ORHAN PAMUK’UNKAFAMDA BİR TUHAFLIK ROMANINDA POSTMODERN BİR FLÂNEUR: MEVLUT

Türk roman yazarları arasında Nobel ödülü almayı başarmış olan tek yazar olan Orhan Pamuk gerek yerli gerekse de yabancı okur ve eleştirmenlerin dikkatini çekmeye devam eden üretken bir sanatçı profili çizer. Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık işte bu üretkenliğin sonucunda hazırlanan ve 2014 yılında Yapı Kredi Yayınları arasında çıkan son romanıdır. Romanda Konya-Beyşehirli olan ve Anadolu'dan İstanbul'a göç etmiş olan Mevlut'un aşkı, evliliği ve İstanbul'daki yaşamı konu edinilmektedir. 1969'dan itibaren İstanbul sokaklarında seyyar satıcılık yapan Mevlut, çoğunlukla boza satarak geçimini sağlamaktadır. Romancının özel olarak tasarladığı bu karakter kentte yaşanan ekonomik, mimari, sosyal ve siyasal değişim ve dönüşümlerin anlatılması için araçsallaştırılır. Mevlut ve içinde bulunduğu ilişkiler ağı sayesinde İstanbul'un 1969'dan 2012 yılına kadar olan panoraması çıkartılır. Walter Benjamin'in "Kapitalizmin Yükseliş Çağında Lirik Bir Şair" adlı çalışmasında Charles Baudelaire için 'flâneur' yakıştırması yapılır. 'Flâneur', aylak aylak gezen aydın'ın anlatımı için kullanılan bir kavramdır. Orhan Pamuk'un postmodernitesi, seyyar satıcıyı kentin kalbine bir 'flâneur' olarak yerleştirmesine olanak tanır. Çalışmamızda 'flâneur' kavramı üzerinde durularak Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık romanında Mevlut karakterinin bu tiple olan benzerlik ve farklılıkları ele alınacaktır. Çalışmamızın amacı, Orhan Pamuk'un Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık romanında kent ve kent imgesinin nasıl işlendiğine ilişkin çözümlemeler yapmak; roman kahramanı ile Walter Benjamin'in öne sürdüğü 'flâneur' kavramı arasında karşılaştırmalar yapmaktır

