Note for Website Readers: This post is my first response to
in a six-part series/letter exchange. To read his letter to me, hop over to !Sevgili Oleg,
One thing our readers should probably know off the bat — and which I’m a little embarrassed to admit here — one of us read this book in its original Turkish and, the other, through English translation. Alas! Not to cast translations in a bad light. I believe we first connected over Jhumpa Lahiri’s essays. You would agree with her, as do I, that works in translation are far from impoverished. The writer who translated this English version, Matthew Chonavec, did a standout job of rendering what I can only assume was the book’s original essence.
(Its main character, Cemil, immediately found a place in my heart.)
Still, I feel a bit bummed that my Turkish isn’t quite up to the task of reading Bıçakçı in the original. I studied Turkish for two years in college — and again, somewhat randomly, for a semester at the Yunus Emre Institute here in Washington DC. I can tell you that otuz altı yaşındayım, reply “hoş bulduk” when someone welcomes me into their home, and ask for bir bardak şarap lütfen at Café Divan. But I never really found a way to practice Turkçe outside the classroom and, like a houseplant that never receives sunlight, whatever notions of the language that once took root in my 20-something’s mind have since mostly dried up and wilted.
Thinking back to the myth of Narcissus which Lahiri evokes so beautifully in her own writing, I can’t help but feel a bit like Echo — with an altered capacity for speech, reduced to “partial repetition of words previously generated by others,” and with a questionable American accent at that!
I’m envious that you already had this book on your bookshelf from your most recent trip to Istanbul! What first sparked your interest in Turkey, by the way? Is it common to study Turkish in Lithuania? Though I briefly vacationed with an ex-boyfriend on the Turquoise Coast, outside Antalya, I never made it to the “City of the World’s Desire.” Istanbul is to me what Paris is to many others — a city I’ve only accessed through literature and daydreams. (You mention Orhan Pamuk: how I would love to hop on a plane and visit the real-life “Museum of Innocence”!)
Somewhat relatedly: in Chovenac’s essay on The Mosquito Bite Author, which I read before embarking on the actual book itself, I found his aspirations for Turkish “Dude Lit” poignant. (“That is why I hope that Turkish Dude Lit can channel the power of universally recognizable slackers, helping readers have both less titillating expectations and higher standards regarding Turkish culture at large. Ironically, a novel about a typical, boring, self-centered Turkish dude might end up providing such a widely shared experience, offering literature that rather than exotic is simply niche,” he writes.)
Chovenac’s hopes for the masculine genre strike me as beautiful: I’ve long been of the mind that actually humanizing a culture or people demands that we leave room for their imperfection. (E.g. women can be just as power-seeking and callous as their male counterparts, etc etc.)
And yet: am I wrong in thinking Cemil is so much more than a “universally recognizable slacker”? You pointed out that he is supported by his wife, Nazlı, and has a quasi-romantic rapport with the editor of his manuscript:
Nazlı thought that Cemil’s sadness had to do with his book. “Any news from the publisher?” she asked.
“No! said Cemil. “No, I’m waiting. But in the meantime, I keep having these conversations by myself with the editor.”
”How come? The editor’s probably pretty, isn’t she.”
”Yes,” Cemil said, and then something broke inside of Nazlı, and inside of Cemil.
He spends a large portion of his days watching soccer and helping neighbors with leaks in their bathroom. Still, Cemil’s inner emotional life feels rich to me — his problems, universally relatable to anyone who spends their days struggling with the placement of a semicolon and aspires to… well, using your metaphor, simmer words until they evoke some kind of flavor. He’s funny. And what is less self-centered than patiently helping a young writer pare down an overly verbose first draft?
"For the moment, suffice it to say I was pushed to write this novel by the belief that 'I have valuable experiences that are worth sharing with others' and that this belief is one of the two ridiculous things that men use to console themselves, and that keep them standing on their feet on the path toward old age. The other ridiculous consolation is 'women still find me attractive.' I find that one truly ridiculous, but I can't completely divorce myself from it.'
(Letter from Cemil to his editor.)
"He kept writing without fully realizing that it was what he had dreamt about doing for years, the thing he imagined would turn him into another person, someone more in command of their own life."
"He praised the kid's enthusiasm. How could you write about all of these things any other way? Writing a lot is a good thing. But all of those show-off sentences, those fussy expressions, what was their purpose? The peacock is not a well-loved species of bird in the world of writing. "If it was up to me, I'm partial to sparrows," Cemil said. Berkan was taken aback. "Sparrows?" he asked, confused. "Or they could be pigeons," Cemil said.
My empathy for Cemil leads me to consider three possibilities:
I may be a bit of a slacker myself.1
I have yet to drop my romanticized notions of Turkey and thus find the lazing around of Turkish men quite palatable.
I have low expectations for men writ large?
Would be grateful for your thoughts and any guidance you can offer,
Cevabını dört gözle bekliyorum,
Alicia
(Psst! To catch Oleg’s reply to this letter, make sure you’re subscribed to Fictitious…)
I, too, am easily made happy from a dusty floor made spotless after the vacuum cleaner runs over it, and think it’s “great when [I press] the button on the vacuum and the cord [winds] back up automatically.”
What a marvelous idea—the two-person book club. I so wish you could make it into a three-person and allow me to join. I've not read this novel though now wish I had. What a beautifully written response to Oleg. I've subscribed, for sure. Alicia, you move me. ~ Mary P.S. I bought Enaux's _Simple Passion_. A thought for a shared read?
Very interesting. Thanks for links to even more stuff to add to my TBR list -- although I've already read Lahiri's essay because it's in her book, which I reviewed (https://open.substack.com/pub/terryfreedman/p/translating-myself-and-others?r=18suih&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web if you're interested -- or even if you're not I suppose).
This bloke sounds like a man after my own heart: I still believe I have valuable experiences to share with the world, and that women still find me attractive.
Anyway, you and Oleg have convinced me that this book may be a tome worth exploring. At the moment, the only thing I know about Turkish culture is that my local dry cleaners is Turkish, our local handyman is Greek and became incandescent with rage when I asked if if he was Turkish, and that there's a lovely comestible called Turkish Delight.
I think you're right to have low expectations of men on the whole, because then you stand a good chance of being pleasantly surprised rather than unpleasantly disappointed.
Anyway, I very much enjoyed your letter: a good mix of academic prowess and whimsy. You and Oleg make a good team.