Review: The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse, Ayfer Tunç
By Şule Akdoğan
Ayfer Tunç’s The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse is as much a crowded book as it is one in constant motion that spans time and space during which we meet hundreds of characters. Whereas these characters do not stay in the narrative spotlight in ways that make any of them an identifiable protagonist of the novel, they allow us to witness a myriad of experiences and events some of which make their ways to the historical records while some exist merely as personal stories enclosed in the mundane and sometimes in bizarre normality. Historical events, such as coups and world wars, different socio-politic issues, cultural products and celebrities such as film stars, artists, and singers, among others, are blended into the narrative in such skilful ways that we come across with an impressive multi-temporal and multi-geographical scope harbouring themes of, for instance, memory, migration, displacement, love, war, marriage, ageing, madness, rape, mutilation, betrayal, murder and madness. While this blend functions as a witty window presenting a slice-of-life impression, it does not shy away from being political, ironic and critical.
In a part where the plain-spoken narrator mentions Kenan Evren, the leader of the 12 September Coup, for instance, we see how the fact intermingles with fiction, and the personal is intertwined with the political. Remarkably, the narrator’s ironic touch offers a blunt critique of history. “Kenan Evren had absolutely no doubt that all that history would never judge him or his fellow generals, nay, that history would actually crown them,” says the narrator and lays bare how Evren’s ominous self-confidence came to be bitterly justified as “neither official historians, nor producers of all manner of spin-offs ever judged them” and besides changes in the constitution and laws, for example, “prohibited criticism.”
The narrator’s commentary on Kenan Evren is inserted into the story of the inept architect Halil Uyanık who was trying to get into Parliament standing for the party of General Turgut Sunalp who said, “Fascism was not as dangerous as Communism.” Juxtaposing the stories of both, the narrator also functions as an alternative history maker and adds this fragment to their amorphous web of agile happenings:
“Decades down the line, unofficial historians would document – and in some detail – Evren’s leading role in that coup, but the younger generation mostly knew him as the veteran who’d painted Sibel Can’s bum; whilst said the retired general was styling himself an artist at his easel in his Marmaris villa, the inept architect was battling with prostate cancer. With one foot in the grave, Halil was still locked in a tussle over a-240-dönüm plot in Rize. Kenan Canıtez, counsel for the other side, had turned out to be a tough nut; he wasn’t going to let Halil Uyanık get away with the land.”
However, in this crowd and motion, there are also places and objects which, seeming to stand still in themselves yet moving beyond their time, find deft ways to leap into the reader’s path.
The mental health hospital which we meet at the very beginning of the novel and hosts a lot of the cast can itself also be taken as a character in the novel. We see that this small-town hospital is located on the coast of the Black Sea, yet it does not have any windows overlooking the sea. This image of the hospital “with its back facing the Black Sea,” says the narrator, incites “an immediate and inexplicable sense of resentment.” Nevertheless, this resentful and maybe a little bit introvert space is also one that affords space for a thick volume of experiences.
On 14 February 2007, Ülkü Birinci, an associate professor of psychology at a university in İstanbul, gave a lecture titled “Love: Self-sacrifice or Self-preservation?” which in fact turned out to be a clumsy presentation. The narrator keeps informing us about Ülkü Birinci; remarkably, they do this through spatio-temporal shifts drifting us to characters beyond the mental hospital. They take us to the edges of Professor Altay Çamur, School Secretary Şenay, the young researcher Selcen Akbaş, an ophthalmologist Berkay Özberk and the virtual platforms of chats rooms; nevertheless, they soon bring us back to the hospital to introduce us to other characters some of whose bizarre actions surpass the extraordinariness of the patients.
We come across, for example, another visitor- the harelipped Ayşe Nuran Serbest from the Maternity Hospital who comes to the hospital to give a lecture on Hygiene in Women’s Health. In an out of the ordinary post-lecture meeting between the Medical Director Demir Demir and Ayşe Nuran, we learn that she is obsessed with her lips and has been long convinced that her harelips remind men of her vagina: “Her belief that her facial defect must remind men of her genitals owed something, no doubt, to the epithet cunnylips she’d overheard time and again.” Ayşe Nuran is also a character who chooses to actively deal with this issue; even her decision to study gynaecology was motivated by a desire to overcome her fixation on her lips. Nevertheless, this does not resolve her problems: “Ayşe Nuran, who had seen thousands of vulvas throughout her professional career, would lately become close to tears whenever she looked in the mirror.” Ayşe Nuran’s unsettling relationship with her lips culminates in a bloody grotesque scene which translates the emotional burden of the 39-year-old gynaecologist that has been devouring her for years. Besides, it spotlights the writer’s mastery in bringing a deep perspective to the plethora of characters that come and go through the flowing layers of the text.
Like the digressive contours of the mental hospital, the icon of The Virgin Mary Holding the Infant Jesus also functions as a beautiful crossroads where the contemporary meets with a centuries-long journey. We meet the icon in the present time of the novel when it is assigned the role of a pot rest at the Medical Director’s house since, being “faded, unframed,” it has not been able to impress the Director’s wife, Sevim Demir. As we read the novel, we come to see that Tunç creates a lineage, a family tree to this now-serving-as-a-pot-rest icon through which we also have a dizzying journey back in time.
