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ABSTRACT
In Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar’s novel A Mind at Peace, Nuran plays a central role as the beloved and provides the title for one of the four chapters, yet, much like the female characters in Tanpınar’s other works, receives little critical attention. This article examines Nuran through her femininity, maternalism, and heritage as the representation of a changing cultural and social identity tied to the Ottoman past but focused on the future. While Mümtaz, the male protagonist, inhabits a juvenile or deferred present, Nuran is rooted in the present through her multifaceted female identity and maintains a conflicted connection to the past and to her progeny through her family’s legacy, the “Song in the Mahur Mode.” This discord manifests in Nuran’s maternal duty to protect her daughter Fatma, who also bears the inheritance and emerges as Mümtaz’s main rival for Nuran’s affections. Nuran’s choice to pursue a transgressive relationship within the structure of her familial fate posits a feminine and cyclical alternative to the historical and aesthetic nostalgia of Mümtaz.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.
Notes
1. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 147; Tanpınar, Huzur, 123. All translations unless otherwise noted are to the English edition, A Mind at Peace, translated by Erdağ Göknar and are followed by the citation to the original Turkish Huzur.
2. Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories of the City, 105. Notable exceptions include the chapter “Bad Boy Turk (1)” in the English translation of Nurdan Gürbilek’s The New Cultural Climate in Turkey: Living in a Shop Window; Çimen Günay-Erkol’s “Sleepwalking in İstanbul: A Man in Anguish in A.H. Tanpınar’s A Mind at Peace;” and the chapter “Istanbul: City as Trope and Topos of Crossed Destinies” in Azade Seyhan’s Tales of Crossed Destinies: The Modern Turkish Novel in a Comparative Context.
3. Enginün, Günlüklerin Işığında Tanpınar’la Baş Başa, 322. Tanpınar criticized political readings of A Mind at Peace, in which he received criticism from both the right and the left for his exploration of the multifaceted aspects of an Ottoman heritage and Republican modernity. Moran, Türk Romanına Elştirel Bir Bakış, 269–96; and Naci, Yüzyılın 100 Türk Romanı, 245–55. See Moran and Naci for the theme of uneasiness and the tension between individual and collective. Hilav, Edebiyat Yazıları, 105–20. See Hilav for culture, ideology, and the East/West binary. Kaplan, “Bir Şairin Romanı: Huzur,” 33–86; and Demiralp, Kutup Noktası, 111–30. See Kaplan and Demiralp for character analysis through psychology and the novel’s structure.
4. Kaplan, “Bir Şairin Romanı: Huzur,” 152. In his analysis of the novel’s composition, Kaplan asserts that Nuran is its core.
5. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 207; Tanpınar, Huzur, 173.
6. Kaplan, “Bir Şairin Romanı: Huzur,” 100–2. See Kaplan for an analysis of time in relation to the structure of the novel’s four sections. Kaplan observes three temporalities operating within the novel. The first is the frame time or actual time of the first and final sections. The second is the past, which characterizes the interior sections. The third is the recent past, which is present throughout.
7. Moran, Türk Romanına Elştirel Bir Bakış, 207. Moran notes that music plays a critical role in the novel and its structure resembles a symphonic composition. Kaplan, “Bir Şairin Romanı: Huzur,” 92, 153. Kaplan also observes the significance of music in the novel, particularly in relation to dreams and the structural composition of the text.
8. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 85; Tanpınar, Huzur, 71.
9. Moran, Türk Romanına Elştirel Bir Bakış, 203. Moran argues that A Mind at Peace is fundamentally a novel about “problems” manifest in the conflict between Mümtaz’s personal happiness and social responsibility. While Mümtaz’s individual state constitutes the fundamental “problem” of the novel, the issue of the personal versus the collective is specifically framed through the female characters, primarily Nuran and her competing responsibilities to beloved and family.
10. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 90–91; Tanpınar, Huzur, 75–76.
11. Günay-Erkol, “Sleepwalking in İstanbul,” 90–91. Günay-Erkol draws from the characterization of Mümtaz as a somnambül, or “sleepwalker,” whose suspended existence between consciousness and dreams represents a “state of perilous uncertainty” in which he “struggles to accept the mundane facts of the real world that surrounds him.” Gürbilek, “Kurumuş Pınar, Kör Ayna,” 412. Gürbilek observes that the somnambulant male protagonist is a common character in Tanpınar’s novels.
12. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 96; Tanpınar, Huzur, 80.
13. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 99; Tanpınar, Huzur, 82–83.
14. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 101; Tanpınar, Huzur, 84.
15. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 130; Tanpınar, Huzur, 109.
16. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 131; Tanpınar, Huzur, 110.
17. Günay-Erkol, “Sleepwalking in İstanbul,” 87. Günay-Erkol also observes the emphasis on maternalism but through the frame of male anxiety and homosocial dependence.
18. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 141; Tanpınar, Huzur, 118.
19. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 225–26; Tanpınar, Huzur, 188.
20. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 225, 188; Tanpınar, Huzur, 187, 157.
21. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 211; Tanpınar, Huzur, 176.
22. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 197, 220; Tanpınar, Huzur, 164, 183.
23. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 157–58; Tanpınar, Huzur, 131–32.
