Readings

Syringa's bookshelf: read

Le livre du voyage
Prom Nights from Hell
The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View from the Future
Le Jeûne
Le petit guide de la cure de raisin
Le Libraire De Selinonte
Benedict Cumberbatch: The Biography
Exploration Fawcett: Journey to the Lost City of Z
Le vieux qui ne voulait pas fêter son anniversaire
Le tour du monde en 80 jours
Professeur Cherche élève Ayant Désir De Sauver Le Monde
Elif Gibi Sevmek
Hikâyem Paramparça
The Enchantress of Florence
Anglais BTS 1re & 2e années Active Business Culture
Réussir le commentaire grammatical de textes
Epreuve de traduction en anglais
Le commentaire littéraire anglais - Close Reading
Réussir l'épreuve de leçon au CAPES d'anglais - Sujets corrigés et commentés
Le pouvoir politique et sa représentation - Royaume-Uni, Etats-Unis


Syringa Smyrna's favorite books »

samedi 29 mars 2014

Kahperengi - Hande Altayli

« Cok içmenin, yerçekiminin etkisini artirdigindan emindi. Hatirladigi kadariyla kutuplarda ve deniz kenarlarinda yerçekiminin etkisi artiyor, ekvator ve daglarda ise hafifliyordu ama okul kitaplarini yazanlarin alkol-yerçekmi iliskisinden haberleri bile yoktu. »

« Kibarlik, iki beden bol elbise gibi üzerinden dökülüyordu. »

« Necati kizin kulagina dogru egildigi sirada, yanlarindan geçen lacivert montlu çocuk açiktan açiga bir öpücük yollayinca Narin’in felegi sasiverdi. Bildigi, tanidigi dünya gidip de yenisi kurulurken Yaslihan bile Yaslihan olmaktan çikti, kiri pasi silindi, egri binalarin omurgasi düzeldi. Lacivert montlu çocuk uzaklasirken, yollar ilk defa bir yere gidiyor gibi göründü Narin’e. Dogdugu sehirden hiç çikmadigi için yollarin birbirine baglandigini, hepsinin birlesip daha büyük yollara aktigini, o büyük yollarin baska sehirlere, ülkelere kavustugunu bilmiyordu. Daha dogrusu biliyordu ama anlamiyordu. O gün, çocugun arkasindan bakarken, ilk kez anladigini hissetti. Biri gittiginde arkasinda bir yol birakiyordu. Yürüyüp ona varabilecegin bir yol… »

« Atif yirmi dört yasinda, oldukça sevimli bir gençti. »

« Narin bu simarik gençle ne yapacagini bilemiyordu. O sirada en son istedigi sey, floresan isikli bir çorbacida, iskembe kokulari arasinda oturmakti. »

« Beni teselli etmene gerek yok. Su anda benimle konusacak birini istemiyorum. Sadece benimle susacak birini istiyorum. »

« Artik arkadas oldugumuza göre birbirimize laf sokabiliriz diye düsündüm. » 

« Annem evlendi, senin annen de evlendi, hatta bak bu mahalledeki bütün karilar evli. Söyle bana, hangisi kurtuldu evlenince ? »

« Gözleri kahverenginin en hüzünlü tonundaydi. »

« ‘Evlenmedin mi daha ?’
‘Evlenmedim’ dedi Narin.
‘Evlenme zaten ! Bok mu var evleneceksin…’ »

« Bir aileden çok tesadüfen yollair kesismis insanlara benziyorlardi. »

« Ölmenin bir asaleti vardi, sobadan zehirlenmeninse yoktu. »

« Narin bu kadar güzel kiyafetleri olan bir kizin aglamasina hayret etti. »

« kimse günahlariyla karsilasmak istemezdi ; özellikle de o günahlar toprak altindaysa. »

« Mezarlik çiçegi denen kahverengi küçük lekeler. »

