusundaki ağaçtan topladığ[ı] ıhlamurları” (201) 541 “Kimse hatırlamak, söylemek istemiyordu, ama eskiden Tarlabaşı bir Rum-Ermeni-Yahudi ve Süryani mahallesiydi” (258). 250

Greeks in 1964 are all mentioned as stories Mevlut hears from the old residents of the quarter. Towards the end of the third paragraph, Mevlut’s conflicting feelings as tenant in a Greek apartment are explained. Sometimes Greek people come to see their properties, and gangs unofficially renting these in collaboration with the state and the police, get kids to throw stones at these Greek owners of the buildings. Mevlut wants to stop the children but stays silent, as his landlord is also on the side of the gangs. Here the Anatolian immigrant’s position, living in property belonging to the departed minority is depicted as a silent collaboration. Yet, for someone like Mevlut who admires the non-Muslim minority heritage in the city, it is not without cost, as he experiences this as a dilemma. On a night when Mevlut is feeling melancholic, he goes out to sell boza and gets called upstairs by a customer in a Greek apartment in Feriköy (T: 296; E: 363-364). He remembers that he sold yoghurt with his father in this apartment when he was very young. Mevlut notices that the flat their customers lived in then is now a textile workshop (T:296; E:362). Mevlut looked closely at the stucco reliefs on the walls, the big mirror with a gilded frame, and the chandelier made of fake crystals –all left behind by the Greek families who’d live here once. For many years, whenever he would think back to this room, he would become convinced that his memory was playing tricks on him, that he hadn’t seen that chandelier or that mirror. (364)542 Mevlut’s remembrance of the past and the blurred lines between fantasy and memory get enmeshed with the feeling of nostalgia here, with the implication of how the past can seem like it was never real. The presence of the non-Muslim minority seems like such a faded memory today, as their communities are almost invisible. The invasion of the properties belonging to minorities by third parties mostly connected with the mafia is a gripping motif in the novel, connected with the theme of the lost minority population of Istanbul. At a quite early stage of the novel, in the description of the room Ferhat stays in with other waiters, we are told that instead of the owner of the building who lives in Athens, they pay rent to someone from Sürmene543 (T:143; E: 166). After two pages, the Greek buildings in the area are taken over by a gang comprising men from Sürmene (T:145; E: 168). In a later instance, the fact that the shop Mevlut and Ferhat run for a while in Beyoğlu, like many other buildings in the area, is rented by a gang is revealed

542 “Mevlut bir zamanlar burada yaşayan Rum ailelerden kalma alçı kabartmalara, yaldızlı çerçeveli büyük bir aynaya ve sahte bir Kristal avizeye dikkatle bakmasına ragmen, daha sonra —yıllarca—bu odayı her hatırlayışında, avize ve aynayı aslında görmediğini, hafızasının kendisini aldattığını düşünecekti” (296). 543 A town in Northern Anatolia. 251

(T:343; E:422). The novel’s way of doing this is sophisticated: the narrator does not make these explanations, it is the characters from whom the reader learns these facts, a trait that prevents the novel being didactic or giving explicit messages. Towards the end of the novel, in a moment of psycho-narration of Mevlut’s thoughts on Tarlabaşı, it is told that the men acting as landlords of the apartment he lives in Tarlabaşı have been changing every five to six years, and they look like gang members (T:420-421; E:525-6). In the passage, in fact throughout the novel, the setting of Tarlabaşı appears almost as the graveyard of the Greek population in Istanbul, reinforcing the theme of the great void left by the minorities. The passage implies the continuation of the problem, since these properties are still not being given back to their owners. A lament is also felt in the story of Sadullah, Fevziye’s father-in-law, who becomes a good friend of Mevlut. Sadullah’s father comes from Düzce during the Second World War and starts working as the apprentice of an Armenian shoe-maker. After a while he becomes the co-owner of the shoe-shop. The shop gets looted in the Istanbul pogrom. After this, the Armenian man transfers his shares to Sadullah’s father and leaves Istanbul (T:402; E:501). The theme of the lost heritage of minorities comes to the fore in another instance when Mevlut replies to Süleyman, who makes derogatory comments about Tarlabaşı: “’I wouldn’t be so quick to dismiss it, if I were you. All the brightest, most creative Greeks, Assyrians used to live here. Craftsmen are the lifeblood of Istanbul’” (266)544. These words of Mevlut, together with the depiction of his dilemma when he cannot stop children throwing stones at the Greek owners of the buildings in Tarlabaşı, appear as the elaboration of a sensitive theme in the novel: the Anatolian immigrant’s encounter with the non-Muslim minority heritage in the city. As discussed earlier, in Chapter II, the old-Istanbul nostalgia discourse creates a feeling that because of the arrival of the Anatolian immigrants in Istanbul, the non-Muslim minority disappeared, and the city lost its cosmopolitan identity. Obviously, as discussed various time above, Istanbul lost its minority for other reasons. These reasons are openly reminded to the reader in the novel. However, the novel also depicts what is behind this correlation between the arrival of rural to urban immigrants and the disappearance of the minority. Rural to urban immigrants moved into the buildings which were once resided in by the cosmopolitan population of the city. These buildings were rented unofficially by men with mafia connections. The novel depicts how even an immigrant like Mevlut who appreciates the minority legacy becomes a silent collaborator in the invasion of the minority’s property, a

544 “’Sen bu mahalleyi fazla küçümseme. Eskiden en akıllı, en zanaatkar Rumlar, Süryaniler yaşarmış burada. İstanbul’u yaşatan esnafıdır’” (219). 252 collaboration which creates the illusion that rural to urban immigrants came to Istanbul and pushed the minority out of their places and the city.

14.5.4 In a Transforming Istanbul Strangeness is a novel set within a time span of forty years. The changes in the city have significance in relation to the setting as well as to the treatment of various themes in the book. At the very beginning of the novel, there is a long passage where the narrator explains Mevlut’s perception of the changes to the city after he has spent twenty-five years in Istanbul. The narrator first mentions the changes to streets and houses, and when it comes to people, he makes the following comment: “The quiet, brownbeaten folk in gray and drab clothes who used to populate the streets had been replaced by rowdy, energetic, and more assertive crowds” (19)545. This depiction, together with Mevlut’s thoughts on the new immigrants of the city quoted below, appear in the novel as an expression of a binary opposition of the reasonable good immigrants of the past and intimidating bad immigrants of the present; a point discussed in the next chapter. For a very long time, Mevlut tries to be in harmony with the changes in the city. He enjoys feeling himself to be a part of these changes, since they happen when he is living in the city: He didn’t see the city as a place that had existed before his arrival and to which he’d come as an outsider. Instead, he liked to imagine that Istanbul was being built while he lived in it and to dream of how much cleaner, more beautiful, and more modern it would be in the future. (318)546 Feeling himself a part of these changes contributes to Mevlut’s belonging to the city and strengthens his identity as a member of it. However, as the novel proceeds, Mevlut’s views on the changes in the city start to alter and move in the opposite direction. All these changes now begin to create unsettling feelings in him: “The city was no longer an enormous, familiar home but a faithless space in which anyone who got the chance added more concrete, more streets, courtyards, walls, pavements, and shops” (509).547 Mevlut’s negative feelings about the changes in Istanbul are stronger when it comes to the changing nature of the social fabric of the city. The changes in Tarlabaşı come to the fore

