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Here is a review for Orhan Kemal's The
Idle Years which
has just appeared in the Review of Middle Eastern Studies.
MESA ROMES 43 l 2009
Orhan Kemal. The Idle
Years. London: Peter Owen Publishers, 2008. 223 pages. Paper
EUK11.95 ISBN 978-0-7206-1310-0.
The Idle Years is a realistic
novel set in the 1920s and 1930s that masterfully portrays
the struggles of a once well-respected, financially
comfortable family caught up in the upheaval of the early
decades of the Republic of Turkey. The first two of Orhan
Kemal's semi-autobiographical tetralogy My Father's House
(Baba Evi, 1949) and Idle Years (Avare Yillar, 1950)
comprise this poignant work. Kemal, a giant of the Turkish
short story and novel, is well known for his realistic and
compassionate portrayal of the impoverished. In this highly
accessible work Kemal's true to life portrayals allows the
reader a rare male perspective of the internal dynamics of a
Turkish household. Kemal presents his complex cast of
characters—the inhabitants of the poverty stricken
neighborhoods, his friends and family—as multi-layered
individuals acting and reacting as actors caught in a
complex network some of which overlap and some of which do
not overlap.
At first glance, the subject
matter of this novel appears terribly depressing. The
narrator, the son of a well to do household, finds his
education and his life interrupted when his family suddenly
flees to Beirut, where they are faced with daily struggle
against poverty and hunger. It is not merely this family
that is suffering but entire neighborhoods. The author's
attempts to escape poverty take him back to Adana and then
to Istanbul and finally back to Adana again. Throughout his
travels, he creates vibrant portraits of the poor, hungry
people by whom he is surrounded. However, The Idle Years is
far from depressing. Narrated with a great deal of empathy
and a sense of humor suffused with minor gestures of
unexpected kindness, this work captures many of the author's
own experiences.
Orhan Kemal was born Mehmet
Rasit Ogiitcii in 1914 in Adana. His father was a lawyer who
was the MP from Kastamonu in the first Turkish national
parliament. Due to his father's political activism, the
entire family had to flee to Syria. Kemal returned to Adana
in 1932 and held a variety of menial jobs. He started his
literary career as a poet. Kemal published his first poem
Yedigiin under the name of Rasit Kemal (Duvarlar 25 04
1939). While doing his military service in 1939 he was
sentenced to five years in prison for his political
opinions. His time in prison was pivotal in his development
as an artist. Here he met the great Turkish poet Nazim
Hikmet. Hikmet tutored him and influenced him but perhaps
also intimidated him. He decided to focus on prose. He won
the highly esteemed Sait Faik award twice with his books
Equal Sharing (Kardes Payi) and Bread First (Once Ekmek).
Bread First also won The Turkish Language Institute Short
Story award. He adapted
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