What do you think?
Rate this book
Lojman
WINNER of the Republic of Consciousness Prize!
Abandoned by her husband, marooned by an epic snowstorm, a mother gives birth to her third child. Her sense of entrapment turns into a desperate rage in this unblinking portrait of a woman whose powerlessness becomes lethal.
Lojman tells, on its surface, the domestic tale of a Kurdish family living in a small village on a desolate plateau at the foot of the snow-capped mountains of Turkey’s Van province. Virtually every aspect of the family’s life is dictated by the government, from their exile to the country’s remote, easternmost region to their sequestration in the grim "teacher’s lodging"—or lojman—to which they’re assigned. When Selma’s husband walks out one day, he leaves in his wake a storm of resentment between his young children and a mother reluctant to parent them.
Written in startling, raw prose, this novel--the author’s first to be translated into English--is reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s masterful Days of Abandonment, though its private dramas are made all the more vivid against an imposing natural landscape that exerts a powerful, life-threatening force.
In short, propulsive chapters, Lojman spins a domestic drama crystallized through the family’s mental and physical claustrophobia. Vivid daydreams morph with cold realities, and as the family’s descent reaches its nadir, their world is transformed into a surreal, gelatinous prison from which there is no escape.
Abandoned by her husband, marooned by an epic snowstorm, a mother gives birth to her third child. Her sense of entrapment turns into a desperate rage in this unblinking portrait of a woman whose powerlessness becomes lethal.
Lojman tells, on its surface, the domestic tale of a Kurdish family living in a small village on a desolate plateau at the foot of the snow-capped mountains of Turkey’s Van province. Virtually every aspect of the family’s life is dictated by the government, from their exile to the country’s remote, easternmost region to their sequestration in the grim "teacher’s lodging"—or lojman—to which they’re assigned. When Selma’s husband walks out one day, he leaves in his wake a storm of resentment between his young children and a mother reluctant to parent them.
Written in startling, raw prose, this novel--the author’s first to be translated into English--is reminiscent of Elena Ferrante’s masterful Days of Abandonment, though its private dramas are made all the more vivid against an imposing natural landscape that exerts a powerful, life-threatening force.
In short, propulsive chapters, Lojman spins a domestic drama crystallized through the family’s mental and physical claustrophobia. Vivid daydreams morph with cold realities, and as the family’s descent reaches its nadir, their world is transformed into a surreal, gelatinous prison from which there is no escape.
213 pages, Kindle Edition
First published October 7, 2020
Ratings & Reviews
Friends & Following
Create a free account to discover what your friends think of this book!
Community Reviews
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews
March 19, 2024
Winner of the 2023 Republic of Consciousness Prize US & Canada
In the East, the state builds its schools and the lodging for its teachers away from the residential areas of the villages. This lojman was no different, a forgotten dot on the village’s suffocating landscape, distant and alone under the dark clouds. It looked out onto the plains through a thick fog that conjured the atmosphere of ghoulish tales. Fearsome winter monsters, jinn, dead donkeys, and poison trees had gathered at the darkest point of the night, laying siege to the little lojman, having sworn an oath to terrify anyone who dared to step outside.
Lojman (2023) is translated from Turkish by Aron Aji and Selin Gökçesu from the 2020 original of the same title by Ebru Ojen.
The novel is set in the bleakast part of winter - late January and February - in Erciş Plateau in Eastern Anatolia in Turkey, between Lake Van and Mount Süphan, normally a beautiful scene:
Among the lakes, the desire to blossom into oceans. Silence, endlessly growing silence. The deep mountain craters! Lake Van stretching infinitely toward the yellow horizon, resisting change with its every drop, asserting its presence not in vastness or stillness but in tiny vibrations. Long separated from those other lakes that surrendered to the desire to join other bodies of water, Lake Van sprang forth from dark desert caves, resolute and whole, spreading like a mercury spill. Merging with the horizon, it suffused the plains in its steam, holding the mallards, the lightning strikes, and the people in place.
The smell of sulfur wafts up from the soil, filling the air with an acrid mist from Mount Süphan to Lake Van, permeating the present.
Greenheaded and mottled mallards take wing from dry reedbeds and fly toward the valley near the village. Here they are again! Their feet brush the snowbanks on the plains. As the golden ring of the noon hour splits the sky in two, the mallards beat their wings on the horizon line and ascend among the dark clouds. For them, the village is an unfavorable destination. If at all possible, best to avoid the villagers altogether. The reedbeds, the small hills are much safer. In fact, the villagers don’t bother with these latecomers to the landscape, these ducks who steal into the valley in rows. Overcome by the routines of their daily lives, the people simply deal with the Erciş Plateau, as harsh and desolate as an arctic desert. They burn dry cowpats in their ovens and stoves, air out their barns, dig out their vats of herbed cheese, cook meals with the provisions left over from summer-time. With detached industry, they live long lives in the triangle formed by Mount Süphan, Lake Van, and the Erciş Plateau. Into those lives, they fit reunions, separations, weddings, suicides, funerals, births, and murders. While life forever runs its course down below, the mallards, in search of rest, change their itinerary that usually extends from Iran to Russia; they glide from the Erciş Plateau to Çaldıran to spend the night among the reedbeds, in hot springs; they feed on insects and moss in misty nooks, and in the morning, they reappear over Lake Van as they descend into the plains. By day, they beat their wings, by night, they inhale the sulfur.
But for the protagonists of this book, they are trapped inside a living nightmare. Selma is a 42 year old woman who, when the novel opens, is giving birth to her third child, watched (but not exactly sympathetically) by her oldest child and daughter, the pubescent Görkem, who already has a younger brother, Murat.
Trapped in this cramped house perched on the vast plains stretching along the shores of Lake Van, she hated that she shared the same destiny with Selma, hated that she carried traces of Selma’s blood in her veins. Selma embodied everything she abhorred. The darkest emotions in Görkem’s compass pointed to her, and as she studied Selma’s crumpled figure, Görkem was spellbound, despite herself, by Selma’s paralyzing pull on her. Staring at Selma’s body slumped in a corner like a heap of broken toys, Görkem inspected her grimacing face, her usual indifference being shattered by physical suffering. It was fun to watch Selma wrestle with unbearable pain, as invisible hands like sharp scalpels slashed at her belly, her loins, her taut skin.
The family live with Selma's husband, Metin, an itinerant teacher in a lojman (from the French word logement) - a state-provided house, which as per the quote which opens my review is situated away from the village where the school's pupils originate, and the village itself is cut off from the nearest town by the snow. Metin is absent, having walked off during a row, leaving Selma and her two - now three - children alone in the house and, while he has disappeared before, this time there is no sign of him returning. The mallards that migrate to and from the lake attract their envy due to their possibility of flight.
At this time of the year, Selma felt like she was the only one who truly appreciated the mallards that arrived at the reedbeds of Lake Van, exhausted after their long flight from northern countries. As she stood by her window illuminated by the evening sun, she would gaze wistfully at the flocks in the distance, reflecting on pleasant memories. Observing nature and life from poetic angles helped to allay her physical exhaustion.
She didn't think of poetry as good, bad, or extraordinary. For her, poetry was pure experience; neither good, nor bad, nor marvelous, it could not be exalted or corrupted. Its essence crystallized and then spread out to achieve its self-made form, digging through, mining the elements of sound and rhythm.
The darkness of Mount Suphan and the darkness of Lake Van meet at a single line, the fiery redness of the evening settles over the village like a haze, and poetry achieves equilibrium in order to destroy it, not to preserve it.
And the relationship between Selma and her children is far from affectionate (she doesn't even name the new baby), but instead aggresively misanthropic, she regarding them as parasites and they, in turn, hating her to the extent of them each wishong for the others annihilation:
Her children were parasites! They were nothing but maggots that had first depleted her calcium deposits, then plundered the most sensitive parts of her soul to take them as their own, pin-ning the features of her body onto theirs. One had stolen her smile, one her high cheekbones, one her expressive gaze, one her skillful hands, one her shred of hope, one the shape of her eyes, and one her passion for poetry. What's more, one took the space between her genitals and her navel, one her curly hair, one her even teeth, one her increasingly shrill laugh, one her imposing tone of voice, one her anti-romanticism, one her belief in the coming apocalypse, one her hand gestures, one her jealous kisses, one her indescribable singularity, one her discriminating taste, one her self-composure, one her large eyes, one her tilted head, one the healthy functioning of her pancreas, and now, they wandered about like fresh, green, creeping vines, still searching with starved eyes for anything more they could take from her. If there is any proof to convince me that these excreting bodies have come from mine, show it to me!
