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Вестник СПбГУ. Востоковедение и африканистика. 2018. Т. 10. Вып. 4
The concept and fiction peculiarity of the novel "My Brother's Story" by Omer Zulfu Livaneli
M. M. Khabutdinova
Kazan Federal University,
18, Kremlevskaya str., Kazan, 420008, Russian Federation
For citation: Khabutdinova M. M. The concept and fiction peculiarity of the novel "My Brother's Story" by Omer Zulfu Livaneli. Vestnik of Saint Petersburg University. Asian and African Studies, 2018, vol. 10, issue 4, pp. 479-488. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2018.405
In this article we analyze the main peculiarities of mechanisms of plot development in the novel "My Brother's Story" («Karde^imin hikayes"i») by Omer Zulfu Livaneli (translation by A. Avrutina). The novel consists from two parts: "I" and "Mehmed". The author exploits the structure of the novel-frame, where the role of "frame" is acted by a detective story. The main content of the work is the study of the spiritual world of modern man, the fate of the hermit hero Ahmed / Mehmed Arslan. After going through a series of life and moral trials, the hero realizes his insignificance and commits suicide. In the system of characters the images of the engineer and the journalist play a huge role, as researchers of the nature of the human soul. The chronotope of the work includes the whole world, Turkey and Russia. The antithesis of "the city/the capital vs province" becomes a key one. The image of Russia puts together of a whole chain of literary reminiscences and associations that emphasize the richness of its cultural potential. The postmodern style of the work reveals itself both at the level of content and structure of the work. Leading in the work are such features of poetry, like intertextuality, the mixing of time and space, abandoning the traditional "me" orientation to a multiplicity of interpretations of the text, the fundamental systematic character, the incompleteness, the openness of the design, the fragmentary nature of the game.
Keywords: Turkish literature, prose, Omer Zulfu Livaneli, the frame-novel, postmodernism.
In this article we analyze the main peculiarities of mechanisms of plot development in the novel "My Brother's Story" («Karde^imin hikayes"i») by Omer Zulfu Livaneli (translation by A. Avrutina). The novel consists from two parts: "I" and "Mehmed". The author exploits the structure of the novel-frame, where the role of "frame" is acted by a detective story, that allows you to achieve entertainment. The main content of the work is the study of the spiritual world of modern man, the fate of the hermit hero Ahmed / Mehmed Arslan. After going through a series of life and moral trials, the hero realizes his insignificance and commits suicide.
In the system of characters the images of the engineer and the journalist play a huge role, as researchers of the nature of the human soul.
The world in the novel is realized as chaos. The chronotope of the work includes the whole world, Turkey and Russia. The antithesis of "the city/the capital vs the province" becomes a key one. The image of Russia puts together of a whole chain of literary reminiscences and associations that emphasize the richness of its cultural potential. The political portrait is aimed at revealing the Imperial essence of Russia. The postmodern style of the
© Санкт-Петербургский государственный университет, 2018
work reveals itself both at the level of content and structure of the work. It is proved that Zulfu Livaneli have resorted to mimicking of mass literature, rethinking the key stories of world literature. He uses the technique of collage, includes literary reminiscences and analogies in the narrative, makes fun ironically of simulacra. Leading in the work are such features of poetry, like intertextuality, the mixing of time and space, abandoning the traditional "me" orientation to a multiplicity of interpretations of the text, the fundamental systematic character, the incompleteness, the openness of the design, the fragmentary nature of the game. The detective performs a formal function in the organization of the plot of the narrative.