A POSTMODERN FLÂNEUR IN ORHAN PAMUK’S A STARNGENESS IN MY MIND: MEVLUT

The novel of Orhan Pamuk which is Strangeness in My Mind is published by Yapı Kredi Yayınları in 2014. The novel starts with the arrival of an Anatolian young man called Mevlut to İstanbul where his father stays and he sells “boza” (a traditional Turkish beverage) there. The novel ends up with the old age of the novel’s hero. The novelist draws the panaroma of Istanbul by getting the hero of the novel to sell boza. The hero of the novel is raised to the joy and understanding level of a flâneur as a peddler. Thus, a social background is created about plenty of scopes concerning social, politic, economic and architectural subjects appearing last 40-50 years of Turkey. Orhan Pamuk who reflects politic and social transformations in Turkey by individual lives and growing conditions of his heros depicts the changing scene of Istanbul by migration wave with the aid of a peddler this time. While flâneur is a concept which is formed by the personality of Baudelaire, Pamuk creates his flâneur from a peddler by removing intellectual and poet characteristics. This situation arises from his postmodernity without a doubt. The novel consists of about 40 years life story of Mevlüt. The city and Mevlut change together and at the same tone Orhan Pamuk who successed to win Nobel prize only novelist among other Turkish writers. Not only he has been known by Turkish readers and reviewers but also well-known by foreign followers. He also pays attention with his prolific characteristic. A Strangeness in My Mind is his latest novel which served by prolific manner to novel readers. The novel was publishded by best known Publisher Yapi Kredi Publication in 2014. A Strangeness in My Mind is handling Mevlut’s life that emigrated from Konya-Beysehir to İstanbul. The novel narrates Mevlut’s adventure from his early life to days of age and displays his love, marriage and living in İstanbul. Mevlut who had maked a living with itinerant trade. He mainly sells in street boza a traditional Turkish beverage. He sometimes sells yoghurt, icecream and chickpea-rice but observes boza from 1969 to 2012. The novel hero who designed specially by the novelist Orhan Pamuk reflects and shows economic, architectural, social and political alterations and transformations. The hero was instrumentalized by the novelist to narrate urban transformation as historically. The novel reveals city panorama from beginings 1970’s to nowadays owing to a street vendor Mevlut’s human context. Walter Benjamin named Charles Baudelaire a ‘flâneur’ in his one of the most known studying “A Lyric Poet in the Era of High Capitalism”. Flaneur is a character who lounger, stroller and saunterer. The concept refers to strolling in city and passages. Flâneur is literary types used in poems and fictional works. Orhan Pamuk who is a Postmodernist novelist replace his hero Mevlut Karataş in city as a ‘flâneur’. We aim to examine similarity and diversity between hero and lterary type of ‘flaneur’ in our study. Strangeness in My Mind’s hero Mevlut who comes to İstanbul in 1969 sells “boza” in its streets for 43 years until 2012 when the novel is finished. In spite of some interruptions, Istanbul’s panorama is sketched in the novel thanks to the itinerant trade of Mevlut. The only joy for Mevlut who does not earn much money from his job is to wander freely in the streets. Daily change of İstanbul’s scene is carefully narrated in the novel. 1971 military memorandum and 1980 military coup is so important for the formation of political atmosphere of the novel. Social and political alterations are mostly put forth by the observations of Mevlut and the information given by the narrator. The writer uses Mevlut as a “narrator agent” whereby he depicts the memory of the city. The writer creates a ‘flâneur’ from the itinerant trade in the novel called “Strangeness in My Mind”. It is thought that this situation is mostly convenient to the postmodern novel theory. Orhan Pamuk’s novel called Strangeness in My Mindcontains lots of postmodern elements like his most novels. The novel has techniques like “intertextual fiction”, “metafiction”, “poioumena” , “pastiche”. Maybe, the most postmodern aspect of the novel could be considered itinerant trade’s being brought to suitable position for a ‘flâneur’ characterization. Orhan Pamuk finds his novelist personality by adding postmodern novel elements to his works. TheBlack Book and The Ne Life are his first works in postmodern novel trend. (Belge,1994, p.481). Similar style is persisted in his novels called My Name is Red, Snowand Museum of Innocent. Lastly, Orhan Pamuk demonstrates that he keeps on that style with Strangeness in My Mind. The hero of novel, Mevlut, becomes a new ‘flâneur’ in İstanbul streets. While he wanders in the streets, he also wanders in his head at the same time. This situation results from the width of thematic range of Orhan Pamuk. Felâtun (Mr. Platon and Master Rakım) by Ahmet Mithat Efendi, Bihruz (Car Love) by Recâizâde Mahmut Ekrem are first reflections of ‘flâneur’ type in Turkish literature. Ali İhsan Kolcu (2012) states that Bihruz is “Dandy” (p.92). Dandy is an aristocrat idle character, he looks for happiness and strangeness is a part of his nature. Alcibiades, Catiline and Caesar is Dandy characters of ancient era (Baudelaire, 1964, p.26). After Chateaubriand uses this concept, Benjamin suggests ‘flâneur’ which is appropriate to his personality with the rise of capitalism after the indrustrial revolution. While Dandy is a character that spreads from ancient era to modern times, ‘flâneur’ appears with the addition of commercial attraction centers called passages to urban architecture in Paris in the early years of 19th century. Indeed, both Felâtun and Bihruz stand closer to “Dandy” character. They don’t bother themselves to produce new ideas when they wander idly. However, Sait Faik is a real ‘flâneur’. ‘Flâneur’ can be considered as a basic concept quality in some article written by Walter Benjamin about Baudelaire. ‘flâneur’ is a French Word which means ‘idle’, ‘wanderer’, ‘loafer’, ‘unemployed’. That concept is used for sad intellectuals wandering idly in the cities. Priscilla Parkhust Ferguson (1994) divides ‘flâneur’ type to three: “bourgeois flâneur”, “hero-artist flâneur” and “marginal poet flâneur” (p. 81-89). Poet Baudelaire is the carrier of “poet-flâneur” type (Fields,2014, p.6). “Poet-flâneur” is not implied in “Left-Wing Melancholy” which is an article written by Benjamin for Erich Kastner. Contrarily, it is an ascription for revolutionary penny-a-liner (Benjamin, 2007, p.265-266 and Brown, 2007, p.268). Benjamin emphasizes this topic in his article called “Left-Wing Melancholy” where Erich Kastner’s poems are assessed. Baudelaire sets parallelism between Poe’s story called “The Man of Crowd” and Baudelaire’s ‘flâneur’ type. ‘Flâneur’ which is a concept outsite of society appears after bourgeois revolution in crowded cities. “Spendthrift” used in Turkish literature to describe characters at novel analyzes is also first representatives of ‘flâneur’ type in a way

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