545 “Sokaklardaki boz ve solgun kıyafetli sessiz ve ezik insanlar gitmiş, yerlerine gürültücü, hareketli ve iddialı kalabalıklar gelmişti” (29). 546 “Şehri, kendinden önce yapılmış ve kendisinin dışarıdan gelip içine girdiği bir yer olarak görmüyordu. İstanbul’u kendisi içinde yaşarken yapılan ve gelecekte çok daha güzel, temiz ve modern bir yer olarak hayal etmekten hoşlanıyordu” (260-261). 547 “Sanki şehir tanıdığı bir yer, geniş bir ev olmaktan çıkmış, her önüne gelenin sınırsız beton, sokak, avlu, duvar, kaldırım ve dükkan eklediği tanrısız bir yere dönüşmüştü” (408). 253 in this respect. The increasing presence and visibility of gangs, drug dealing and prostitution, lowering the standard of living in the neighbourhood, have been discussed above within the context of Tarlabaşı as a stigmatised neighbourhood. Below, depictions of other sorts of changes in the neighbourhood are analysed, together with changes in other parts of the city. Mevlut’s unhappiness about the changes in Tarlabaşı, which leads him to his decision to move out of the neighbourhood, is developed in the chapter entitled “New Quarters, Old Faces” (517)548 in the fifth part of the novel. Mevlut feels estranged both at home and in his neighbourhood. On the one hand, there is the rise in gangs, and on the other the changing neighbourhood fabric: “All these people who hung their underwear and shirts out to dry between each other’s buildings, turning the whole neighborhood into one big Laundromat, made Mevlut feel that he no longer belonged here” (525)549. The people mentioned here are the new immigrants in Tarlabaşı. In reality, the majority of the new immigrants in Tarlabaşı in the 2000s were Kurdish immigrants, most of whom had come to the city in the mid-1990s due to involuntary migration. However, as mentioned earlier, the arrival of these Kurdish immigrants is included in the novel as an event of the mid-1980s. In any case, “these people” in the passage refer to the new immigrants in the neighbourhood, most of whom had come from Kurdish villages which were evacuated. Mevlut is also not happy about the increasing number of street stalls in Tarlabaşı, and he does not like the new street vendors running them. The increase in the number of foreigners, most of whom are transit migrants, in Tarlabaşı, also adds to his feelings of estrangement there: “By now he was getting used to the idea of Tarlabaşı as just a temporary stop on so many longer journeys” (526)550. All these remarks imply an important point: each generation of immigrants see the next newcomers as outsiders. In other words, while former immigrants feel the right to belong to the city, they do not ‘grant’ immigrants who come after them this right. Mevlut lives in Tarlabaşı, a neighbourhood which is one of the areas of Istanbul most, if not the most, directly affected by the waves of immigration, and where related changes are extremely visible. Therefore, he becomes an early and insider witness of all these changes. In a free indirect discourse, the reader is introduced to what Mevlut thinks about the new immigrants in Istanbul: “Istanbul was crawling with Ukrainian women smuggling contraband in their suitcases, African immigrants, and shady operators who sucked people dry; the city had become a hotbed of

548 “Yeni Mahalleler, Eski Tanıdıklar”(414) 549 “Donlarını, gömleklerini evden eve asıp mahalle sokaklarını büyük bir çamaşırhaneye çeviren bu yeni insanlar da Mevlut’a artık buralara ait olmadığı duygusunu veriyordu” (420). 550 “Tarlabaşı’nın bir yerden diğerine giderken kalınan geçici bir konak olması fikrine de alışıyordu artık” (421). 254 corruption and bribery . . . ” (395)551 Although the focus of the quote is foreigners, the expression “çeşit çeşit tuhaf insan” [all sorts of strange people] which appears in the English translation as “shady operators”, obviously includes all newcomers from inside or outside of Turkey. In comments like this, the boundaries between the narrator and Mevlut become blurred. The way Mevlut looks at these new people is similar to the way Istanbulites looked at immigrants in the former decades, when many of them, such as Mevlut, first arrived in the city. The psycho-narration following the above quote stresses the divide between the old and the new immigrants. Mevlut observes “a new category of poor people”552 (481), who picked up the rubbish on streets which were “ . . . changing . . . very fast. There were too many words and letters, too many people, too much noise” (481). He also identifies “. . . a new class of tougher, angrier hawkers” (481)553. He sadly witnesses that “the older generation of street vendors had been swallowed up in the tumult of the city…” (481)554 In the globalising Istanbul of the present time which Mevlut observes, upward mobility is more difficult, which makes poor immigrants almost aggressive in their struggle to survive in the city. Urban transformation changing the face of the city is another important factor in Mevlut’s feelings about the city. This is not only an emotional response; it has direct influences on his life. These are the early 2000s, just before the Tarlabaşı urban transformation project is to be announced. Mevlut is concerned about not being able to afford the increasing rent. Tarlabaşı becomes a more and more bizarre place with each passing day: “He also suspected that these gangsterish types – his so-called landlords (who changed every five or six years) – might suddenly pull out and leave the house to real-estate brokers, property speculators, developers eager to build hotels, or to some other gang, as had happened elsewhere over the past two years” (525).555 Tarlabaşı was now a focus of the rent economy: “After having been largely ignored for so many years, the whole neighbourhood had suddenly become a magnet for all the misery and destructive appetite that the city could muster” (525).556 These are all utterly realistic depictions of the situation in Tarlabaşı, portraying the vulnerability of the immigrants living there and in other poor neighbourhoods targeted by the

551 “Bavul ticareti yapan Ukraynalı kadınlar, Afrika’dan gelen göçmenler, insanın kanını emen çeşit çeşit tuhaf insan, ahlaksızlık ve rüşvet sarmıştı İstanbul’u . . . ” (322) 552 “yeni bir yoksullar sınıfı” (387) 553 “. . . hızla değişiyordu. Çok fazla yazı, çok fazla insan, çok fazla gürültü vardı. Sokaklarda daha sert, daha öfkeli yeni bir satıcı kuşağı belirmişti” (387). 554 “Eski satıcı sınıfı şehrin karmaşası içerisinde kaybolup gidiyordu…” (387) 555“‘Ev sahibi’ dediği yarı haydut kişilerin (bunlar her beş altı yılda bir değişmişti) şu son iki yılda olduğu gibi birden aradan çekilip evi emlak tacirlerine, spekülatörlere, otel yapmak isteyen girişimcilere, başka çetelere bırakıp gidebileceğini de hissediyordu” (420-421). 556 “Yıllarca kimsenin dikkat etmediği mahalle birden şehirdeki huzursuzluğun ve derin bir tahribat arzusunun odaklandığı bir yer olmuştu” (421). 255 rent economy. This point is closely connected with the right to the city, as urban transformation projects are being carried out with a great breach of rights, as discussed earlier, especially for renters. The novel just implies the situation in Tarlabaşı, and does not include the realisation of the project in the story, since its focus is the changing face of Duttepe and Kültepe in relation to Mevlut’s inner world.

14.6 Nostalgia in the Novel and Concluding Remarks Towards the end of the novel, we follow Mevlut as he walks towards Kültepe. He walks through apartment blocks built on sites which were completely empty when he was growing up in the neighbourhood. These are buildings not found worthy of demolishing and re-building by Vural Yapı, the building firm which has a monopoly of the area. The narrator calls them “hidous gecekondu homes, six or seven stories high (555)557. The use of the adjective “hideous” here is a clear indicator of the narrator’s opinion. The passage continues with a paragraph of Mevlut’s thoughts on the incredible growth of the city: Throughout the happy years of his marriage to Rayiha . . . he’d always thought that Istanbul would never change, that all his hard work out on the streets would gain him a place of his own someday. All this had happened, to an extent. But ten million other people had joined him in Istanbul over the past forty years, latching on as he had to anything they could find, and the city had emerged transformed. Istanbul’s population had been only three million when Mevlut had first arrived; now, they said there were thirteen million people living there. (556)558 Mevlut’s thoughts are somewhere between an objective observation and a feeling of unease about these facts regarding the developments in the city. This penultimate part of the novel ends with his feelings as he watches the shanty he grew up in get demolished for an apartment building to be built by Vural Yapı. Mevlut’s feelings of estrangement in the city in the last couple of years constitute the focus of the final part, therefore, of the ending of the novel. He reflects on his feelings, trying to find the reasons for them: “Was it because of that unstoppable, swelling flood, the millions of new people coming to Istanbul and bringing new houses, skyscrapers, and shopping malls with them? [Mevlut] began to see . . . demolished not just ramshackle houses in poor

