peteg's blog - noise - books - 2014 08 07 Tanpinar TheTimeRegulationInstitute

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar: The Time Regulation Institute

Thu, Aug 07, 2014./noise/books | Link

I got suckered by a review in the New York Times, and by the promise of an introduction by Pankaj Mishra. Also I guess by not having read any Turkish literature before, or knowing much about the place. It's long, at 400 pages, and takes its time getting places. Some of it is hilarious, such as a psychoanalysis meeting where everyone drops off to sleep; as my description might indicate, it's how he paints the picture and not the picture itself that might make this worth reading. Mishra weasels his way out of too strong an endorsement, though he is generally on board with this idea of modernism crashing into traditionalism and neither being the wiser. I think he's telling me to read Tagore. I don't have the stamina to slog through A Mind at Peace.