MY COMMENTS :
Written by Nabizade Nazım, the work tells the story of the internal conflicts and life struggles of a villager named Karabibik, who goes through on his way to realize his dream of buying two oxen to work in his field.
Written in the last years of the Ottoman Empire, the work aims to make the reader experience scenes from life directly by using a naturalistic style that goes beyond Nabizade Nazım's realism. For this reason, the narration in the work constantly makes the reader feel as if they are in a movie.
Moreover, it is mentioned in the introduction that before the work was written, Nazım went to the village where the subject of the book takes place and based it on the real-life character Karabibik.
Karabibik aims to buy two oxen to work on the field he inherited. However, since he has accumulated receivables from merchants, he cannot achieve his goal no matter how insistent he is on borrowing again.
She lives at home with her lazy daughter, who is almost thirty years old, and she is very dissatisfied with her family life. She points out her daughter, who does not want to do anything, as the biggest factor in this.
As can be seen, the work was not written with the aim of designing an event-based, gripping content, but was written with the aim of making the author's Naturalism felt to the reader on every page of the book as much as possible. In this respect, it should be noted that it is one of the milestones in Turkish literature that should be examined by literature lovers.
It should also be noted that the author, with his observation skills and narrative techniques, has managed to take the reader into Karabibik's mind and take him to the 1890s. It should be shown as an important element that he can tell the difficult life of an Anatolian farmer in the late Ottoman period of the 1890s, when the commercial life was under the control of non-Muslims, in a short and simple manner in approximately 35 pages.
In addition, thanks to the author's observational ability, it has been seen that sometimes traces of travel writing, sometimes a character analysis, and sometimes social portraits and analyses are frequently included in the work. It is also obvious that these three types of narration are prepared in harmony without disrupting the structure of the work.
In conclusion, the work can be considered as a guide for readers who want to follow the westernization process of Turkish literature in the late Ottoman period and as one of the books worth examining.
MY QUOTATIONS(*) :
A writer whose name seems strange to us: Nabizade Nazım, that is, Nazım, the son of Nabi…
According to Nabizade, only novels written in a naturalistic way can be called novels. Young Nabizade's resistance on this issue would so anger Ahmet Mithat that he would write the novel Müsahedat, which included the observation feature, one of the mainstays of naturalism, in its title.
Nabizade Nazım would try to produce a truly naturalistic novel, crowning her fight against Ahmet Mithat in her only full-fledged novel, Zehra, to be published after her very young death from bone tuberculosis at the age of 31. However, Karabibik, which is a long story, also emerges as a first example of this effort, and here Nabizade tries to prove that the naturalistic novel, contrary to Ahmet Mithat's belief, has nothing to do with obscenity.
As far as we understand from Karabibik, he did exactly this during his six-month mission in Kaş, and created Karabibik, a farmer living in Beymelek, one of the villages of Temre Plain located between the Mira Mountain Range and the Mediterranean, based on the locals he saw and observed there, studying everything from their language to their way of life. ( Excerpts from the Introduction )
Temre village is a Christian village and its people are generally engaged in trade. The houses are all made of adobe brick or rubble stone with earth mortar and all of them have almost the same interior and exterior decoration.
The windows will always be frameless and glassless. Because the weather in this area is extremely hot in the summer and very mild in the winter. The roofs are covered with ordinary corrugated tiles. However, some rich people have recently started using Marseille tiles. It is also customary for each house to have a small garden. Everyone plants some vegetables such as onions and garlic in these gardens. Other vegetables are always grown in the churchyard.
Being summoned to Kaş is worse than being summoned to the grave for the villagers. Because being summoned to Kaş meant being summoned to court in Kaş, which was the central district. If the merchant was a little lenient in forgiving his receivables, the court would do its job on time… Moreover, being dragged all the way there, spending a lot of money in the inns, and being without work for days discourages the villagers. ( Quotes from Karabibik )
MY EVALUATIONS:
Subject : The work is about the internal conflicts and life struggles of a villager named Karabibik, who goes through on his way to realize his dream of buying two oxen to work in his field.
Style: It was written with a naturalistic approach in order to bring visual scenes to the reader's mind as if they were inside the novel, taking the author's realism trend to a further level. In this respect, it should be stated that it is a situation-based narrative. However, it should be stated that the author has an impressive narrative in terms of both conveying the Anatolian farmer's speeches in the dialogues to the reader one-on-one and drawing a portrait of a region where the author actually worked.
Originality : The work does not prioritize originality in terms of its nature and subject. However, it should be stated that it is one of the important milestones in Turkish literature in terms of style, as it is the first village novel.
Character : The character scheme in the work is based on the main character Karabibik. The events experienced are constantly reflected to the reader through Karabibik's eyes. Apart from this, it should be stated that in the work, where there is not much room for side characters, there are generally supporting characters. This situation, considering the brevity of the work, has a positive effect on the narrative.
Fluency : When the issues expressed in the style section are taken into consideration, it is obvious that the work does not have a gripping narrative. It should also be noted that it does not aim for the gripping element as a situation-based story. However, no matter how successful the style is in drawing a portrait of the environment and character, it is obvious that it does not have a fluent narrative for the reader.
General : In the evaluation made out of 10 according to the criteria stated above:
Subject: 7
Style: 8.5
Originality: 7.5
Characters: 8
Fluency: 5.5
The overall average of the work, which received the points, is 7.3 points . Although it passes the 7 threshold, it should be noted that it will not appeal to the general readership who likes today's event-based books due to the movement it belongs to. However, it is one of the books that should definitely be examined, especially for readers who are interested in movements in Turkish literature.
(*) : All parts under the title My Quotations:
KARABİBİK
Author : Nabizade Nazim
Publisher : Koridor Publications
Edition : 2nd Edition – September 2022
The photo used on the cover was used as a quote from the book.
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