Dozens of them line bookstore shelves, standing side by side, as if overshadowing other books with both hands, boldly declaring, "Don't buy that, buy me." They're proudly held by everyone, from homemakers returning by bus or subway, to students with tired expressions on their faces. Yet, I find myself drawn to books that are hard to find, sparsely sold, printed for the "curious" few, rather than those popularized, objectified, and depersonalized works that dominate bestseller lists for months. Reaching MyFace Book, however, was no easy task. The author, Cy Mirol, defies genre and conformism. Consequently, the book eludes typical categorization in bookstores—I asked for a novel, it was filed as an essay, yet the author described it as a new genre, a new theory. Good luck to those who understand and are intrigued, for I am not well-versed in theories and genres.
Discussing this book begins with its title. As many can recognize, Cy Mirol cleverly entitles it My FaceBook, an allusion to today's most popular social networking site, presenting an autobiography of a writer-narrator who turns her focus to literature. Intriguingly, the narrator transforms her Facebook profile into a narrative with fictional coherence. The author doesn't explicitly state this, likely assuming that contemporary readers are familiar enough with Facebook to notice this parallel. She sketches a "profile" of an emerging writer by "sharing" various genre texts from a narrator who aspired to be a writer since childhood. Naturally, the Facebook concept of "friends" appears as the narrator's "witnesses," mainly comprising siblings and close friends, liking and commenting on nearly every shared post, much like they do on social media.
Despite dividing the book into three sections with an "All of Myself" segment stating the contents, MyFace Book is enveloped in multiple fragments cohesively linked by style, rather than starkly separated. Contrary to conventional expectations, the author does not offer a narrative with a clear beginning and end, flowing in a linear fashion. It recounts its writing process more than serving as a subjective narrator's autobiography although most things in it are probably fictional. Much like a Facebook profile is curated by both the profile owner and "friends" -whom Cy Mirol calles as are "witnesses"- are integral to the literary journey of MyFace Book, sometimes through emails and letters, occasionally through chats. Often, these serve as textual devices reflecting the narrator's inner reality rather than developing into detailed characters.
Indeed, Cy Mirol engages in various games with her readers. From her name usage to the book cover (Çiğdem y Mirol), these external elements exemplify this playfulness. The games continue throughout the text. The book's self-awareness manifests through entertaining touches like characters purposefully mentioning page numbers, reminiscent of techniques seen in Fowles, or the narrator foreshadowing events in ensuing chapters. The fictionalized author narrates her autobiography while the book recounts its own. Although often the author and book are one, the text occasionally offers solace to its narrator, who fears misinterpretation.
Parody and pastiche, favored postmodernist techniques, pervade the text and lend it a distinctive flavor. Evoking images akin to interlocking paintings, the reader discovers poetry within a story, a play within a poem, and so forth, with each genre interwoven. The narrator's published stories, poems, and plays, or letters sent to friends, integrate into the main text, sometimes aligning with it, sometimes not. Alongside self-quotations, the text incorporates songs. The narrator frequently professes a fondness for radio, with songs that echo her writing experiences sometimes overshadowing her narrative voice, leading the reader to become immersed in familiar or entirely new melodies.
In essence, MyFace Book might be an “autobiography” unlike traditional ones. Through the tale of a writer's journey and theoretical innovations, it narrates the emergence of a new genre maybe or “a form” as Mirol suggests. Perhaps, it addresses those who insist "it should be a novel." More precisely, it crafts a narrative using postmodern techniques, occasionally nodding to Joyce and Woolf. Ultimately, it paints a portrait of an artist as a young woman, enhancing the stream of consciousness style, which Woolf excelled at, with postmodern nuances. "If you don't read this narrative, I cannot exist," states the fictionalized author narartor Mirol. To me, she is an author worth our recognition.
* Reader – Author Performance by Ayşegül Keskin, Historian of Art and Literature. Originally published here:
https://www.kirpiedebiyatdergisi.com/sanatcinin-bir-genc-kadin-olarak-portresi-yuzum-kitap/ in 2013