Although between her nihlistic view, Selma retains her affection for her husband, a love that was bonded over a shared appreciation for poetry, lines of which (written in practice by a poet friend of the author) are interspersed even at the darkest moments of the text:
Laying the baby next to Görkem, she went to the living room, muttering poetry. The verses triggered her affection for Metin once again. She smiled faintly, repeated the lines in her head.
The glorious awakening of the reckless soul, the forsaken youth
The line permeated her entire being, quickly and effortlessly, like a protective spell from subterranean spirits. Clouds spread across the sky, crowding out the face of Mount Süphan and mirroring the clouds in her soul. The mountain took on a metallic color as Selma walked past the gates of poetry. Cracks, crevices widened and offered her a dazzling glare that would never let her rest. She tried to grasp the thing that quivered in her soul. Reciting poetry meant scorching the flower of with a flamethrower. She leaned her face against the back of the arm-chair and curled up, lost in questions and thoughts. How was it that the dazzling variety of colors in nature could coexist in such harmony, why could they change, fade, and flare up again? Poetry, too, was like this. It moved along through each verse, shook you to the core with its self-contained beauty, aroused, wounded, and bled you, and yet, in the end, did not disrupt anything.
At nighttime
He looked for himself
As if looking
For a single insect among the grass
And called out from a distance
"Wait"
It seems grimly inevitable that this will end in extreme violence, the only question being who will be the aggressor and who the victim(s) (and it does end that way for a mallard duck that initially seems to unite the family in affection). But the second half of the book takes an unexpectedly, and effective, surreal turn, hinting perhaps at the allegorical nature of the novel, in terms of the opression of the state on the individual.
She knew it, she wasn't inside a nightmare. Or, if this was a nightmare, it hadn't just begun. The goo had been there all along; smeared on the gray walls, the flag poles, mixed in the coal sheds, the darkness, the light, the desires, the fears, the mal-lard corpses, seeping into their thoughts, it had been right by their side everywhere, in what they did, what they couldn't do, what they couldn't imagine doing.
Impressive
Asymptote Book Club background
This was also the August book of the month for the always fascinating Asymptote Book Club.
(P)review
Interview with the translators
Extracts:
At Ronstale
At Lithub
The publisher
Founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin, City Lights is one of the few truly great independent bookstores in the United States, a place where booklovers from across the country and around the world come to browse, read, and just soak in the ambiance of alternative culture’s only “Literary Landmark.”
In 1955, two years after opening his paperback bookshop, Lawrence Ferlinghetti launched City Lights Publishers with the Pocket Poets Series.
City Lights Publishers’ first volume was a collection of Ferlinghetti’s own poems, Pictures of the Gone World. Within a year City Lights had published its fourth and its most famous title, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, a book that revolutionized American poetry and American consciousness. City Lights has always been a champion of progressive thinking, fully committed to publishing works of both literary merit and social responsibility. With over 200 titles in print, we publish cutting-edge fiction, poetry, memoirs, literary translations and books on vital social and political issues.
In the East, the state builds its schools and the lodging for its teachers away from the residential areas of the villages. This lojman was no different, a forgotten dot on the village’s suffocating landscape, distant and alone under the dark clouds. It looked out onto the plains through a thick fog that conjured the atmosphere of ghoulish tales. Fearsome winter monsters, jinn, dead donkeys, and poison trees had gathered at the darkest point of the night, laying siege to the little lojman, having sworn an oath to terrify anyone who dared to step outside.
Lojman (2023) is translated from Turkish by Aron Aji and Selin Gökçesu from the 2020 original of the same title by Ebru Ojen.
The novel is set in the bleakast part of winter - late January and February - in Erciş Plateau in Eastern Anatolia in Turkey, between Lake Van and Mount Süphan, normally a beautiful scene:
Among the lakes, the desire to blossom into oceans. Silence, endlessly growing silence. The deep mountain craters! Lake Van stretching infinitely toward the yellow horizon, resisting change with its every drop, asserting its presence not in vastness or stillness but in tiny vibrations. Long separated from those other lakes that surrendered to the desire to join other bodies of water, Lake Van sprang forth from dark desert caves, resolute and whole, spreading like a mercury spill. Merging with the horizon, it suffused the plains in its steam, holding the mallards, the lightning strikes, and the people in place.
The smell of sulfur wafts up from the soil, filling the air with an acrid mist from Mount Süphan to Lake Van, permeating the present.
Greenheaded and mottled mallards take wing from dry reedbeds and fly toward the valley near the village. Here they are again! Their feet brush the snowbanks on the plains. As the golden ring of the noon hour splits the sky in two, the mallards beat their wings on the horizon line and ascend among the dark clouds. For them, the village is an unfavorable destination. If at all possible, best to avoid the villagers altogether. The reedbeds, the small hills are much safer. In fact, the villagers don’t bother with these latecomers to the landscape, these ducks who steal into the valley in rows. Overcome by the routines of their daily lives, the people simply deal with the Erciş Plateau, as harsh and desolate as an arctic desert. They burn dry cowpats in their ovens and stoves, air out their barns, dig out their vats of herbed cheese, cook meals with the provisions left over from summer-time. With detached industry, they live long lives in the triangle formed by Mount Süphan, Lake Van, and the Erciş Plateau. Into those lives, they fit reunions, separations, weddings, suicides, funerals, births, and murders. While life forever runs its course down below, the mallards, in search of rest, change their itinerary that usually extends from Iran to Russia; they glide from the Erciş Plateau to Çaldıran to spend the night among the reedbeds, in hot springs; they feed on insects and moss in misty nooks, and in the morning, they reappear over Lake Van as they descend into the plains. By day, they beat their wings, by night, they inhale the sulfur.
But for the protagonists of this book, they are trapped inside a living nightmare. Selma is a 42 year old woman who, when the novel opens, is giving birth to her third child, watched (but not exactly sympathetically) by her oldest child and daughter, the pubescent Görkem, who already has a younger brother, Murat.
Trapped in this cramped house perched on the vast plains stretching along the shores of Lake Van, she hated that she shared the same destiny with Selma, hated that she carried traces of Selma’s blood in her veins. Selma embodied everything she abhorred. The darkest emotions in Görkem’s compass pointed to her, and as she studied Selma’s crumpled figure, Görkem was spellbound, despite herself, by Selma’s paralyzing pull on her. Staring at Selma’s body slumped in a corner like a heap of broken toys, Görkem inspected her grimacing face, her usual indifference being shattered by physical suffering. It was fun to watch Selma wrestle with unbearable pain, as invisible hands like sharp scalpels slashed at her belly, her loins, her taut skin.
The family live with Selma's husband, Metin, an itinerant teacher in a lojman (from the French word logement) - a state-provided house, which as per the quote which opens my review is situated away from the village where the school's pupils originate, and the village itself is cut off from the nearest town by the snow. Metin is absent, having walked off during a row, leaving Selma and her two - now three - children alone in the house and, while he has disappeared before, this time there is no sign of him returning. The mallards that migrate to and from the lake attract their envy due to their possibility of flight.
At this time of the year, Selma felt like she was the only one who truly appreciated the mallards that arrived at the reedbeds of Lake Van, exhausted after their long flight from northern countries. As she stood by her window illuminated by the evening sun, she would gaze wistfully at the flocks in the distance, reflecting on pleasant memories. Observing nature and life from poetic angles helped to allay her physical exhaustion.
She didn't think of poetry as good, bad, or extraordinary. For her, poetry was pure experience; neither good, nor bad, nor marvelous, it could not be exalted or corrupted. Its essence crystallized and then spread out to achieve its self-made form, digging through, mining the elements of sound and rhythm.
The darkness of Mount Suphan and the darkness of Lake Van meet at a single line, the fiery redness of the evening settles over the village like a haze, and poetry achieves equilibrium in order to destroy it, not to preserve it.
And the relationship between Selma and her children is far from affectionate (she doesn't even name the new baby), but instead aggresively misanthropic, she regarding them as parasites and they, in turn, hating her to the extent of them each wishong for the others annihilation:
Her children were parasites! They were nothing but maggots that had first depleted her calcium deposits, then plundered the most sensitive parts of her soul to take them as their own, pin-ning the features of her body onto theirs. One had stolen her smile, one her high cheekbones, one her expressive gaze, one her skillful hands, one her shred of hope, one the shape of her eyes, and one her passion for poetry. What's more, one took the space between her genitals and her navel, one her curly hair, one her even teeth, one her increasingly shrill laugh, one her imposing tone of voice, one her anti-romanticism, one her belief in the coming apocalypse, one her hand gestures, one her jealous kisses, one her indescribable singularity, one her discriminating taste, one her self-composure, one her large eyes, one her tilted head, one the healthy functioning of her pancreas, and now, they wandered about like fresh, green, creeping vines, still searching with starved eyes for anything more they could take from her. If there is any proof to convince me that these excreting bodies have come from mine, show it to me!
