The Ascent of Mount Fuji: A Play

by Chingiz Aitmatov, Калта́й Мухамеджа́нович Мухамеджа́нов

Aitmatov, Chingiz And Kaltai Mukhamedzanov, Ascent Of Mount Fuji, The

Genres: Plays

211 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1973

About the author

Chinghiz Aitmatov (Чингиз Айтматов, Tschingis Aitmatow, Čingiz Ajtmatov, Tšõngõz Ajtmatov, Cengiz Aytmatov, Tsjingiz Ajtmatov, Tchinguiz Aïtmatov, جنكيز ايتماتوف) was an author who wrote in both Russian and Kyrgyz. He was the best known figure in Kyrgyzstan literature.

Aitmatov's parents were civil servants in Sheker. The name Chingiz is the same as the honorary title of Genghis Khan. In early childhood he wandered as a nomad with his family, as the Kyrgyzstan people did at the time. In 1937 his father was charged with "bourgeois nationalism" in Moscow, arrested and executed in 1938.

Aitmatov lived at a time when Kyrgyzstan was being transformed from one of the most remote lands of the Russian Empire to a republic of the USSR. The future author studied at a Soviet school in Sheker. He also worked from an early age. At fourteen he was an assistant to the Secretary at the Village Soviet. He later held jobs as a tax collector, a loader, an engineer's assistant and continued with many other types of work.

In 1946 he began studying at the Animal Husbandry Division of the Kirghiz Agricultural Institute in Frunze, but later switched to literary studies at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow, where he lived from 1956 to 1958. For the next eight years he worked for Pravda. His first two publications appeared in 1952 in Russian: The Newspaper Boy Dziuio and Ашым. His first work published in Kyrgyz was Ак Жаан (White Rain) in 1954, and his well known work Jamilya appeared in 1958. 1980 saw his first novel The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years; his next significant novel, The Scaffold was published in 1988. The Day Lasts More than a Hundred Years and other writings were translated into several languages.

Aitmatov suffered kidney failure and on 16 May 2008 was admitted to a hospital in Nuremberg, Germany, where he died of pneumonia on 10 June 2008, aged 79. His obituary in The New York Times characterized him as "a Communist writer whose novels and plays before the collapse of the Soviet Union gave a voice to the people of the remote Soviet republic of Kyrgyz" and adds that he "later became a diplomat and a friend and adviser to the Soviet leader Mikhail S. Gorbachev."

Chinghiz Aitmatov belonged to the post-war generation of writers. His output before Jamila was not significant, a few short stories and a short novel called Face to Face. But it was Jamila that came to prove the author's work. Louis Aragon described the novellete as the world's most beautiful love story, raising it even above Rudyard Kipling's World's Most Beautiful Love Story. Aitmatov's representative works also include the short novels Farewell, Gulsary!, The White Ship, The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years, and The Scaffold.

Aitmatov was honoured in 1963 with the Lenin Prize for Jamila and later he was awarded a State prize for Farewell, Gulsary!. Aitmatov's art was glorified by admirers. Even critics of Aitmatov mentioned high quality of his novels.

Aitmatov's work has some elements that are unique specifically to his creative process. His work drew on folklore, not in the ancient sense of it; rather, he tried to recreate and synthesize oral tales in the context of contemporary life. This is prevalent in his work; in nearly every story he refers to a myth, a legend, or a folktale. In The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years a poetic legend about a young captive turned into a mankurt serves a tragic allegory and becomes a significant symbolic expression of the philosophy of the novel.

A second aspect of Aitmatov's writing is his ultimate closeness to our "little brothers" the animals, for their and our lives are intimately and inseparably connected. The two center characters of Farewell, Gulsary! are a man and his stallion. A camel plays a prominent role in The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years; one of the key turns of the novel which decide

Reviews

[Bleda Gençay Sönmez · Rating 5 out of 5]

İnsan, nasıl bir insan olmalıdır?

