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| Loren Edizel |
You have written three
novels, one collection of short stories – all in about five-six years. How do
you choose the stories that you want to tell, and how do you ensure an evenness
of texture and tone in your work?
Actually,
it’s been about a decade, I think. The Ghosts of Smyrna was published in
Turkey, in Turkish translation, in 2008.
Adrift was published in Canada in 2011, Ghosts of Smyrna in its original
English version 2013, the collection of stories in 2014 and Days of Moonlight
in the spring of 2018. In between I wrote some short stories which are sitting
in a file and will hopefully become part of another collection once I am done
with the novel I am currently working on.
I
don’t know to what extent I choose the stories, I believe perhaps they choose
me, through some sort of unconscious process. A rudimentary form of the story
appears, and this could be a character, an idea that doesn’t go away. It sits there, a bit like indigestion, demanding
attention. I take notes, do research, think about the character’s traits. With
Days of Moonlight, I knew I wanted to tell a story that had to do with the
population exchange between Turkey and Greece after the Lausanne Treaty in 1924,
and about Cretan immigrants in Izmir, specifically. I find that part of the
history of the Aegean region fascinating, and not much discussed. I did some research on the epoch, the events. This
coincided with a personal story. My
mother had been trying to reach her friend in Izmir by phone, for months,
unsuccessfully. Then her phone got disconnected. Mom got worried. She started asking around and
finally got word that her friend had passed away months before. I remember the day she found this out. We sat
in her darkening room as the sun was setting, quietly, both of us feeling so
sad. This lady had always lived alone, had never married. She had never told
mom she was sick, when they spoke. It’s as if she wanted to leave this world without
a fuss, the way she had lived in it.
I
didn’t know much about her life at all. But it got me wondering how a single
woman’s life would have been in those times, in Izmir. I knew I wanted it to
feel intimate, deeply emotional, the story of a strong woman with a richly-textured
secret life. It seemed that the best way to do that was to have her as the
narrator, penning a journal, writing bits of an autobiography, letters and her
account of her parents’ migration from Crete, whatever she remembered from the
stories she was told as a child. Once I
felt I knew her and the other characters well enough to tell their stories and
had a strong sense of the larger overarching story of her entire life, it all
unravelled. The myth of the Minotaur, a Cretan and particularly, an Aegean
story, was there from the beginning. It is a powerful myth, and held me captive
as I imagined the story of Mehtap’s life.
Maybe
the texture and tone tend to evolve with the characters. As I write, I want to see
through their eyes, know what they like to wear, the music they listen to,
movies they watch, their random thoughts as they sit on their balcony, annoying
habits, all those details. I want to live in their world with them, become them. I know I am in that universe, when I can
describe it effortlessly. The songs, the view, the smells and sounds are there.
I’m there.
Your latest novel,
Days of Moonlight is a broad sweep encompassing several decades, and Ghost of
Smyrna was a historical novel. Do you prefer historical genre rather than
narrating stories of the present? A corollary to this question is whether
immigrant authors prefer to write about their past than their present?
I don’t feel that I have a preference for the
historical genre but maybe I unconsciously do, I don’t know. I’ve wanted
to write a futuristic story for a long time. I haven’t gotten around to it yet.
My husband laughs and shakes his head at me, because as soon as I finish one
novel, I announce to him that I have this idea for a futuristic type of story
for my next one. Then I go and write something else. Maybe the time is not
right for it yet.
In a way, when you write about the past, there’s
plenty to invent and discover, and you have the clear framework of historical
facts to guide you. I like to invent, go elsewhere, get out of myself, when I
write. Writing about the past also requires some research, which I enjoy. The Ghosts of Smyrna is about a city which
burned down long before I was born. I reconstructed it in my mind, through
research, photos, maps etc. So, in a
way, even though I was writing about a real place, there was an imaginary
dimension to it.
Days of Moonlight, as you say, sweeps numerous
decades, starting in the 1920s and ending in 2010. It covers Mehtap’s entire
life. The focus of her journals is the 60s and 70s in Turkey. Aside from
research, I went deep into my childhood memories to bring up how things smelled
and looked and felt to me; the look of the city, how people behaved.
To write a story that takes place in the present is
possible as long as it’s something I can dig into, something that excites my
imagination and somehow leads me to say whatever it is I want to say. The
challenge with the present is that we are all immersed in it and there is no
perspective. Unless I’m certain of my signposts, I fear the present could be a
little tedious to write about because of that lack of distance.
You were an immigrant
in Turkey and you are an immigrant in Canada. Does the status of an outsider
give you a better perspective, a more nuanced understanding of cultures and
more because you can observe with detachment?
I was not an immigrant in Turkey. My ancestry in
Izmir goes back four centuries. I was part of a very small cultural minority. My
father was an artist who felt like an outsider all his life. To a certain
extent I’ve always carried that outsider/insider feeling, I suppose. Migration
is not the only requirement for feeling this way, although if you’ve never felt
like an outsider in your life, you would, as soon as you migrated. There is no
question. I came to Canada as a teenager, and that did change my life and my
perspective. Opened it. Made me see things differently. I always wanted to feel
like a citizen of the world and I think this move set me in that direction.
When I was a small child, maybe four years old, I was
convinced I was dropped into my family by aliens from another planet. I would
wrap myself in the curtains of the living room and wait for them to come and
get me, or give me a sign, explain why I was here and for how long. They never did, as you can imagine and I eventually
got bored of waiting and had to accept I wasn’t going anywhere except to bed,
for a nap. Plus, mom didn’t like me playing with the curtains. I still don’t
know why I’m here. But I am reconciled to
the fact that I will always feel somehow outside of the larger context, looking
in, sideways. I don’t believe this is
strictly my experience; as individuals we all have circumstances that lead us
to feel somewhat on the outside. Being part of a group is a necessity for
feeling safe and good. But our ties to the group are defined by a few things only – we may
suppress our differences for the safety or expediency of belonging. Often
individuals are made to suppress their “otherness” by the state, by society,
religion, ideologies etc. I wanted to touch
upon that in Days of Moonlight - the existential dissonance of feeling
pressured to fit into acceptable molds.
How much of your life
is reflected in your work?
Excerpt from Days of Moonlight- p 121
Neither
Mehmet nor Maria ever returned to Crete for
a
visit. They were afraid of travelling and remained profoundly suspicious
of Greek and Turkish border officials. In the late
fifties, when trips to Greece became possible for Turkish citizens, the
couple categorically rejected the notion from fear that something
would go awry between the countries during their visit
and
prevent their return to Turkey. Disputes between the two neighbours
always seemed one island away. They imagined being stuck
in Crete with nothing but a suitcase, having no friends, no acquaintances
to take care of them, strangers to their birthplace or adrift
in the Mediterranean, unclaimed by either country. “Worse
than
strangers,” Mehmet would insist, with that particular shade of
bitterness that infects the memories of those who have suffered profound
injustices in their youth. He never spoke of enemies; he seemed
to have none. Although he knew himself to be Greek and Turkish,
he could acknowledge neither fully in his mind and he felt
like a mongrel that had been groomed to pass for an acceptable breed,
thus living his days with an omnipresent sense of dread which, like
a gas leak, permeated his universe, emanating a deep suspicion of
ideas, governments, convictions, and neighbours. Obsessed by the
thought of toeing the line at all times, Mehmet would become taciturn,
self-effaced among friends.
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