- 160 - Uluslararası Sosyal Araştırmalar Dergisi The Journal of International Social Research Cilt: 7 Sayı: 32 Volume: 7 Issue: 32 www.sosyalarastirmalar.com Issn: 1307-9581 MULTIPLE MODERNITIES AND MULTIPLIED MINDS: STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS IN MODERN TURKISH NOVEL Murat LÜLECİ * Abstract This study explores the Turkish modernization through stream of consciousness in the works of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar, Oğuz Atay and Orhan Pamuk. The first instance, reflected by Tanpınar’s A Mind at Peace, presents a collective and historical projection of national identity. On the basis of synthesis, Tanpınar’s collective consciousness suggests a civilization resolution, an alliance in lieu of clash of civilizations”. The second instance, presented by Atay’s The Disconnected, illustrates the inner paradox of an intellectual and his struggle between the Eastern and Western world of values. Thus The Disconnected, through characters’ consciousness, vocalizes the mental flux and reflux of those living in a social purgatory. Finally, in the instance of The Silent House, Orhan Pamuk draws a mental manifestation of an abyss between the East and the West. For Pamuk, this gap can only be filled up through an intellectual transformation. Stream of consciousness, as the manifes- tation of human mind, sets a common ground for all the above-mentioned novels. Keywords: Multiple Modernities, Modern Novel, Stream of Consciousness, A Mind at Peace, The Disconnected, The Silent House. 1. Introduction In his The Principles of Psychology, William James concluded, “consciousness, then, does not appear to itself chopped up in bits. Such words ‘chain’ or ‘train’ do not describe it fitly as it presents itself in the first instance. It is nothing jointed; it flows. A ‘river’ or a ‘stream’ is the metaphor by which it is most naturally described. In talking of it, thereafter, let us call it the stream of thought, of consciousness, or of subjective life” (155). After psychologists discovered one of the most intriguing principles of human mind, stream of consciousness emerged as one of the most inseparable phenomena of modern fiction. Eighty years after James’s work was first published, in his novel The Disconnected, Oğuz Atay wrote: He stood up, took of his shirt, carefully hung it to the hanger next to the door. In the dark, he gropingly touched a few doorknobs. He turned the light. Put his head under the sink. Turned the water. Got back to the living room without drying. He sat on the floor. “Have you ever scouted on the door too?” Bring thin garments to me. Make sure they’re loose woven. Through the pinholes, I want air to come to my skin. I want the air blow my hair. It doesn’t blow at all, Sire. Bring big feathers.. Olric! Olric! Something needs be done! (2001: 275). * Ph.D., Postdoctoral Research Fellow, TÜBİTAK (The Scientific and Technological Research Council of Turkey), Anka- ra/TURKEY.