As I Die(s): Dying as an Attempt for Becoming in Deniz Gezgin’s YerKuşAğı
Merve GündayAs an alternative to the Anthropocene marked by words/images, mind/body, symbolic/semiotic, or human/nonhuman binary demarcations, Deniz Gezgin’s novel titled YerKuşAğı (2017) opens the door to a post-anthropocentric space portraying the fictionality of hierarchical categories. The novel’s nonnormative subjects delimited or overlooked by the denial of a unique voice plunge into salt on the way of being purified from the teachings of modernity fragmenting them and head towards nowhere implied to be remaining as still uninvaded by the Anthropos. Little girl Moy, who has lived all her life on her deathbed as being confined to walls surrounded by the gaze of stuffed animals, each of which is the work of her father, Asil Derbentçi, and who is discarded even before her death, being stigmatized as “mentally unstable,” the wounded bird Şuri, separated from the sky due to its sticky wings covered with oil, “something from everything” Hagrin that confronts us almost as a reaction against the idea of Oneness and stands at animal-planthuman intersection, and the barking deer Cice that flickers between absence and presence, point to human-nature intertwinement and relationality through eluding the all categorical definitions assigned to them, during their journey to this unknown space, somewhere at life-death intersection. In this way, with their attempt for Becoming, the characters who are codified as the other by the anthropocentric narrative due to their difference, unravel from the discourse overlooking and passivating them and make visible infinite possibilities in life. In this vein, the study that takes the unravelling of the characters on the path of nowhere and the processes of their regeneration as the portrayal of human-nature continuum or relationality, consults such theoretical concepts as Rosi Braidotti’s concept of becoming-imperceptible which is traced to posthuman theory of death and Stacy Alaimo’s concept of transcorporeality.
Ben Ölürken: Deniz Gezgin’in YerKuşAğı’nda Bir Oluş Çabası Olarak Ölüş
Merve GündayDeniz Gezgin’in YerKuşAğı (2017) isimli romanı kelimelerin imgelerden, aklın bedenden, simgeselin semiyotikten ya da insanın insan-olmayandan söylemsel düzlemde ayrıştırıldığı Antroposen çağına karşılık olarak hiyerarşik kategorilerin kurgusallığını resmeden post-antroposantrik bir evrene kapılarını açar. Romanda, insanın diğer tüm türlerden üstün tutulduğu hümanist söylem tarafından tanınırlık verilmeyip sınırlandırılan ya da yok sayılan farklı özneler, onlarda yarıklar açan modernite öğretilerinden arınmak üzere tuza bulanırlar ve Antroposun henüz ayak basmadığı bir yer olduğu ima edilen yokyere doğru yol alırlar. Hayatının neredeyse tamamını hasta yatağında, her biri avcı babası Asil Derbentçi’nin eseri olan içi doldurulmuş hayvanların bakışıyla örülü duvarlar ardında geçirmiş ve “akli durumu sarsıntılı” damgasıyla ölmeden evvel gözden çıkarılan küçük kız çocuğu Moy, petrole bulanmış yapış yapış siyah tüyleri ile gökyüzünden koparılan yaralı kuş Şuri, Birlik düşüncesine adeta tepki olarak karşımıza çıkan, hayvan-bitki-insan kesişimindeki “her şeyden bir şey” Hagrin ve bir belirip bir kaybolan, havlayan geyik Cice, bu kimsenin bilmediği yokyere doğru birlikte çıktıkları yaşam-ölüm arasındaki yolculukta onlara atfedilen tüm kategorik tanımlamalardan sıyrılıp birbirlerine dönüşerek, insan-doğa iç içe geçmişliğine ve ilişkiselliğine vurgu yaparlar. İnsan-merkezci anlatı tarafınca farklı oldukları için öteki olarak kodlanan karakterler böylece onları pasifleştirip öteleyen söylemden var olma çabaları ile sökülürler ve yaşamdaki sınırsız olasılıkları görünür kılarlar. Karakterlerin yokyerin peşindeki bu sökülüşünü ve yeniden doğuş süreçlerini, doğa-insan sürekliliğinin ya da ilişkiselliğinin resmedilişi olarak tartışan çalışma, bu bağlamda, Rosi Braidotti’nin insan sonrası ölüm teorisi ile ilişkili algılanamaz-oluş ve Stacy Alaimo’nun bedenler arası geçişkenlik gibi teorik kavramlarından yararlanır