557 “altı yedi katlı berbat gecekondu apartmanlar” (443) 558 “ . . . Rayiha ile evlendiği, mutlu olduğu yıllarda şehrin hiç değişmeyeceğini, kendisinin sokaklarda çalışa uğraşa orada bir yer edineceğini, ona uyum sağlayacağını sanırdı. Bu aslında olmuştu. Ama kendisiyle birlikte son kırk yılda şehre on milyon insan daha gelip, kendi gibi şehre bir ucundan saldırınca şehir de bambaşka bir yer olmuştu. Mevlut İstanbul’a geldiğinde nüfusu üç milyon olan şehrin şimdi on üç milyon olduğu söyleniyordu” (443). 256 neighbourhoods, but even proper buildings in Taksim and Şişli that had stood for over forty years” (574)559. He thinks about the old buildings and the people living in them: As those old people disappeared along with the buildings they’d made, new people moved into new buildings – taller, more terrifying, and more concrete than ever before. Whenever he looked at these new thirty- and forty- storey towers, Mevlut felt that he had nothing to do with any of the new people who lived in them. (574)560 As the passage reveals, the changes are a result of neoliberalism and Istanbul’s becoming a global city. The rent economy, urban transformation, urban poverty and international immigrants are all connected with these. In the passage, the focus is on anxiety as a result of urban transformation. On the following page, Mevlut’s thoughts about the new immigrants in Istanbul are intertwined with the feelings created by the city’s changing landscapes, rendered through an instance of psycho-narration: “ . . . a new class of strange people had moved into the old gecekondu homes . . . But the newest destitute multitudes mostly lived in the farthest reaches of Istanbul, farther out than the second ring road around the city, where even Mevlut had never set foot” (576)561. The landscape is changing as fast as the social fabric: “What amazed Mevlut even more were the strange new buildings that had begun to rise from these quarters like phantoms, so tall that you could see them from the opposite shore of the Bosphorus. Mevlut loved to watch these buildings from afar” (576).562 The use of the adjective “strange” twice, which is also included in the title of the novel, is noteworthy in the quote. The focus here is on urban poverty. The place where Mevlut thinks about all these is Süleyman’s top floor flat in the tower block. Süleyman, Korkut and Mevlut are there with their wives having dinner, after which Mevlut has a seat on the balcony to enjoy the view: “He felt dizzy for a moment, both from the height and the sheer expanse of the landscape before him” (577)563. As he looks around, Mevlut remembers the past of the hills around there. The city seems extremely changed now and he feels dizzy from the massive number of

559 “Şehre durdurulamaz sel dalgaları gibi büyüyerek gelen milyonlarca yeni insan ve onların yeni evleri, yüksek binaları, alışveriş merkezleri yüzünden mi? Mevlut . . . yalnız gecekonduların değil Taksim’deki Şişli’deki kırk küsur yıllık apartmanların da yıkıldığını görüyordu” (457). 560 “Yaptıkları binalarla birlikte o eski insanlar gözden kaybolurken, yerlerine yapılan daha yüksek, daha korkutucu, daha beton binalara yeni insanlar yerleşiyordu. Mevlut otuz kırk katlı bu yeni binalara baktıkça bu yeni insanlardan biri olmadığını hissediyordu” (457-8). 561 “ . . . eski gecekondulara yeni tuhaf insanlar girmişti. Ama yeni yoksullar kalabalığı şimdi daha çok şehrin en dışındaki, ikinci çevreyolunun da dışındaki en uzak mahallelerde yaşıyorlardı. Arkalarındaki bezden el arabalarını çeke çeke şehirde dolaşıp çöp tenekelerini karıştıranlar Mevlut’un da hiç adım atmadığı bu mahallelerdendi” (459). 562 “Mevlut’un daha da şaştığı, oralarda yükselmeye başlayan ve İstanbul’un diğer yakasından bile görülebilen hayalet misali tuhaf yüksek binalardı. Mevlut onlara da uzaktan bakmayı çok seviyordu” (459). 563 “Bir an yükseklikten de, manzaranın genişliğinden de başı döndü” (460). 257 buildings around him. It is the fact it is the first time he has looked at Istanbul from such a height which creates mixed feelings: “Istanbul could still make him flinch, but even now at fifty-five years of age, he still felt the urge to leap right into this forest of staring buildings” (578)564. The minutes of looking at the view from the balcony turn into a moment of contemplation, which enables Mevlut to define what lies behind his passion for selling boza: “ . . . walking around the city at night made him feel as if he were wandering around inside his own head” (579)565. After the dinner meeting is over, Mevlut goes out to sell boza. The narrator explains that recently Mevlut has been seeing Rayiha in his dreams, in an old mansion the door of which he cannot open. So he keeps walking in the streets and opens the doors of many mansions desperately trying to reach her. The narrator adds that in recent years, imagination and reality have started to get jumbled up in his brain. As Mevlut walks in the night’s darkness, he starts thinking what he would like to tell to the city which has been talking to him for all these years. At that point, a customer invites him upstairs. As Mevlut hands over the boza and is about to leave, the customer woman compliments him for doing this job. Mevlut replies to her, saying: “I sell boza because it’s what I want to do” (584)566. The woman feels even more sympathetic and supportive at this reply: “Don’t ever give up, boza seller. Don’t ever think there’s no point trying among all these towers and all this concrete” (584)567. Mevlut replies with the words: “I will sell boza until the day the world ends” (584)568. He continues walking along a street “toward the Golden Horn, down a road that felt as if it were descending into oblivion . . . ” (584)569, and finds what he wants to tell to the city: “I have loved Rayiha more than anything in this world” (584)570. Mevlut’s feelings of estrangement give way to a dreamlike lament to the past as the novel approaches its end. The motif of boza, a tradition from the past, inevitably brings a significant doze of nostalgia to the novel, from first page to last, since it has a central place in Mevlut’s life and inner-world. The focus on this motif in the closing pages of the novel intensifies this nostalgic atmosphere. In these final passages, the act of buying boza, which is as nostalgic as selling boza, is also brought to the fore. It should be noted that the final dialogue is not between Mevlut and one of the main characters of the novel, but it is between

564 “Mevlut şehirden hem ürküyor, hem de şimdi elli beş yaşında olmasına rağmen, . . . binalar ormanının içine atlayıp girmek istiyordu” (461). 565 “Şehrin sokaklarında geceleri gezmek Mevlut’a kendi kafasının içinde geziniyormuş duygusu veriyordu” (462). 566 “İçimden geldiği için boza satıyorum ben” (466). 567 “Hiç vazgeçme bozacı. Bu kuleler, betonlar arasında kim alır deme. Sen hep geç sokaklardan” (466). 568 “Ben kıyamete kadar boza satacağım” (466). 569 “Haliç’e doğru, sonsuzluğa gider gibi bir inen sokaktan . . . ” (466) 570 “Ben bu âlemde en çok Rayiha’yı sevdim” (466). 258

Mevlut the boza-seller and an anonymous boza-buyer. The two communicate in a special code, that of love and nostalgia for an almost lost Istanbul: an Istanbul where street-vendors would walk around the streets and they would have many customers. For the woman buying boza, Mevlut with his boza basket is a symbol of the good old days of the city: “Don’t ever think there’s no point trying among all these towers and all this concrete” (584)571 she tells Mevlut. The reference here is directly to the changing urban landscape. Imagery based on towers and concrete dominate the last pages of the novel. Another dimension of nostalgia stems from the timing of these final passages of the novel: it is the night of the Eid holiday. As Mevlut enters the flat from which he is called for boza, with the strong scent of rakı he senses, he expects a group of people gathered around a table drinking rakı. Instead, he comes across a group of family and friends who have come together for the holiday. The way people used to celebrate the Ramadan and the Eid holidays in the past is a bygone tradition in Turkey, a strong motif of nostalgia. The description of this setting and Mevlut’s feelings about it are important in this regard: “He saw loving aunts, dignified fathers, gregarious mothers, grandfathers, grandmothers, and an indefinite number of children” (583)572. The atmosphere leads to a moment of introspection: “These people’s happiness pleased Mevlut. Human beings were made to be happy, honest, and open” (583)573. Despite the melancholy of nostalgia the passage leaves optimistic feelings, as it stresses that there are still large families out there enjoying a holiday altogether. The imagery in Mevlut’s dream is another detail reinforcing the nostalgia in the ending of the novel. As explained above, he sees Rayiha in an old mansion, which is one of the ultimate symbols of the picturesque old Istanbul. He cannot reach her in the dream, as the streets he walks keep changing. This theme of constant changing and the impossibility to find the beloved waiting in the old mansion is obviously connected with his love for an Istanbul which is fading away, indeed which has mostly faded. The setting of the very last scene of the novel is a street around Feriköy extending to Haliç, the Golden Horn. These streets are at an intersecting point where Muslim and non-Muslim neighbourhoods meet. They are places which have not been completely destroyed by the urban transformation yet, and still have a touch of the old Istanbul feeling. Mevlut’s final words, which are also the final words of the novel, are his declaration of love for Rayiha, who is no longer in this world. Put simply, the novel ends with a longing for a bygone past: bygone good old days with Rayiha, in a bygone

