Oguz Atay - Gunluk (Diary)

When I started reading Tutunamayanlar (The Disconnected) a year ago, I remember saying to myself “This is something like I have never read before”. And it really was something I have never read before. Characters that behave as if they are always hanging from the edge of some hill and they do not have any strong ropes to hang on there, the writing style that chances from chapter to chapter magnificently, the analogies that use scientific stories to symbolize some everyday life social events, the word games, the very smart sense of humor, the chaotic representation of a mind’s thoughts, ... Oguz Atay immediately became one of my favorite authors ever.

Then I have read his Tehlikeli Oyunlar (Dangerous Games), Oyunlarla Yasayanlar (Those Living With Plays) and Korkuyu Beklerken (Waiting for Fear). These books, although did not affect me as much as Tutunamayanlar did, was successful in being different and original as much as Tutunamayanlar. Almost all the stories have a very important common factor; a smart lonely male character that keeps drowning in his own thoughts. In fact, if you try to empathize with that character, it is guaranteed that your mind will become very very tired and you will be very depressed because of trying to follow his thoughts’ flow. You can ask yourself; “How can a person possibly think that much?”and I have always thought this common main character is maybe an exaggerated version of Oguz Atay himself. Now reading his diary made me realize that I was not that mistaken.

However, Oguz Atay’s thoughts are not as depressive as his characters’ thoughts. They might be chaotic sometimes but this is due to his will of putting his ideas on paper so that later he will not forget them. These are mostly ideas related to the books he plans to write and some small articles. As a person who have read those books, reading Oguz Atay’s notes during these books’ creation period was really a great pleasure.

Oguz Atay is a civil engineer. He even published a textbook on Topography, which, according to my dad, was different then any of the textbooks he had ever read and reading it was like reading a novel. Despite being a successful engineer, he is also full of knowledge on things that are not considered as related to engineering. One can see this from his diary, since he makes references to many other authors, films or books. An engineer who loves reading and writing material that are not related to her/his field is uncommon today. Being graduated as an engineer who loves reading books and watching films a lot, while reading this book I felt like I have found a new friend. In the science community, I have seen many people who think reading material not related to your field is useless or boring. This can really be discouraging sometimes when you try to make conversations with people on topics not related to your field. My trade-off is I don’t know as much stuff related to my fields as those people but they don’t have knowledge on film and book literature as much as I do. I don't know which way is better.

Oguz Atay is my favorite Turkish author and one of my favorite authors in general. He has a direct, honest way of saying what he really wants to say and he is courageous. He is not afraid of criticizing himself or the group of people he is associated with. That is the reason he is remembered as “always the opposition”. He is even opposition among the left-wing. This can be seen in his article about Turkey in his diary, which was one of the best articles I have read on Turkey. He, as a person that knows the ideals of the left-wing, well-educated society very well since he was one of them, manages to analyze and criticize both the left-wing and right-wing acts among the different ideological groups in Turkey effectively and he also makes sincere comparisons between eastern and western world as a person who supports the enlightenment ideas of the western world but criticizes the capitalist and pragmatic ideology of the same culture.

I am really happy for the day that I have first heard this guys name. =)