« Böyle zamanlarda Deniz gibi olamadigi için kendinden nefret ediyordu. Deniz böyle seyleri hiç umursamaz, güler geçerdi. O niye gülüp geçmeyi bilmiyordu ? Ne vardi sevgilisiyle yakalandiysa ? »

« Üç haftadan beri Tunç isminde bir sevgilisi vardi. Kizil kivircik saçli, sevimli bir gençti. »

« Doganin onu oksadigini düsündü. Neden bu kadar korkuyorduk acaba islanmaktan ? »

« Moskof Recep mezarlikta kendisi için hazirlanmis çukura dogru saatte kirk kilometre hizla ilerlerken Narin, Firat’in islak toprak kadar kahverengi gözlerine bakti ve Yaslihan stadindaki o günü düsündü. Bazen basladigin yere dönebilmek için dünyayi dolasman gerekiyordu. »

Kahperengi – Hande Altayli

mardi 25 mars 2014

The Enchantress of Florence - Salman Rushdie

« The water ran down from the edges of his mouth and hung on his shaven chin like a liquid beard. At length he handed back the empty gourd, gave a sigh of satisfaction, and wiped the beard away. »

« He could dream in seven languages : Italian, Spanish, Arabic, Persian, Russian, English and Portuguese. He had picked up languages the way most sailors picked up diseases ; languages were his gonorrhoea, his syphilis, his scurvy, his ague, his plague. As soon as he fell asleep half the world started babbling in his brain, telling wondrous travellers’ tales. In this half-discovered world every day brought news of fresh enchantments. »

« ‘because in my city, this veil of a word, this hidden bird, is a delicately euphemistic term for the organ of the male sex, and I take pride in that which I possess but do not have the ill grace to display.’ »

« ‘Ucello di Firenze’ had gone, leaving only that name behind like the abandoned skin of a snake. »

« Even the emperor succumbed to fantasy. Queens floated whithin his palaces like ghosts, Rajput and Turkish sultanas playing catch-me-if-you-can. »

« In the language of his forefathers the word for iron was timur. »

« an angry king was like a god who made mistakes. »

« when it’s time to unleash a few insults, a man will always choose his mother tongue. »

« After that she got to work, anointing him with civet and violet, magnolia and lily, narcissus and calembic, as well as drops of other occult fluids whose names he did not even like to ask, fluids extracted from the sap of Turkish, Cypriot and Chinese trees, as well as a wax from the intestines of a whale. »

« By then, however, the knowledge was of no use to him, except to remind him of what he should never have forgotten, that witchcraft requires no potions, familiar spirits or magic wands. Language upon a silvered tongue afford enchantment enough. »

« The silence thickened like curdled milk. »

« From the day of her birth she was nicknamed Qara Köz, which was to say Black Eyes, on account of the extraordinary power of those orbs to bewitch all upon whom they gazed. »

« Or who knows ? I might turn Turk myself. »

« ‘In the Rhetorica it’s called by the same name, the memory palace,’ il Machia answered. ‘You build a building in your head, you learn your way around it, and then you start attaching memories to its various features, its furniture, its decorations, whatever you choose. If you attach a memory to a particular location you can remember an enormosu amount by walking around the place in your head.’ »

« This young woman has had her own memories removed, or consigned to some high attic of the palace of memory which has been erected in her mind, and she has become the repository of everything her master needed to have remembered. What do we know of the Ottoman court ? This may be a commin practice among the Turks, or it may have been the tyrannical whim of a specific potentate, or one of his favourites. »

« ‘Arcalia the Turk,’ said the memory palace. ‘Wielder of the Enchanted Lance.’
‘That complete bastard,’ said Ago Vespucci, admiringly. ‘He did what he said he’d do. He went over to the other side.’ »