571 “Bu kuleler, betonlar arasında kim alır deme” (466). 572 “Şefkatli teyzeler, makul babalar, geveze anneler, dedeler, nineler ve sayısız çocuk gördü"(466). 573 “Mevlut onların mutluluğundan sevinç duydu. İnsanlar mutlu, dürüst, açık olmak için yaratılmışlardı” (466). 259

Istanbul. The Istanbul Mevlut shared with Rayiha has also almost disappeared; however, Mevlut is tracking its remnants in old streets of the city which are still, albeit barely, alive. This is not the Istanbul where Rayiha once existed. Or Rayiha no longer exists in a changed Istanbul. It is difficult to dissect which comes first, just the way it is difficult for Mevlut to dissect the realm in his mind from the realm in which he lives. To sum up, as Strangeness ends with depictions of Mevlut’s great love for Istanbul, the idea of the right to the city flowing throughout the novel is emphasised. The city belongs to those who are able to appreciate its beauty and heritage. The right to the city does not simply comprise material necessities, it includes the right to experience the city as oeuvre. The first condition for this is to be able to establish a life in the centre of the city. If the city centre gets covered with more concrete, more towers, hotels and plazas, there will be no way for the poor to live and spend time in the city centre; in other words, to inhabit the city, and to experience the city as oeuvre.

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PART VI - CONCLUSION

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CHAPTER 15

Conclusion and Final Remarks The objective of this dissertation was identifying a certain vein within modern Turkish novel: the right to the city novels. This group of novels, certain examples of which have been analysed in the previous pages, has in their core the idea of the right to the city; more specifically, ‘non-Istanbulites’ right to the city of Istanbul. As explained above, what makes a novel a right to the city novel is not simply the presence of themes related to the right to the city. All the novels in the corpus treat certain themes directly connected with the right to the city, sometimes with the materialistic aspect of the right to the city, mainly through the issue of immigrants’ survival strategies; and sometimes with its more philosophical dimension, that of inhabiting the city. The point of rural to urban immigrants’ process of becoming urbanites also comes to the fore as a highly significant theme in the novels analysed. On the other hand, immigrants’ potential as agents of change in the city towards the implementation of the right to the city through urban social movements does not appear as a theme in the novels, in other words immigrants are depicted as laying claim to the city simply through their quite encroachment. In any case, there is no prescription for what makes a novel a right to the city novel. The idea of the right to the city must run throughout the whole work in its themes and motifs, as well as in its form, in such a way that immigrants’ presence, as well as their struggle for survival in the city feels legitimate when the reader reads them. Put simply, the right to the city indicates the philosophical stance of these novels rather than a theme or a group of themes. In this dissertation, it is also argued that this group of works identified as the right to the city novels is a counterpoint to the old-Istanbul nostalgia novels in Turkish literature. Similar to the way the old-Istanbul nostalgia novels create the feeling that Istanbul belongs to old-Istanbulites, the right to the city novels give the message that Istanbul belongs to everyone who comes and lives in this city. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that, in the novels of the corpus, the issue of the urbanisation of immigrants is sometimes more explicitly and/or deeply problematised than their right to the city. This is so because, only if the difficulties of adapting to urban life through the constant striving for survival, the pains of being excluded, the distresses of being caught between a rural and urban culture, the arduousness of acquiring new values and perspective, in short, the hardship of adopting an urban identity are appreciated can it be possible to look at immigrants’ presence in the city through the perspective of the right to the city. 262

Below, the novels are briefly compared with each other in terms of their main stylistics features as well as their elaboration of the idea of the right to the city.

15.1 A Brief Comparison in Terms of Central Formal and Stylistic Features The language of the narrator and the language of the characters tell us a lot about the novels’ stance on topics related to the idea of the right to the city. In Birds and Bulls, the narrator’s language is colloquial and in the dialogues dialect is used. Hills and Roman(i) are highly unique in terms of style, since in these two novels the language of the narrators and the characters is not disparate. In the former, words from various dialects appear in the narration, while in the latter the narrator uses slang just like the characters of the novel. With the use of such authentic language, the two novels are similar to each other and have a special place in modern Turkish literature. In Periphery, the narrator uses colloquial language, and in the few dialogues of the novel, dialect is seen. Similarly, in Kinds, the narrator uses colloquial language, and dialect as well as a couple of instances of slang appear in the novel. In this novel, adages have an important place in one of the central characters’ speeches. In Strangeness, the narrator uses colloquial language, while in the dialogues, dialect is not used. In fact, among all the novels, only in Strangeness are the dialects found in characters’ speech not heard. All the novels in the corpus are narrated in the third-person except some parts of Strangeness. For the most part, the narration comes to the fore as a significant formal element in the novels, as a manifestation of their stance about immigrants’ right to the city, their adaptation to urban life, and other related themes. In Birds, in most of the novel, the narrator appears as a marked one, with his commentary and non-neutral adjectives. Here, the narrator’s use of adjectives and comments reflects the novel’s message that an immigrant must try hard to become an urbanite. The use of double-voiced discourse throughout the novel is noteworthy as a fresh strategy to emphasise urbanites’ prejudice towards and discrimination against immigrants. This novel, where traits of socialist realism can be detected, seems to have urbanites as well as immigrants as its target audience. In fact, this is the sole novel in the corpus which seems to have been written for new immigrants as well as for urbanites. The narrator of Bulls is also a marked one. Hills’s narrator is unmarked, and the narration in this novel draws our attention with the fact that, while all the other novels in the corpus are somewhere between authorial and figural narration, this novel employs authorial narration with no reflector characters at all. Roman(i) is different from Hills in this regard, since it has a marked narrator. In Periphery, the narrator’s presence is strongly felt, and it is almost 263 impossible to differentiate him from the central character. In Kinds, which has a marked narrator, figural narration is dominant and reflector characters change in different chapters. Strangeness is notable for its narration, since in this novel, the task of narration is shared between the narrator and some characters. Most of the time, the narrator appears as an unmarked one who does not reveal his views or comments on events. In terms of setting, only in Bulls and Strangeness proper depictions of the home village appear, while in Birds the village is depicted very briefly as a grim place. In Bulls, the countryside is represented as having a unique charm despite the difficulties of life there, while in Strangeness, depictions of rural Anatolia are neutral. In Periphery, rather than depictions of the home villages of the characters, various stories, almost all of them connected with depopulation, are told in a neutral manner. In Birds, Periphery and Strangeness, the setting is mainly different parts of the city. Especially in the latter two, Istanbul’s numerous districts appear as part of their protagonists’ spatial environment. Bulls is primarily set on the building site where Halo and İdiris work. Hills is set entirely in the imaginary neighbourhood of Flower Hill. Roman(i) is mainly set in the imaginary Kolera, but some areas in the city centre also appear in it. In both of these novels, the neighbourhood where the characters live appears like a character in the novel. Kinds is also mainly set in Kozluk, but some other parts of the city also appear in it. The novels in the corpus have different stylistic features that merit attention. Among all the novels, Hills is the most experimental one with its episodic structure. Magical realist elements also add to the stylistic originality of this novel. Roman(i) is noteworthy for the use of slang in narration. Periphery is also unique in the way it is not plot-centred. This novel makes great use of imagery and atmosphere to emphasise the difficulty of life for those left on the periphery of the city, as well as the chaos of the city. Strangeness stands out for the way it develops its protagonist Mevlut as the most idiosyncratic immigrant character in the modern Turkish novel. Kinds is original in the way it utilises flashbacks and digressions. Although Birds and Bulls do not experiment with form and/or style, both of them deserve appraisal as examples of mastery in dialogues.