Although between her nihlistic view, Selma retains her affection for her husband, a love that was bonded over a shared appreciation for poetry, lines of which (written in practice by a poet friend of the author) are interspersed even at the darkest moments of the text:
Laying the baby next to Görkem, she went to the living room, muttering poetry. The verses triggered her affection for Metin once again. She smiled faintly, repeated the lines in her head.
The glorious awakening of the reckless soul, the forsaken youth
The line permeated her entire being, quickly and effortlessly, like a protective spell from subterranean spirits. Clouds spread across the sky, crowding out the face of Mount Süphan and mirroring the clouds in her soul. The mountain took on a metallic color as Selma walked past the gates of poetry. Cracks, crevices widened and offered her a dazzling glare that would never let her rest. She tried to grasp the thing that quivered in her soul. Reciting poetry meant scorching the flower of with a flamethrower. She leaned her face against the back of the arm-chair and curled up, lost in questions and thoughts. How was it that the dazzling variety of colors in nature could coexist in such harmony, why could they change, fade, and flare up again? Poetry, too, was like this. It moved along through each verse, shook you to the core with its self-contained beauty, aroused, wounded, and bled you, and yet, in the end, did not disrupt anything.
At nighttime
He looked for himself
As if looking
For a single insect among the grass
And called out from a distance
"Wait"
It seems grimly inevitable that this will end in extreme violence, the only question being who will be the aggressor and who the victim(s) (and it does end that way for a mallard duck that initially seems to unite the family in affection). But the second half of the book takes an unexpectedly, and effective, surreal turn, hinting perhaps at the allegorical nature of the novel, in terms of the opression of the state on the individual.
She knew it, she wasn't inside a nightmare. Or, if this was a nightmare, it hadn't just begun. The goo had been there all along; smeared on the gray walls, the flag poles, mixed in the coal sheds, the darkness, the light, the desires, the fears, the mal-lard corpses, seeping into their thoughts, it had been right by their side everywhere, in what they did, what they couldn't do, what they couldn't imagine doing.
Impressive
Asymptote Book Club background
This was also the August book of the month for the always fascinating Asymptote Book Club.
(P)review
Interview with the translators
Extracts:
At Ronstale
At Lithub
The publisher
Founded in 1953 by poet Lawrence Ferlinghetti and Peter D. Martin, City Lights is one of the few truly great independent bookstores in the United States, a place where booklovers from across the country and around the world come to browse, read, and just soak in the ambiance of alternative culture’s only “Literary Landmark.”
In 1955, two years after opening his paperback bookshop, Lawrence Ferlinghetti launched City Lights Publishers with the Pocket Poets Series.
City Lights Publishers’ first volume was a collection of Ferlinghetti’s own poems, Pictures of the Gone World. Within a year City Lights had published its fourth and its most famous title, Allen Ginsberg’s Howl and Other Poems, a book that revolutionized American poetry and American consciousness. City Lights has always been a champion of progressive thinking, fully committed to publishing works of both literary merit and social responsibility. With over 200 titles in print, we publish cutting-edge fiction, poetry, memoirs, literary translations and books on vital social and political issues.
May 10, 2024
What an interesting novel. Recent winner of the Republic of Consciousness Prize US/Canada, 'Lojman' takes a look at the power of loneliness and depression. It is a dark and depressing novel. Readers over here in the US might find it too heavy. Those with young children might find Selma insufferable. But the sharp, descriptive writing style captivated me and pulled me along. I wanted to know where the hell this was going, but more importantly I wanted to keep reading more of Ojen's prose.
Part 2 marks a sudden turn towards the allegorical. Thematically, the novel has transitioned from a study of loneliness and depression, to a literal imagining of what those feelings can lead to; a sense of feeling stuck and watching your world being consumed by your worries. Given that Ojen is from Turkey and this novel is centered in the Anatolian plains, there is a pretty good chance this is also an allegory for the State.
A strange novel, but an impressive one as well. Don't be turned off by the mixed reviews. It's a short read and worth the risk. It reminded me a little bit of Sorokin's 'The Blizzard', another allegorical novel set in the dark and cold. A solid four stars. I will be on the lookout for more translated Ojen.
Part 2 marks a sudden turn towards the allegorical. Thematically, the novel has transitioned from a study of loneliness and depression, to a literal imagining of what those feelings can lead to; a sense of feeling stuck and watching your world being consumed by your worries. Given that Ojen is from Turkey and this novel is centered in the Anatolian plains, there is a pretty good chance this is also an allegory for the State.
A strange novel, but an impressive one as well. Don't be turned off by the mixed reviews. It's a short read and worth the risk. It reminded me a little bit of Sorokin's 'The Blizzard', another allegorical novel set in the dark and cold. A solid four stars. I will be on the lookout for more translated Ojen.
March 3, 2025
Çok beğendim. Buz gibi atmosferde geçen duygusal olarak da soğuk mu soğuk bir hikaye anlatıyor yazar. Özellikle anne-çocuk ilişkisine de evliliğe de olan farklı (ve bence gerçekçi) bakışını çok sevdim. Uzun zamandır okuduğum en çarpıcı anne/çocuk karakterlerini de burada okudum. Normalde böyle finalleri sevmem ama buraya, hikayenin ve metnin ruhuna çok yakışmış. Ebeveynliği kutsamaktansa onu didik didik eden metinleri ayrı bir seviyorum. Lojman da bunu fazlasıyla yapıyor. Hep övgüler duyuyordum ama bu kadarını ummuyordum. Şaşırtıcı, sert, cesur ve daha da güzeli hepsi çok dozunda.
April 6, 2021
Türkiye’de konuşulması neredeyse tabu olan annelik gibi bir konuyu muazzam bir şekilde sorgulamış/parçalara ayırmış/deşifre etmiş, ba-yıl-dım. Üstüne çok şey yazılacak ve konuşulacak, benden söylemesi.
August 18, 2021
Van Gölü, Erciş Ovası, bir köy ve köyün dışında bir okulla lojmanı. Lojmanda yaşayan anne, iki çocuk ve kar fırtınalı bir günde annenin kendi çabasıyla doğmuş isimsiz bir bebek. Yine kar fırtınalı bir günde onları terk edip giden babayı beklerken yaşadıkları. Kitap için söyleyeceğim tek kelime: Tekinsiz. Tekinsiz ama bir o kadar da edebi anlamda güzel. Issızlık ve terkedilmişlik duygusunun anneyi çocuklarına, çocukları anneye düşman edebilmesi, kötücül düşünceler uyandırması. Hasılı tuhaf ama elinizden bırakamayacağınız bir kitap bu...
December 11, 2020
"İnsan bu dünyaya gelmemeliydi diye düşündü;doğmamalı, büyümemeli, sevmemeli, bağlanmamalıydı. Bu bağlardan geriye, bitmemiş, kamburlaşmış ilişkiler, ipler kalıyordu, kesip atamıyor, atıp kurtulamıyordun. O açık gri, jölemsi şey hayata tutunduğun yerden yakalıyor, o müphem umutlar, lanetli, uzlaşmacı düşünceler, dünyada bir yer ;sana ait istediğin renklerle bezediğin bir yer varmış hissi yaratıyordu. Ağzını sımsıkı kapatmaya devam ederken dilinin ucuna dişünceler hücum ediyor, bir kelimeye dönüşemeden ölüyorlardı. Sonunda o kelimeye benzemeyen şeyler yerlerini çığlığa bıraktı, duyacak kimse kalmamıştı. "
🌾🌾🌾
Yazarla tanışma kitabım oldu, Lojman...
Çok zor, çok sert, çok güçlü ve keskin bir dili var yazarın fakat bununla birlikte çok da güzel ve ilginç bir şekilde ısrarla kendini okutuyor.
Daha ilk satırdan tokatlayan, yer yer daha fazla devam edemeyeceğim galiba dedirten ama çok da güzel akıyor dur bakalım diye diye bitirivereceğiniz bir kitap.
