ACADEMIC STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY İmtiyaz Sahibi / Publisher • Gece Kitaplığı Genel Yayın Yönetmeni / Editor in Chief • Doç. Dr. Atilla ATİK Proje Koordinatörü / Project Coordinator • B. Pelin TEMANA Editör / Editors • Doç. Dr. Fatma Öztürk DAĞABAKAN Dr. Öğr. Üyesi Hakan AKCA Kapak & İç Tasarım / Cover & Interior Design • Gece Akademi Sosyal Medya / Social Media • Arzu ÇUHACIOĞLU Birinci Basım / First Edition • © EKİM 2018 ISBN • 978-605-288-618-2 © copyright Bu kitabın yayın hakkı Gece Kitaplığı’na aittir. Kaynak gösterilmeden alıntı yapılamaz, izin almadan hiçbir yolla çoğaltılamaz. The right to publish this book belongs to Gece Kitaplığı. Citation can not be shown without the source, reproduced in any way without permission. Gece Kitaplığı / Gece Publishing ABD Adres/ USA Address: 387 Park Avenue South, 5th Floor, New York, 10016, USA Telefon / Phone: +1 347 355 10 70 Türkiye Adres / Turkey Address: Kızılay Mah. Fevzi Çakmak 1. Sokak Ümit Apt. No: 22/A Çankaya / Ankara / TR Telefon / Phone: +90 312 384 80 40 +90 555 888 24 26 web: www.gecekitapligi.com e-mail: [email protected] Baskı & Cilt / Printing & Volume Sertifika / Certificate No: 26649 ACADEMIC STUDIES IN PHILOLOGY CONTENTS CHAPTER 1 IS SWIMMING HOME POSSIBLE? ESCAPISM AND UNMASKING OF ARTIFICIAL LIVES IN DEBORAH LEVY’S SWIMMING HOME Kubilay GEÇİKLİ ............................................................................................................................7 CHAPTER 2 TRADITIONAL CHILDREN’S GAMES:KÜTAHYA EXAMPLE Münire BAYSAN ..........................................................................................................................27 7 IS SWIMMINGKubilay HOME GEÇİKLİ POSSIBLE? ESCAPISM CHAPTER AND UNMASKING OF ARTIFICIAL LIVES IN 1 DEBORAH LEVY’S SWIMMING HOME Kubilay GEÇİKLİ Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home, a novel shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2012, is about the unexpected as well as disturbing intrusion of a woman called Kitty Finch into the broken lives of two couples, one with a daughter, who intend to spend their holidays sharing a vacation house in the south of France in 1994, and lives of other people who happen to have their holiday around the same time in that summer place. A weird woman, Kitty Finch is found naked by the vacationers in the pool of the house one day and is suspected of being dead; however, she is too alive to die without raising questions in the minds of the novel’s characters and in a sense shaping as well as shaking their lives. She soon walks out of the water, intrudes into the lives of these people and turns into the ghost at the feast. The dysfunctional families and relations between characters provide her with enough material as a matter of fact. Joe Jacobs, a famous poet and a Polish émigré, his wife Isabel, a war correspondent who has fre- quently been away from her family because of her job, their daughter Nina, and their friends Mitchell and Laura, who own an antique shop in London about to go belly up, all wonder who this Kitty is and why she has entered their lives with no apparent reason except for her being a fanatical reader of Joe Jacobs. Her occasional nakedness serves not only as an image for the revelation of secrets and desires kept hidden by the lives of the people in and around the villa. the characters of the novel but also as a warning against and protest of artificiality in 1 by John Self, Kitty soon proves to be the person who stirs up the hornet’s nest. Interestingly enough, she is allowed to do so byDefined Isabel’s as permission; “the engine inof fact,the book”Isabel seems to have been waiting for someone to intrude into their lives. As a woman losing her feminine qualities, Isabel does not only invite Kitty to her house but also her femininity and sexuality. Francine Prose from The New York Times A question for the wives: Let’s say you’ve rented a holiday villa on the French Riviera,also and finds when it youmeaningful arrive, along in the with review your entitled philan- dering,“Naked middle-agedCame the Stranger”: poet husband, “ you discover an attractive young woman, her fingernails painted green, floating naked in the pool. Mightn’t it be a good idea for everyone concerned to ask the rental agent if you can still retrieve your deposit? Unfortunately for the characters, and luckily for the reader, the wife who has leased the vacation house in “Swimming Home” doesn’t appear to think so 2 The reason - adoxically. She does not consider Kitty a dangerous woman and regards”. her as onefor Isabel’s of her husband’s willingness doxies; to let Kittyhowever, stay isKitty frequent Finch infidelitieswill prove aof disturbing her husband intrud par- er; as Philip Womack from The Telegraph likes collecting odd things, states, Joe “ October 2011. 1 John Self, “An Unnerving Novel of Anxiety and Control”, Review in The Guardian, 7- view in The New York Times, Nov. 21, 2012. 