15.2 A Brief Comparison in Terms of Central Themes As explained earlier, the idea of the right to the city constitutes the main philosophical stance of the novels in the corpus running through their various themes and motifs. In addition to that, in the novels various themes directly related to the right to the city appear at certain times. Below, the novels are compared briefly, first in terms of the ways they treat themes 264 directly related to the right to the city, appearing mainly through the issue of immigrants’ survival strategies. Next, they are compared in terms of immigrants’ process of becoming urbanites. The novels’ approach to immigrants’ laying claim to the city is briefly reviewed after that.

15.2.1 The Right to the City as an Explicit Theme In the novels, the right to the city as an explicit theme is primarily elaborated through the issue of immigrants’ survival strategies in Istanbul. The right to housing developed over the motif of the shanty constitutes the most significant aspect of the theme. The very closure of Birds is set during the demolishing of the shantytown where Memed and Ayşe live, ending with Ayşe’s words to her devastated husband: “We will build again, we will build another one!”574 (372) This ending does not need much explanation: the novel ends with an emphasis on immigrants’ determination to stay in Istanbul, and a shanty appears as the only solution to the housing problem for the time being. In Bulls, Idiris who gets married in Istanbul moves into a shanty. The main setting of Hills is a shantytown, with the fact of it being a shanty at the very centre of the novel. In this book, the demolition of the houses and the immigrants’ stubborn dedication to rebuilding them is a central subject. Rebuilding a house over and over again sounds almost impossible for people who are not familiar with the shanty phenomenon, and the novel bases its formal approach on that fact by elaborating this theme through a magic realist approach. In Periphery, shanty is stressed as the main type of housing for immigrants, and it is implied as a form of habitation in harmony with nature. Kinds is set in an ex- shantytown on the periphery where Zümrüt, one of the central characters, feels nostalgia for the shanty days, because of the living it offered connected with the soil and greenery. In Strangeness, the shanty phenomenon has a significant place with its long history until urban transformation takes place. This book also develops the topic of the experience of a radical left group rescuing a shantytown from the hegemony of the mafia. In these novels, shanty housing is depicted as a legitimate and inevitable solution in the absence of a housing policy by the state, and the theme of shanty as commodity does not appear in them. The only novel in the corpus which is not set in a current or former shantytown is Roman(i). Kolera, the setting of this novel, is a poor neighbourhood in the city centre, with an overall different identity and character from shantytowns, as discussed in the analysis of the novel. Here, immigrants live in rundown apartment buildings evacuated by the non-Muslim minority. The Dolapdere-Tarlabaşı neighbourhood, the inspiration for Kolera, appears in Strangeness as

574 “Gene yaparık, yenisini yaparık!” 265 well. In these two novels, it is possible to find an echo of the right to the city of another group, that of the minority, albeit in a very implicit way. The Tarlabaşı area in Roman(i) is in many ways different from the Tarlabaşı area of Strangeness. In the latter, Tarlabaşı hosts a significant number of the Kurdish population who fled to the city as a result of involuntary migration, which is not the case in the former. However, in both of the novels it is a place where law-abiding citizens, as well as men and women involved in various degrees of crime, live side by side. In Roman(i) those who have a connection with criminal acts such as drugs or prostitution are not stigmatised. They are portrayed in a manner that calls for empathy. In the novel, people are not categorised based on their ties with criminal behaviour, but simply as good or bad people. The main difference in the approaches of the two novels to this place is that, in Roman(i) the Tarlabaşı area, in the guise of Kolera, has its charm in terms of being an edgy neighbourhood. In Strangeness, on the other hand, this dimension of Tarlabaşı is regarded rather negatively. The theme of urban rent enters all the novels of the corpus, particularly through the topic of the shanty. The transformation of shanty houses to apartment buildings is mentioned in Periphery and Kinds. In the former, the ex-shantytown of İncirköy is depicted as a place with a plastic modern façade, while in the latter after the Kozluk Center is built, prices in that area go up, a detail depicting the power of urban rent even in this remote periphery ex- shantytown. The theme of urban rent is included in Roman(i) through the powerful motif of the open-air cinema in the neighbourhood turned into a car-park by men with mafia connections. Urban transformation, the main attack on the right to the city in today’s Istanbul, appears in Periphery, and in a highly central position, in Strangeness. In Periphery, the removal of industry from the Kazlıçeşme area, in the guise of Taşlıbağ, signals the first steps of urban transformation. The space left behind by the factories is depicted as an empty lot creating a ghost-town atmosphere. In Strangeness, urban transformation appears with two central tenets: the transformation of shantytowns and the transformation of Tarlabaşı. The former is elaborated through the developments in the imaginary Kültepe and surrounds, while the latter enters the novel with the transformation in Tarlabaşı. The massive rent increase involved in the Tarlabaşı transformation project is given direct expression in Strangeness, in a documentary-like manner, as the reader learns from Mevlut all the main facts about the project. The treatment of urban transformation in the novel seems to be closely linked with the zeitgeist of the times. While in Periphery it is only pointed out, in Strangeness, written in the post-Gezi period, urban transformation appears as a major issue. 266

It should also be noted that urban social movements do not appear as a theme in the novels. In Hills, some protests about the lack of municipality services enter the story but rather than acts forming part of an urban social movement they are depicted as isolated incidents.

