{"id":42517,"date":"2021-09-14T14:45:48","date_gmt":"2021-09-14T12:45:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/?p=42517"},"modified":"2022-09-25T16:04:06","modified_gmt":"2022-09-25T14:04:06","slug":"becoming-free-in-turkey-for-the-love-of-madame-vie","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/leregardlibre.com\/en\/literature\/becoming-free-in-turkey-for-the-love-of-madame-vie\/","title":{"rendered":"Becoming free in Turkey, for the love of Madame Vie"},"content":{"rendered":"

Tuesday books - Diana-Alice Ramsauer<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

It will take two women for Faz\u0131l to find his way to freedom. One of them gave her name to the book Ms Hayat<\/em>. The other is more discreet, but also more committed. Two women to tell the story of Faz\u0131l's evolution and awakening in a Turkey that is gradually closing in on itself. Accused of participating in the failed coup of 2016, the author, Ahmet Altan, wrote this book in prison. This gives the story an even more political flavor.<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n

Allusions to Turkey's socio-economic situation begin very early in the book. As early as the second paragraph, the life of (Stamboulian?) Faz\u0131l, a young literature student, changes completely when his family is ruined because \u00aba large country [has] decreed a halt to tomato imports\u00bb. Writer and journalist Ahmet Altan doesn't tell us, but beyond fiction, this \u00abbig country\u00bb is Russia, which in 2015 imposed an embargo on Turkish fruit and vegetables. Sanctions imposed as part of the war in Syria. So we quickly understand that the book tells us a certain reality, well anchored in current events.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00abYou don't learn much about existence in happy families, I now know; it's misfortune that teaches us about life.\u00bb<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Faz\u0131l becomes poor. He leaves his small apartment and takes a room in a kind of hostel where a whole section of society's outcasts gather: a \u00abpoet\u00bb, who turns out to be more of a journalist, a father raising his daughter alone, a few potential mafiosi and a transsexual. To earn money, the young letter-writer takes up a job as an extra on a TV show where young women sing in front of a paid audience to clap their hands, raise their voices and sway to the beat. It's here that he meets the two women who will inspire him to see the world as it really is, without the filter of naivet\u00e9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

A taste for life<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

The first is none other than the woman who gave her name to the book: Madame Hayat. A woman who could be his mother, with reddish-blond hair, a mischievous face and a curvaceous body, almost always molded in a honey-colored dress with a plunging neckline. A figure never presented as vulgar. Madame Hayat is generous and, above all, lively and sparkling. Hayat<\/em> is simply the Turkish word for life<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The other, S\u0131la, is Faz\u0131l's age, with a noble face, \u00abchiseled with care from the smoothest marble by a genius sculptor, a straight, fine nose with soft, round wings [...] Her whole face seemed to look down on you, to judge you, to make you insignificant\u00bb. The young woman is a literature student who has lost everything when the company her father ran is seized by the authorities, as one of its minority shareholders is arrested for \u00abpreparing a plot against the government\u00bb. Similar fates bring the two characters together. \u00abI imagined us as two baby turtles who'd had their shells ripped off, two baby turtles huddling together to give each other a little warmth.\u00bb<\/p>\n\n\n\n\n\n

Getting a taste for freedom<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n

Beyond the double love story, these encounters allow Faz\u0131l to step out of his carefree, arrogant rich man's son. First of all, Madame Hayat, teaches him to love life. \u00abShe] was free. Uncompromising and rebellious, free only out of disinterest, out of quietude, and every time we brushed against each other, her freedom became mine. Soon my life would have no taste outside this freedom I was dependent on her delights\u00bb. This encounter opens up Faz\u0131l's senses: he suddenly has a mad desire to live actively, not to be a spectator of what surrounds him.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because unlike Faz\u0131l, who is increasingly free and alive, Turkey is sliding, almost indifferently, into dictatorship. It's suffocating in on itself. The terraces are emptying from page to page. The booksellers' district sees the curtains of its shops close. Groups of men wait on street corners with sticks to lecture revelers. And arrests multiply.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It's S\u0131la who helps him take the next step on his evolutionary path. A passionate literary critic, she happily throws herself into debate, contradiction and conflict, prompting Faz\u0131l to take a stand and thus, indirectly, become aware of the political situation. For the young woman, it's clear: it's impossible to have a future in this country.<\/p>\n\n\n\n