Süphan Dağı eteklerinde, köy öğretmeni Metin ve ailesinin kabusa varan rüya ile gerçeklik arasında sıkışık hallerini okuyoruz. Metin dedimse yanılma olmasın, esasen biz Selma ve üç çocuğunun çetin duygu dalgalanmalarını okuyor ve hep Metin'i bekliyoruz.
Selma, kadın, eş ve anne olmanın verdiği zorluk, meşakkatli uzun yolu katetmekte kararsız, rüya ile gerçek arasında gezinir. Biz de onun üçüncü çocuğunu doğurmasından diğer iki çocuğu ile ilişkisi, bu ilişkinin dışarıdan görünüşünü okuruz. Hep bir savaş hep bir intikam hep bir puslu hava hakimdir herşeye..
Olayların akışı, karakterlerin kendilerini ortaya koyuşu hepsi şahaneydi. Ben okurken içimden bu kitabın çok güzel filmi olur dedim. O gerilimi yüksek ruh halleri, köydeki lojman, göl kıyısı inanın hepsi gözünüzde canlanacak.
🌾🌾🌾
Yeni bir yazar tanıyayım, yerli olsun, derseni, buyurunuz. Gerilimi ve duygu çözümlemesi yüksek bir o kadar da akıcı bir okuma sizleri bekliyor, keyifli okumalar!
#readingismycardio #okudumbitti #bookstagram #lojman #ebruojen #everestyayınları #okumakiptiladır
🌾🌾🌾
Yazarla tanışma kitabım oldu, Lojman...
Çok zor, çok sert, çok güçlü ve keskin bir dili var yazarın fakat bununla birlikte çok da güzel ve ilginç bir şekilde ısrarla kendini okutuyor.
Daha ilk satırdan tokatlayan, yer yer daha fazla devam edemeyeceğim galiba dedirten ama çok da güzel akıyor dur bakalım diye diye bitirivereceğiniz bir kitap.
Süphan Dağı eteklerinde, köy öğretmeni Metin ve ailesinin kabusa varan rüya ile gerçeklik arasında sıkışık hallerini okuyoruz. Metin dedimse yanılma olmasın, esasen biz Selma ve üç çocuğunun çetin duygu dalgalanmalarını okuyor ve hep Metin'i bekliyoruz.
Selma, kadın, eş ve anne olmanın verdiği zorluk, meşakkatli uzun yolu katetmekte kararsız, rüya ile gerçek arasında gezinir. Biz de onun üçüncü çocuğunu doğurmasından diğer iki çocuğu ile ilişkisi, bu ilişkinin dışarıdan görünüşünü okuruz. Hep bir savaş hep bir intikam hep bir puslu hava hakimdir herşeye..
Olayların akışı, karakterlerin kendilerini ortaya koyuşu hepsi şahaneydi. Ben okurken içimden bu kitabın çok güzel filmi olur dedim. O gerilimi yüksek ruh halleri, köydeki lojman, göl kıyısı inanın hepsi gözünüzde canlanacak.
🌾🌾🌾
Yeni bir yazar tanıyayım, yerli olsun, derseni, buyurunuz. Gerilimi ve duygu çözümlemesi yüksek bir o kadar da akıcı bir okuma sizleri bekliyor, keyifli okumalar!
#readingismycardio #okudumbitti #bookstagram #lojman #ebruojen #everestyayınları #okumakiptiladır
November 26, 2020
“Her şeyin bir vakti vardır. Doğanın orkestrasında kanat çırpınışları, nefesi, müziği oluşturan ritim, zamanında gerçekleşmelidir. Vaktinde havalanmayıp yanlış bir adım atarsa ördek, sıcak su gözelerinde ıslanmış göğüs tüyleri, ayak perdeleri buza çivilenip kurtulamayacağı şekilde yüzeye yapışır. Gezegenler bütün şiirsel ritmiyle galaksilerde dönenirken, hareketsiz halde duran ördek, yeni bir göç yolunu kucaklarcasına bedenini yeryüzüne bırakır. Böylece acı dolu bir manzara daha gözlerimizin önünde yücelir. Manzaralar hep acı dolu, yürek burkucu ve güzelliklerinin temelini korkunç karanlıklara borçludurlar.”
syf.9
Tıpkı alıntıdaki gibi dünyanın buzuna yapışıp hayallerine uçamayan bir ailenin gerçeklikle hayal arasında dönüp duran ölümlü halleri. Sert, moral bozan ama ısrarla kendini okutan bir kitap.
syf.9
Tıpkı alıntıdaki gibi dünyanın buzuna yapışıp hayallerine uçamayan bir ailenin gerçeklikle hayal arasında dönüp duran ölümlü halleri. Sert, moral bozan ama ısrarla kendini okutan bir kitap.
March 15, 2021
İlk kez Ebru Ojen okudum ve çok beğendim. Bir kere inanılmaz bir atmosfer kuruyor, diyaloglar, iç monologlar, hepsi çok iyi. Lojman, "her şeyin doğaya ait olması gibi kötücül ve güzel".
Read
May 3, 2024Extremely mixed thoughts about this book. This book is split into two parts, and the first part really worked for me. The second part, maybe the last third of the book, was deeply disappointing to me.
Let’s start with the good. Lojman is a book about a family trapped in a snowstorm in a Turkish village. A mother, Selma, gives birth to a baby, and her husband has stormed off after a fight leaving her alone with her other children, Görkem and Murat. Selma is deeply troubled, and appears to suffer from manic phases that prevent her from caring from her new, unnamed baby, or cooking for her other kids. She hates her children, and her children hate her. In their isolation, the author probes the extreme points of longing, loathing, jealousy, and desire. A blurb favorably compared the book to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, which I can see, but the book’s apocalyptic and claustrophobic isolation was closer to the feeling of Krasznahorkai, and for film heads, the violence and strangeness occasionally felt like Harmony Korine’s Gummo.
One of the most powerful narrative techniques that really made this part of the book special was how details were omitted to us as readers. The narration primarily focuses on the perspective of Selma and her aggressive daughter Görkem, and only veers into their perspectives when they are experiencing anger. Selma experiences manic bouts of ecstasy, where her paralytic depression gives way to painting her face, dancing around the house, and reciting poetry to herself. We only access this side of her from Görkem’s perspective, who watches with rage while yearning for her attention. When the reader returns to Selma’s perspective, she is back in the well of her sadness and apathy.
In an especially moving and horrifying scene, Görkem, who wants to experience the feeling of motherhood, maims a mallard outside and takes it to her mother for attention. She is infuriated to find that she is taking care of the bird better than any of the children, including her newborn baby. Out of spite, she murders the bird while remaining attached to its corpse. It’s quite horrific, but I found the extreme violence plausible after all of the work that had been written beforehand.
Normally I’m not a fan of books focused on cruelty or hatred, but for me, it worked. Care and effort had gone in to crafting the details of the little house, and I was really impressed.
Until I wasn’t.
In the second half of the book, a dramatic, surreal twist occurs out of nowhere when the entire home that they are in is encased in goo. There were no signs or foreshadowing that something like this would happen, and all of the characters are locked in the substance, able only to stare at each other and wait for their death. The baby, malnourished, begins consuming the goo, growing ever larger as the family looks on in horror.
I’m a fan of the movie Eraserhead, and I’m not opposed to domestic surreal horror as a genre. But this second part of the book was so left-field, so unexpected, that it completely ruined my experience of reading the book. Thematically, it kind of works? Something about unfulfilled desire and being trapped? But it also felt obvious as a metaphor. I was far more frustrated by the novel that had seemingly been abandoned to make this ending happen.
What made this book so interesting was how the characters interacted with each other, and the plot device goo suspends them in isolation. It felt to me like the author was struggling to wind all of the impending doom into a conclusion, and the publisher was like “tick tock, give us the draft of your manuscript.” Maybe the author was mirroring the style of my least favorite Russian author Vladimir Sorokin? I can come up with justifications for this all day, but the point is that the way this book ended didn’t feel planned or intentional.
I was unbelievably frustrated by this book, and went to bed angry afterwards.
Let’s start with the good. Lojman is a book about a family trapped in a snowstorm in a Turkish village. A mother, Selma, gives birth to a baby, and her husband has stormed off after a fight leaving her alone with her other children, Görkem and Murat. Selma is deeply troubled, and appears to suffer from manic phases that prevent her from caring from her new, unnamed baby, or cooking for her other kids. She hates her children, and her children hate her. In their isolation, the author probes the extreme points of longing, loathing, jealousy, and desire. A blurb favorably compared the book to Elena Ferrante’s Neapolitan novels, which I can see, but the book’s apocalyptic and claustrophobic isolation was closer to the feeling of Krasznahorkai, and for film heads, the violence and strangeness occasionally felt like Harmony Korine’s Gummo.