In its astute construction of the icon’s travel, the narrative tells us that the icon has long been displaced from its original home. We see that the icon travels to a village in the Black Sea region on horseback with Christian Alla who -with her Muslim cousin-in-law from Ossetia- have to leave their home because of the “antagonism from the Christian majority.” While it has sometimes been treated merely as an object without life or value, it has also evoked awe both from Muslims and Christians. It has witnessed displacement and migration and has touched the hands of many people. We eventually accompany this seemingly unowned work of art until we meet its creator. Rewinding certain episodes of this worldly-wise object’s roaming around the world, the novel thus also pays homage to its roots, including the artist and those whose lives it has touched in countless ways.
Another object that lingers on the earth after unceremoniously leaving the earth is The Clock Tower and the Town on a Snowy Day, the panoramic photograph by the Armenian photographer Karnik Sabuncuyan, another character who lived in the Black Sea Region in the late 19th century. For years, the photograph, which, the narrator says, “was the greatest photograph of the city of all times,” stayed in the mansion of Ardıçoğlu Totodaki Bey, one of the early founders of our mental hospital. Within the momentum of narrative’s often shifting focalization, we also sadly learn that these people, who are roped together in the memory space of this captivating work of art, have scattered around the world carrying with themselves the painful experience of displacement. Ardıçoğlu family, most of whom moved to İstanbul after Totodaki Bey’s death, eventually left Turkey for Greece after the mob attacks directed at İstanbul’s Greek community on 6-7 September 1955. By this time, Karnik Sabuncuyan had already moved to Paris as the forced displacement of Armenian started in 1915. The narrator says:
“Smiles vanished. Displaced Armenians trudged along the roads, wretched, miserable, as their neighbours lamented behind closed doors, and others less scrupulous seized the opportunity to seize abandoned properties. Temporarily shelving the dreams of becoming the best photographer in Istanbul, Karnik left the studio he had never got round to opening, and went to Paris with the family.”
In this respect, even the memory of The Clock Tower and the Town on a Snowy Day maintains a space to bring the past into the present and where, for example, Sabuncuyan’s unrequited desire to go back to Turkey can at least be acknowledged. Sabuncuyan’s grandson, Musicologist Michel Simonian, visits Turkey to search for the photograph years later; although he is debased by those who have tried to rewrite the city’s history in ways to make it “one hundred percent Turkish,” Simonian has been able to revive the name of this legendary photographer.
Like Simonian, Türkân Hanım, one of the most influential people of the town Sabuncuyan left years ago who genuinely believes that all people who contributed to the town’s cultural and historical texture should be commemorated regardless of their ethnic and religious backgrounds, also tries hard to find Sabuncuyan’s legendary work. Although she fails, Türkân Hanım, being able to pass the boundaries of Turkishness, ensures that the name of Karnik Sabuncuyan is kept alive.
Like the objects and spaces connecting people across time and borders, perhaps in a “six degrees of separation” way as the blurb says, The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse itself becomes a mnemonic piece giving a panoramic view of Turkey. One thing fascinating here is how Tunç’s third-person narrator brings a mythic touch to contemporaneity with its omniscient view of time and space. The narrator also functions as an eye-opening window from whose spatio-temporal layers sprout a rendezvous point where myriad experiences can be shared.
I am also impressed by the narrator’s somewhat distanced attitude to the content they carry with themselves. As seen in the stories that we chase through the intriguing corridors of the mental hospital, the icon and the photograph, the narrative voice is not identifiable with a single character or an entity, which aptly enables the observation of multiple, sometimes conflicting, perspectives. For instance, we are allowed to see how Anatolia becomes a refuge for some displaced people whereas it is also a home yearned for by many who have been displaced from it. While there are people who want to make the picture of Turkey one that is devoid of its layers, there are those who can dig into these layers so that they can at least be named in the present. The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse is, in that respect, also a tribute to those people, objects and spaces through which larger-than-life stories are tied together.
The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse, translated by Feyza Howell, is Tunç’s second book that has been published by Istros Books. The first one was The Aziz Bey Incident and Other Stories, translated by Stephanie Ateş and published in 2013. Tunç’s mastery of storytelling is felt in both of these impressively written texts that give a comprehensive view of Turkey; here, the translators should also be praised for their meticulous works in making these books available in English and translating the delicately portrayed layers of this view. The Highly Unreliable Account of the History of a Madhouse is accompanied with several notes informing us about historical figures and events; it also includes “Translator’s Notes” giving insights into the Turkish language. Last but not least, one of the most playful aspects of this book is the way first mentions of names are written in bold, which becomes a witty and perhaps a metafictional signpost escorting us in our journey with the unstoppable, dynamic narrator.
*
Şule Akdoğan is a Visiting Research Fellow at the University of Warwick. Her current research interests include transnational feminism, contemporary women’s writing, Turkish literature in English translation and comparative literature.
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