24. Gürbilek, “Kurumuş Pınar, Kör Ayna,” 422, 424–25, 431; Gürbilek, Yer Değiştiren Gölge, 17–18. See Gürbilek for analysis of the women in Tanpınar’s novels, their aesthetic representation in relation to works of the Ottoman Empire, and the specter of the dead female as symbolic of fate. Gürbilek sees Tanpınar’s female characters as the medium through which male characters access the past.
25. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 92; Tanpınar, Huzur, 77.
26. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 161; Tanpınar, Huzur, 135.
27. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 147, 205, 172, 195; Tanpınar, Huzur, 122, 170–71, 143, 163.
28. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 125; Tanpınar, Huzur, 105.
29. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 157; Tanpınar, Huzur, 131.
30. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 158; Tanpınar, Huzur, 132.
31. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 159; Tanpınar, Huzur, 133.
32. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 160; Tanpınar, Huzur, 134.
33. Gürbilek, “Tanpınar’da Ophelia, Su ve Rüyalar,” 427. See Gürbilek for Macide as a maternal figure. Günay-Erkol, “Sleepwalking in İstanbul,” 92–93. See Günay-Erkol for analysis of Mümtaz’s negotiations of masculine identity and Oedipal impulse with Macide as his object. She also cites Tanpınar’s statement in Yaşadığım Gibi, 35 in which he describes Turkey’s modernization as an accidental but necessary Oedipal overthrow in the transition from the Ottoman Empire. In this context, a present temporality framed through the feminine, as in Nuran’s cyclical synthesis of heritage and modernity, is the only viable option to a foreclosed masculine temporality only accessible through historical and aesthetic nostalgia.
34. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 222; Tanpınar, Huzur, 185. A Mind at Peace includes many references to Shakespeare’s Hamlet foremost of which is Mümtaz at the novel’s conclusion as Hamlet in a state of delirium haunted by a ghost. Gürbilek, “Tanpınar’da Ophelia, Su ve Rüyalar,” 410–38; and Gürbilek, “Dried Spring, Blind Mirror.” See Gürbilek for an extensive examination of Tanpınar’s use of Shakespeare throughout his works and specifically the figure of Ophelia.
35. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 224; Tanpınar, Huzur, 187.
36. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 223; Tanpınar, Huzur, 186.
37. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 99; Tanpınar, Huzur, 83.
38. Günay-Erkol, “Sleepwalking in İstanbul,” 97; Gürbilek, The New Cultural Climate, 137–60; Kaplan, “Bir Şairin Romanı: Huzur,” 99, 122; Moran, Türk Romanına Elştirel Bir Bakış, 213; Parla, Don Kişot’tan Bugüne Roman, 300; and Seyhan, Tales of Crossed Destinies, 146–48. See for a reading of Suad as Mümtaz’s primary rival for Nuran’s affection. While Suad with his nihilism emerges as an ideological adversary, Fatma, who is present at the couple’s first encounter and symbolizes Nuran’s responsibilities to heritage and family, is the main competitor. Manifestations of jealousy follow Fatma’s outbursts, and lovers, including Suad, mimic Fatma’s demonic expression from her manic episode. Kaplan contrasts Suad as a man of action with the passive Mümtaz.
39. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 160; Tanpınar, Huzur, 134.
40. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 99; Tanpınar, Huzur, 83.
41. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 246; Tanpınar, Huzur, 206.
42. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 247; Tanpınar, Huzur, 207.
43. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 250; Tanpınar, Huzur, 210.
44. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 249, 251; Tanpınar, Huzur, 209, 210.
45. Parla, Don Kişot’tan Bugüne Roman, 282–305. See Parla for an examination of different temporalities in Tanpınar’s novels, particularly the relationship between historical and cosmic time and the fate of the individual and the collective. Nuran’s cyclical temporality approximates a synthesis of the cosmic and historical in its fated repetition of the cycle ad infinitum but within the bounds of historical contingencies.
46. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 362; Tanpınar, Huzur, 304.
47. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 253; Tanpınar, Huzur, 212.
48. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 240; Tanpınar, Huzur, 200.
49. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 244; Tanpınar, Huzur, 204.
50. Naci, Yüzyılın Yüz Romanı, 249; Kaplan, “Bir Şairin Romanı: Huzur,” 95; and Moran, Türk Romanına Elştirel Bir Bakış, 213–14. See for analysis of Suad as a character borrowed from Dostoevsky or Aldous Huxley with a “translated suicide.” Gürbilek, The New Cultural Climate, 137–60. See Gürbilek for an examination of Suad as a copy and a belated anti-hero.
51. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 375; Tanpınar, Huzur, 315.
52. Ertürk, “Modernity and Its Fallen Languages,” 43. Ertürk argues that huzursuzluk, or “‘existential uneasiness’ … of not being at one with oneself is fundamentally a problem of comparison, one that repeatedly tempts Tanpınar to solutions in the form of restored origins.” Nuran’s return to Fatma and Fâhir and the subsequent restoration of the nuclear family adheres to this pattern.
53. Moran, Türk Romanına Elştirel Bir Bakış, 210, 219. See Moran for analysis of repeating motifs, such as poverty, illness, and decay in sections one and four in contrast to the nature and pleasure to be found on the same streets one year prior.
54. Tanpınar, A Mind at Peace, 63, 441; Tanpınar, Huzur, 56, 370.