One of the most powerful narrative techniques that really made this part of the book special was how details were omitted to us as readers. The narration primarily focuses on the perspective of Selma and her aggressive daughter Görkem, and only veers into their perspectives when they are experiencing anger. Selma experiences manic bouts of ecstasy, where her paralytic depression gives way to painting her face, dancing around the house, and reciting poetry to herself. We only access this side of her from Görkem’s perspective, who watches with rage while yearning for her attention. When the reader returns to Selma’s perspective, she is back in the well of her sadness and apathy.
In an especially moving and horrifying scene, Görkem, who wants to experience the feeling of motherhood, maims a mallard outside and takes it to her mother for attention. She is infuriated to find that she is taking care of the bird better than any of the children, including her newborn baby. Out of spite, she murders the bird while remaining attached to its corpse. It’s quite horrific, but I found the extreme violence plausible after all of the work that had been written beforehand.
Normally I’m not a fan of books focused on cruelty or hatred, but for me, it worked. Care and effort had gone in to crafting the details of the little house, and I was really impressed.
Until I wasn’t.
In the second half of the book, a dramatic, surreal twist occurs out of nowhere when the entire home that they are in is encased in goo. There were no signs or foreshadowing that something like this would happen, and all of the characters are locked in the substance, able only to stare at each other and wait for their death. The baby, malnourished, begins consuming the goo, growing ever larger as the family looks on in horror.
I’m a fan of the movie Eraserhead, and I’m not opposed to domestic surreal horror as a genre. But this second part of the book was so left-field, so unexpected, that it completely ruined my experience of reading the book. Thematically, it kind of works? Something about unfulfilled desire and being trapped? But it also felt obvious as a metaphor. I was far more frustrated by the novel that had seemingly been abandoned to make this ending happen.
What made this book so interesting was how the characters interacted with each other, and the plot device goo suspends them in isolation. It felt to me like the author was struggling to wind all of the impending doom into a conclusion, and the publisher was like “tick tock, give us the draft of your manuscript.” Maybe the author was mirroring the style of my least favorite Russian author Vladimir Sorokin? I can come up with justifications for this all day, but the point is that the way this book ended didn’t feel planned or intentional.
I was unbelievably frustrated by this book, and went to bed angry afterwards.
February 11, 2024
The novel and I did not see eye to eye, to say the least. The exclamation marks to emphasize the intended meaning certainly didn't help, as I don't appreciate being yelled at. Reading the novel wasn't made any easier by the fact that while the events in the novel take place in late January/early February with winter and frost and cold, we are facing the hottest January and apparently the hottest February where I live. It is over 20 degrees Celsius when there should be knee-deep snow. What I'm getting at is that I couldn't really sympathize with the events of the novel, as refracted through a cishet family's struggles with political oppression, as we face the crisis to end all crises. And it's the myopia of the capitalistic cisheteropatriarchal system that is the cause. Moreover, by focusing on familial interiority and the effects of repression under Erdogan on it, Ojen depoliticizes the very novel she has written. You can't have Erdogan and his political system without the oppression of reproductive cisheteropatriarchy and capitalist environmental destruction. In the end, I've got better things to think about - like how to survive the coming summer - than this novel.
May 28, 2024
Selected because it was City Lights Publisher's longlisted submission for the 2024 Republic of Consciousness US/Canada Prize (and, the ultimate winner: https://www.republicofconsciousnesspr...).
A riveting and savage exploration of the resentment and confinement one family's domestic life manifests. The malevolence in this book is palpable and the tension is like an overtightened string on a guitar just moments before it snaps. Isolated because of severe winter weather and a somewhat remote village locale, the family dynamic is toxic to the extent that the reader feels a genuine sense of relief each time a chapter ends and the hatred has not tripped over that fine line that separates emotion from exploding into outright physical violence. Selma, a depressive, nearly suicidal mother (on the brink of giving birth to her third unwanted child at home when the story opens) trades bitter internal thoughts with her equally spiteful daughter, Görkem---indeed, the loathing between these two is such that it's not until 16 pages into the book that the narrative actually acknowledges their mother-child relationship. Selma's husband has disappeared and she's barely hanging on to sanity as she constantly blames the children for ruining the passion of her marriage and the freedom of her art/writing.
Although the much briefer, second part of the book took on a phantasmagoric slant that didn't quite work for me, the true strength of this work shines in its writing at the sentence and paragraph level, so rich with visceral detail (much credit to translators Aron Aji and Celin Gökcesu). A darkly evocative read.
-----------------------------------
WORDS I HAD TO LOOK UP
lojman | halvah | kyphotic | viscid
"Her children were parasites! They were nothing but maggots that had first depleted her calcium deposits, then plundered the most sensitive parts of her soul to take them as their own, pinning the features of her body onto theirs."
A riveting and savage exploration of the resentment and confinement one family's domestic life manifests. The malevolence in this book is palpable and the tension is like an overtightened string on a guitar just moments before it snaps. Isolated because of severe winter weather and a somewhat remote village locale, the family dynamic is toxic to the extent that the reader feels a genuine sense of relief each time a chapter ends and the hatred has not tripped over that fine line that separates emotion from exploding into outright physical violence. Selma, a depressive, nearly suicidal mother (on the brink of giving birth to her third unwanted child at home when the story opens) trades bitter internal thoughts with her equally spiteful daughter, Görkem---indeed, the loathing between these two is such that it's not until 16 pages into the book that the narrative actually acknowledges their mother-child relationship. Selma's husband has disappeared and she's barely hanging on to sanity as she constantly blames the children for ruining the passion of her marriage and the freedom of her art/writing.
Although the much briefer, second part of the book took on a phantasmagoric slant that didn't quite work for me, the true strength of this work shines in its writing at the sentence and paragraph level, so rich with visceral detail (much credit to translators Aron Aji and Celin Gökcesu). A darkly evocative read.
-----------------------------------
WORDS I HAD TO LOOK UP
lojman | halvah | kyphotic | viscid
December 27, 2021
Kitap bir doğum sahnesiyle başlıyor ve bitirene kadar birakamiyorsunuz. Görkem ve Murat'a isimsiz bir kardeş geliyor. Van Gölü yakınlarında ıssız bir yerde bir lojman evi. Her yer kar ve fırtına. Yeni doğmuş bir bebek ve bebeği istemeyen bir anne. Ondan nefret ediyor. Anneliği, anne ve çocuk sevgisini sorgulatan aşırı sürükleyici ve sarsıcı bir metin. Bir anne çocuğunu sevmeye ya hazır değilse?
August 30, 2021
Aforizmamsi sert surt cumleler. Ne karakter var, ne hikaye. Evet yazarin da tarzi buymus olabilir, aslinda bazi kisimlar fena degil, du bakalim nolcak derken son duzlukte gelen olayimsi sey. Artik metafor mudur buyusuz gercekcilik mi ne zikkimsa. Hic sevmedim.
September 20, 2023
Okurken yer yer Hakan Günday kokusu aldığım kitap.
April 13, 2021
"İnsan bu dünyaya gelmemeliydi diye düşündü; doğmamalı, büyümemeli, sevmemeli, bağlanmamalıydı. Bağlardan geriye, bitmemiş, kamburlaşmış ilişkiler, ipler kalıyordu, kesip atamıyor, atıp kurtulamıyordun."
Lojman, öğretmen olan kocasının görevi nedeniyle ücra bir köyde, üç çocuğu ile yaşayan Selma üzerinden annelik, evlilik, kadına biçilen toplumsal rolü anlatan sert, çok sert bir hikaye… Özellikle Selma ile kızı arasında yaşananları okumak beni çok hırpaladı, buna rağmen neredeyse elimden bırakmadan okudum. Aile, zaman, mekan, beden üzerine düşündüren, sarsan, ezber bozan, etkileyici bir roman. İlk defa okuduğum Ebru Ojen'in anlatımını, kurduğu atmosferi, karakterlerin iç konuşmalarını çok sevdim...
Lojman, öğretmen olan kocasının görevi nedeniyle ücra bir köyde, üç çocuğu ile yaşayan Selma üzerinden annelik, evlilik, kadına biçilen toplumsal rolü anlatan sert, çok sert bir hikaye… Özellikle Selma ile kızı arasında yaşananları okumak beni çok hırpaladı, buna rağmen neredeyse elimden bırakmadan okudum. Aile, zaman, mekan, beden üzerine düşündüren, sarsan, ezber bozan, etkileyici bir roman. İlk defa okuduğum Ebru Ojen'in anlatımını, kurduğu atmosferi, karakterlerin iç konuşmalarını çok sevdim...
