Sanat Kritik recently broadcast four different popcasts for Vüs’at O. Bener’s centennial under the moderation of Seval Şahin: “Ayşegül Yüksel: Vüs’at O. Bener’s Theaters”, “Mahmut Temizyürek: Vüs’at O. Bener “Vus’at O. Bener”, “Yiğit Bener: My Uncle, My Teacher Vüs’at O. Bener” and “Nedret Öztokat Kılıçeri: Notes of Mr. Muannit Forgery.” In the featured interviews held in four different programs, he reinterprets what Bener wrote in different fields from storytelling to novel writing, from playwriting to poems, from his private life to his tracks; We are witnessing a little bit of his life. While listening to each of them, I try to interpret my own Vüs’at O. Bener once once more.
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If they ask how you would describe Vüs’at O Bener in a few sentences, I would start with the poem “Godot” in his “Manzumeler”: “Vüs’at Bey/ He is waiting for his death/ If only he would wait for me.” These are the lines written as a parable of Samuel Beckett’s famous play “Waiting for Godot”. In “Waiting for Godot”, two men waiting under a tree appear in a place where we can’t tell where they are at first glance: Vladimir and Estragon. They spend all their time waiting for Godot doing nothing. Godot will never come. It is impossible not to be tempted by the lure of waiting, even if it is tiring; What matters is the wait itself. They are tested by the meaninglessness of existence and the impossibility of acting. Vüs’at O. Bener also questions himself with the misfortune and sorrow of existence, not only in these three lines, but throughout his life. His wit, which he uses both in his daily life and in his works, to get out of this cycle is not noisy, but calm like a milky harbor. Already in Waiting for Godot, our existence is actually a joke. But a nasty joke…
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Nedret Öztokat Kılıçeri talks regarding the diversity of suffering related to this intricate text while discussing the novel “Mr. Muannit Fake’s Notes”. He states that the text, which he defines as “Resistance”, must first be given a time to get used to the reader. In fact, this determination is valid for all texts of Vüs’at O. Bener. There is no escaping the hours and days in Bener. Neither from yesterday nor from the future… Yesterday is within us. That’s why we are not only tired, but also different. Especially in Fakegi’s diary, the past is an element that prepares the future. The pompous notes oscillating between interruptions, new beginnings, and flashbacks between different parts of time are also indications of how obsessed with the past and future is observed.
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Vüs’at. O. Bener has also contributed to our theater, and has maintained his feature of being a writer who writes less in playwriting. Considering that there is a time period of up to forty years between his two plays, it can be predicted that the silence allows for great preparation. The tension between the Father, Mother, Son and Bride living in a house in the Linden Tree is featured. In addition to the inner conflicts of the play characters, the conflicts among themselves are also exhibited. The only action is for the stepfather to leave the house in the final. Thus, the power imported from abroad is pushed out once more. In The Tip of the Rope, the critique of militarism is given by two men who prefer death to life.
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In my early youth, I used to visit Uncle Vüs’at’s house, which can be considered as the backdrop for the novel “Mr. Muannit Fake’s Notes”. If I tried to open the door a little bit, I wouldn’t let him, I would call “You are neglecting this old man so much” and I would go to his house. What would we sit down next to a lonely table standing by a window and what would we talk regarding? The long conversations we had always extended to the family’s adventure. In the sepia photographs, there was a mother who spoke French and studied at the “Sörler” school in Merzifon, and a father who was educated in Aleppo, who was fluent in Arabic and Persian. The father, who has been a literature lover since his youth, writes for a magazine called “Women’s World” in the 1910s. Then he studies Physics and has been teaching Physics for years. Then I would listen to Uncle Vüs’at’s story of choosing his profession and being a lawyer… Of course, there were other lawyers in the family.
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Our long conversations would always end with music. Erhan Bener went to Belgium for internship in his youth and brought a lot of cheap records from there. Those records would stand in front of the table in a partitioned console, we would carefully choose what we would listen to and carefully place them on the turntable. I used to listen to the story of the two brothers “having haunted the notes” with a smile. In fact, one day the literary critic – dear Hüseyin Cöntürk told it. Beners, Cöntürk and enthusiasts gather in the houses to improve their knowledge regarding music; They listen to classical music. Cevdet Kudret joins them from time to time.
Perhaps his passion for music made Vüs’at Bener a strict literary composer. He always gave me the feeling that he had written his novels like an orchestra director. Towards the finale, this air turns into an enormous sea of emotions. Music would move towards a deep knife, romance towards brand new pursuits.
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Years passed. Long and bad times… We are still in the lap of life’s bullshit. But we have long lacked its contemporary irony.
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In the words of our teacher Ayşegül Yüksel, Vüs’at O . Knowing Bener is a wealth. Today he is a hundred years old … his works are waiting to reach large masses.