« He was a lover of tulips, and had them embroidered on to his tunics and cloaks, believing them to be bringers of good fortune, and of the fifteen hundred varieties of Stamboul tulip six in particular were to be found thronging his palace rooms. The Light of Paradise, the Matchless Pearl, the Increaser of Pleasure, the Instiller of Passion, the Diamond’s Envy and the Rose of the Dawn : these were his favourites, and by them he was revealed as a sensualist beneath his warrior’s exterior, a creature of pleasure hiding inside a killer’s skin, a female self within the male. »

« ‘Nobody in this place knows the meaning of fear,’ she replied, first in Persian and then again in Chaghatai, her Turkish mother tongue.
And beneath those words, the real words. Will you be mine. Yes. I am yours. »

« ‘You haven’t stopped being a child,’ Andrea Doria told him. ‘You still think that home, at the end of a long journey, is a place where a man finds peace.’ »

« ‘Damnation, Machia,’ he whispered, sweating lightly, the curse escaping his lips under the pressure of his emotions, after a long period during which he had forsaken swearing entirely, and the sack of dead thrushes fell from his hand. ‘I think I just rediscovered the meaning of human life.’ »

« Until you’re not, the Universal Ruler thought. My love, until you’re not. »

The Enchantress of Florence – Salman Rushdie

dimanche 23 mars 2014

The God of Small Things - Arundhati Roy

« Gentle half-moons have gathered under their eyes and they are as old as Ammu was when she died. Thirty-one. »

« Her tears trickled down from behind them and trembled along her jaw like raindrops on the edge of a roof. »

« And once more the yellow church swelled like a throat with voices. »

« Sophie Mol died because she couldn’t breathe. Her funeral killed her. »

« Ammu’s tears made everything that had so far seemed unreal, real. »

« She had forgotten just how damp the monsoon air in Ayemenem could be. Swollen cupboards creaked. Locked windows burst open. Books got soft and wavy between their covers. Strange insects appeared like ideas in the evenings and burned themselves on Baby Kochamma’s dim 40-watt bulbs. »

« Over time he had acquired the ability to blend into the background of wherever he was- into bookshelves, gardens, curtains, doorways, streets – to appear inanimate, almost invisible to the untrained eye. It usually took strangers a while to notice him even when they were in the same room with him. It took them even longer to notice that he never spoke. Some never noticed at all. Estha occupied very little space in the world. »

« Rahel drifted into marriage like a passenger drifts towards an unoccupied chair in an airport lounge. With a Sitting Down sense. »

« She was eighty-three. Her eyes spread like butter behind her thick glasses. »

« She felt she spoke much better English than everybody else. This made her lonelier than ever. »

« Rahel’s new teeth were waiting inside her gums, like words in a pen. »

« Occasionally, when Ammu listened to songs that she loved on the radio, something stirred inside her. A liquid ache spread under her skin, and she walked out of the world like a witch, to a better, happier place. On days like this, there was something restless and untamed about her. As though she had temporarily set aside the morality of motherhood and divorceehood. Even her walk changed from a safe mother-walk to another wilder sort of walk. She wore flowers in her hair and carried magic secrets in her eyes. She spoke to no one. She spent hours on the riverbank with her little plastic transistor shaped like a tangerine. She smoked cigarettes and had midnight swims. »

« On that skyblue December day, her wild, curly hair had escaped in wisps in the car wind. Her shoulders in her sleeveless sari blouse shone as though they had been polished with a high-wax shoulder polish. »

« He explained to them that history was like an old house at night. With all the lamps lit. And ancestors whispering inside. »

« History’s smell. Like old roses on a breeze. »

« Marxism was a simple substitute for Christianity. Replace God with Marx, Satan with the bourgeoisie, Heaven with a classless society, the Church with the Party, and the form and purpose of the journey remained similar. An obsacle race, with a prize at the end. »

« He had an air hostess’s heart trapped in a bear’s body. »

« ‘When you hurt people, they begin to love you less. That’s what careless words do. They make people love you a little less.’ A cold moth with unusually dense dorsal tufts landed lightly on Rahel’s heart. Where its icy legs touched her, she got goose bumps. Six goose bumps on her careless heart. »