June 3, 2021
Süphan Dağı'nın eteklerinde bir köyün dışında kalan okulun lojmanında karların yolu kapadığı, elektiriğin olmadığı bir kış ayında Selma, Görkem, Murat ve isimsiz bebeğin Metin'i bekleme hikayesi.
Anneliği, kadınlığı, eş olmayı, hayalleri, evlat olmayı, kardeş olmayı, sevgisizliği, ilgiye olan ihtiyacı ve beklemeyi anlatıyor Ebru Ojen.
Dili çok sert kitabın tıpkı uzun kış ayı gibi.
Kısacası 'herşeyin doğaya ait olması gibi kötücül ve güzel' bir kitap.
Anneliği, kadınlığı, eş olmayı, hayalleri, evlat olmayı, kardeş olmayı, sevgisizliği, ilgiye olan ihtiyacı ve beklemeyi anlatıyor Ebru Ojen.
Dili çok sert kitabın tıpkı uzun kış ayı gibi.
Kısacası 'herşeyin doğaya ait olması gibi kötücül ve güzel' bir kitap.
June 5, 2026
Çok sert, çok cesur bir anlatım. Mekanın ve hikayenin birbirini tamamlaması; "her anlamda" tutarlı bir dünya yaratılmış olması bir yandan zorlu, bir yandan da kendine çeken bir okuma sağlıyor.
Benim için hikayenin kırılım noktası, Songül'ün olaylara tanıklık ettiği bölüm oldu. Bu nedenle bu yorumu spoiler içerikli olarak kaydetmeye karar verdim. Songül'ün Selma'yı ve çocukları, yaşananları tüm çıplaklığıyla görmesi; roman boyunca zihnimde dolaşan "Ne kadarı gerçek, ne kadarı değil?" sorusunu bir anda çok daha ağır bir noktaya taşıdı. Normalde bu delilik içinde Selma, Görkem, Murat ve isimsiz bebek ile tek seferde okuyabileceğimi hissederken, yalnızca bir bölümlük Songül ve Yasin'in evinde yaşananlar hikayeyi benim için çok farklı ve zorlu bir yere getirdi; bu nedenle okumama bir günlük ara vermek durumunda kaldım. Devamını ise deyim yerindeyse nefesimi tutarak okudum.
Hikayenin her köşe başında karşımıza çıkan bu delirme/delirmeme hali o kadar güzel anlatılmış ki. Karakterlerin her biri çok gerçek hissettiriyor. Lojmanda çocukluğunu geçirmiş biri olarak, o tanıklıkların anlamını, duvarları, delirmeye yakınlığı bütünüyle tanıdık ve cesurca aktarılmış buldum.
Çok sevdim, çok zorlandım ama sonunda okuyabildim.
"Öfkesi dinene kadar bekledi ve elinden gelenin sınırlarını kabullenerek sakinleşti."
Benim için hikayenin kırılım noktası, Songül'ün olaylara tanıklık ettiği bölüm oldu. Bu nedenle bu yorumu spoiler içerikli olarak kaydetmeye karar verdim. Songül'ün Selma'yı ve çocukları, yaşananları tüm çıplaklığıyla görmesi; roman boyunca zihnimde dolaşan "Ne kadarı gerçek, ne kadarı değil?" sorusunu bir anda çok daha ağır bir noktaya taşıdı. Normalde bu delilik içinde Selma, Görkem, Murat ve isimsiz bebek ile tek seferde okuyabileceğimi hissederken, yalnızca bir bölümlük Songül ve Yasin'in evinde yaşananlar hikayeyi benim için çok farklı ve zorlu bir yere getirdi; bu nedenle okumama bir günlük ara vermek durumunda kaldım. Devamını ise deyim yerindeyse nefesimi tutarak okudum.
Hikayenin her köşe başında karşımıza çıkan bu delirme/delirmeme hali o kadar güzel anlatılmış ki. Karakterlerin her biri çok gerçek hissettiriyor. Lojmanda çocukluğunu geçirmiş biri olarak, o tanıklıkların anlamını, duvarları, delirmeye yakınlığı bütünüyle tanıdık ve cesurca aktarılmış buldum.
Çok sevdim, çok zorlandım ama sonunda okuyabildim.
"Öfkesi dinene kadar bekledi ve elinden gelenin sınırlarını kabullenerek sakinleşti."
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
September 19, 2024
This book oozes hatred and claustrophobia. Maybe would have rated 4 stars if I didn’t choose to read it on the BEACH when trying to RELAX!!!
March 23, 2023
All caps WOW. Buckle up because this hallucinatory descent into despair is nonstop. Abandoned by the patriarch that held them together and isolated by forces of nature beyond human control, the last tenuous trappings of performative obligation fall away as this family that no longer could spirals into madness. Lojman is a hard glare into the void of postpartum depression, the ouroboros of depressive thinking, and the absolute mindfuck of suicidal ideation; a portrait of the ways in which community support saves lives rendered in negative space; a disturbing yet strangely beautiful fever dream I suspect will stick in the craws of those who read it for a long time.
March 11, 2025
another battle in the endless war between mothers and daughters
February 15, 2026
İnsan zihni boşlukları sevmez, en azından benimki sevmiyor. Kitapla ilgili haberler sıklıkla karşıma çıkmaya başlamıştı, okumaya karar verdim. Öncelikle karanlık bir kitap, rahatsız edici. Çok rahatsız edici. Belki önemli bir hormonun az salgılanmasından, belki bir vitaminin eksikliğinden, belki de salt kötü olduğu için çocuklarından anneliğini esirgeyen bir kadının onlarla baş başa herkesten uzak bir lojmanda delirmenin eşiğinde gezip durması ile ilgili bir hikâye. Çocuklarını seven, onları annelerine emanet edemeyeceğini (muhtemelen) bilen baba ise karısının doğurmasına az bir zaman kala evi terk ediyor. Zihnim bu boşluğu kabul etmiyor. Hikâyede çok boşluk var. Metinler okurdan artık boşlukları kendisinin doldurmasını bekliyor; ancak kastettiğim boşluklar o tür boşluklardan değil. Çocuklarını sevmeyen bir kadın kocasına nasıl böyle âşık olabilir? Bağımlılık mı? Çocukları başına kocası sardığı için ona da hınç duyması gerekmez mi? Duygusal açıdan ona bağımlı olduğu için kocasına duyduğu nefreti çocuklarına mı yansıtıyor? Kitap şiddet dolu bir kitap, psikolojik şiddetle dolu. Çocukların başına bir şey gelecek diye endişelenmekten yüreğim ağzımda okudum. Bu kadın neden böyle? Hep mi böyleydi? Annenin geçmişiyle ilgili doyurucu bir bilgi edinemiyoruz. Okullar ve lojmanlar gerçekten köyden uzağa mı inşa ediliyor? Ben de Doğu'da bir köyde öğretmenlik yaptım, okul da lojman da köyün merkezindeydi. Devlet köydeki en görünür temsilcisini köyden uzağa yerleştirir mi? Depresyonun iki zıt kutbunda bir sarkaç gibi gidip gelen anneyi anlayabiliyorum; ancak böyle bir durum hikâye edilmese de olurdu. Insan psişesinin en karanlık oyuklarına kadar girilmiş, gerekli miydi? Kitabın sonu metaforik ya da alegorik bir şekilde getirilmiş, çok tatmin edici değil. Yabancı okurlardan birinin yorumunu okudum, "Sanki yazar hikâyenin sonunu getirememiş de yayın kurulu öylece bağlayıvermiş," diyor, o kadar havada kalmış. Şartları bu sona hazırlayan bir öncül yok. Kitaba adını veren lojman belli ki aynı zamanda bir metafor; ancak enine boyuna tasvir edilmemiş, mutfak hangi odanın yakınında, lojmanda kaç oda var bilmiyoruz. Yerden girme mi yoksa merdivenli mi? Bu denli önemli bir "karakter" hakkında tek bildiğimiz gri duvarlarının oluşu. Kitabın dili de o denli etkileyici değil, giriş kısmında bir parça edebi lezzet var; ancak sonrası kuru bir bir dil. Yazarın https://karnavaldergi.com/blog/eksik-... şurada bir söyleşisini okudum. Kendisine kitaplarından alıntı yapıp yapmadığı soruluyor, yazar da alıntı yapmayı yersiz bulduğunu, her cümlenin kendi bağlamı içinde anlamlı olduğunu söylüyor. Fakat kendisi bu kitapta bir şiir kitabından sürekli alıntılara yer vermiş. Ayrıca Tanrı'nın ölümüyle Nietzsche'ye ve maalesef şimdi hatırlayamadığım başka birkaç yazara da atıfta bulunuyor. Bunların metne iyi yedirilemediğini düşünüyorum. Kısa kısa bölümler halinde yazılmış hikâyenin tamamı da yazar her gün bir görev duygusuyla oturup kısa kısa yazmış, sonra onları birleştirivermiş izlenimi uyandırıyor. Kitap yurtdışında ödül almış, demek ki ben hâlâ geleneksel bir okurum. Yabancı okurlardan biri hikâyenin Türkiye'de geçmesi sebebiyle jöle haline gelmiş lojmanın Devlet'in bir alegorisi olabileceğini söylemiş; fakat olsa olsa Selma'nın her yana yayılan karanlığının ve depresyonunun alegorisidir. Bazı kitapları okuduğuma pişman oluyorum, bu onlardan. Pazarlama tuzağına düştüm sanki.