In 2018, a Russian translation of the novel "My Brother's Story" («Karde^imin hikayes"i») by Omer Zulfu Livaneli (translation by A. Avrutina) (2003) was published in Russia [1]. Omer Zulfu Livanelioglu; born on June 20, 1946 in Ilgin) (the penname — Zulfu Livaneli) became famous not only as a writer but also as a musician, political figure, and a former Advisor to the Director General of UNESCO. In Turkey, his books have been setting records in sales for many years. As the literary critics A. V. Obraztsov and A. S. Suleimanova note, "Livaneli's writing, namely, "The Twitch in the Eye of the Viper" (Engeregin gozunde-ki kama^ma, 1997), "One Cat, One Man, One Death" (Bir kedi, bir adam, bir olum, 2001), "Happiness", "The Last Island" (Son ada, 2008) are the winners of a number of national and foreign awards (Balkan Literary Award, 1997, Yunus Nadi Award, 2001, "Barnes & Noble" Award, 2006, Orhan Kemal Award, 2009). His works have been translated into 40 languages; the novel "My Brother's Story" («Karde^imin hikayes"i») published in 2013 became the bestseller in Turkey, while of the novel «The Constantine Hotel» («Konstantiniyye oteli»), 2015, have been published with more than 80 later editions." [2, p.186]
In the short period of its presence in Russia, the novel "My Brother's Story" («Karde^imin hikayes"i») has already taken the Russian-speaking audience by storm: on the electronic libraries websites, the first readers' comments appeared. The book reviewer A. Levasheva-Chernysheva describes the work as a "quaint and melodic novel that combines detective, drama and melodrama, and perfectly reflects the versatility of the author himself." [3] Forbes included this work by Zulfu Livaneli, translated into 37 languages in the list of the most anticipated books.
In Russia, the range of scientific works on Zulfu Livaneli's creative activity is rather narrow. In 2010, Turkish literary postmodernism became the subject of a monographic study by M. M. Repenkova [4]. A. V. Obraztsov and A. S. Suleymanova investigated the carnivalization of violence in Zulfu Livaneli's novel "Happiness" ("Mutluluk") [2]. The socio-political context of the novel "Anxiety" ("Huzursuluk") sparked the interest of the researcher A. Avrutina [5]. The novelty of our study is the analysis of diversity of the genre nature of the novel "My Brother's Story" ("Karde^imin hikayes"i), and revealing the postmodern essence of the work.
Zulfu Livaneli's fiction consists of two parts: "I" and "Mehmed", woven from a number of short stories with unusual, sometimes provocative titles aimed at holding the reader's attention: "Strange morning, the appearance of a girl journalist, Kerberos" [1, p. 15], "Dinner and muck, like a spoiled butter, only brown" [1, p. 59], etc. It might at first glance seem that this book is a sample of popular literature, a facile, witty and unstrained detective story.
However, as you immerse yourself in the text, you begin to understand that you deal with a new Turkish postmodern novel, with the story twisted around a homicide in a
small village by the sea. The author denies his belonging to the Turkish postmodernism (at least, as he stated during the presentation of the translation of the novel in Kazan). However, the literary critic M. M. Repenkova disputes this statement in her monograph concerned with the research into Turkish postmodernism [4].
In our opinion, postmodern stylistics makes itself felt in "My Brother's Story" ("Karde^imin hikayes"i) both at the level of content, and at the level of composition. Zul-fu Livaneli resorted to parodying a detective novel and melodrama, the key genres of the popular literature. The author of the novel draws the reader into the investigation process by building up a detective story as a "collage of interpretations" (M. A. Mozheiko) .Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan supplies the journalist with different versions of what happened in the house where the neighbors live. Juggling with facts and versions, the author makes the character and the readers immerse themselves in the "interpretive self-will" (J. Der-rida). As M. A. Mozheiko rightly captured, "postmodern detectives will not end with the traditional solving the mystery, since the desired product is dissolved in the very process nature of the search." "Such a composition of a postmodern detective story implements one of the most important program tasks of postmodernism, namely, the task of freeing the true essence of an individual from the interpretation dictated by cultural and linguistic norms" [5, p. 139]. This concept will become decisive when the author develops the "bird-soul on the castle" metaphor.
In the final of Zulfu Livaneli's novel, the avenue of inquiry acquires chronological consistency and logic, due to the inclusion in the narrative structure of the legal document "The Order on termination of criminal prosecution", where the narrative of a crime is reconstructed: from the outset (motives, causes) through the culmination (the crime itself) to the denouement and seizure of the offender) [1, p. 334-348].
A quite a character, the so-called "Lone Ranger" Ahmed Bey (Mehmed Aslan) and a casual acquaintance of him, a young journalist, act as an investigator and his companion. While the first collaborate in this couple shows an extraordinary mind, wealth and complexity of mental structure despite all the oddities, his assistant can be characterized by naivety, lack of life experience, and poor knowledge of human nature. Dialogues of the amateur sleuths are aimed at keeping readers engaged: to inform about the official investigation, to build guesses, knocking the reader off the road with false versions. The writer resorts to the antithesis by describing the official investigation in a dry language, and makes thing as clear as fog, when describing the course of thoughts of the seekers. Dialogues of the characters attract the attention of the audience thanks to expressive tonality. In the final of the novel, the assistant journalist turns into a valuable witness in the investigation of the suicide of Mehmed Arslan.
