Friday, September 25, 2009
Behold Turkey! The land where the innocent go to jail and the criminals go to parliament. A land wracked by poverty and unemployment, a land whose young people seethe with hopelessness. A land ransacked, divided, destroyed by craven politicians who have pandered to American interests for generations. A nation represented by mannerless, embarrassing people that are boundless in their oblivion. Indeed, behold all this and weep.
For those millions of us fed up with all of the above, take heart. There is yet a greatness in this suffering land. And as a break from the unrelenting depression of Turkish life, I offer the matchless prose of the magnificent, incomparable Yaşar Kemal, Turkey’s greatest writer. All one needs to know about Turkey-past and Turkey-present can be found in his books. So if you haven’t read him, read him now. And if you have read him, read him again, now.
Behold an excerpt from Memed, My Hawk by Yaşar Kemal.
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Houses, trees, rocks, stars, moon, and earth, whatever there was in the world, all was lost, melted in the darkness. It was raining and a light wind was blowing, a cold wind. Every now and then the dogs howled in the darkness. Then a lone cock crowed lustily. Surely that cock, crowing at such an hour, would be killed in the early morning by its owner.
Far away, from the road on the other side of the mountain, a bell tinkled. The tinkling would stop, then begin again, sometimes at long intervals, a sure sign that the approaching travellers were tired.
For a long while Memed had been waiting, hidden under the fence by the great mulberry tree, with its branches spreading like an umbrella. He was thinking, though in his present mood he could scarcely be said to think. He was cold, aware of many things without actually thinking. It was drizzling. Ever since night had fallen Memed had been soaking up the rain, letting it penetrate him. At times he shivered, then no longer felt the cold. Beyond the fence he heard a sound and listened. It seemed to be a cat jumping over the fence. He then thought of his mother. His body ached in places as though the flesh had been wounded. He felt the bitterness of poison in his heart. They would make his mother suffer for his own actions. A long way off the lightning flashed, lighting up the branches and trunk of the mulberry, which was otherwise lost in the darkness. It seemed to light up the darkness in Memed’s heart too.
At this hour the whole village, with its horses, donkeys, cows, goats, sheep, insects, loves and fears, cares and courage, all were smothered in a deep sleep. Only its dreams were stirring with life at this hour.
No matter how limited a man’s field of vision, his imagination knows no bounds. A man who has never been outside his village of Deyirmenoluk can still create a whole imaginary world that may reach as far as the stars. Without traveling, a man can penetrate to the other end of the world. Even without much imagination the place where he dwells can become different in his dreams, a true paradise. Now, at this moment, in their sleep, dreams made everything appear wonderful to these poor distressed people of Deyirmenoluk.
Memed was also dreaming, in spite of his fears. Suddenly a light flashed through his mind. The rich sunlight of the Chukurova flooded it, spreading and growing more intense. Then this light disappeared and Memed began to worry. “If she doesn’t come,” he thought, “what shall I do?” Various plans of action offered themselves to his mind. “If she doesn’t come, I know what I’ll do,” he said. His hand slipped down to the holster of his revolver, and all his cares vanished, all his fears were forgotten.
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Yashar Kemal (b. 1922) was born into a Kurdish family in a village in southern Anatolia and saw his father brutally murdered at the age of five, which left him with a severe stutter for years to come. He received his basic education in village schools before working as a farmer, factory worker, public letter-writer, and journalist. Memed, My Hawk, his first novel, was published in 1955 and won the Varlik Prize for best novel of the year. Kemal’s numerous other books include The Wind from the Plain trilogy, Salman the Solitary, Seagull, and four books recounting the exploits of Memed, including, Memed, My Hawk and They Burn the Thistles. Yashar Kemal lives in Istanbul.
Posted by Cem Ryan, Ph.D. Istanbul, Turkey————————————————– [email protected] at 1:55 PM
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