July 19, 2026
Okurken birkaç şeyi gözden kaçırdım sanırım. Bu lojmanın okulu niye açık değil? Kar tatili falan mı? Bir öğretmeni tek merak eden kişi nasıl hizmetli Yasin oluyor, köyün muhtarı, jandarma vs. nerde? Öğretmen eşi nasıl bu kadar yalnız bırakılabiliyor? Hangi dönemde geçiyor bu hikaye, telefon çekmediğine göre yakın dönem. Doğum yapan bir kadın nasıl takibe alınmaz, ebe yok mu köyde? Aklıma yatmayan çok şey var belki de ihmal edilen çocukların varlığını bir türlü kabullenemediğim içindir, sorun benle ilgilidir yani. Dışardaki ihmal/istismardan çocuğu bir yere kadar koruyabiliyoruz ama çoğu zaman dört duvar arasında oluyor olan. En acısı da bu zaten. Görkem ve Selma'nın ilişkisi ürpertici, Murat'ın masumluğu çok çok üzücü, bebek ise alalade bir nesne gibi yerini almış romanda öyle ki, ördek daha geniş her tutuyor. Çok akıcı olduğu için bir oturuşta fakat hislerim karışık şekilde bitirdim kitabı.
March 30, 2024
Çok sert bir konu açık açık ele alınmış, bu kısmı oldukça etkileyici. Fakat yer yer "Ben şu an ne okuyorum?" hissine kapıldım, sonlara doğru da bu his iyice arttı.
June 25, 2021
Toplumca kutsal kabul edilen anneliğe bakış açısının sertliği, romanın diline ve akışına da yansımış. Bu denli bıçak sırtı bir konuyla ilgili yazılan bu kadar sert bir roman hakkında, okuyan/okuyacak annelerin düşüncelerini merak ediyorum açıkçası.
Bir hayli sert ve zor bir dile sahip romanda, anne olmaktan nefret eden bir kadının, bu sevgisizlikle büyüyen kötü kalpli bir kız çocuğunun, ablasını en saf duygularla seven bir kardeşin ve herşeyden habersiz böyle bir ortamda dünyaya gelen bir bebeğin taşra kasabasındaki hayat mücadelesi anlatılıyor.
Monologlarla ve minimum seviyede diyalogla kurulan dünyaya dahil olmak ve metaforik finali hazmetmek epey zor oldu. Yine de bu şekilde bir yöntemi denemeye cesaret eden yazarı tebrik etmeli.
Bir hayli sert ve zor bir dile sahip romanda, anne olmaktan nefret eden bir kadının, bu sevgisizlikle büyüyen kötü kalpli bir kız çocuğunun, ablasını en saf duygularla seven bir kardeşin ve herşeyden habersiz böyle bir ortamda dünyaya gelen bir bebeğin taşra kasabasındaki hayat mücadelesi anlatılıyor.
Monologlarla ve minimum seviyede diyalogla kurulan dünyaya dahil olmak ve metaforik finali hazmetmek epey zor oldu. Yine de bu şekilde bir yöntemi denemeye cesaret eden yazarı tebrik etmeli.
July 4, 2021
Doğumsonrası sendromunu Lighthouse’ta çekmek.
July 27, 2026
No.
I wish that this one word could just be my review, but for memory sake, I should write more.
Firstly, I bought this book from a TikTok recommendation for Turkey (mistake #1) so I did read it for my Reading the World in Translation challenge for Turkey. Specifically, I wanted a Kurdish author and Ojen's book takes place in the Kurdish parts of Turkey. Secondly, I should have read the description (mistake #2) and the moment I saw the comparison to Ferrante, I should have never bought it. For the record, Ferrante is an amazing writer but I hate her books. Likewise, I think Ojen is an excellent writer but I absolutely hated this book (and this is not the reason for the 2 star review.)
I wanted to DNF the book, but I figured I couldn't for reading challenge reasons, but I really should have.
So the reason for the 2 star review: character development was poor. I couldn't tell how old the children were and there didn't seem to be any development between the chracters except hatefulness and spitefulness - 200 pages of it. That's not fair - it was 140 pages of hatefulness and spitefulness and about 60 pages of "what the hell am I reading now." The last section I am not certain if it is supposed to be understood metaphorically or literally, and the fact of the matter is, I don't want to know. The best part of this book was there were some excellent descriptions of the landscape. Given, the entire plot was a family stuck a in grey lojman and the characters are the book, without any real character development, it wasn't a good book.
Should you read this book? Well, many people seemed to have liked it because of its representation of mental health. If you think you want to read about a mother whose mental health deteriorates and endangers her children while being stuck in a shack in the middle of the mountains in Turkey, then this is the book for you. If not, please don't read. Hope that helps.
I wish that this one word could just be my review, but for memory sake, I should write more.
Firstly, I bought this book from a TikTok recommendation for Turkey (mistake #1) so I did read it for my Reading the World in Translation challenge for Turkey. Specifically, I wanted a Kurdish author and Ojen's book takes place in the Kurdish parts of Turkey. Secondly, I should have read the description (mistake #2) and the moment I saw the comparison to Ferrante, I should have never bought it. For the record, Ferrante is an amazing writer but I hate her books. Likewise, I think Ojen is an excellent writer but I absolutely hated this book (and this is not the reason for the 2 star review.)
I wanted to DNF the book, but I figured I couldn't for reading challenge reasons, but I really should have.
So the reason for the 2 star review: character development was poor. I couldn't tell how old the children were and there didn't seem to be any development between the chracters except hatefulness and spitefulness - 200 pages of it. That's not fair - it was 140 pages of hatefulness and spitefulness and about 60 pages of "what the hell am I reading now." The last section I am not certain if it is supposed to be understood metaphorically or literally, and the fact of the matter is, I don't want to know. The best part of this book was there were some excellent descriptions of the landscape. Given, the entire plot was a family stuck a in grey lojman and the characters are the book, without any real character development, it wasn't a good book.
Should you read this book? Well, many people seemed to have liked it because of its representation of mental health. If you think you want to read about a mother whose mental health deteriorates and endangers her children while being stuck in a shack in the middle of the mountains in Turkey, then this is the book for you. If not, please don't read. Hope that helps.
