light gazing, ışığa bakmak

Thursday, January 28, 2016

Tanpınar, nağmenin billuru (melody of crystal)

"When I came back to Turkey in 1998, I was determined to learn Turkish. I felt it would be the best way to immerse myself in the culture, a chance to see the world through different eyes. Soon I was obsessed with “mastering” the language (of course a chimera) and reading Turkish literature seemed like the ultimate achievement. Eventually I began plodding through the classics. It was often rough sledding, but I enjoyed discovering dusty old Ottoman words that many of my Turkish friends sternly told me not to dust off but I would always dig them up in dictionaries and defend them. They were magical words like hodbin (selfish) and eleğimsağma (rainbow). I loved the way they sounded. One day a good friend suggested I read Tanpınar. There had recently been a Tanpınar revival in Turkey, which began in the late ’80s when many Turkish readers were rediscovering his work. My friend was taken by Tanpınpar’s lyricism and the creative collocations (or “marriage of words” as Nurdan Gürbilek eloquently puts it) that marked his work: there was iç manzaraları (landscapes of the mind), zamanın aynası (the mirror of time) and nağmenin billuru (melody of crystal). Back in the early ’00s, Tanpınar was difficult for me to grasp, let alone translate, but there was something intoxicating about the impressionist moods he conjured up in elaborate, cascading, musical sentences packed with glittering old Ottoman words. I got the same feeling from [Halit Ziya] Uşaklıgil, who, like Tanpınar, wrote descriptions of the Bosporus and İstanbul at twilight that seemed to crackle like they were on fire. These artists were meticulous stylists who celebrated the lyricism and the spirit of a city they dearly loved. I wondered how they might sound in English and I started with Tanpınar’s “Summer Rain,” a story I’m still tinkering with 10 years later. “The Time Regulation Institute,” however, was a very different kind of work. And it was a pleasure to have had the chance to work on it with Maureen Freely."

(...) "He gives readers a chance to experience Turkey’s transition from the crumbling Ottoman Empire to the republic, and meet some unforgettable characters along the way. He invokes the old Ottoman world: dilapidated medreses; coffeehouses with strange characters that never leave; old wooden mansions filled with family members from all corners of the empire; Greeks, Turks and Armenians taking the stage as woman in the theater boom in the early 20th century; a tender timekeeper caring to watches and clocks, and keeping time to a calendar of another age. Many of these characters and situations no longer exist today, so it’s no easy task to express them in another language. But it’s inspiring work. Timekeeper Nuri Efendi is beautifully conveyed in the original Turkish, and you work that much harder to capture his person and his spirit in English."

"You get so much of a culture through its language. The general color and tone, shifts in register, the elasticity, the range in slang, fixed expressions and proverbs. Turkish is a language that is always up on its feet. It’s flexible, lively, playful and rich in cultural references that stretch far back in time. The current lingua franca, English, has sadly purged so much of its richness from its daily speech. Proverbs have surrendered to snappy business speak that might get to the point, but lack subtlety. One reason I enjoy translation is that it gives me the chance to discover something new every day: a curious expression, a dirty joke or an obscure fact or figure."

from here.

5 comments:

Osezar said...

Bursa da zaman...

http://youtu.be/X1_vHTB9M9E

Ana V. said...

http://amesadeluz.blogspot.pt/2013/05/an-old-mosque-courtyard.html
:) güzel bir şiirdir, ama sofistike, ve benim için zor. Son ayet: beyaz su veya beyaz bahçesi?

BURSA'DA ZAMAN

Bursa'da bir eski cami avlusu,
Küçük şadırvanda şakırdıyan su;
Orhan zamanından kalma bir duvar...
Onunla bir yaşta ihtiyar çınar
Eliyor dört yana sakin bir günü.
Bir rüyadan arta kalmanın hüznü
İçinde gülüyor bana derinden.
Yüzlerce çeşmenin serinliğinden
Ovanın yeşili göğün mavisi
Ve mimarîlerin en ilâhisi.

Bir zafer müjdesi burda her isim:
Sanki tek bir anda gün, saat, mevsim
Yaşıyor sihrini geçmiş zamanın
Hâlâ bu taşlarda gülen rüyanın.
Güvercin bakışlı sessizlik bile
Çınlıyor bir sonsuz devam vehmiyle.
Gümüşlü bir fecrin zafer aynası,
Muradiye, sabrın acı meyvası,
Ömrünün timsali beyaz Nilüfer,
Türbeler, camiler, eski bahçeler,
Şanlı hikâyesi binlerce erin
Sesi nabzım olmuş hengâmelerin
Nakleder yâdını gelen geçene.

Bu hayâle uyur Bursa her gece,
Her şafak onunla uyanır, güler
Gümüş aydınlıkta serviler, güller
Serin hülyasıyla çeşmelerinin.
Başındayım sanki bir mucizenin,
Su sesi ve kanat şakırtılarından
Billûr bir âvize Bursa'da zaman.

Yeşil türbesini gezdik dün akşam,
Duyduk bir musikî gibi zamandan
Çinilere sinmiş Kur'an sesini.
Fetih günlerinin saf neşesini
Aydınlanmış buldum tebessümünle.

İsterdim bu eski yerde seninle
Başbaşa uyumak son uykumuzu,
Bu hayâl içinde... Ve ufkumuzu
Çepçevre kaplasın bu ziya, bu renk,
Havayı dolduran uhrevî âhenk..
Bir ilâh uykusu olur elbette
Ölüm bu tılsımlı ebediyette,
Belki de rüyâsı bu cetlerin,
Beyaz bahçesinde su seslerinin.

Osezar said...

Bursa yı çok sevdiğini anlatıyor. Bursa huzur veriyor.

Ana V. said...

Tanpınar çok şiirsel. Okudum Göknar of Huzur, ama bütün kitap.

Ana V. said...

Birçok Tanpınar çeviriler yoktur. Ben Türk geliştirmek gerekiyor!

 
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