« Chacko often said that his ambition was to die of overeating. Mammachi said it was a sure sign of suppressed unhappiness. »

« His gums were startingly pink, the reward for a lifetime’s uncompromising vegetarianism. »

« Cement kisses whirred through the air like small helicopters. »

« She said that she felt like a road sign with birds shitting on her. »

« ‘If you’re happy in a dream, Ammu, does that count ?’ Estha asked.
‘Does what count ?’
‘The happiness – does it count ?’
She knew exactly what he meant, her son with his spoiled puff.
Because the truth is, that only what counts counts.
The simple, unswerving wisdom of children. »

« The Great Stories are the ones you have heard and want to hear again. The ones you can enter anywhere and inhabit comfortably. They don’t deceive you with thrills and trick endings. They don’t surprise you with the unforeseen. They are as familiar as the house you live in. Or the smell of your lover’s skin. You know how they end, yet you listen as though you don’t. In the way that although you know that one day you will die, you live as though you won’t. In the Great Stories you know who lives, who dies, who finds love, who doesn’t. And yet you want to know again. »

« He looked cheerful, as though he was with an imaginary friend whose company he enjoyed. »

« Ammu longed for him. Ached for him with the whole of her biology. »

« Her eyes that were always somewhere else. »

« She could feel how soft she felt to him. She could feel herself through him. Her skin. The way her body existed only where he touched her. The rest of her was smoke. »

« Biology designed the dance. Terror timed it. »

The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy

mardi 11 mars 2014

hikâyem paramparça - Emrah Serbes

« Babamin öldügü gün birine âsik olmustum. »

« Büyük bir kentteysen bir sürü gereksiz sey bilmen lazim yoksa kendini salak gibi hissedersin. »

« Ölüm haberi vermek zorunda kalanlarin yasamaktan duyduklari tatli utanç. »

« Rüyalara giren aksakalli dedeler gibi degil ama, Hemingway gibi. »

« Karanlikta nüfus sayimi söyle yapilir : Yasayanlar bir sigara yakar. »

« Düsleri gerçek sanmaya baslarsan onlarda kusurda bulmaya baslarsin. »

« Iffetimizi tesadüfen koruyor olmamiz iffetli oldugumuz anlamina gelmez. Flaubert, Madame Bovary’i bu yüzden yazdi. »

« Maddi bir kayip olmadan manevi bir yükselisin imkâni yok. Yoga kurslarin aylik ücretlerine bakin en basitinden. »

« Iyi yazar veli yarisidir zaten. »

« Üç çocuklu bir anneyle bir sikiyönetim komutani arasinda ne fark var ? »

« Edebiyat tarihi sahane seyler yazmis berbat adamlarla dolu. »

« Herkes kendi kâbusunu görür. Bir kâbusu kâbus yapan sey ondaki aktarilmayan noktalardir. Baskasina anlattigin sey kâbus degildir artik. »

« Yanlis yolda yürümek dogru yolda beklemekten iyidir oglum. Spermden mesara kadar… Karanlikta herkesle çarpisabilir insan. Yalan mi söylüyorum yine, olsun. Sen biliyorsun nasilsa. Bir sürü dogru söyledik ama hiç burnumuz kisalmadi. »

« Insan zamanini durdurmak istedigi yere aittir. »

« Bir saat kadar Noir désir dinlemek lazim. »

« Dostoyevski ise bize daha yüskek bir hukuktan bahseder. Suçun cezasindan kaçabilirsin, ama vicdanin azabindan kaçamazsin diyen bir hukuktan. »

« Iskenderiye Kütüphanesi yakilmasaydi bugün üniversite egitimi on yil olurdu. »

« Belki de insanlar topluma karismak için degil, topluma karsi iki kisilik bir savunma hatti kurmak için evleniyorlardir. »