15.2.2 Immigrants Becoming Urbanites The question of the urbanity of the new Istanbulite is a theme appearing both in the novels focusing on the first and the second generation immigrants. In Birds, the first step to becoming an urbanite is becoming literate, getting involved with written culture. The novel also implies that immigrants in the city will become urbanites as they become a part of the working class, if they adopt an urban working class culture within an awareness of class relations. Self-employed immigrants such as Memed should also be in solidarity with the working-class, the novel implies, which not only protects them from capitalist exploitation but also shows the way for them to become urbanites. In Bulls, no road map to becoming an urbanite is implied. When it comes to Strangeness, unlike Birds, what turns an immigrant into an urbanite is not socially based. In both novels, having a mentor in the city who can lead the way to a left-wing identity for the immigrant protagonist appears as an important theme. However, while in Birds Kastamonulu has a significant influence over Memed, Ferhat’s inspiration in Mevlut’s life does not last for long in Strangeness. In Birds, there is a minor but important character, the leftist teacher who is a neighbour of Memed and Ayşe in their shantytown, and this person inspires Memed to keep a distance from the D.P. and defend his rights, while no such case is valid for Mevlut. The difference in the functions of the mentor/role-model characters in the two novels is in line with the approach of the two novels to what makes an urbanite. Pamuk does not base the process of Mevlut, a self-employed man like Memed, becoming an urbanite on his connection with the working class. The way Mevlut is depicted as an urbanite is through something from the heart, something personal and slightly mystical, unlike Memed whose urban identity is based on the social. The new Istanbulite’s connection with the city from the heart comes to the fore as a significant theme in Roman(i) as well. Gıli’s admiration for the old buildings in his neighbourhood, which has an impressive cosmopolitan legacy, signals his bond with the city as oeuvre. In the way Mevlut loves Istanbul and urban life, he is parallel to Gıli who has a desire for the city cultivated by its residents. In Periphery, the protagonist who is described as an alienated figure has a bond with the city through his endless strolls. In this novel, there are various working class characters, as well as those who are self-employed. In Periphery, there is no 267 direction towards an urban identity for the elderly members of the family. The shantytown is reminiscent of a village for them, where they continue their rural habits. The first generation immigrants in the book have close kinship relations and ties based on their town of origin. The novel does not have a clear message on whether they are urbanites or not. However, in depictions of the main character, and in the story of the son of their relatives, the engineer boy who is very detached from his family and relatives, it is possible to find the implication of a disconnection between the first and second generation immigrants, since the latter are inclined to looser kinship ties and a more individual way of being. In this novel, it is possible to find an implicit criticism of a monotype urbanity the immigrants are expected to adopt; the novel does not disdain immigrants as peasants in the city. Such a criticism is much more explicit in Hills. The novel also implies that for those who cannot survive in the city, the path to petty crime is fairly short. A similar message can be found in Kinds as well. In the corpus, the characters of the novels through whom the theme of becoming an urbanite is expressed are mostly men. Therefore, it can be useful to look at the issue through a comparison between male and female immigrants’ process of becoming urbanites. The issue of immigrant women in the city being employed as domestic help enters Birds, since Ayşe works as a maid in a mansion for a long time. After she gets married, she starts working in a factory. This is very much in line with the novel’s stance on immigrants becoming members of the working class in their journey to an urban identity. Ayşe eventually leaves work to keep an eye on their half-built shanty. Although she is portrayed as a thoroughly strong woman, this strength is not particularly connected with an urban way of being; such strong characters might also appear in village novels as strong peasant women. The novel ends before the reader learns if in the long-run Ayşe will go back to work, create strong ties with the working class, develop class consciousness and become an urbanite through a working class member identity. This is true for Memed as well; his road seems to go that way, but the novel ends before the result is revealed. In this sense, the novel seems to regard the journey to an urban identity through the same route for men and women with equal importance. In Bulls, immigrant men and women in Istanbul are depicted as cunning people. The novel does not problematise the issue of how to become an urbanite, for men or women. It simply depicts those who have been in the city for a while as having learned how to be cunning. In Strangeness, Mevlut’s daughter, Fatma is the only person in the second generation who gets into university. Furthermore, Fatma is the only person who Mevlut admires for having an urban identity and way of life. This is a highly significant implication of the novel in terms of the gender dimension of the urban identity. Additionally, Samiha works as a domestic help 268 which takes her out of her home into the city and enables her to create a bond with the city. This bond of hers with the city is similar to Mevlut’s in many ways, as she adores the rhythm and liveliness of the city. In this regard, the novel presents one mutual route for men and women alike on their way to becoming urbanites: a bond with the city and urban life from the heart. In Roman(i), some women in Kolera are outdoors as much as the men are. These are strong women with a Kolerite identity, which is an urban identity. On the other hand, the wives of first generation immigrants are portrayed as peasant women who are locked indoors. The novel seems to imply that in Kolera, immigrant women who remain indoors are sentenced to stay as peasants, while women who become urbanites are close to an edgy way of life, like Tina or ‘the senior sisters’. In other words, this novel implies that urbanity comes with a price which is higher for women than for men. On the other hand, Periphery emphasises that, in the urban context, not much changes in the lives of women in terms of their slave-like labour, inside and outside the home. Hills depicts, realistically, how urban life encourages women to be vocal about their needs, for instance emotional needs such as love and sensuality, and how difficult it is to get close to any sort of gain line, since the patriarchal system is not any less powerful in the city than in the countryside. The book also develops the theme of consumerist obsessions in the urban context, depicting women’s vulnerability in this respect. Similarly, in Kinds the female characters seem to equate the urban identity with urban consumption habits, with the Kozluk Center standing as a powerful image at the very heart of the novel. With its sarcasm, the book makes the reader think of the incredible number of women trying to adopt an urban identity through their consumerist habits, turning unnecessary products into fetishes. Individuality is an issue very much connected with adopting an urban identity since the city is the place where one has much more opportunity to search for her/his self than would be possible in the country. Becoming an individual requires a different sort of relationship with family members and relatives than would be expected in the rural context. The father and son relationship against the background of the immigration experience in Birds, Bulls and Strangeness must be examined within this framework. In Birds, Memed comes to Istanbul all by himself and manages to stand on his own two feet in the city, which makes his father jealous. He becomes a literate person on his way to an urban identity and unlike his father he keeps his dignity. With all these traits, Memed, a role model for all immigrants, manages to gain independence from his father’s authority in the urban setting, which contributes to his becoming an adult, an independent individual. In Bulls, the positive character is the father who goes back to his village. His son İdiris, the new Istanbulite, breaks 269 his bond with him, but not in search of his self; therefore he becomes dependent on new people. In Strangeness, Mevlut comes to the city with the support of his father and when he reaches his mid-teens, he starts searching for his identity away from the protective wings of his father, he becomes an adult and an individual in the city. In these three novels on first generation immigrants, there is a certain dissolution of family ties which implies the individualistic dimension of urban life. In the novels dealing with second-generation immigrants, the father and son relationship theme continues. In Roman(i), Gıli and Reco rebel against their father and leave home in order to search for their identity. In fact, this is an archetypal story: one leaves home in order to find his/her identity. However, the novel implies that living in the city makes such a quest more accessible and rational. In Periphery, where various father and son stories are told, family ties and kinship relations are depicted as the central solidarity network of immigrants in Istanbul. The central character is portrayed as stuck between close family ties, which he feels alienated to, and the atomised individuals of a not well-developed urban life. In Kinds, instead of the father and son conflict, there is the tension between older and younger siblings: between Elmas and Zümrüt, and between Coşkun and Cavit. All these conflicts have an urban context, since the possibility of individualisation in urban life clashes with rural perceptions of family and relative ties.

15.2.3 Immigrants Laying Claim to the City As discussed above immigrants’ quiet encroachment in the city as a survival strategy comes to the fore as a significant theme in the novels. The encroachment onto land by building shanties appears in all the novels of the corpus. Certainly, the novel in which life in a shanty has the most significant place is Hills. It has an important presence in Birds as well, particularly in its ending. The final part of this novel emphasises the fragility of life in a shanty for those immigrants who are on the wrong side of power relations. Vending on streets, another form of quiet encroachment, appears as a central issue in Strangeness; while many of the characters in the novels in the corpus are depicted as part of the informal economy in the city. The idea of the right to the city does not appear in any of the novels of the corpus as an explicit call for urban movements. In Birds, there is the message that immigrants will eventually be part of the proletariat in the city, and will participate in the class struggle. However, the novel implies that until that happens immigrants are expected to survive in the city through their quiet encroachment. In none of the novels do urban movements appear as a theme, in connection with immigrants’ struggle for survival in the city. There are a couple of 270 odd instances where a remote reference to urban movements can be seen, such as the protest of the Flower Hill people against the shanty demolition in Hills, and the fictionalised story of Gazi in Strangeness; and that is all there is in this sense. Immigrants are not portrayed as agents of the city who can get organised and act together to change their living conditions in the city and to get their rights to shelter, health and education, to municipal services and so forth. The novels do not give the message that immigrants in the city are a potential force who can change urban life through urban movements.

15.3 Some Similar Motifs in the Novels The similarity of certain motifs in the novels of the corpus, directly or indirectly related to the idea of the right to the city is worthy of attention. For instance, the Haydarpaşa Train Station, the utmost symbol in the iconography related to immigration to Istanbul, both in literature and the cinema, appears both in Birds and Strangeness, creating a similar feeling. The way the immigrant characters are intimidated by this magnificent building creates the same feelings in both novels. In the use of this imagery in Strangeness, it is possible to find an intertextual reference to Birds. The appearance of the food motif in Strangeness resembles the same motif in Bulls. In both novels, details of the poor man’s meal, the way it is prepared and eaten with hungry relish invites feelings of affection. As an example of immigrants’ exclusion from the public realm the motif of the immigrant in the public transport appears in three novels focusing on first generation immigrants: Birds, Bulls and Strangeness. In these novels, the faulty behaviour of immigrants results in the overreaction of fellow passengers and people in charge. Narrated in a neutral manner, such depictions create a tendency in the reader to sympathise with the immigrant character. Street animals, particularly dogs, have a significant place in two of the novels of the corpus: Periphery and Strangeness. In the former, they are mostly depicted as sympathetic beings, whose right to life is violated by the human-centred urban environment, while in the latter they feature as one of the threats in the city for lonely people, particularly in the night time. The similar motif of two immigrant men exploring Istanbul together after having spent some years in the city, Cafer and Cemal in Kinds and Mevlut and Sadullah in Strangeness, appears like an allusion to appreciating the city as oeuvre. Another interesting similarity between these two novels is in terms of setting: they both end on a religious holiday when the characters are in a good mood, optimistic about the future. 271

