The novel intersperses accounts of their exchanges with various writings by Selim - parody sketches, tragicomic observations, dark humor, and the transcripts of absurdist appeals of plaintiffs giving testimonies about various characters and deeds to imaginary high courts. The novel takes the form of a series of notes detailing the encounters Turgut arranges with Selim’s acquaintances, the ranks of The Disconnected who are (ironically) connected by their relationship with Selim. Tutunamayanlar, written by Oğuz Atay, was first published in Turkey in 1972 and has been reprinted more than 70 times. The males moan pitifully when left alone.” Turgut learns that Selim had planned to compile an Encyclopaedia of the Turkish “Disconnected” - stories of ordinary people who fail, who do not fit in, or “those who cannot hold on” (the literal translation of the Turkish title, Tutunamayanlar).
Selim referred to himself several times as one of The Disconnected, a possible reference to the definition in the “The Encyclopedia of Strange Creatures”: “A clumsy and easily frightened animal with large eyes but weak sight.
Selim had an assortment of acquaintances who recount to Turgut insights into his habits and tastes, his composition of strange and playful songs, his obstinate and childish relationship to women, his boredom and fear of loneliness, his dislike of horses, lightning, false teeth, and Balzac. AFTER LEARNING OF the suicide of Selim, an old university friend with whom he’s lost contact, Turgut Özben, a middle-class, middle-aged civil engineer from Istanbul, traces the last decades of his life.
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