The Time Regulation Institute
SynopsisPlot
At its center is Hayri Irdal, an infectiously charming antihero who becomes entangled with an eccentric cast of characters—a television mystic, a pharmacist who dabbles in alchemy, a dignitary from the lost Ottoman Empire, a “clock whisperer”—at the Time Regulation Institute, a vast organization that employs a hilariously intricate system of fines for the purpose of changing all the clocks in Turkey to Western time. Recounted in sessions with his psychoanalyst, the story of Hayri Irdal’s absurdist misadventures plays out as a brilliant allegory of the collision of tradition and modernity, of East and West, infused with a poignant blend of hope for the promise of the future and nostalgia for a simpler time.
Story
About this book
Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar's novel follows Hayri Irdal, an aimless but likeable figure drifting through a Turkey caught between its Ottoman past and a modernizing present. Hayri tells his life story to his psychoanalyst, describing the strange company he fell in with: a pharmacist experimenting with alchemy, a mystic who appears on television, a former Ottoman dignitary, and a man with an uncanny understanding of clocks.
These acquaintances lead him to the Time Regulation Institute, a vast organization created to set every clock in the country to Western time, enforcing compliance through an intricate scheme of fines. Much of the comedy comes from the bureaucratic machinery built around that simple aim. Tanpinar uses the premise to examine what happens when a society tries to remake itself by decree, swapping inherited rhythms for imported standards.
Hope for the future and longing for older ways sit side by side in Hayri's account. The book appeared in Turkish in 1961, a year before Tanpinar's death, and a full English translation followed more than fifty years later, which brought it to readers far outside Turkey. Tanpinar is counted among the central figures of twentieth-century Turkish writing.
