Sleepwalking in İstanbul: a man in anguish in A. H. Tanpinar's A Mind at Peace

Abstract

Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar's (1901-62) novels reflect the dichotomy within early twentieth-century Turkey: a nation maintaining past tradition yet concurrently embracing modernity. Tanpınar explores the Ottoman legacy of Turkish modernity and questions acute social and cultural change. Scholarly interest in this aspect of Tanpınar's novels has greatly eclipsed all other aspects, as most critics analyze Tanpınar's intentions primarily in light of his political ideologies or philosophical attachments. This article challenges Tanpınar's readers to consider him in a new light through an analysis of A Mind at Peace (2008), a multidimensional narrative that addresses an orphan boy's rites of passage, which lead to manhood, within a broad and perplexing story of continuity and change in Turkey. To understand the novel as a whole, this article asserts, one must first comprehend the protagonist's precarious masculinity and his gender anxieties.