 |
| Arthur Rimbaud |
I don’t know whether the headline of my piece belongs to Jean Genet.
Leafing through my filed notes, I realized that the above headline had taken
its place among them as the 72nd note. It also came to my attention that I had
opened a parenthesis below the preceding one, namely the 71st note, and written
that it belonged to Genet, but had given no information on the origin of the
latter. Or, was it me who had formed this sentence? May I - on that day which I
cannot remember what date it was - have slipped it into my
notes folder not to have been stumbled by the obliviousness trip of the time,
and to fill in the blank below it someday? Possible, but it still carries the
odor of Genet, and resembles one of the inexhaustible sentences of this reckless man, this jail breaker.
Genet who left the world drawing a thick line beneath France is a prototype
of the 20th-century Western thought, a footnote of it, and an esthetic sewer
channel occasionally flowing up towards the earth. When he came out of the
prison walls to the arena with lots of novels in his arms, he had brought a new
dynamism into this literary genre: The Miracle of the Rose, The Sea, and The
Thief’s Journal … An underground literature.
When we read the short story of Genet’s life, it isn’t difficult for us to
understand what his guilt was: “Because of being an illegitimate child, he was
abandoned by his mother. Until the age of 10, he stayed at an orphanage and
then with a peasant family in Morvan. In 1926, he ran away from the reformatory
house he had been sent to when he was 10, and joined the French Foreign Legion.
After a while, he escaped from the Legion as well, and lived like a
full-blooded punk becoming involved in burglary and smuggling incidents in
various countries of Europe. He was frequently imprisoned for the crimes he had
committed. In 1948 in France, he stood trial for burglary for the 10th time,
and was sentenced to life in prison.”
Genet is Sartre’s ‘gift’ to the modern world. It was Sartre who ‘found’ and
‘discovered’ Genet, ‘introducing him to the literary world.’
 |
| Jean Genet |
Thumbing through ‘The Miracle of Rose,’ I found the place of the sentence
that had made its way into my notes folder. Genet’s character (Genet himself in
a sense) says this. “Stealing must be appreciated. Young thief! All the time
leave yourself to the dreams that make you the flamboyant person even you would
like to resemble! Only those kids who embark on the path towards banditry to
imitate their favorite bandit –or to become bandit per se– can dare to play
this gamble to its end. Your doings being beautiful is of great importance.
Despite the wrinkles it evokes on one’s face and the awkward postures it gives
one’s body, every act done in pain, carved out of pain, and arising from
distress and peril deserves respect.”
Genet’s fate is the fate of France in a sense. It is also the fate of the
West from a different aspect. This is because leading a bohemian life, being
hung out to dry and finding yourself in pain as soon as opening your eyes to
the world aren’t characteristics unique to Genet. France or the West in general
has had many such ‘famous figures.’
In the first place these two figures come to my mind: Arthur Rimbaud and
Thomas Bernhard. It is possible to hear the same sentence from the two: “Every
act carved out of pain deserves respect.”
The sufferings of this trio are relatives in many respects.
Thomas Bernhard was born from an adulterous affair. He was denied
permission to be born in his country, Austria, and had to open his eyes to the
world in the Netherlands. He grew up without a father. His mother died at an
early age. He had an unfortunate and lonely childhood. All his life he felt
uncomfortable with the Nazi education he had received in his young years. A
restless, anxious life and the feeling of hate he had nourished against his own
country! Bernhard led a life that, from beginning to end, had been left behind
under the shadow of pain and in a state of being unable to come to terms with
and embrace the reality around him. In Oğuz Demiralp’s words, Bernhard ‘writes
to revenge on what has befallen him and to batter his surroundings down.’ It is
not difficult to predict that Bernhard having taken such a life as his starting
point while writing ‘Frost,’ ‘Extinction,’ ‘Old Masters’ was an agonizing
choice. One wonders whether he was trying to obliterate this past from his
mind, and to forget it through writing, ‘ceaselessly writing,’ and ‘incessantly
reading’? Reportedly, he had read all the books published in his country!
And, Arthur Rimbaud!
Rimbaud, too, lives through a fate similar to those experienced by the
others.
When he was eight years old, his father abandons home and never returns. As
a forlorn woman, his mother is sick at heart. A life plagued by a slew of
disappointments had rendered her unbearable. There is only one option left for
Rimbaud –to run away from home. He goes to Paris and then Belgium on foot. He
is arrested for being a train stowaway. He writes “Down with God” on the walls
of the city where he was born. He takes sea voyages. He spends months on board
travelling from country to country.
A poem-filled but drifting life. Rumor has it that he was ‘gay’ just like
Genet. His ‘best friend’ was a poet as well: Verlaine.
These words he told his teenage friend Ernest Delahaye deserve emphasis:
“The thing that makes me superior over others is my lack of heart.”
“Alas, my poor fellow brother! The one to whom I owe many irresistible
nights!”
We mentioned three pains. One’s name is Jean, the other is Thomas, and the
last one is Arthur. One is a novelist, the other is a poet, and Bernhard is
both a novelist and a poet. Two of them are French, and one is Austrian. The
‘eximious’ enfants terribles of the West. Parentless, down-and-out and adrift.
Am I going to say “This is what the West is all about!”?I don’t want to be
hasty that much, and to jump to such a conclusion. Besides, what is the point
of saying it? From a certain point of view, each member of this trio, too, is
among the figures who ‘made’ today’s West which rises on their works. Even we
can suggest that the plight which had befallen them, and their unfortunate
lives made, be it good or bad, an important contribution to the origin of their
existence. However, it is also possible to say that they are the other side of
today’s Western world.
There is a Western odor in their ‘anguish.’
It is not only about them; when taking a step back, a smell of vagabondage
surrounds the vicinity. It is understood that the men who put them in that
situation –their fathers in other words- had taken part in crews of vagabonds
at the time. All of the mothers are problematic. What’s more, no member of the
previous generation had been able to become artist.
 |
| Thomas Bernhard |
Three men and a single kind of pain.
The figures who left their mark on our age.
Characters standing at the forefront of 20-century men of letters photo.
On the one hand, they are typical figures who are parentless, gay and
stealer, and hate their countries. When viewed from a different vantage point, however,
each one of them alone is a powerful artist of words.
The 20th century has turned out to be an era that has gathered all these
features together in itself tout de suite. It has readily lumped these
different traits together.
It won’t be easy to write the history of pain.
Will the history of pain be the history of poets and novelists or the
history of gays and vagabonds?
Will it be the history of fatherless children or that of those who dedicate
their lives to the literature and the art in general?
Will the pain go down in the pages of history with its beinghood as any
pain, or with the nobility in its dimensions and form?
Does every act carved out of pain indeed deserve respect?
(Translate: Cüneyt Fatih Yaylacı)
(ACIDAN YONTULAN HER HAREKET
SAYGIYI HAK EDER)
Hiç yorum yok:
Yorum Gönder