Hatice Ebrar Akbulut spoke with Nihan Kaya about the Horizontal and Vertical Perspectives theory and the practical implications of her theoretical approach to the novel.
Is there something unique that makes every writer original? I don’t think so. This situation is particular to some writers. I don’t use originality in the sense of being different from others. The same topics can be dealt with, and the same images can be used. However, the perspective makes it unique. That uniqueness takes the writer to another place. The writer manages to pass through the sieve of time with this originality. Nihan Kaya’s originality lies in her ability to use horizontal and vertical perspectives both theoretically and practically.
The concepts of horizontal and vertical focus on actions like looking, reading, and thinking, which energize us in every way. For example, if we only examine an object in its horizontal reality, we would remain in the shell of the walnut. However, if we examine it with all its angles, features, subtleties, benefits, and harms, we would understand its essence, as the ancients used to say. By cracking the walnut’s shell, we obtain what gives it its flavor, and thus, we perceive the vertical reality. Horizontal and vertical reading/examination are not separate; they complement each other from different perspectives. Nihan Kaya’s example makes this clear: “Horizontal reading is a reading where each of the words is understood for its meaning, but it doesn’t go beyond the words, and it doesn’t say anything more to the reader. In vertical reading, the more we delve into it, the more we bring to life and enrich what we read horizontally.” (Writing Courage, Ayrıntı Publications, p.17)
I tried to ask Nihan Kaya questions focused on vertical reading for her works, both in novels and short stories. This is the interview.
In 2013, your book Writing Courage published by Ayrıntı Publications was dedicated to “Karin.” In your 2016 novel Snow and Pearl, the question “Who is Karin?” is pursued by a detective/psychoanalyst. In another interview, you mentioned that there is a significant connection between Writing Courage and Snow and Pearl, but that most people do not understand this connection. You’re saying something interesting. Being able to establish a connection between a theoretical book from the Theory and Art series and a novel requires skill. Do you think you have tried to materialize your theoretical ideas in Snow and Pearl?
Yes, I think so. I can say that I have materialized my theoretical ideas not only in Snow and Pearl but also in all my novels and short stories since Hidden Subject. Or, it might be more appropriate to express it the other way around: Every novel, every short story of mine is a manifestation of my theoretical ideas. Therefore, my theoretical books explain my novels, and my novels explain my theoretical books. Every novelist, whether aware of it or not, is also a novelist theorist, a theorist of the novel.
As we explore the connection between Writing Courage and Snow and Pearl, I’m sure many interpretations will emerge. But what I’m really curious about is that, while you hinted at it in Writing Courage, the novel you mentioned meeting the reader three years later. If we also consider the period before Snow and Pearl met the readers, I think we can say that you are not a hasty writer. Are you someone who is meticulous and careful while writing?
It is true that I am a meticulous writer. However, we shouldn’t be too concerned about publication timelines. Snow and Pearl had been waiting for two years in the publisher’s queue due to the publisher’s program constraints. The connection I mentioned exists between all my books. I wouldn’t be wrong to say that Snow and Pearl, published in 2016, was also foreshadowed by Hidden Subject which was published in 2003. And I believe, in a way, this is true for every writer.
When we combine the single-syllable image of snow with the first syllable of the word pearl, we again encounter “Karin.” From the very title of the book, we can deduce that there is a subtle narrative setup in Snow and Pearl. Everything seems to have been carefully thought through and planned. Is this something that applies to your other short stories and novels as well?
Yes. Although each of my novels and short stories has a different, unique story, I think I’m essentially telling/writing/constructing the same thing every time. You’ve expressed it beautifully.
Characters like Kar, Gece, Nehir, Ateş, and İnci. Nature’s interdependence of one being incomplete without the other. What did you consider when naming your characters? From one perspective, they are fragmented, broken, and complementary at the same time—Kar, Gece, Nehir, Ateş, and İnci.
Actually, I don’t always name my characters. They come with their names, and then the story emerges from them, from their names. The character Gece was born from her name. The same goes for Kar and the others. Or, let me put it this way, I can’t separate them from their names.
“In art, it is not about what it talks about, but how it talks about it. For example, today Yahya Kemal’s ability to talk about the rose and the nightingale is a sign of his understanding that art is not a ‘what’ issue, but a ‘how’ issue” (C.S. Tarancı, The Stars Fit into My Palms, Can Publications, p.50). In Writing Courage, you share significant thoughts on whether art is about ‘what’ or ‘how.’ Tarancı expressed these thoughts in 1936, but we are still discussing them today. What do you think this situation signifies?
I don’t know why this topic is still frequently discussed. I have been sharing my opinion on it for nearly twenty years, whenever asked. I believe what I write determines how I write, and how I write determines what I write; I cannot separate these two. In every piece of writing, the form shapes the content, and the content shapes the form. However, I still face the question, “Is what you write more important to you, or how you write it?”
Continuing from the previous question, in your commentary on the elegy that Hilmi Yavuz wrote for Baki’s Mersiye through the lens of form and content, your thoughts seem to be a kind of annotation of Tarancı’s commentary. However, when we look at literary critiques, we observe that critics focus more on content than form. Lengthy content analyses are done. Some critics even say, “It’s not how you tell it, it’s what you tell.” In this case, does it mean the critique hasn’t achieved its purpose, and the writer has been told, “You didn’t write well, but you managed to say something”? What are your thoughts?
As I said, I can’t understand the claim that one should focus on content and not form. Talking about content is inevitably talking about form as well. We can’t think of it otherwise. How can someone who hasn’t understood this understand what literature is?
In your short stories and novels, there is a narrator who cares about the spirit of the characters and atmosphere. This opens the door to a mysterious narrative. The fact that you have done a master’s in psychoanalysis must have influenced this. Given the intense emotional states in your works, I almost feel like saying “Nihan Kaya is a mystical pen.” Would you agree with that, and are you interested in mysticism?
The mysterious narrative you mentioned is, in my opinion, also how life is. If life naturally contains what you call mystical, then I am mystical as well. Or, I am of the opinion that the non-material aspect of matter, that is, metaphysics, is just a simple side effect of it.
E.M. Cioran negatively critiques psychoanalysis, saying, “Psychoanalysis, which we apply to ourselves, diminishes our risks, dangers, and abysses; it deprives us of everything that makes us curious about ourselves.” (Cioran, Bitterness, Metis Publications, p.23) On the other hand, psychoanalysis is said to stimulate curiosity. What is your perspective on psychoanalysis, and how does it reflect in your works? My aim in asking this question is to understand how your technical training has contributed to your practical writing.
Let me answer this with a quote. Lacan says, “Everyone has an opinion about what psychoanalysis is, except psychoanalysts.” The strange, flawed, and pathological things that the world calls problems have always intrigued me. That’s why I became a novelist, and that’s why I studied psychoanalysis. I never believed in what is called “flaw.” Like all psychoanalysts and novelists I admire, I don’t see anything strange in people or in their behaviors. I’m only interested in why someone behaves in a certain way. Behavior is only the result, and therefore, it’s not that significant.
Thank you for this beautiful interview.
Thank you.
Hatice Ebrar Akbulut
October 5, 2017