November 29, 2025
Kristevanın abjekti dolayımında Dirlikyapanın pazar günü (30/11) yapacağı incelemeye hazırlık olsun diye okuduğum bir metin.
evvela hakını vereyim: Türk edebiyatına (Kürtçe yazılsaydı şüphesiz ki Kürt edebiyatı derdim) olan inancımı çok güçlü bir prologla diriltti. dedim ki: işte! sonunda, aynı bildik lafları gevelemeksizin ilginç bir hikâye anlatmak isteyen biri! "Olsundu" çölünün sigara dumanlı yavanlığına bir damla su işte! bir üslupçu! dedim.
sonra anlatmaya başladı.
içeriğin ilginçliği iğrençliğinde. (iğrençlik derken, abjekt babında.) insanın kurulu şemalarını yıkmaya güdülü bir gidişi olduğu açık; safi anne olarak kadın psişesini mesele etmesi bile takdire şayan. ama o kadar. sanki yazar, kendisine yakıştırdığı -ve bence çok yakışan- o debdebeli üslubun onu götüreceği yerden korkarak kendini dizginlemiş, gayrişahsilikten şahsiyete geçerken kendini geri çekmiş ve edebiyatımızın pek sıkıcı olan o bir örnek anlatımına kendini kıstırmış. kuş olup uçacakken ayaksız bir ördek gibi kalmış. yanlış yapmış [bence].
tabii, bu benim sıradan bir okur olarak yorumum. akademik gözlüklerden bakıldıkta bu metinden alınacak şey çok. anne-çocuk birlikteliğini tartışmaya açan Kristevanınki bunlardan yalnızca biri.
orada olmayan baba olarak erkek; anlatı boyunca çağrılmayı bekleyen ama asla tam manasıyla çağrılmayan babayı-arayan-çocuk miti; Dirlikyapanın doktora çalışmasında bahsettiği 50'ler kuşağının izleklerinden biri olan kentsel bunalımı, Selmanın "köylülüğü" üzerinden tersine çeviren diğer meseleler de semeresini akademik tartışmalarda verecektir.
onu onlar düşünsün. ben beğenmediğimi düşüneceğim. yazara küsmedim tabii, ümit vadeden bir anlatım gücü var: Belgrad Kanona gelecek sene bakacağım.
evvela hakını vereyim: Türk edebiyatına (Kürtçe yazılsaydı şüphesiz ki Kürt edebiyatı derdim) olan inancımı çok güçlü bir prologla diriltti. dedim ki: işte! sonunda, aynı bildik lafları gevelemeksizin ilginç bir hikâye anlatmak isteyen biri! "Olsundu" çölünün sigara dumanlı yavanlığına bir damla su işte! bir üslupçu! dedim.
sonra anlatmaya başladı.
içeriğin ilginçliği iğrençliğinde. (iğrençlik derken, abjekt babında.) insanın kurulu şemalarını yıkmaya güdülü bir gidişi olduğu açık; safi anne olarak kadın psişesini mesele etmesi bile takdire şayan. ama o kadar. sanki yazar, kendisine yakıştırdığı -ve bence çok yakışan- o debdebeli üslubun onu götüreceği yerden korkarak kendini dizginlemiş, gayrişahsilikten şahsiyete geçerken kendini geri çekmiş ve edebiyatımızın pek sıkıcı olan o bir örnek anlatımına kendini kıstırmış. kuş olup uçacakken ayaksız bir ördek gibi kalmış. yanlış yapmış [bence].
tabii, bu benim sıradan bir okur olarak yorumum. akademik gözlüklerden bakıldıkta bu metinden alınacak şey çok. anne-çocuk birlikteliğini tartışmaya açan Kristevanınki bunlardan yalnızca biri.
orada olmayan baba olarak erkek; anlatı boyunca çağrılmayı bekleyen ama asla tam manasıyla çağrılmayan babayı-arayan-çocuk miti; Dirlikyapanın doktora çalışmasında bahsettiği 50'ler kuşağının izleklerinden biri olan kentsel bunalımı, Selmanın "köylülüğü" üzerinden tersine çeviren diğer meseleler de semeresini akademik tartışmalarda verecektir.
onu onlar düşünsün. ben beğenmediğimi düşüneceğim. yazara küsmedim tabii, ümit vadeden bir anlatım gücü var: Belgrad Kanona gelecek sene bakacağım.
March 31, 2026
I enjoyed this feverish nightmare of motherhood, portrayed as a kind of suffering from parasitic creatures completely unrelated and alienated from oneself, though it deprives one body of one's bare parts and eventually consumes oneself. In "Lojman", Selma is a middle-aged poet living with her three children in an isolated schoolhouse in the mountains during a vicious snowstorm, where her husband, Metin, has disappeared after an argument. Selma is utterly detached from her children, and cannot bring herself to perform the basic tasks of parenthood, including nursing her newborn which she has not even bothered to name. The children grow wayward, and experiment with various forms of cruelty towards themselves, to each other, and to the animals around them as a way of registering their existence on the universe, but also a way to relate to their ghost-like mother. The concept is completely magnetic in its dystopic vision, the writing is fiercely poetic at times, and the text is full of absolutely shocking images, like a soft green-blue mallard caught in the icy pond and ripped cleanly away from its legs by an innocent, would-be rescuer. For me, however, the text takes quite a while to really find itself, and then stagnates for its middle portions (where there is a long period of repetitive inner narration) before climbing to its shuddering end.
July 19, 2026
3/5
Çok tuhaf bir romandı. Daha önce pek çok kez karanlık, kasvetli, sert, soğuk metinleri okuduğumu düşünüyorum ama bu farklıydı. Bildiğimiz anlamda anne-çocuk ilişkisi konseptinin ötesinde, akıl hastalığından muzdarip bir kadının çocuklarıyla ilişkisini okuyoruz bence. Önce lohusalık depresyonunda mı veya bipolar mı diye düşündüm ama sonra sadece bipolar falan olmadığına karar verdim. Elimizde adeta sosyopati sınırlarında gezen bir kadın var. Ortada hiçbir sebep olmamasına rağmen ne kendi annesini ne de öz çocuklarını sevebilen, hissiz, sık sık çocuklarını (ve başkalarını) öldürme/onlara vahşice şiddet uygulama hayalleri kuran bir kadın. Hem de sadece etrafında varoldukları için?
Birkaç yıl önce (anne olmadan önce) okusaydım belki bu kadar rahatsız olmazdım ama sanırım içerde bebeğim uyurken okuyunca beni normalde hissedeceğimden kat kat fazla rahatsız etti. Bu kadar kasvetli karakterleri, bu kadar kasvetli bir ortamda ve kasvetli bir dille anlatmak... Yazarın kalemi kuvvetli evet ama başka bir romanını okur muyum? Emin değilim. Bitirdiğimde ağzımda zehir gibi bir tat kaldı çünkü.
Yorumlarda gördüğüm kadarıyla zaten romanı erkek okurlar daha çok beğenmiş. Bu da dikkate değer bence. Şefkatten, yumuşaklıktan, sıcaklıktan böylesine yoksun bir hikayeyi ancak erkekler benimseyebilirdi
Çok tuhaf bir romandı. Daha önce pek çok kez karanlık, kasvetli, sert, soğuk metinleri okuduğumu düşünüyorum ama bu farklıydı. Bildiğimiz anlamda anne-çocuk ilişkisi konseptinin ötesinde, akıl hastalığından muzdarip bir kadının çocuklarıyla ilişkisini okuyoruz bence. Önce lohusalık depresyonunda mı veya bipolar mı diye düşündüm ama sonra sadece bipolar falan olmadığına karar verdim. Elimizde adeta sosyopati sınırlarında gezen bir kadın var. Ortada hiçbir sebep olmamasına rağmen ne kendi annesini ne de öz çocuklarını sevebilen, hissiz, sık sık çocuklarını (ve başkalarını) öldürme/onlara vahşice şiddet uygulama hayalleri kuran bir kadın. Hem de sadece etrafında varoldukları için?
Birkaç yıl önce (anne olmadan önce) okusaydım belki bu kadar rahatsız olmazdım ama sanırım içerde bebeğim uyurken okuyunca beni normalde hissedeceğimden kat kat fazla rahatsız etti. Bu kadar kasvetli karakterleri, bu kadar kasvetli bir ortamda ve kasvetli bir dille anlatmak... Yazarın kalemi kuvvetli evet ama başka bir romanını okur muyum? Emin değilim. Bitirdiğimde ağzımda zehir gibi bir tat kaldı çünkü.
Yorumlarda gördüğüm kadarıyla zaten romanı erkek okurlar daha çok beğenmiş. Bu da dikkate değer bence. Şefkatten, yumuşaklıktan, sıcaklıktan böylesine yoksun bir hikayeyi ancak erkekler benimseyebilirdi
April 25, 2024
this was a lot. it was literally painful to read for much of it. you're literally in a room with an insane mother and suffering children. the personalities were pretty spot-on though, and the feeling of the turkish mountain's felt that way too. some of the scenes were damn freaky.
but at a certain point the book went from something real to something very strange and it kept on going and going into that. it became a literal fever dream and i was no longer able to read each word, i switched to skimming reading, a few seconds per page hoping to glance on something that was not insane. perhaps it was metaphorical, what was happening, but if it is does it have to literally devour such a large swath of the book?
but at a certain point the book went from something real to something very strange and it kept on going and going into that. it became a literal fever dream and i was no longer able to read each word, i switched to skimming reading, a few seconds per page hoping to glance on something that was not insane. perhaps it was metaphorical, what was happening, but if it is does it have to literally devour such a large swath of the book?
Displaying 1 - 30 of 57 reviews