My Name Is Red
by Orhan Pamuk
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Book Reviews of My Name Is Red
Book Review: A Haunting, Haunted World, Beautifully Rendered
Summary: 5 Stars
Pamuk's 16th Century Turkey is a magical world shot through with consciousness - all physical objects, natural and artificial, are invested with self-awareness, fully aroused, senses piqued and perceptively observant. Here we have "the mind" - the perfectly knowing, self-conscious thoughts - of coins, dogs, horses, painted dervishes, trees, the color Red, Death (personified and unpersonifed), and of an exuberant cast of unforgettable characters, both living and dead, whose insistent voices effortless cross over from the other side in Pamuk's seemingly borderless world of physical and spiritual Being. (Indeed, My Name Is Red begins, like Billy Wilder's Sunset Boulevard, the narrator speaking to us from a watery grave.)A nickel's worth of dime-store aesthetics: one function of art is to elicit - through the creation of representations, the arrangement of symbols, and the like - sensations that might otherwise be impossible. I can never experience Ottoman Istanbul in its 16th Century context. I will never see with the eyes of a court miniaturist or illuminator of manuscripts or a courtier or a rag- or liver-seller. But Pamuk convincingly recreates these myriads of worlds in all their strangeness with the imagination and skill of an ethnologist who has lived among these lives for decades. Here is a unique world, and Orhan Pamuk the ideal tour guide.
With immense subtlety, literary nuance, and historical and philosophical erudition, Pamuk has written what, at its most fundamental level, is a literary-scholarly mystery that at times is reminiscent of Eco's The Name of the Rose. Someone is murdering the great miniaturists of the Ottoman court. But why kill an official painter or calligrapher, who works largely from royal commission, and who executes his commissions in a highly formalized manner that idealizes the absence of "style"? The world of Pamuk's late 16th Century Istanbul is one in which the pace of change is accelerating and colliding with entrenched forces of jealously preserved tradition. That world is nearly as exotic to contemporary Turks as it will be to us, and Pamuk (and his translator, Erdag Goknar) has a lot of explaining to do, which he manages by carefully assembling a painterly, almost pointillistic narrative, dab by dab, stroke by stroke, giving gradual shape to the story, displaying exemplary patience and timing, advancing or withholding plot and subplot with consummate skill.
My Name Is Red is also a monumental, and monumentally odd, love story, a tangled tale involving Pamuk's hero, "Black," and Shekure, the impossibly beautiful daughter of the Court's "Head Illuminator," as well as a host of other characters. My Name Is Red is, moreover, a formidable, forbidding book, filled with strange names and places and embedded tales from esoteric lands in faraway times, requiring considerable readerly patience and attention. In return for the effrontery of have made such demands, however, the author (and publisher) is bound by honor to provide rich rewards. Happily, Pamuk closes the deal. The familiar materials of the epic novel - love, hate, friendship, rivalry, loyalty and betrayal, political machinations, the clash of great ideas, the grinding together of tectonic movements of time, in which one side or the other must give way - are spectacularly worked in the dazzling, winding, dreamlike context of the Ottoman court.
For me, one long chapter at the heart of the novel captures perfectly the pervasive sense of the numinous that Orhan Pamuk casts in this beautiful novel. Black and the head illuminator receive extraordinary permission to search for clues within the inner sanctum and holiest of holies, the Royal Treasury. Their guide is an aged dwarf who knows the treasure rooms intimately and can locate any item in the antique clutter of countless conquests, royal gifts, and opulent indulgence. Noting the awe and apprehension on the faces of the two investigators - overwhelmed by the opportunity to caress and examine objects of legendary beauty or notoriety from among the piles of paintings, tapestries, jewels and bejeweled weapons, gold plate, rare oversized books - he asks, "Frightened? . . . Everybody is frightened on their first visit. At night the spirits of these objects whisper to each other."
With its whispering spirits, sentient paintings, quirky lovers, and a lost world fully realized and recovered, My Name Is Red is an absorbing, gorgeous gift of a novel from a master artist.
(And let me conclude by singing a paean in praise of amazon.com. I would never have discovered this book had I not, having read through several non-fiction works on Turkey, gone to the amazon.com web-page of one and seen "Customers who bought titles like this one also bought . . ." My Name is Red. "An intriguing title," I thought. A bookworm seldom needs more. So my most hearty thanks, amazon.com, Jeff Bezos and company, for having made such discoveries possible. Yes, yes, we all see the commercial motive, but - to stretch a point - the European Renaissance came out of commercial motives as well. We're all grownups here.)
Book Review: Repetition Repetition Repetition
Summary: 1 Stars
I read it first in English. Then, I had to read it in Turkish as well. The reasons why I subjected myself to the level of suffering induced by reading such repetitive and soul-less diatribe twice are:
1. I am Turkish and I thought I owed it to the most famous contemporary Turkish writer and therefore to Turkish Literature at large.
2. My role as the host of a world literature website requires me to be able to make well-informed criticisms, especially when Turkish writers are involved.
