“The clock itself is space, its walking is time, its setting is human…
This shows that time and space exist with humans!”
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's “Institute for Setting Clocks” ” is one of the novels that affected me most deeply. While thinking about it this much, I couldn't help but want to write down my thoughts. It would be very inadequate if this novel was discussed only in terms of a social conflict of civilization and the effort of westernization. There are many elements that make this novel different and special for me. Explaining the old-new contrast and the social issue of rejecting the past as a cultural issue with beautiful ironies, the way the beauty of the Turkish language is presented, and the fact that it is nourished by the psychoanalysis tradition reveal the richness of this novel, indicating that it is the product of a very special thought.
“The Time Regulation Institute” is, in many respects, one of the most important works of Turkish literature that sheds light on the social situation of the country's intellectuals, the social structure reflecting the pains of change in this conflict, and the spiritual conflicts of people in this changing situation. It is a novel that needs to be examined.
First of all, the language of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's novel is a masterpiece that reveals the beauty of Turkish and is so nourished by psychoanalysis that I think Tanpınar may be one of the first psychoanalysts of Turkey. He tried to find his own truth with the desire to reveal the layers, differences and unknown of the soul by creating obstacles for himself without taking the easy way out. It is seen that the characters have dialogues similar to the conversations between the therapist and the patient, as if during a psychoanalysis session, dreams are presented in a very aesthetic and rich way, and various childhood memories and the things they remind the character of are often included.
If we look at the characters in the novel, Doctor Ramiz, one of the main characters, appears as someone who devotes himself almost obsessively to psychoanalysis. The information shared by the other main character, Hayri İrdal, with his associations to Doctor Ramiz, helps the therapist establish connections between the stories, thus It allows establishing a cause-effect relationship between the resulting behavior and the unconscious event that causes this behavior. Because, as we know, dreams, the person's jumping from topic to topic in a seemingly random way, and the memories he chooses to tell without realizing it, all carry traces from the unconscious.
During the psychoanalysis sessions in the novel, Doctor Ramiz, with his compelling comments, concludes that Hayri İrdal, perhaps from his more "paternal authoritarian" position, has a "father complex" due to the lack of a father with whom he can identify. If we think from another perspective, the fatherhood function has a function that limits, frames and reminds the rule. Hayri İrdal's life, which symbolizes the collapse of the Republic period and his inability to capture the moment, may be similar to him not liking his father, who is a destroyed image, and constantly looking for another father instead, but Doctor Ramiz As stated by, he cannot find what he is looking for by remaining a child.
While reading the book, I felt that I was dragged into a journey where time intertwined, just like in analysis, where I oscillated between dream and reality. Surely, this stems from the way Tanpınar presents dreams in an aesthetic way, by intertwining dreams and reality.
The following sentence in the novel evokes admiration for how it summarizes the pursuit of psychoanalysis: “Look around, we are always complaining about the past, we are all busy with it. We want to change it from the inside.”
“I didn't want to build the clock houses. My curiosity and pleasure was learning about the human soul. “Is everyone like me or a little different?” Based on this sentence, it seems that the author has a general desire for curiosity. It must be this curiosity about the spirituality of the other, based on the desire that pushes mental health professionals who have more or less thought about their own spirituality, worked and undergone therapy, to do this profession.
Also, how could an author who had no contact with psychoanalysis compare a dysfunctional, broken, broken watch to a sick person?
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