The spread of political Islam in shantytowns after the 1990s does not appear as an important subject in any of the novels. There is just the fact that cunning religious men unrelated to the political dimension of Islam appear in some of them. In Birds, there is Hacı Emmi, who gains the trust of people with his religious discourse and uses this trust to rip off naïve immigrants. In Bulls, there is no reference to positive or negative examples of religious characters. In Hills while Güllü Baba, a holy man who is believed to have supernatural power is portrayed as a positive figure, the muezzin is portrayed as a con-man. In Roman(i) religious people in the neighbourhood, called softa, are depicted as horrible people who do not have anything to do with the positive traits of Islam. In Kinds, Coşkun meets Duran Kumandan in the jail, is fascinated with his religious talks, and regards him as his mentor. In fact, Duran Kumandan is a man who has been in trouble for sexual harassment. In Strangeness, Hacı Hamit Vural, a cunning man who makes a massive fortune, first through his mafia connections and later using his power to get the best from the urban transformation going on in Kültepe and the surrounding area, is a man who has actually completed the hajj. In this novel, a religious order and its followers also appear. The leader of this religious order is portrayed rather neutrally, while the atmosphere of the religious order, e.g. the ways the followers behave towards each other, is implied to be not as selfless as its discourse argues. This religious order motif obviously does not tell much about the spread of political Islam in shantytowns. What is depicted in the novel is a less political and more spiritual organization in Fatih, an old and established conservative neighbourhood of Istanbul. Put simply, in most of the novels of the corpus, religious figures are described as potential exploiters of immigrants in their quest for a place in the city. Another similarity between two of the novels in the corpus that is worth mentioning is the similarity between Periphery and Hills in terms of their choice not to focus on central characters. In Periphery, only the main character is introduced in depth, while in Hills there is no central character. As mentioned above, both of these novels take a critical stance on a monolithic understanding of who is an urbanite. Such a formal choice not to develop characters in the novels, with an emphasis on the bonds within immigrant communities, might be interpreted as an implication of the route to an alternative urban identity which does not dismiss such bonds altogether. All these novels, in this or that way, aim to show the immigration experience from the side of immigrants. To the readers who don’t have any idea about the feeling of exclusion in the streets of the city or the difficulties of life in a shanty, or the troubles of a street vendor or a builder, these novels speak on behalf of those who experience this rough side of urban life. 272

These novels make immigrants visible, and encourage feelings of empathy in the readers. Depicting why, how and under which conditions they migrate, these novels legitimise the presence of immigrants in the city against the elitist discourse which correlates all urban problems with the arrival of immigrants. However, this is only one side of the coin. On the other side, the issue gets more complicated. This complex dimension of the issue comes to the fore in Strangeness, the time period of which comes very close to the present day. As mentioned earlier, the protagonist of Strangeness is Mevlut, an immigrant who came to the city at the end of the 1970s. For Mevlut and immigrants like him, the novel’s sympathetic approach regarding the right to the city as discussed above is valid. The novel emphasises that there is no monotype Istanbulite, there are various types of Istanbulites and the city belongs to all types of people who have established their lives in this city. However, although not very explicit, there are two groups of immigrants in this novel because of the time span it covers. Those immigrants like Mevlut, and other protagonists in the other novels of the corpus, have come to the city before the globalisation process. For those who arrived in the city after the 1990s, and especially after the 2000s, in many ways it was a more difficult city. In this corpus, rural to urban immigrants in the process of industrial agriculture and their children as the second and third generations in the city were under the spotlight. Set after 2000, in Periphery and Kinds, signs of the new poverty are included, albeit in an implicit way. For instance, while İncirköy appears at least historically as a working class neighbourhood, Kozluk is depicted as a place where many unemployed people live. This situation is more explicit in Strangeness, in which immigrants who come to the city after the 1990s appear explicitly. Extremely poor people do not enter the book as individual characters, but their presence is mentioned various times in the book (T:387; E:481). Mevlut looks at them and regards them as strange people. As a person who has migrated to the city a long time ago, he does not feel any similarity with them. These are people who live on the extreme outskirts of the city, who make their lives mostly by recycling household waste. The novel, through Mevlut’s perspective, isolates them. In other words, a dichotomy between the immigrants of the past, and the immigrants of the present, i.e. after the neo-liberal and global city, can be found in the novel. Therefore, an implicit exclusion of these new immigrants can be felt. Mevlut, who is portrayed as an immigrant who becomes an urbanite, therefore a new Istanbulite, seems alienated when he sees the new immigrants who have come to the city after the 1990s and the 2000s. In a probably unintentional way, the novel replaces prejudice against the immigrants of the past with prejudice against the immigrants of the present. These people 273

Mevlut observes and finds strange are not the Kurdish immigrants he meets in Tarlabaşı, but people who live in very faraway places. Mevlut does not associate them with crime. However, the times which Gürbilek describes as “the climate when urban poverty was not thought with danger or crime, but with innocence”575 (Sessizin Payı 64) are long gone.

15.4 Some Notes on Literature Mediating Reality As discussed in the literary theoretical chapter, not only the social context influences cultural and artistic products but the opposite is also true: there are times when these products influence the social context. Certainly, concrete analysis of reader response is out of the scope of this dissertation. Such an analysis would require surveys and in-depth conversations with a representative group of readers. What is discussed here in terms of literature mediating reality is simply based on observable facts. We all see that Tekin and Kaçan produced novels based on their own experience. Such a fact changes people’s ideas on immigrants in the city. It shows that immigrants can become novelists, artists and so forth. Or when Pamuk creates a character like Mevlut, an immigrant becomes a Pamukite character alongside his pantheon comprising old-Istanbulite characters. This gives a certain message, which has a potential influence on readers, and this influence has the potential to transform, to a certain extent, perspectives regarding the immigrants in the city. Here, simply, this potential is discussed; to prove it and to assess it would be the subject of further research. All the novels in this corpus, to a certain extent, influence the public perception regarding immigrants. Hills and Roman(i), for instance, two powerful novels based on insiders’ experience, broke the elitist hegemony in literature and set the stage for immigrants to speak for themselves. Furthermore, reaching thousands of readers, they proved that immigrants were not simply the labour force in the city, they could also be part of the urban social fabric as artists and authors who could present a unique picture of urban life. In this sense, they proved the possibility of multiple/alternative urban identities with their work as well as with the way they are as individuals. Periphery, which is also based on insiders’ experience can be regarded as a different version of this category. Hills and Roman(i) were the voice of the voiceless, with their characters inspired by people with no formal education. The knowledge of life in these books comes from experience. Periphery combines this sort of insiders’ perspective with knowledge that comes from formal education. That said, it has never become a popular book like Hills and Roman(i), so its influence has been limited to literary circles. Certainly, Periphery being ‘a difficult read’ is a factor in this respect. On the