« onun elinde tek silah var, affetmek. »

« Red Kit’in her maceranin sonunda atina atlayip ufka dogru uzaklasmasi bundan. Che’nin devrimden sonra Küba’dan ayrilmasi da… Modern anlamda (esitlik/özgürlük/kardeslik) adaleti ilk saglayanlar Fransizlar. Bu yüzden Fransa’nin en büyük ihraç mali can sikintisidir. »

« Kendimizi özgür zannediyoruz oysaki sadece iîmizi biraz uzun birakmislar. Sinirlara gelince fark ediliyor bu. Disari çikmak isterken kendini cama vurup duran yari delirmis karasinekler gibiyken. Sadece geceleri, yapayalniz ve yalinayakken anlasabilecek seyler var. »

« ama zaten hersey yolunda giderken kim sevebilir ? »

« Son dakikadaki kornere çikip karsi kalede gol arayan kalecilere sorun, Türkiye’nin ruhunu en iyi onlar bilir. »

« Türkiye yüz parça bölünse en son Kürtler ayrilir. »

« Zaten kalbini Ikea’dan almis, söküp takabiliyormus. »

« Sessizce verlen sözlere kim inanmaz ? »

« Tecrübe denen sey yasananlari sifirla çarpmakmis. »

« Kiyametin tek adaleti, herkes için kopmasi. »

« Insan en az üç kisidir : Kendisi, olmak istedigi kisi ve aradaki farkta yasayan üçüncü. En sahici de bu üçüncüdür. Olmak istedigin kisiden kendini çikardiginda, aradaki farkta yasayan kisidir en çok sana benzeyen. Ne kendin kadar huzursuz ne de olmak istedigin kisi kadar hayalidir o. Yine bu yüzden iki insanin birbirine âsik olmasi en az alti kisi arasinda geçen bir hadisedir. »

« Kendinden bikmaya baslamak, kisilik sahibi olmaya baslamanin da bir göstergesidir. »

« Bir seyi yanlis anladigimizda, sakladigimiz arzularimisin da ipuçlarini veririz. Bir seyi yanlis anlamaktan ölesiye korkmamisin nedeni bu. »

« Mutluluk bir vazgeçistir ve çok ender rastlanan bir ruh dinginligidir. »

« Bu gezegende, iki insanin birbirlerine duyduklari sevgi bir terazide dengelenmis midir hiç ? Esitlik fikrine en çok âsikken inaniriz. Cünkü en çok o zaman ihtiyaç duyariz. »

« Bu dünyada siddetin zirvesi yok, varsa da göremeyecegimiz kadar tepelerde. »

« Söyle bir hadis-i serif var : ‘Eviniz mezarliga yakin camiye uzak olsun.’ Eviniz mezarliga yakin olsun çünkü ölüm ve ahret hep aklinizda olsun. Camiye uzak olsun çünkü namaza giderken attiginiz her adimda sevap yazilir. »

« Herkesin bildigi seyleri çocuklardan saklamayin. Cünkü o zaman kendilerini dünyanin disinda itilmis hissederler. O ruh hali de, ögrenmelerini istemedigimiz seylerden daha çok zarar verir onlara. »

« Bütün gün sogukta gezmistim, duygularim donsun diye. »

« Mutlu olmak için bir sürü faktörün bir araya gelmesi gerekir. Mutsuzluk için tek neden yeter. »

« ‘Caresizlik de insani sakinlestirebiliyor demek.’ Bram Stoker’in Dracula’sinda okumustum bu son cümleyi, 19. Yüzyildayazilmis en felsefi kitap. »

« Israrla çalan ama hiç kimsenin bakmadigi bir telefon gibiydim. »

« ‘Hep senin yüzünden kardesim,’ dedi.
‘Ne benim yüzünden ?’
‘Beni anlatamadin.’ »

hikâyem paramparça – Emrah Serbes