Από τη χώρα που οι φοιτητές απαγορεύεται να φέρουν γενειάδα, που στα νοτιοανατολικά κουρδικά λημέρια υπάρχει πόλη με το όνομα Batman, που είναι τόσο απύθμενη που αν δεν έπεφτες στην κίτρινη ταμπέλα για Ιράν θα νόμιζες πως είναι το τέλος του κόσμου, που περήφανοι  έφιπποι κούρδοι αντάρτες με σκαμμένα πρόσωπα σε χαζεύουν έξω από το Bahcesaray, που λυσσασμένα cangal dogs -με καρφιά στο λαιμό για να προστατεύονται από τους λύκους- ορμάνε όχι στα λάστιχα του αυτοκινήτου σου αλλά στα ανοιχτά σου παράθυρα, που τα φρένα του αυτοκινήτου σου γίνονται κορδέλες στο πιο απομονωμένο χωριό με δυο κούρδους στο πίσω κάθισμα και επικαλείσαι στον Allah να αντέξει το χειρόφρενο , με οδηγό, όχι το LP, αλλά το Les six voyages en Turquie et en Perse του Jean-Baptiste (Tavernier) –από τον οποίο ανάγεις μία ώρα αυτοκινήτου σε τέσσερα εικοσιτετράωρα με φορτωμένο άλογο-, μετά από 21 ημέρες και 5000 χιλιόμετρα, αμέτρητες Kumhuryet Caddesi και Ataturk Bulevardi,

σας χαιρετώ. Εδώ θα βρείτε τον χάρτη του οδοιπορικού.
Ε.

Copyright Ευθύμης Kosemund Σανίδης © 2009

Ne başı ne de sonu görünen bi yol hayaledin. Tıpkı dümdüz bir ovada uzanan bir çift tren rayı gibi pürüssüz ve sonsuz. Çıkın o yolun üstüne, bi sağınıza bi solunuza bakın. Ne yöne gitmeniz gerektiğini kestirmeye çalışın. Kararsızlığı yaşayın en derininize, iliklerinize kadar. Kararsızlığın doruk noktasında bir umut bekleyin.Size hangi yöne gitmeniz gerektiğini söyleyecek, doğru yönü gösterecek bir işaret bekleyin. İşte tam o sırada sizin yolunuzda size doğru yaklaşan birini farkedin. Seslenip durdurun bu yabancıyı, hemen sorun hangi yönün doğru olduğunu. Eğer sizi ilerlediği yönün doğru olduğuna ikna ederse durmayın ilerleyin onunla. Zaten ikna olmaktan başka çareniz de yokki, bu yabancı sizin tek umudunuz.
Yolda  ilerledikçe daha iyi tanıyın bu yabancıyı. Sizin için artık bir yabancı olmaktan çıkıp vazgeçemediğiniz biri haline gelsin.

Yolculuk boyunca geçen zamanda birbirinize destek olun. Daha çok paylaşıp, daha güçlü daha emin adımlarla ilerleyin yolunuzda. Siz farkında bile olmadan günler, haftalar, aylar hatta yıllar geçsin. Yol arkadaşınızla olan yolculuğunuz keyifle devam etsin. Ta ki gün gelip yol arkadaşınızla üzerinde yürüdüğünüz yolun aslında çok farklı iki yol olduğunu farkedene kadar. İşte o an artık bi daha aynı yolda yürümeyi beceremeyin. Elinizden başka birşey gelmediği için vedalaşıp ayrılın yol arkadaşınızla ve onun kendi yolunda ilerleyip uzaklaştığını seyredin. Zamanın yorgunluğu, eski dostu kaybetmenin üzüntüsüyle çökün yolun kenarına. Umutsuzluk sizi sinsi sinsi yeniden sarsın. Kendinizi kaybolmuş ve yalnız hissedin. Tam karamsarlığa yenik düşüp yolun ilerleyeceğiniz yönünü kaybettiğinizi düşündüğünüzde biri çıkıp gelsin aniden. Ayağa kalkın ve yaklaşın bu yeni yabancıya. Ve bırakın sizi ilerlediği yönün doğru olduğuna ve yol arkadaşı olmanıza ikna etsin. Bu sefer inanıp inanmamak sizin elinizde olsun, bunun adı da ”deneyim” olsun.

