I followed my destiny like an ice block, a mummy statue. If my father had been with me, he would have slapped me and brought me to my senses… The writings on the back cover of the book begin with this sentence. I don't remember if I bought the book by reading the back cover, but when I finished reading the back cover, a sadness came over me. When the things described in the book came to life in my eyes, a feeling of incompleteness came over me. I gave the book a name myself. “Halfway”…
As someone who has recently started trying to write stories by myself, I read the books and sentences more carefully; I try to decipher the underlying meanings, I admire writers who dance with words, I envy their imagination, I envy their ability to observe, I struggle to grasp what they feel, how they write it down. When you start to write something, you realize how difficult a job it actually is. While reading this book, there were many places where I said “how could I not think of this”, “I wish I had written this sentence”. Sometimes I'm jealous; Sometimes I was fascinated. I apologized to the writers, who sounded so simple while reading, and squinted their noses and said, "I'll write this too."
Strange, but reminded me of Mike Portnoy. Portnoy (who doesn't know, who is curious, can watch it on YouTube, the link is at the bottom of the article) is one of the best drummers in the world; He is also the hero of my drumming story. When you watch it, everything seems so ordinary that you feel as if you could pick up those drumsticks and start playing them right away. His movements are so natural and comfortable, it is as if he integrates with the drum, his drumsticks are a part of his body. But playing an instrument -especially with notes- is very difficult and requires talent and effort. Especially being a virtuoso on that instrument is a one-in-a-million privilege. The moment you start playing the drums for the first time, you realize how difficult it is… You need to split the head, it's not a joke, you really need to divide the brain into four; because both hands and both feet have to do a different task. One hand is doing Hi Hat, Ride, Crash while the other is hovering between Snare, Floor and Toms. While one foot plays the cross (sometimes double, triple, quadreple), the other foot goes back and forth between the Hi Hat and the cross. You may imagine that you are trying to do all of these with notes, in a certain order and order, but when you try to play, you realize how difficult it is to be able to use even one foot and one hand at the same time when you first sit down.
I also experienced this feeling when I started to write, and I realized once again that there is either a talent or a labor behind the books we read with contempt and sneer. If you are not very talented, like me, you can try your luck after reading a few hundred books 🙂
Anyway, back to our topic; Yekta Kopan had made a cultural program called "Night and Day" on NTV for a long time. Apart from presenting, his most well-known feature is that he is one of the best voice actors in Turkey. Yekta Kopan is a voice that gave life to many characters such as Ice Age Sid, Cars Şimşek McQueen, well-known to animation lovers, as well as all the Turkish voice-overs of Marty and Jim Carrey in Back to the Future, which our generation is well known for. But I have to admit, I didn't expect it to be this good at writing. It would be a lie if I said that although I am a person who reads a lot of books, I do not regret that I have never read them before.
“And I Looked For You” is a book consisting of six stories. In the story "Ivy", encountering the ghost of his father in the shadows of a house made from his childhood dreams; Meeting the timeless lover while reading Tanpınar in front of George Orwell's house in "Portobello"; encountering a man who spent everything in "Red" to get a Hopper drawing; A quarter to death in "Blanket", encountering her little girl's adult form in a fish restaurant; While taking shelter in the blur between accident and murder in “Lizard”, encountering conscience in a pet store; Meeting his father in “Good Sleep”… It says "an unforgettable book of encounters" on the back cover, but as I said at the beginning, I wanted to call it the book of unfinished life. The book, which he wrote in 2009, won the Yunus Nadi and Haldun Taner short story awards in 2010.
I felt a bitterness mixed with respect while reading his book, in which he tells parts of his autobiography. Something is always left unfinished in her life, loves, being a husband, being a father, and most of all, being a son. None of them have been able to do it fully… When we think about it, which of us fully fulfill our duties, responsibilities; Some of us are brave, admit their failures and weaknesses, and some of us play the game of happiness like poor children who call a breadcrumb a cake. Yekta Kopan wrote her stories very frankly, without hiding her weaknesses and mistakes. A beauty adorned with music, art and description; Heartbreaking and thought-provoking stories emerged. He left us nothing but to read, think and appreciate.
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