Citation

Author

Context

Summary

The Clock-Setting Institute has four major divisions, entitled "Great Hopes," "Little Truths," "Toward the Dawn," and "Every Season has its End." We learn that Hayri was born in Istanbul in 1892, that his education was mediocre, and that his family lived amidst the furnishings of a mosque which his grandfather had vowed to build, bequeathing a legacy of spare parts which included a grandfather clock named Mubarek. Lacking interest in formal education, in his teens Hayri fell under the influence of four older adults who assumed the role of tutors. These were, in order of appearance, the dervish-like watch-maker Nuri Efendi, the itinerant Baluchi qalandar Seyyid Lutfullah, the aristocrat Abdusselam Bey, and the Greek druggist and alchemist Aristidi Efendi. From Nuri Efendi Hayri learns a profound philosophy of time and the animistic relationship of clocks, watches and human beings. He is dazzled by the dreams and occult powers of Seyyid Lutfullah. His practical worries are taken care of by the generous and gregarious Abdusselam Bey, who eventually offers him his daughter in marriage. The highly credulous Abdusselam Bey believes Seyyid Luftfullah's claims to know the whereabouts of the lost treasure of the Byzantine Emperor Andronicus, and follows avidly the alchemical experiments of Aristidi Efendi. "Great Hopes" ends inauspiciously with the death of Aristidi in an accidental fire of his own making, after which Hayri takes to the road as a wandering actor and singer. 

"Little Truths" begins with Hayri's return to Istanbul after years of fighting in World War One on the Russian front in the Caucasus. He learns of his father's death, and after an initial struggle he finds a job in a post office through the intervention of Abdusselam Bey. He is taken into the household of the generous aristocrat, where he lives peacefully with his loving wife Emine until the death of his patron. Abdusselam's death generates a bitter fight about his legacy, during which the rumors that the aristocrat had secreted away the treasure of the Emperor Andronicus creates a legal nightmare for Hayri, whom everyone believes is now hiding the treasure. Hayri breaks down in a rage while on the witness stand, and is handed over to the new Judicial Psychiatrist, Doctor Ramiz. Ramiz laments the low status of psychiatry in Turkey and attempts to convince Hayri that he is suffering from a "father complex". Hayri earns the respect of Doctor Ramiz after he has a dream in which he forsees the death of his wife Emine. When Hayri is released from the sanatorium, Doctor Ramiz brings him to his favorite cafe which becomes a focal point for much of the activity of the book. However, shortly after his release Hayri is confronted by the death of his wife Emine. Afterwards he largely ignores their two children, Zehra and Ahmet, and drifts into the company of the Spiritism Society, populated largely by unmarried ladies. There he meets a pretty young woman named Pakize, who is enthralled by American movie stars. They marry. At the Spiritism Society he also meets Cemal Bey, who offers him a job in his bank. Cemal turns out to be a merciless tyrant who takes pleasure in humiliating Hayri at every opportunity. Hayri is now supporting Pakize and her two younger sisters as well as his two children by Emine. At the end of the chapter Hayri learns the appalling news that, out of jealously for his friendship for one of the ladies at the Society, Cemal Bey has fired him. 

When "Toward the Dawn" opens, Hayri has been supporting himself at the cafe by a variety of occult tricks which he learned from Seyyid Lutfullah. One day Doctor Ramiz introduces him to a friend who has a watch which needs repairing. The friend, Halit Ayarci is deeply impressed both by Hayri's familiarity with watches and with the quasi-Sufistic aphorisms about time and clocks which he had learned years before from Nuri Efendi. Halit begins to regard Hayri as the link with the now vanishing Ottoman past which he needs in order to legitimize a new venture which he plans to found--the Clock-Setting Institute. In this, the longest chapter of the book, Halit repeatedly attempts to indoctrinate Hayri with his modernistic philosophy of time and work, and his American philosophy of the creation of markets. While Hayri develops a sycophantic devotion to Halit, whom he refers to continually as "my benefactor" (velini metim), he perpetually disappoints Halit by his conservatism and sense of bourgeois propriety. 

As the years pass securely for Hayri as the Assistant Director of the Institute, his personality develops in several ways, notably in his need to assert his sense of self through an extra-marital affair with Selma, the ex-wife of Cemal Bey. The theme of Hayri's adoration for Selma Hanimefendi is alluded to throughout the book, but as this chapter proceeds we see this emotion changing from' the puerile infatuation of a poor youth, to his calculatedly using Selma as a tool for his revenge against Cemal Bey, and finally to blase indifference. Much of the attraction of Selma is diminished when Cemal Bey is murdered by a jealous spouse. 

The greatest challenge to Hayri comes when Halit insists on creating a tangible starting point for his own conceptions of time and work deep in the Ottoman period. For this purpose he conjures up the imaginary figure of "Seyh Ahmet Zamani Efendi", a dervish and time-keeper (muvakkit) at an Istanbul mosque during the reign of Mehmed IV in the late seventeeth century. Given Hayri's purported knowledge of the Ottoman language and culture, he is assigned the task of writing a book about this notable Ottoman parallel to the great European scientists of the Age of Reason. Despite his heart-felt protestations, Hayri is finally shamed and frightened into writing the book. But things become even more complicated for him when a Dutch Orientalist named Van Humbert reads the book and insists on coming to Turkey to visit the grave of the great Ottoman scientist. Hayri's shabby treatment of Van Humbert finally turns the Dutchman into an implacable foe of the Institute. 

In the midst of these affairs, Hayri is busy with the organization of the Institute, which he uses as an opportunity to hire all of his relatives and friends from the cafe. His married life takes a turn for the better, despite Pakize's infatutation with American film stars, which has reached the point where she is not always aware of the time and place in which she actually lives. Hayri also suffers deeply from the attempts of his two sisters-in-law to become a popular singer and a beauty queen respectively. He receives yet another challenge from Halit who orders him to design a spectacular building to house the Institute. Together with his young son he designs a structure in the shape of a giant clock, which he is sure will attract the attention of the entire city. Although Halit is vindicated in his faith in his disciple, the structure becomes the occasion for a bitter schism within the Institute as virtually the entire staff lack faith in Hayri's design and see no necessity for such an outlay of money. Halit withdraws from the Institute in disgust, and while he is sulking a team of American researchers pay a visit. Apparently it is their deeply negative report which influences the Istanbul Municipality to order the closure and disestablishment of the Clock-Setting Institute. Halit sets up a "Permanent Liquidation Committee" to oversee its disolution. The final chapter, "Every Season has its End", briefly presents the last meeting of Halit and Hayri. In the last sentence we learn that shortly after this meeting Halit was killed in an automobile accident. 

Characters

Themes

The Anxiety of not having purpose

Jargon

ramshackle modernity

Throughout history, whenever a theory arises that seeks to encapsulate human experience — politically, philosophically, economically, whatever — a Menippean satire emerges to make fun of it

Notes

You wait almost 200 pages for the eponymous institute to be founded, and it isn’t a state institution, it’s a side project or an NGO. (At times the story gets baggy with secondary characters and their domestic plots of love and disillusionment)

The spiritulism society part is funny, but it devolves into boring drama about proposals and inheritance.

Reminded me of Mai ve Siyah in that the protagonist has to hustle to survive, and all of the boring stuff about his sister being engaged to a dirtbag.

Quotes