Two Person Book Club: Letter 1

A letter exchange about books and stuff

Welcome to Two Person Book Club— a letter exchange between myself and Alicia, the author of the amazing Catalectic newsletter. I’ve admired Alicia’s writing on literature and her talent of making connections between fiction and life. So I was super stoked when she agreed to this exchange!

For this two-person book club we both read Barış Bıçakçı’s The Mosquito Bite Author — a short novel by a Turkish author I really like. Here’s my first thoughts on it and I hope you enjoy it, even if you have never heard of this book.

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Hello, and I hope you're doing well. Forgive me for being so late with my letter even though it was me who proposed this exchange in the first place. For those not in the know, Alicia and I talked about reading The Mosquito Bite Author by Barış Bıçakçı and exchanging our thoughts on it. That was back in December, though.

I was happy about the novel chosen for our two-person book club. I like Bıçakçı, and I’ve liked him ever since I saw the adaptation of Our Grand Dispair in a tiny cinema in the boujee but still unkempt Nişantaşı district of Istanbul. The movie, and the novel it’s based on, provides one of the funniest looks into male friendship I’ve seen.

I also read The Mosquito Bite Author before. Not only that, I still had the paperback I brought from my last trip to Istanbul (pre-Covid, pre-many things). 

But the book was nowhere to be found. I knew I had it, I knew what it looked like (green paperback adorned by abstract watercolor art and the super cute logo of a hedgehog) but I couldn't locate it on any of my shelves. So I took to one of those pirate sites – luckily, Turkish books are easy to find online – and got it for my ebook reader. It was only after I had read the first 20% on Kindle, that I noticed the book looking at me from the top shelf, stuck between several psychiatry books belonging to my wife.

Reading it on paper reignited the memories of me reading it for the first time and also made me realize that, although I had read the book just a few years ago, I couldn't remember most of it! And Bıçakçı is no Orhan Pamuk - his books are one pinky thick.

I remembered Cemil, the aspiring author, who lived an idle life in the suburbs of Ankara, supported by his wife’s income. An ex-engineer dedicating his days to reading, cooking jam, talking literature with the neighbour’s kid, listening to dad rock, and playing soccer once a week. A life many of us would look down on, while envying it at the same time. I also remembered the fact he had submitted a manuscript to a publisher. And that’s more or less it.

On re-reading, I came to understand there was not much of a plot to the book. It’s a montage of short scenes from Cemil’s mundane reality, his fantasies, and his past – the death of a parent, the romanticized male friendship with fellow artists that isn’t the same as it was before, the bourgeois-discovers-the-beauty-of-nature memories of his field trips as a construction engineer. Nothing meaningful or life-changing really happens in the here and now, and maybe that’s why it’s easy to relate to Cemil. After all, meaning is like flavour - it takes ages of simmering to reveal it.

But maybe the absence of plot was the reason I scarcely remembered anything from my first reading? Or do I have too high expectations of my memory? It’s easy to blame shortening attention spans (which are, I guess, a myth) or the deluge of information we’re all under, but there might be ways of remembering the things we read and watch better. This exchange of ours is one of these ways.

Speaking about the things I will remember from the book, let’s take a moment to regard the quasi-romantic relationship Cemil builds with his editor – a woman he saw exactly once. As he goes on his frequent long walks, he imagines these long monologues, which orbit around his manuscript – something the editor has control over. There’s nothing too romantic about it, but as Cemil’s words “I want to fall in love again” refrain through the text, this pseudo-relationship looks like the closest thing Cemil has to a fling. 

It’s probably not about the woman, though, as the prospect of publishing his first book is the romantic fantasy he’s after. And, as someone who has recently started sending pitches to magazines, I can attest to the fact that the thrill that accompanies the wait for an editor’s response is not unlike the nerve-racking feeling that twists your arms after you send that text to a girl you like in year 11. 

“You are a master wordsmith, your language is really beautiful, but your protagonist lacks depth” is the response Cemil gets after six months of waiting (I’m paraphrasing here, as I don’t have the translation at hand). And this response rings just like “I only like you as a friend”. 

And how are you doing? How did you find the book? I always found your manner of talking about literature amazing, so I’m sure your insights will be much deeper than mine were.

All the best,

Oleg

Check out Alicia’s newsletter! Chances are, if you liked Fictitious, you’ll like Catalectic even more:

BTW, here’s Alicia’s response to the 1st letter:

Two Person Book Club: Letter #2