Cengiz Aytmatov'un, Kaltay Muhammedcanov'la birlikte kaleme aldığı "Fujiyama" adlı tiyatro eserinde de geçmişle ya da birbirleriyle hesaplaşmaya çalışırken kendini ele veren, kendini arayan insan tiplerini görürüz. Bu kahramanlar hayatı bir yük gibi omuzlarında taşırken, aslında kendilerinden ne kadar uzaklaşmış olduklarının farkında değildirler. Her birinin büyük hayalleri, ertelenmiş umutları, derin pişmanlıkları vardır, ama gerek içinde yaşadıkları toplumun şartları, gerek aldıkları eğitim, gerekse yaptıkları yanlış tercihlerden dolayı hiçbir şeyi değiştirememekte, kendilerini suyun akışına bırakıp mutsuz olmayı tercih etmektedirler.

İnsan bazen hayat karşısında kendisini bir suyun akışına kapılmışçasına çaresiz hisseder. Suyun yönünü değiştirmek mümkün olmadığı gibi sürüklenmek de ağır gelir çok zaman. Pişmanlıklar, hayal kırıklıkları, ertelenmiş umutlar birikir hızla. Zaman baş döndürücü bir hızla geçip gitmektedir, ancak kapana kısılmış gibi yaşamaktan başka da bir şey gelmez elden.

Eserdeki kahramanların hepsi Sovyetler Birliğinin okullarında yetişmişler, ideallerine odaklanmışlar, çok iyi yerlere gelmişlerdir. Ancak hemen hemen tamamına yakınında karşılaştığımız ortak problem; mutsuz, huzursuz ve tatminsiz olmalarıdır. Eşlerin tamamı birbiriyle problemlidir. Arkadaş olmalarına rağmen birbirlerinin eşleriyle yasak ilişki yaşamakta bir beis görmezler. Hiçbir şeye inançları yoktur. Bu inançsızlığın temelinde de aldıkları eğitim vardır. Kahramanların aldıkları eğitime ve yükseldikleri konumlara rağmen bu kadar tatminsiz olmaları köklerinden tamamen koparılmalarıyla alakalıdır.

Hercaiokumalar / Ayşe'nin bu kitap için yazdığı incelemeyi okuyunuz çünkü bu kadar güzel yazılmamış inceleme. Dizi köşesine hoş geldiniz. Dizinin adı Tanrı Dağları olmalıdır. Tanrı dağları sembolliği için Erciyes Dağı seçilmelidir. Dostbergen (Dost) rolünde Talat Bulut, Almagül (Gül) rolünde Esra Dermancıoğlu, Mehmet rolünde Mehmet Günsür, Anvar (Ender) rolünde Aslıhan Gürbüz, Yusuf rolünde Furkan Palalı, İsabek (İsa) rolünde Kaan Urgancıoğlu, Gülcan rolünde Pınar Deniz ve Ayşe Abla rolünde Gül Onat olmalıdır. Severek okuduğum için okumanızı şiddetle tavsiye ediyorum. Tanrı Dağları'nda kendimizi bulmak dileğiyle betikle kalınız.

[Karl Kraus · Rating 5 out of 5]

A devastating indictment of man's great ability to betray his fellow man in order to save his own skin -- and his limited ability to take responsibility for his actions once the danger has passed. The not-so-metaphorical murder of conscience is the terrible, logical consequence. Oh, and it's damn good theater as well.

Side note: This play first came to my attention when I saw it on PBS sometime in the late 1970s; I immediately went out and special-ordered the book. Can you imagine that now? And not just because relations with that part of the world have deteriorated so precipitously since then. One used to be able to see quality programming on PBS; now it's mostly "lifestyle" fluff -- cooking shows that haven't yet made it to the big leagues of commercial TV -- and bottom-of-the-barrel Britcoms . . .

[Aisulu · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is probably my favorite book by Aitmatov. Every character is well-developed, the discussions that take place between the characters are still relevant, and ethical dillemmas characters faced in the past and present are contemplative. I wish I could see this play in the theater.

[Arnold Grot · Rating 4 out of 5]

Friendship and the search for truth is complicated by human weakness.

[Govhar Aghazada]

Another Aitmatov masterpiece

[The Dude · Rating 3 out of 5]

2.5🌟

[Davut · Rating 4 out of 5]

İlgi çekici bir Oyun. Seviyeli tartışmalar, karışık ilişkiler ve herkes tarafından farklı ele alınabilecek bir son. İyi ki okudum.