The murderer, a fourteen-year-old teenager, a "well-built tough guy", "on the plump side", "without lights", was considered "a good guy" [1, p. 24]. Only his running eyes against a strange expression might cause unclear anxiety. Most of the witnesses could hardly remember him. Arzu Hanim trusted the boy treating him like a child. It was this young married woman who became the victim of the Turkish Smerdyakov born of the affair between blood relatives. This character despised by everyone, with a repulsive and ugly appearance turns into one of the key figures in the detective storyline of the novel, becomes the arbiter of the fate of a beautiful a secular lioness. Being a man of mediocre mental capacities ("mentally defective son of Khatije Donmez") [1, p. 345] and petty mind, he commits the crime with extreme atrocity. After the murder, he suffers nervous fever, like R. Raskol-
nikov from «Crime and Punishment» by Dostoevsky. However, the author prefers to draw a parallel with Smerdyakov, in order to show vividly the absence of an ethical principle in his character, "In short, Muharrem is a kind of Smerdyakov" [1, p. 345].
Some episodes of the novel sometimes take the features of a melodrama. So, when developing a portrait of Arzu Kahrman, the author focuses on her sexuality. The plot of a love story that was made flesh in the reflections of the journalist who is interested in juice details by the nature of her profession gains dynamics thanks to the appearance of phantoms of "love triangles": Ali-Arzu-Ahmet-bey, Arzu-Ali-Svetlana ... The age difference between spouses, the heroine's absences from house — all this becomes the ground for new guesses on the part of Ali, her jealous husband.
During the investigation of domestic homicide, the melodramatic "shady past" of Ahmed Bey gradually comes to light, which is the backbone of the novel content. The engineer is a person with unstable psyche, engaged in self-analysis, and seeking to understand the nature of his own oddities. When working on this image, Zulfu Livaneli successfully exploits the method of estrangement. The novel gives a strange look of a strange person at this wonderful world, which captures the reader. In addition to the interior monologues, the author of the novel enriches the composition of the crime story with diary entries, epistolary elements (letters written by the character), which, on the one hand, contribute to profound psychological characteristics of him, while on the other hand, this is a sort of play with the reader. Zulfu Livaneli turns the life of the character inside out. The author of the novel introduces the reader to the person in the threshold situation, the idea of which is formed through continuous mention of the "gray wall", which prevents the character from realizing what is happening to him. The character's dream is the key to understanding his spiritual aspirations. Ahmed Bey (Mehmed Aslan) postures himself wearing "special glasses" and trying to understand the lines of light that permeate the darkness where his mind once plunged. The character associates his "ego" with a banking cell with unknown content. The author seeks to show the protagonist's deep psychology, whose biography was full of tragic events (the death of the family during the accident, psychological trauma due to unhappy love, an 18-month imprisonment by a tragic mistake, and an injury sustained in Moscow (horse blow)). In front of the reader, the main character reconstructs his own life bit by bit. Sometimes, as if "making investigation" he "pronounces" different milestones of his own biography in dialogues with a journalist and a prosecutor. His stories increasingly become confessional. This makes the reader experiences mixed feelings. Some episodes from the life of the character are both tragic and comic; they look interesting and instructive, funny and sinister, witty and sad at the same time, which makes the audience think about the intricacies of human destiny at the turn of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The time space of the novel covers not only the territory of Turkey and Russia, but also expands to the size of the entire world the fictitious twin brother travels across. The writer unfolds the life drama of a lonely man of a tragic fate, not lacking in eccentricity, a complex and contradictory, which excites pity and sympathy. Epistolary inserts from his diary reflecting the protagonist's psychology, hidden views, plurality of points of view, and the consciousness of the hermit engineer draw not only a psychological portrait of the character, as has been already mentioned above, but also make an enormous difference by creating an intra-textual unity. The plurality of standpoints of the protagonist and of the other participants in the action makes it possible to see what is happening from various
perspectives. The most pronounced detail is the voice of the protagonist, whose identity is clouded as the plot develops. This "grabs" the reader as well.
