As if in a Dream in the Past…

As if in a Dream in the Past…

A. Nedim Atilla

Aegean and the People

      Column Writer in the daily Newspaper, Aksam

      January 18, 2004, Sunday

      nedim.atilla@aksam.com.tr

Why don’t we leave politics aside today and talk about literature!

Our hearts fill with pleasant feelings right at the beginning of the book, seeing the author’s dedication of her novel to her grandmother whom she misses very much and believes that her place will never be filled.

Last December, I received three novels in succession from Rasel Rakella Asal , a writer from Izmir and spent my three weekends reading them. I wanted to share with you the great accumulation of memories I found in her books. The books of this promising author who also is a tourism guide in three languages, English, French and Spanish are published by Boşders Publishing House.

The novel, “Now, Everything is as if a Dream in the Past” is not only a story of memories shared by the author and her grandmother who went to the same schools, but in it one can find interesting information and surprising stories about the lives of the Jews in Izmir at that time. For instance, in the book one can  find the religious wedding ceremony that took place in the Karataş Beth-Israel synagogue where the bride and the groom were smashing the goblet with their feet,  a tradition practiced only by the Jews in Izmir. In the memory extending to the past, there are many clues from the city life in Izmir…  the mosquitoes going in through the mesh over the bed in the summer house, sneaking out of school to go to swimming, etc.

On the other hand, there is the diary of the grandmother Rachel Sabanoglu…From the photocopied pages in the book, we read anecdotes originally written in French, a life starting in a small Turkish town, Turgutlu which continued all the way in Australia, Europe, and Istanbul, but mostly in Izmir…The life of a woman, the battles that she lived which gave meaning to her life, and her granddaughter carrying this past into present, dwelling on questions that bind us to her in its universality.

             The occupation of Rachel Rakella Asal, as a tourism guide, is not the reason why she wrote her notes from her trips as emotional experiments in her novels. In her novel, “Can You Hear it, my Heart?” which starts as a simple  trip to Spain turns into a story of the suffering of the Spanish people and the dramatic scenes that come out from this confrontation of the people with  the realities of their fight for freedom during the civil war. Asal’s  book, “The Tears of Volga” is a perfect book for experiences from a trip. I was not aware of this accomplished writer in Izmir until I read her books which remind me how little I knew and weekends like these help me grow in my recognition.