by Ömer Delikaya
In Labyrinth of Jinn, Hesenê Metê tells a masterful story of a teacher named Kevanot who is assigned in a village in which almost all villagers have widespread beliefs and relationships with supernatural things, particularly jinn. Newly wed Kevanot goes to the village with his wife Nergiz. Consistently repeated depicted gothic scenes and objects which abound in the novel narration reinforce and lay the groundwork as a reason of resemblance between teacher Kevanot and illiterate villagers.
At first as a teacher he tries to find solutions for the problems of villagers mostly related to education of students. He begins to learn their odd and strong traditions when one of his student bitten by a snake as inserting her hand into a hole of wall to find bird eggs. Teacher Kevanot learns that his students kill turtles, damage to nests of birds because of several superstitions. It is accepted as a normal tradition by their parents, too. Kevanot doesn’t uphold this odd tradition and tries to change children’s behavior towards animals but not able to do so. Himself self-confident and sensible, Kevanot is very genial and sympathetic towards the villagers including illogical ones, after all he starts to look like villagers.
The only well-educated villager Gabrany Bacho is one of the main characters in the novel. With the help of Gabran’s detailed notes about villagers which compose a great scale of roman, we as readers at least get the opportunity to observe villagers from the viewpoint of a native voice. Villager’s typical abnormalities which become one of main motifs in novel strengthen theme of jinn and make social reality more tangible. At the same time language used in novel, especially in aspect of giving villagers creative names and nicknames support the bizarre atmosphere of unusual events. In this sense, Gabran’s notes about villagers contain a lot of such creative names some of which are still in practice in villages of Kurdistan. From this perspective, labeling all villagers with one of his/her distinguishing feature create a social perception about villagers and we feel that what is talked about is a kind of aim to decrease effect of mystical events with the help of unfamiliar names of characters and their authentic features.
Deal with a conflict between individuals and society with a background full of interesting and somehow supernatural pattern of events, the novel contains repetitive gothic scenes. Dark, ghost, skull, graveyard, blood, sleep with nightmares are gothic elements in the narration. Some of them are continually repeated. These gothic scenes in jinn stories increase terror in the readers.
Deal with a conflict between individuals and society with a background full of interesting and somehow supernatural pattern of events, the novel contains repetitive gothic scenes. Dark, ghost, skull, graveyard, blood, sleep with nightmares are gothic elements in the narration. Some of them are continually repeated. These gothic scenes in jinn stories increase terror in the readers.
According to a villagers who goes under the control of jinn and finally able to escape from them, they “have crushed head, long or short and thick nose, thin legs...when they speak their teeth could be seen totally.” (pg: 117) The oddness of this point is that despite all the problems they have had because of these creatures, villager’s reflection of jinn is good. They don’t directly express their name “jinn” but just say “those who are superior than us”. This usage is a common usage about jinn even today. Actually in a way narrate some traditions and superstition, the novel takes a close anthropological look at a mountainous village of Kurdistan which named “Village of Mad”.
Although all this kind of behaviors in a way declare him as a teacher who is positive idealist, the conflict he become face to face in other extracts of the novel, especially in conclusion one, almost altogether change his attitude, and rather he finds himself doing the same insane activities for which he put the blame on villagers beforehand. Toward the end of novel Kevanot teacher who is clued with jinn as well, being accepted as an unconventional figure by villagers themselves, too. But this great change of main character doesn’t happen suddenly but in the chain of strange events. Narration moves ahead with a growing tension and toward to the end of novel repeated scenes of jinn create an atmosphere of horror in novel. This growing tension gives an unfailing fluency to the narration.
In conclusion Hesenê Metê’ roman named “Labyrinth of Jinn” is readable with its gothic elements, interesting dialogues, horror scenes and well combination of these features. It expresses the conflict between individuals and society. But at the same time it deal with distinct problems of Kurdish society.
*About the Author: Hesenê Metê is one of modern Kurdish novelist live in exile. He have enriched narration scale to a great extent and increased variation in the Kurdish literature, specifically with his fantastic novels. His novel titled “Labyrinth of Jinn” translated both in Arabic and Turkish language.
Omer Delikaya
Kulûba Xwendinê Ya Diyarberkir