2 Francine Prose, “Naked Came the Stranger: ‘Swimming Home,’ by Deborah Levy”, Re 8 Academic Studies in Philology and the girl, Kitty Finch, is odder than most, with a history of mental illness 3 To presence is like that of the creature: disturbing, yet compelling In other words, although Kitty disturbs the people around with not only her”. ap- pearanceWomack, Kitty’sbut presence; “ those around her seem to have fallen under her spell.”. She has an inexplicable attraction and without doubt this attraction has sexual Swimming Home steeped in Freudian notions of desire and dread dark and erotic story Levy’s elegant lan- guageimplications. and subtle, Ron uncannyCharles findsplot are strictly adult fareas “4 Isabel’s initial welcome of Kitty into their lives” andwill assoon a “ turn into a vague and”; for unwilling him, “ invitation as she realises how differently her husband is affected by Kitty”. and she will have to start to question the results of her conduct. It might be argued that Isabel has not seen other women who have entered Joe’s life as probable rivals to her marriage as they have appealed to him sexually only; however, it is not the case with Kitty as she seems to appeal to Joe’s emotional life and mind as well as his body with her The novel foreshadows the arrival of sinister events; the reader feels the ex- appearance which might be called both ‘magical’ and ‘witch-like’. From the first brief chapters of Deborah Levy’s spare, disturbing and frequently funny novel,istence we of sense a disturbing that things tension will turnand outill omen badly from –for the nudeearly interloperchapters on:as well“ as for the villa guests 5 That is, Kitty is not only a bomb placed in the middle of two marriages, especially the marriage between Isabel and Joe Jacobs, but a kind of suicide-bomber who,”. in the course of events, leads to her own destruction. How- ever, she is at the same time someone who forces people to take off their masks behind which they hide and which they wear to pretend to maintain their lives well in the eyes of people. Escapism has turned out to be a way of maintaining their lives for these people; especially those in the villa escape the realities of life simply in order not to face those realities. Kitty turns into a highly-sexual being that will be regarded by those around her as a criterion to review their lives and The redheaded naturist and poet stalker, Kitty Finch is the catalyst that turns an uncomfortable summerquestion vacation how they with have friends lived intotill then, something and there weird lies and, the perhaps, danger: dangerous“ 6 in many ”. cases it became both a psychological and mental exercise that enabled people under duressAlthough to cope escapism with these is circumstances generally considered to be a physical migration, “ is additionally and perhaps primarily psychological and it implies a state of not having been able to arrive where one wants” (Golovatina-Mora, to be although p. there41). That certainly is, escapism seems to be a most recent escapism and self-deception tend to go together cannot escape point where s/heescapism is. Nevertheless, is human- “ and inescapable ” (Longeway, p.3) as well; that is, those escaping - what theySuccess want in tomodern escape. times Still, has “ introduced unprecedented predictability” (Tuan, and p. plenitudexvi). Paradoxically, into human it is life. the This success ought in to people’s ensure liveshappiness, that paves but it the doesn’t; way for it doesn’t escap ism: “ The Telegraph, 07 August 2012. 3 Philip Womack, “Swimming Home by Deborah Levy: review for Man Booker Shortlist “,- vember 6, 2012. 4 Ron Charles, “Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home”, Review in The Washington Post, No 5 FrancineLos Angeles Prose, Review “Naked of Books,Came the December Stranger: 11, ‘Swimming 2012. Home,’ by Deborah Levy”. 6 Mark Haskell Smith, “Always Raining: On Deborah Levy’s Swimming Home”, Review on 9 even ensure deep security. Modern men and women,Kubilay living GEÇİKLİ in their artificial worlds high up on the ladder of aspiration and pretension, seem to suffer from what Milan Kundera calls the ‘unbearable lightness of being’ is not an activity engaged in solely by unfortunate wretches with feeble psyches. Rather, it is a disposition of mind, and hence impetus for action,” (Tuan, that p. is xiii). endemic Escapism to humanity “ as a whole Swimming Home be- cause although they have enjoyed success in their lives, careers and businesses, they are not” (Forster, happy and p. 81). want This to take is valid refuge for thein various characters forms in of escapism. In addi- tion, escapism of modern sceptical men and women is a journey into fantasy and - illusion because heaven for these people represents delusion and fantasy (Tuan, continualp. xvi). Kitty requests Finch isfrom the Joeone Jacobs who forces to read people one of to her face poems their realities are in fact and attempts her na kednesssave youis a fromcall toyour these thoughts ‘escapist’ people for confrontation and purgation.