Affect, Spatial Practices, and the City in Agatha Christie's "They Came to Baghdad"

Year 2020, Issue: 6, 1 - 15, 15.09.2020

Özlem Türe Abacı

https://doi.org/10.46250/kulturder.747566

Abstract

They Came to Baghdad (1951), one of Agatha Christie’s
mid-career books, could be categorized as a political thriller that unravels
the ideological conflicts during the early Cold War period and the fight over
Iraqi oil reserves. The scenes of the novel, like an adventure movie alters
from a spy hunt to an archaeological theme, then to a romance, and finally a
murder story and a thriller, in which fear comes up unexpectedly. Particularly,
the setting provides the grounds for the female protagonist of the novel,
Victoria Jones, to cross cultural and social boundaries and explore the space
as a naïve pseudo-spy working for the international forces in Baghdad. By the
lens of Nigel Thrift’s concept of “affective cities” and “spatialities of feeling,” this paper aims to explore how the setting of
the novel—Baghdad—creates an intensive field of conflicting cultural and social
forces that inscribe the female body, which runs in parallel with the narrative
tactics Christie uses in revealing the affective emplacements of fear,
suspicion, increasing levels of anxiety and insecurity in the cityscape. This
paper, in other words, offers a spatial analysis of the novel in order to
explore how the cityscape is mobilized and altered by the shifting perceptions
of it by Victoria Jones while she defies the patriarchal demarcations of space.
Through her adventures, it becomes possible to comprehend how power is
distributed and circulated within this Middle Eastern society.    

Keywords

Affect, spatialities of feeling, Agatha Christie, Baghdad, Urban Space

Agatha Christie'nin "Bağdat’a Geldiler" Adlı Romanında Duygulanım, Uzamsal Bağlantılar ve Kentsel Uzam

Abstract

Agatha
Christie’nin casusluk hikâyelerine örnek teşkil eden Bağdat’a Geldiler (1951)
adlı romanı, Soğuk Savaş döneminin ilk safhalarında, uluslararası diplomatik
çatışmalara ve Irak petrol rezervleri üzerindeki gizli savaşa da ışık tutan
siyasi bir arka plana sahip olmakla birlikte türsel açıdan bir gerilim hikâyesi
olarak da ele alınabilir. Romanın sahneleri, casus kovalamacalarından Orta Doğu’daki
arkeolojik kazı alanlarına, gülünç bir aşk hikâyesinden cinayet öyküsüne
beklenmedik bir hızla geçiş yapmakta, Christie’nin alışılageldik dedektif
öykülerinden farklılaşmaktadır. Agatha Christie’nin romanları türsel açıdan
çeşitli çalışmalara konu olmuştur ancak, bu çalışma, söz konusu romana türsel
ve biçemsel açıdan incelemek yerine, uzam kuramlarını kullanarak Orta Doğu’nun konumlandırılışını
incelemeyi hedeflemektedir. Öykünün uzamı, hikâyenin ana kahramanı Victoria
Jones’un kültürel ve toplumsal sınırları aşmasına imkân sağlamakla birlikte,
Bağdat’ta konuşlanan uluslararası güç odaklarının planlarını aydınlatma
konusunda imkan sağlamaktadır. Bu çalışma, Nigel Thrift’in şehir, birey ve
duygulanım arasındaki ilişkiye dikkat çektiği çalışmalarına dayanarak, Bağdat’ı
“akışkan bir şehir” olarak incelemekte, romanın türsel özellikleriyle de örtüşen
korku, kuşku, kaygı, güvenlik ihtiyacı, yer-yön kaybı gibi uzam (space) ve beden (corporeality) arasındaki duygulanımsal bağları (affective relations) incelemeyi
hedeflemektedir.

Keywords

Agatha Christie, Duygulanım, Uzamsal Duygulanım, Kentsel Mekan, Bağdat

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