Hayatta en büyük eğlence, başkasının yapamazsın dediğini yapmaktır

The first thing to be said about Julienne van Loon’s Road Story is that it’s short. At 150 first pages of generously spaced print, this is a slight novel, one that took me about two hours to read. This is not to say that it wasn’t worth reading, however. Road Story is about an eighteen year-old girl called Diana Kooper. We see her in medias res, running from the scene of a car crash she has caused. Thereafter, the narrative unfolds in two directions: the first strand covers Diana’s flight from the scene of the crime and subsequent life; and the second charts her earlier life leading up to the crash. If this sounds simple, it is. But herein lies the charm of Road Story: it is an unpretentious and intelligent novel which achieves everything it sets out to achieve.

The major narrative, concerning Diana’s life after the crash, is the more interesting of the two. It transpires that Diana has left her friend Nicole Clarke unconscious in the passenger seat of the crashed car. Diana runs away, catches a train and then a bus, before getting a job at a roadhouse on a major truck-route. Okay. This is the first novel I can think of which takes place primarily at a truck-stop, but it proves to be an effective location for Road Story to play out against. Diana’s new boss is called Bob Davies, and he turns out to be a somewhat shady character with a love of betting on horse racing and a problem with some bikies. At first, the truck-stop provides excellent cover for Diana (who is essentially on the run from the law), but things start to catch up with her sooner on later.

The second narrative concerns Diana’s life from the time that she ran away from home (at age fourteen) until her car crash at age eighteen and a half. And it’s a grim tale indeed, full of drug-taking, lecherous sailors and general decreptitude. Oh, and heroin. Nicole becomes a junkie, Diana doesn’t, and of course it is the latter who ends up caring for the former. There was something very depressing about all of this, for me at least. I don’t usually mind reading hard luck tales of drugs and despair, but van Loon makes no attempt to sugar-coat any of this, nor does she provide any kind of redeeming denouement or moral. Life, van Loon seems to be saying, is nothing like the ersatz lives led in the pages of novels. Fair enough, but we need a reason to read this or any other novel. I had a feeling that 150 pages was the optimum length for this kind of material. Any more would have become even more depressing.

The narratives converge, of course. We come to see that Diana was actually doing the best she could for Nicole, and that in a sense she was correct to flee the scene of the crash. But the dark realism of this novel is unrelenting. We never discover whether Nicole has lived or died, although it would appear that she has perished. Worse, Diana had fallen pregnant to a youthful trucker earlier in the novel, and that doesn’t end well either. Many novels and novelists would have used the theme of pregnancy to suggest that while things are bad today, they may be better tomorrow, or somesuch thing, but van Loon doesn’t try to soothe us like this. The novel ends with her running again, after having received some back pay from Bob (and having stolen another $1500 out of his safe). The future is uncertain, but almost certainly bleak. It would appear, on the final page of the novel, that Diana is miscarrying. The end.

And yet I still don’t dislike Road Story. I imagine a fair few people would dislike it for some of the reasons stated above. It’s bleak, it’s unremitting, but it’s genuine. So many writers try to lie to us and themselves by tacking on false-dawn endings and Hollywood twists, but van Loon doesn’t insult our intelligence like this. Perhaps next time van Loon will write a story with a little more thirst for life in it.

Fuguet. Albert Fuguet, el mismo de Mala Onda, Por Favor Rebobinar, Las películas de mi vida, y de la Película Se Arrienda, ahora lanzó una novela gráfica inspirada en uno de los relatos incluidos en el libro “Cortos”.

Road Story se llama este “libro” que algunos han catalogado como la Primera novela gráfica chilena ¿será? No lo se, pero yo igual me lo compraré. De alguna manera extraña, yo a Fuguet le compro todo.

Este es el vídeo promocional de Road Story que hizo la editorial Alfaguara y que anda dando vueltas por Youtube.

Vía Nortegrande.net