Zulfu Livaneli, with his innate subtle irony, reveals the simulacra in the novel. On the pages of the novel the main character — engineer Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan — reflects about the modern man who created an artificial world around him, which increasingly alienates him from the primary reality. The protagonist treats a man as "a simple biological creature". He believes that his main duty is "to take care of himself and live as long as possible" [1, p. 48]. Achmed /Mehmed Aslan devoted his life to serving this idea.
The engineer lives away from a big city, in a village by the sea. He secluded in a house turned into a library. People around him treat his behavior as eccentricity. And Ahmed/ Mehmed Aslan more than once calls himself a "strange person" as well: "I cannot touch any living creature" [1, p. 98]. The main character gets out of the symbolic world he created, of a "literary temple", only to appropriate something in the external world. Symbols allow his living according to his own laws and responding to external stimuli paradoxically. Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan "perceives human feelings" when watching the others [1, p. 19]. He closely watches how people around him turn into the slaves of the Internet, television and print media in search of knowledge about the world, what in fact distances them from the reality by creating a false idea of what is happening around.
In the independent investigation undertaken, Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan picked up the right trail in searching the murderer. He found convincing evidence that Arzu Hanim was murdered by a "poofy" teenager named Muharrem Donmez. Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan understands that due to his mental illness, the son of a housemaid took undue freedoms with the favors from the hostess Arzu Kahraman. Ali's wife "treated the boy with great tenderness", which made him "come to an erroneous conclusion about the love relationship between himself and the lady who deceased afterwards" [1, p. 98]. Being in the grip of illusions, Muharrem eventually committed a murder out of jealousy. Thus, the ideality overshadowed the reality. Pondering over the motives of this crime, Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan diagnosed crisis state of the modern society, where zombie people start to dominate, while the human manifestations are being curtailed. The protagonist suddenly realizes that, in part, he has become a man-simulacrum like the despised teenager. While observing the others, he discovers absurdity of the existence of an artificial man in the artificial world. The death of Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan, who once dreamed of longevity, striving to achieve perfection in all things, but died embraced by the device "Beloved", with all its absurdity, is extremely symbolic [1, p. 98]. In the space of the fiction this device turns into a simulacrum. The engineer who lived through psychological trauma of loss of the family, his twin brother, unhappy love, at one time developed this device "for relaxation and comfort". At the end of the novel the device "Beloved" turns into a tool of suicide. The main character's life story turns into a drama of the loneliness of modern man. Thus, according to the author's intention, imperfection of the modern world is manifested, where each consciousness exists in isolation not only from others, but also from the world as a whole.
In the dialogues the character has with the journalist Pelin Soisal, the idea of the unreliability of social being, impossibility of knowing the truth becomes the keynote. This is the way the Turkish author ironically outplays an ontological simulacrum.
In the novel, Zulfu Livaneli profitably employs the collage technique based on the introduction of fragments from classical poetic or prose pieces into the text. For example, when reflecting on the nature of love, the main character quotes a passage from "The
Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha" by Cervantes. Touching upon the Nietzsche's "forgetting" thesis, he cites Jalal ad-Din Muhammad Rumi and Saadi Shirazi. These passages play the same important role in the narrative as the story lines.
In "My Brother's Story", there are intertextual links with the works of world literature. In Zulfu Livaneli's novel, we are faced with rethink of traditional storylines. The narration is not built chronologically, which is due to the need to preserve the intrigue up to the conclusion. The fable has two narrative threads. From time to time, Zulfu Livaneli refers the reader to the collection of Middle East folk tales "One Thousand and One Nights". The name of Scheherazade is already mentioned in one of the epigraphs to the novel. The journalist calls Mehmed Aslan "Scheherazade in a man's guise" [1, p. 210]. The author makes good use of a framing composition. It is not the beautiful Scheherazade's honey words, which from the frame, but the detective story of the murder of Arzu Kahraman, investigated by the journalist girl. This is a "screen" hiding the life story of the main character — the hermit engineer. The author invites us to solve a number of enigmas and secrets associated with the vicissitudes of the main character's biography.
