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While Tanpinar wrote his poems in the style known as “Bes Hececiler” (“Followers of the Five Syllable”), in his novels he has dwelled on the inner human truth, and as a thinker he wrote about the challenges of internalizing Eastern and Western lifestyles and values. Tanpinar stated that “Western civilization develops constantly, however it does so without severing ties with its history and renaissance. Furthermore, it safeguards its material and spiritual values. Just like they have done, we need to change the “old,” and to strive to become a better society; however while doing this, we need to make use of our own values rather than blindly imitating the West. We need to protect our own values.”
Time is one of the prominent themes that appear in Tanpinar’s stories and novels. The commonly accepted opinion is that Tanpinar has been influenced by Marcel Proust. Both Tanpinar himself and his characters are longing for times past. The past is both individually perceived time and the past of the nation. In Tanpinar’s novels time is prominent as an aesthetic element, and a literary device. Huzur, which appeared as a daily series in the Milliyet newspaper between February 22nd and June 2nd 1948, and which was later published in 1949 in book form, is one of his most important works. The most significant feature of the novel is that it adheres to the principle of unity of time, as its action takes place in a 24-hour timeframe. In the novel, time has been established through the characters conveying their memories into the present. In the other novels, it is possible to see a spiraling plot of the same type that goes back and forth between past and present. As far as the subject matter goes, Huzur ,deals with the search for peace that the intellectual of the Republican period undertakes.
http://www.turkishculture.org/pages.php?ChildID=125&ParentID=3&ID=4&ChildID1=250&miMore=1
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