575 “Kent yoksulluğunun henüz tehlike ya da suçla değil, masumlukla bir arada düşünülebildiği bir iklimden” 274 other hand, Roman(i), which is short and easy to read, unsurprisingly reached a wide audience. Its film adaptation, which is a work of popular cinema, also motivated more people to read the novel. The popularity of Hills, on the other hand, can be connected with the times it was published: in the first half of the 1980s, before television dramas dominated free-time activities; when literature, primarily novels, still had a significant place in culture. The manner and degree of influence of the novels of the corpus written from an outsider’s perspective, Birds, Bulls, Kinds and Strangeness, have all been different from each other. Birds has always been one of the most popular texts about rural to urban migration in Turkey. Bulls has also attracted attention: it reached eight editions over the course of thirty- five years, and it was adapted into a television drama in 1979, six years after its first publication576. Both of these books were based on a humanist approach. They included sympathy for immigrants, and Birds combined this with expectations of immigrants’ adopting an urban identity. Kinds, written towards the end of the 2000s, brought the subject of varoş to the literary agenda. As a matter of fact, it has been described as “masterly telling the life in varoşs” (Celal “Edebiyatta 2008’den”) as mentioned earlier. The novel, which was also interesting for telling the story of two women against the background of the periphery of Istanbul, had made a second impression on the year of its publication. The final novel in the corpus written from an outsider’s perspective is Strangeness, whose influence is worth a close look. Strangeness, like all Pamuk novels, has attracted a great deal of attention both on the national and the international scale. Until this novel, Pamuk was an author who wrote about old-Istanbulites. With this novel, he made an unexpected move by putting a new Istanbulite, a rural to urban immigrant, at the centre of his novel. The primary message of the novel was that an example of the rural to urban immigrants, who were despised by the elite for having invaded the city, could love and appreciate Istanbul in a way that many old-Istanbulites would never be able to do. The characterisation of Mevlut in the novel as an immigrant in Istanbul who adores every single trace of history in the city, and the details of its cosmopolitan past, constantly emphasises this point. In other words, the novel stresses the possibility of multiple urbanities. Of course, one with a cynical perspective can find a ‘snobbish modesty’ in this gesture, and argue that Pamuk, as a genuine Istanbulite, finds in himself the authority to legitimise the place of an immigrant in the city and define him/her as an Istanbulite. To

576 The television drama series Uncle Halo and Two Bulls was screened on Sundays on TRT (1979), to the great interest of televiewers. Kamran Usluer acted the role of Halo, while Rüştü Asyalı acted the role of İdiris in the series (Vardan). 275 defend Pamuk against such an argument is out of the scope of this work. In any case, whichever way one looks at it, the participation of a character such as Mevlut in the pantheon of Pamuk’s novelistic characters is an important development counter to the prejudice against new Istanbulites. On the other hand, as mentioned above, the novel’s positive approach is limited to those immigrants for whom the city was in some ways an easier place to survive. The sympathetic tone towards them in the narration is not valid for those immigrants of the globalising Istanbul who find themselves in the vicious circle of urban poverty. Time will tell whether some day a significant novel with such characters will be written, and if it is written, what sort of an influence it will have on public perception regarding the urban poor in the city.

15.5 Final Remarks Although internal migration in Turkey never actually stopped, it is no longer a social phenomenon like it was in the 1950s and the following two decades. There should be mention here of the arrival of a substantial number of Kurdish immigrants fleeing from Eastern Anatolia in the 1990s. These involuntary migrants, however, never appeared as a topic in Turkish novels. By the end of the 1990s, Istanbul had become a city receiving international migrants as well: from the Turkic Republics, from Africa, Armenia and so forth. Since 2013, the arrival of Syrian refugees in the city has become the most important topic related to the issue of migration. Time will tell how these developments will inspire literary works. Orhan Pamuk’s novel A Strangeness in My Mind is the latest significant novel with a first generation rural to urban immigrant protagonist in Istanbul to date. It is impossible to predict whether there will be other authors in the future writing on this subject. Rural to urban migration as a topic for novels seems to have passed its heyday long ago, in the 1970s. The topic of ‘peasants in the city’ searching for their daily bread has been replaced by the that of the lives of second or later generation immigrants in shantytowns or poor neighbourhoods in the centre of the city. With a protagonist who moves to Istanbul from rural Anatolia for economic reasons at the end of the 1970s, Strangeness is a rural to urban migration novel. Pamuk, in this book, made a journey back in literary history, and brought a forgotten topic back to the 2010s. However, as the novel expands its story through the decades, it also, in certain respects, becomes a novel of life in shantytowns and poor neighbourhoods, and life touching the stories of second-generation immigrants such as Mevlut’s and his cousin’s children. Therefore, it can be included both in first- and second-generation immigrant novels. However, the scope of topics in Strangeness is not limited to pre-existing categories. It in fact 276 brings new dimensions to the novel about immigrants in Istanbul by introducing various topics which either did not appear or appeared very briefly in the earlier novels in the corpus. First of all, it is an important point that Kurdish immigrants’ appearance in the city as a result of involuntary migration enters the novel. Urban poverty in Istanbul also has a place in Strangeness. The popularisation of Islamism, which briefly appears in Kinds with the character of Duran Kumandan, has a rather visible presence in Strangeness. Globalisation and the arrival of international immigrants which were dealt with in Periphery have a certain place in Pamuk’s novel as well. Most important of all, urban transformation, which is briefly touched on in Periphery, has a rather central place in Strangeness. In other words, by bringing these issues into his novel, Pamuk in a way, signals the new directions that right to the city novels can head from now on. Today rural to urban migration in Istanbul is not a phenomenon anymore, but there are various groups of people in the city facing similar problems to those experienced by rural to urban immigrants in the earlier decades. In benefiting from understanding the past in order to understand the present, works of culture and arts can offer a great deal. If reflecting on the right to the city novels can help us think about the current urban life through the perspective of the right to the city, it will certainly be rewarding for people from all walks of life.

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APPENDIX

Short biographic info on the authors of the novels in the corpus Orhan Kemal: Orhan Kemal, whose real name is Mehmet Raşit Öğütçü was born in 1914 in Adana (Çakıroğlu, “Orhan Kemal” 626). He is one of the most significant and prolific authors of realism and socialist realism in Turkey. He moved from poetry to prose with Nazım Hikmet’s recommendation (626). He wrote screenplays for movies as well (626). He had received various national awards (Çakıroğlu 628-629). His books have been translated into various languages including Russian, Urdu and Spanish (“O. Kemal Yurtdışında”). He died in 1970 in Sofia, Bulgaria (Çakıroğlu 626). A novel award carrying his name is being given since 1972 (“Orhan Kemal” Gurbet Kuşları).

Muzaffer İzgü: He was born in 1933 in Adana (“M. İzgü Turkey” 49). He is one of the most important satirists of Turkey. He is also an acclaimed author of children and teens’ books. He has more than one hundred published books, including novels and short stories (49). He has received various national and international awards (Çakıroğlu, “Muzaffer İzgü” 448). He has been nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2010 in the author category (Bookbird 49). Some of his books have been translated into German and Macedonian (Çakıroğlu 448). A collection of his short-stories has appeared in English under the title of Radical Niyazi Bey. He lives in Izmir.

Latife Tekin: She was born in the Karacafenk village of Kayseri (“Latife Tekin” Muinar). She is an acclaimed author, both in the national and international scale, with her unique style. She has eight novels as well as a memoir published, and a script she wrote has been filmed. She has received various national awards (“Latife Tekin”, “PEN Duygu”, “Mersin Kenti”). Her books have been translated into various languages including Dutch, Persian (“Back Cover”) as well as Japanese (Kawade). She lives in Gümüşlük, Bodrum on the Aegean coast of Turkey.

Metin Kaçan: He was born in a town of Kayseri in 1961 (Çakıroğlu, “Metin Kaçan” 451). He received critical acclaim and reader interest as an idiosyncratic author. He had two novels and two short story books published; he was also the co-author of a graphic novel about glue-sniffer 278 homeless children. His work appeared in German (Kaçan Cholera Blues). He committed suicide in 2013 by jumping off the Bosporus Bridge in Istanbul.

Ayhan Geçgin: He was born in 1970 in Istanbul (“Ayhan Geçgin” 1). He has four novels published all of which have received significant critical acclaim. He lives in Istanbul.

Hatice Meryem: She was born in 1968 in Istanbul (“Hatice Meryem” 2). She has one novel, three short-story books as well as one poetry-prose cross-over narrative book published. Her work appeared in various languages (2). Her books receive a growing critical acclaim and reader interest. She lives in Istanbul.

Orhan Pamuk: He was born in 1952, in Istanbul (“Orhan Pamuk” 1). He has ten novels as well as various memoirs and selections of essays published, and a script he wrote has been filmed (1). From his first novel on he received enormous critical acclaim as well as widespread interest from readers. He has received numerous national and international awards including the Nobel Prize in 2006 (1). His books have been translated into sixty languages including Portuguese, Korean, Kurdish, and Tamil (“Orhan Pamuk’s Novels”). He lives in Istanbul.

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