The Arabic literary tradition also makes itself felt in the composition of the second part of the novel, which in many ways is the product of the protagonist's deformed imagination. The narrative splits here: it is led in the name either of one or of the other brother. Zulfu Livaneli employs a twin model. Two main characters, the brothers who were separated in their early childhood, are typical figures in the Middle Eastern epic, traditional for the literature of the Muslim world. This micro-plot is found, for example, in the Tatar translation of the Turkish novel "The Story of Abu Ali Sina" (Avicenna) by Kayum Nasyri (1872) [7]. Zulfu Livaneli replaced the brothers-scientists by the twins who have chosen the profession of a builder and engineer. Like Abu Ali Sina and Abulkharis from the story by K. Nasyri, the main characters of the Livaneli's novel, Ahmed and Mehmed use their fundamental mind in different ways. Ahmed, like Abu-Ali-Sin, was sober-minded and reliable, while Mehmed resembled Abulharis. By nature, the latter was like the type of a character from an adventurous and picaresque romance: a frivolous, thoughtless, selfish, "a passionate and compulsive personality" [1, p. 140]. Zulfu Livaneli uses contrast. Mehm-ed is a "bookworm". This characteristic also refers the readers to the famous oriental story about twin brothers. The university where the Livaneli's characters studied plays the role of an invariant of the cave where the books of the sage Fisaguris were stored. As a pilot site, not the Shah's palace, but the construction firm where the brothers worked is employed. The chronotope of the path in the novel absorbs the protagonist's Odysseys, the process of initiation, etc.
The image of Russia in the novel consists of a whole train of literary associations. "The reader relies on the world's mind," the writer puts these words into the mouth of his character [1, p. 277]. Zulfu Livaneli mentions the names of Leo Tolstoy, who opened the "dialectic of the soul", Fyodor Dostoevsky, a connoisseur of the "man from the underground", Alexander Pushkin and Sergey Yesenin, creators of the lyrics of love. Implicitly, Vasiliy Zhukovsky (Svetlana and Lyudmila are the heroines of the same-name ballads), Alexander Blok, the creator of the cycle of poems about the Beautiful Lady (compare the scene of Olga's appearance in the dim light of the corridor) [1, p. 199], Alexander Pushkin (the Larins family from the poem "Eugene Onegin"), Nikolai Gogol (the story of Ostap and Andriy from "Taras Bulba") are presented. Reflecting on the human nature, Zulfu Livaneli addresses not only the Russian classics, but also the Western (Aristotle,
Plato, Homer, Faulkner, Stendhal, Mirabeau, Nietzsche), and eastern (Mevlana Jalaladdin Rumi), Saadi Shirazi, Ibn Rushd, Ibn Khaldun) sources. In the novel, the author ponders over the issue of ethnic, religious, linguistic, and national identity of modern man. In a symbolic form, this is brought to light in an episode where the main character look at Leonardo da Vinci's painting "Mona Lisa" from completely different angles (Mother Teresa, Indira Gandhi, Turkian Shorai, Marilyn Monroe, Arzu, Tansu Chiller, Hatidje-khanim, Lyudmila, mother of the main character, Margaret Thatcher...) [1, p. 203]. Chaos, which reigned in the USSR during the Perestroika, generally is shown quite plausibly. The Turkish writer managed to reconstruct the process of the collapse of the empire with the help of some scanty details only. Mehmed arrives in Russia, having learnt from his brother's letter that "everything here is in disorder, because the regime is collapsing, and the prices are low," he "was attracted by the opportunity to see up close and personal how everything gets messy" [1, p. 149]. Zulfu Livaneli shows the chaos gradually absorbing different social levels in the new Russia: there is no order not only in the province (the town of Borisov), but also in the capital, both with the underclass, and at the very top (Ahmed managed to take out from the country a device dismounted from the MIG-25 fighter aircraft in front of the KGB and customs officers). To expose the imperial essence of this country, the author includes the events taking place in Chechnya, Belarus, and Afghanistan in the orbit of historical time. The reflections of the Afghan War veteran Pavel about "the terrible fate of Russia", which participated in the First World War (July 28, 1914 — November 11, 1918), the Civil War (1917/1918 — 1922/1923), the Second World War (September 1, 1939 — September 2, 1945) and the war in Afghanistan (1979-1989) are quite indicative. Zulfu Livaneli succeeded in conveying the complexity of our time — "the time of constant changes and catastrophes, shocks and explosions," when "many ideas collapsed, including those underlying traditional identity for decades and centuries" 8, p. 123]. Thus, the author's stereotyped perception of the Russians is determined by peculiarities of the country's historical, political and cultural life.
