My Name Is Red
by Orhan Pamuk
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Book Summary Information
Author: Orhan PamukTranslator: Erdag Goknar
Edition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 2002-08-27
ISBN: 0375706852
Number of pages: 432
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of My Name Is Red
Book Review: A Novel That Works on Several Levels
Summary: 4 Stars
"My Name Is Red" is a philosophical historical murder mystery reminiscent of Umberto Eco's "The Name of the Rose"; in both books the central philosophical issues are concerned with the clash between religious values and cultural ones. Whereas Eco's novel is a relatively straightforward first-person narrative, however, Orhan Pamuk's is told using a multiple narrator technique similar to that used in Faulkner's "As I Lay Dying". Moreover, not all of Pamuk's narrators are characters in the normal sense; there are also chapters narrated by a dead man, a dog, a horse, Satan, a coin and the colour red. (Hence the title).
The novel is set in Istanbul during the January of 1591. The Sultan, Murat III, has commissioned a magnificent book to celebrate the glories of his reign and of his empire and has ordered his miniaturists to illustrate it. He has also ordered that they should make use of artistic devices introduced to the Ottoman Empire by European painters- perspective, chiaroscuro and realistic portraiture. This suggestion, however, is highly controversial for religious reasons. According to the strictest interpretation of Islam, any pictorial representation of the world, especially of living beings, is idolatrous and therefore forbidden; artists should confine themselves to calligraphy and abstract patterns. Over the centuries, however, this stance had been softened. At the period of the story, Muslim artists, at least in Turkey, were permitted to create representational works of art, provided these were illustrations contained within a book, not freestanding works of art. They had to be executed in a highly stylised, non-realistic manner. The Sultan's commission is therefore a highly controversial one
The opening chapter is narrated by the ghost of Elegant Effendi, one of the Sultan's workshop of illustrators, who has been murdered. It is clear that the motive for his murder is connected to the dispute between traditionalist Islamic artists and those more progressive ones who accept the new innovations from the West; Elegant was one of the traditionalists and it seems that his murderer is one of the modernisers. The main suspects are three of his colleagues, normally referred to by their nicknames "Butterfly", "Olive" and "Stork". Another major character is Enishte Effendi, the painter in charge of the Sultan's book project, and another major strand in the plot concerns the romance between Enishte's daughter Shekure, a beautiful young widow, and her cousin "Black". (Presumably another nickname; we never learn his real name).
Although the novel deals with events which took place more than four hundred years ago, it nevertheless has implications for modern Turkish society. Although Turkey-in-Europe, a term which until the Balkan Wars of the early 1910s encompassed large parts of south-eastern Europe, is now confined to Istanbul and a small area to the north and west, the country still aspires to a European identity as well as an Islamic one, something shown by its ambition to join the EU. Although Islam is the religion of most of the population, the Turkish state has been officially secular since the 1920s, and the man who made it so, Kemal Ataturk, is regarded as a national hero. The clash between traditional Islamic values and secular Western ones remains at the heart of Turkish politics to this day, and the clear implication of Pamuk's novel is that his country's split identity is not something new. (It is perhaps significant that Sultan Murat was partly Turkish and partly European, having an Italian mother and a Ukrainian paternal grandmother). The novel itself can be seen as an expression of this dichotomy, having a historical Turkish setting but being written in a modernist European style.
The novel also deals with another dichotomy, that between religion and art. All institutionalised religion functions, to some degree at least, as a means of social control, setting or reinforcing boundaries between the permitted and the forbidden. Art seeks to cross boundaries and to explore forbidden territory, so there is always a potential tension between religious values and artistic ones, a tension which is increased when religion seeks to control not only the subject-matter of art but also the very form of artistic expression itself. The Christian clergy may have condemned certain subjects (particularly erotic ones) as immoral, but unlike Muslim preachers they never sought to stigmatise perspective or portraiture as being in themselves sacrilegious, something which may explain why art in the West was less conservative and constrained by tradition than it was in the Islamic world.
"My Name is Red" may be a story about a murder, but fans of Agatha Christie or Conan Doyle are likely to be disappointed if they approach it in the expectation that it will be a simple "whodunit" with an exotic setting. The three suspect miniaturists are not really characterised as individuals, so the investigations into which of them is in fact the murderer never generate much excitement. (The characters who do come across most strongly as individuals in their own right are the two young lovers Black and Shekure, Enishte and Master Osman, the elderly head of the Sultan's workshop). The novel works on several levels; it is more than just a crime story or a love story. It is also vivid portrayal of Turkish society at a particular point in history and a stimulating novel of ideas. A fascinating read. My one complaint is that the translator could have done more to explain points relating to Turkish and Islamic history, literature, art and thought to a Western audience.
Summary of My Name Is Red
At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul, from one of the most prominent contemporary Turkish writers.The Sultan has commissioned a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land to create a great book celebrating the glories of his realm. Their task: to illuminate the work in the European style. But because figurative art can be deemed an affront to Islam, this commission is a dangerous proposition indeed. The ruling elite therefore mustn?t know the full scope or nature of the project, and panic erupts when one of the chosen miniaturists disappears. The only clue to the mystery?or crime? ?lies in the half-finished illuminations themselves. Part fantasy and part philosophical puzzle, My Name is Red is a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of art, religion, love, sex and power.
Translated from the Turkish by Erda M Göknar
Middle Eastern Books
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