As an alternative to the Anthropocene modelled on binarized words/images, mind/body, symbolic/semiotic, human/nonhuman categorical divides, Deniz Gezgin’s YerKuşAğı presents a post-anthropocentric universe. The subjects of the novel, marginalized for not conforming to the exclusionary ideals of the humanist discourse and denied a unique voice for being taken as a threat to the operation of modernity’s binary mode of thinking, find a way to express themselves outside the trap of modernity with their journey to nowhere, a space implied to be remaining still uncharted or uninvaded by the Anthropos. On the journey they take by plunging into salt, which acts as a kind of purification from all the dualistic teachings of the dominant humanist discourse or as a kind of therapeutization from the traumas of being exiled to a civilized (!) land of binary codes based on epistemic demarcations and sterilized from the pre-Platonic, the peripheral characters of the novel who are stigmatized due to their deviation from the idea of a linear subject favored by humanism discover who they are outside the self/ Other dialectics. One of these characters, a little girl Moy, is depicted at the very beginning of the novel as lying on a death-bed in a room surrounded by walls and as suffering from the gaze of various stuffed animals hanged on these walls as the masterworks (!) of her hunter father, Asil Derbentçi. Considered an invalid, Moy is ignored even by her family let alone being excluded from the outer society thinking her as a source of disquiet for spoiling the smooth model of perfectibility proposed by humanism for the subject. Reduced to the state of a sick body and a dysfunctional mind, thus, she is equated with a trash to be discarded for reasons of hygiene, so much so that her existence is considered as futile by her father. A bird other, wounded bird Şuri, shares the same trauma with Moy. In the same way as Moy is condemned to bed and detached from the songs of childhood innocence heard in the imaginary-like garden of nature, Şuri is separated from the melodies of nature due to its oil-coated wings. As if reacting against its mobility or free-flying in the sky by remaining ignorant of any epistemic borders or illusionary linear structures, oil deprives Moy of its freedom or freezes it in a certain structure, which can be thought, I would argue, as an attempt for turning what is considered as the unknowable for its free-flight into the knowable or silencing its agency. In addition to Moy and Şuri, Hagrin and Cice are stigmatized as the inferiors of the Human due to their ambivalence: while Hagrin stands at animal-plant-human intersection, Cice stands at deer-dog intersection and with their such state of inbetweenness that does not fit into either/or divide, they are overlooked or discursively murdered. Denied a voice in the dominant discourse of humanism as its child, animal, or plant others, Moy, Şuri, Hagrin, and Cice are pushed to the space of the irrational and reduced to the state of the non-existent for the threat they pose to the rationalizing or Platonizing attitudes of modernity. However, the journey they take on by being reborn to their pre-symbolic selves through delving into salt as if delving into Lethe river through which all of the memories of the past are erased enable them to make their voices heard outside the words of the Other. Blurring all the boundaries and evading all the categorical definitions assigned to them within the discourse of modernity through this journey, implied to be at life-death intersection, they metamorphose into each other. In this way, with their attempt for Becoming, the characters who are codified as the imaginary others by the anthropocentric narrative due to their difference unravel from the discourse overlooking them and make visible infinite possibilities in life. In this vein, the study that takes the unravelling of the characters on the path of nowhere and the processes of their regeneration as the portrayal of human-nature continuum or relationality, consults such theoretical concepts as Rosi Braidotti’s concept of becoming-imperceptible which is traced to posthuman theory of death and Stacy Alaimo’s concept of transcorporeality.