Due to clearly defined space and time, the reader never doubts the reality and reliability of all that's happening to the protagonist, and it is only in the end that the reader discovers that some of these events are fictitious being a product of deformed imagination (Mehmed Aslan suffered from "flattened effect").
The dichotomy the city/ thecapital vs the province manifests itself in the structure of the chronotope of Turkey. The character describes in detail his life in Ankara, Istanbul and Podima. However, at the same time the author reduces the Turkish color to a minimum: there are only references to minarets drinking water [1, p. 111-113]. The images of the Turkish characters are emphatically Europeanized.
Displacement of time and space in the novel is another sign of its postmodern nature. A retrospective picture of the life of the protagonist provides the linkage between the past, the present and the future, which helps the writer achieve the union of times in his work.
The game strategy of the novel is implemented through the games the main character and author play with the readers. So, when in prison, Ahmed/Mehmed Aslan, to kill time, tried to present literary heroes who experienced similar circumstances (Merso (A. Camou "Stranger"), Jean Valjean (V. Hugo "Les Miserables"), Katyusha (L. Tolstoy "Resurrection"), Raskolnikov (F. Dostoyevsky "Crime and Punishment"), Ali (H. Taner "Tale of Ali from Keshan"), and Doctor B. (S. Zweig "Chess Novella")). He manipulates people.
The character repeatedly demonstrates his erudition in the pages of the novel. For example, to convince the journalist that "love is the most dangerous feeling on the earth", he invited her to read a number of books in order to verify the truth of this statement (L. Tolstoy "Anna Karenina", H. Flaubert "Madame Bovary", Goethe "The Sorrows of Young Werther", Shakespeare "Othello", "Romeo and Juliet", Fizuli "Layla and Majnun", dastan "Asli and Kerem", fairytale legends "Tahir and Zukhra", "Ferhat and Shirin", and others) [1, p. 187].
The works of postmodernism typically purport to shock of the reader. Zulfu Livaneli uses the situation with the substitution of the main character. At the end of the novel it turns out that the man everybody called Ahmed Bey in fact is Mehmed Aslan. It turned out that after a series of tragedies, he abstracted from his own personality and transferred his sufferings to the life of the twin brother who was killed in 1963. When developing the image of the main character with infirm psyche, the writer seeks to depict him at the crossroads of different spaces. The author of the novel wants to revive the past spiritual experience, so his protagonist has a solid cultural baggage. "My Brother's Story" is full of reminiscences, quotations and associations that enrich the conceptual layer of the work.
The literary, musical, and visual allusions and reminiscences that are encountered in Zulfu Livaneli's fiction, in fact, are the manifestation of the author's game with the reader. These are the "trial balloons" thrown by the writer to the reader, which can be either picked up if a cognitive surge of consciousness has occurred, or missed due to the discrepancy between the author and recipient's intellectual fields. This strategy is especially distinct in the conclusion of the novel, when a literary puzzle is suggested to the readers, "with the name of the murderer coded" [1, p. 333]. Development of the investigation line is linked with its reconstruction by the evidence found: a gold chain with a pendant representing a bird on the lock, which enables the eccentric investigator to find the offender. In the future, this image will be overgrown with the "bird-soul" association, which is traditional for the Muslim East.
Omer Zulfu Livaneli is a musician, so the musical images in the novel are of great significance. So, Ahmed Bey every day listens to a song, where the key words are "Your heart is black as the night", which allows the author turning the reader to philosophical reflections on the nature of human. A Melody Gardot's song let the engineer more deeply explore and "perceive the human feelings" [1, p. 19]. Thanks to the musical preferences of Mehmed Aslan (a jazz fan) the author can characterize his inner world even deeper. Paolo Conte's melodies "Vi Con Me", an Azerbaijani folk song "You stopped coming", a Turkish folk song "She was cast into sleep amidst the high mountains.", and others contribute to the lyricism of the narrative.
The novel is easy to read; A. Levasheva-Chernikova rightly noted that "the reader as if slipping through the text" [3]. The work is characterized by the interaction of different narrative forms: first- and third-person narration. A document — the prosecutor's decree — fulfills the commenting function in the ending of the novel. Zulfu Livaneli acts as an observer, creating the illusion of plausibility and objectivity for the complete and comprehensive communication of the inner world of his characters. The auctorial author's speech is infused with his characters' voices. According to literary critics, such a form of the narration makes it possible to express a subjective assessment that reveals the protagonist's self-characterization and his view of other characters [9, p. 15]. The author maintains reserved atmosphere of the novel by means of the aloof tone, which determines
the personality of the protagonist. Obviously, the book is written so as to gain commercial popularity.
The composition assumes variability in the interpretation of the plot. "My Brother's Story" turns into a philosophical parable with an unexpected ending, which was told by an experienced narrator, a great expert of human nature and passions. The book of the Turkish writer makes us think about the role of knowledge in human life. The main clue — a gold pendant in the form of a bird on the lock turns into a metaphor that refers the reader to an oriental parable about the nature of human knowledge. The story tells us about one man who asked another how he acquired knowledge. In response, he heard a confession that true "knowledge can neither be fortune-told, nor seen in a dream, nor caught by a bridle, nor inherited from the forefathers, or borrowed from lavish people." The character of the parable "has acquired knowledge" while wandering along dusty paths, stumbling over rocks, avoiding irritation, and taking risks, spending long sleepless nights — thanks to the love of travel, through long meditations and thought application", i.e. through accumulation of life experience. Finally, he came to the conclusion that knowledge "is good for cultivation only — cultivation in the soul; it is like a beast that is hunted, but rarely can be caught — you can catch it only in your chest; it is like a bird that can be lured into words and entangled in the memory network." The protagonist of the parable is sure that knowledge must be placed in the soul, "tied to the eye," and "fed with your food and stored it in the heart" [10]. This Sufi wisdom conveyed to us by Ain-al Quzat Hamedani, has not lost its significance to this day. At the same time, the metaphor of the "bird on the lock" makes us recollect the gospel truth that the human soul (the "bird") tried to overcome the grip of the mind (the "lock") at all times.
References
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Received: July 3, 2018 Accepted: September 17, 2018
Author's information:
Mileuscha M. Khabutdinova — PhD, Associate Professor; [email protected]
Идейно-художественное своеобразие романа Зульфю Ливанели «История моего брата»
М. М. Хабутдинова
Казанский федеральный университет,
Российская Федерация, 420008, Казань, ул. Кремлевская, 18
Для цитирования: Khabutdinova M. M. The concept and fiction peculiarity of the novel "My Brother's Story" by Omer Zulfu Livaneli // Вестник Санкт-Петербургского университета. Востоковедение и африканистика. 2018. Т. 10. Вып. 4. С. 479-488. https://doi.org/10.21638/spbu13.2018.405
В статье анализируется роман Омера Зульфю Ливанели «История моего брата» («Karde^imin hikayes"i») (пер. А. Аврутиной). Роман состоит из двух частей: «Я» и «Мех-мед». Автор эксплуатирует структуру романа-обрамления, где в роли «рамы» выступает детективный сюжет, что позволяет добиться занимательности. Основное содержание произведения составляет исследование духовного мира современного человека, судьбы героя-отшельника Ахмеда/Мехмеда Аслана. Пройдя через череду жизненных и нравственных испытаний, герой осознает свою ничтожность и совершает самоубийство. В системе персонажей огромную роль играют образы инженера и журналиста как исследователей природы человеческой души. Мир в романе осознается как хаос. Хронотоп произведения включает в себя целый мир, Турцию и Россию. Ключевой становится антитеза «город/столица — провинция». Образ России складывается из целой цепи литературных реминисценций и ассоциаций, которые подчеркивают все богатство ее культурного потенциала. Политический портрет нацелен на выявление имперской сущности России. Постмодернистская стилистика произведения обнаруживает себя на уровне как содержания, так и структуры произведения. Доказано, что Зульфю Ливанели прибегает к пародированию массовой литературы, переосмыслению ключевых сюжетов из мировой литературы, использует технику коллажа, включает в повествование литературные реминисценции и аналогии, иронически высмеивает симу-лякры. Ведущими в произведении становятся такие черты поэтики, как интертекстуальность, смешение времени и пространства, отказ от традиционного «я», ориентация на множественность интерпретаций текста, принципиальная асистематичность, незавершенность, открытость конструкции, фрагментарность, игра. Детектив выполняет формальную функцию в организации сюжета повествования.
Ключевые слова: турецкая литература, проза, Омер Зульфю Ливанели, постмодернизм, роман-обрамление.
Контактная информация:
Хабутдинова Милеуша Мухаметзяновна — канд. филол. наук, доц.; [email protected]