So, I did it. First conclusion is that the English version is so much better than the original. The book in Turkish is unintelligible. Orhan Pamuk's sentences are grammatically (and even by the standards of street-speak) are incorrect and downright ugly. Most paragraphs don't make any sense whatsoever. When I compare an entire non-sensical paragraph from the original with its English rendition, I am amazed at the talent of the translator, Erdag Goknar.
Orhan Pamuk's translators are always different. Snow, Istanbul, My Name is Red, White Castle, Black Book and New Life, they were all translated by different people. In each case his writing was much improved by the translator and he owes a great deal to these people.
A friend of mine read My Name is Red in Spanish and apparently the Spanish rendition is also much better than the original.
Second conclusion: Orhan Pamuk repeats. He goes on and on and on. Every page is like the previous. How many times has he used the example of "Husrev and Shirin"? He can't find any other examples and goes back to Husrev and Shirin over and over again. Or the horse drawings? Repeated so many times it gives the impression of a little child trying to make use of a new expression he has learned.
I don't like Orhan Pamuk. I don't like his arrogance, I don't like his writing, I don't like his public statements. Every time he opens his mouth he says something like "Turkish writers are jealous of me. They cannot admit they are stupid, so they find it easy to criticize me, the only one who has achieved true success."
I also don't like the fact that he stole the entire story of his White Castle from a Turkish translation of Cervantes' "Pedro de Urdemalas". White Castle was the last Pamuk book that I had enjoyed reading. Then I saw a comparison of it, page by page, paragraph by paragraph to "Pedro" which was translated into Turkish by Fuad Carim.
Orhan Pamuk is a disgrace. He has resorted to very ugly tricks to gain fame and fortune. He had been around for 25 years as an apolitical writer who never said a word on behalf of any oppressed group or any social injustice. Then one day, obviously upon advice of his marketers and lobbiers, he decided to say one sentence, out of the blue, that aided in getting him the Nobel Prize. It was during an interview with a Swiss magazine (Das Magazin; 05.02. 2005). The topic was nowhere near, he wasn't asked a relevant question, he wasn't prompted, there was no context. Just like that, with no rhyme or reason, he blurted: "30000 Kurds and One Million Armenians have been killed." Orhan Pamuk doesn't care about Kurds or Armenians or Turks or anyone else. If he cared about anything, if he had any passion whatsoever, he would have shown signs of it in the previous 25 years. He never spoke on behalf of any group, never participated in any discussions, never used his fame to promote fairness or justice towards any minority. Then one day, he decided to say one sentence. The following year he won the Nobel Prize.
Do you think it was deserved? If you think Orhan Pamuk is deserving of all the awards, all the attention, all the money he is getting then you are not alone. Most of the Western World agrees with you. The Times, The Washington Post, Newsweek, The New Yorker... They are all Orhan Pamuk's best friends. France, Germany, United States... Everyone loves him. The amount of press he gets is unbelievable. No other author was featured more often in The New Yorker. Here in Canada, Chapters- the chain bookstore, has only %2 of all the books written by all the Nobel laureates. And yet they carry all the books of Pamuk.
So, if you like Orhan Pamuk, you have company. You can be happy because he has everything now. He has all the awards, all the spoils. He also left Turkey to live amongst his supporters.
I decided to provide a medium for the minority who has something negative to say about him. If you don't like Orhan Pamuk then write to me and I will publish your comments on my website.
Orhan Pamuk doesn't need to be defended against me but if you feel you must defend him then please do so at thousands of other websites which have devoted themselves to his praises. If you want to criticize him then I want to hear from you.
Book Review: Faithful Art
Summary: 4 Stars
"Contrary to what is commonly believed, all murderers are men of extreme faith rather than unbelievers." (How true in today's world, torn apart by the terrorists!) This truth uttered by Master Osman, one of the main characters of the novel, sets the tone of the plot, that beautifully dissects the minds of the master artists, caught between the urge to create something new and the obligation and fear to toe the religious line. To quote Master Osman again, "genuine artists have an instinctive desire to draw what is forbidden." And the list of what is forbidden in Islamic art is really unending. There should be no perspectives; ("....the art of perspective removes the painting from God's perspective and lowers it to the level of street dog".); no shadows; no human figure occupying centre position in the painting; no painting of portraits; no imitation of Franks (Europeans) and other infidels and so on and so forth ("...using the Frankish techniques so that the observer has the impression not of as painting but of reality, to such a degree that this image has the power to entice men to bow down before it, as with icons in churches.")
But these restrictions are nothing compared to what other strict interpreters of Islam have to impose: art should never go beyond calligraphy and ornamentation. "Painting leads to .....challenging Allah." Pretty confusing? Yes, all the major characters of the novel--most of them master artists of Istanbul in the 1590s--are oscillating along the many extreme views of Islamic art and life.
This confusion comes to a head when the ruling Sultan commissions a book , which must contain paintings that employ techniques and methods of the Franks. Elegant Effendi, master gilder and an important member of the project , undergoes tremendous mental strife. According to him the new book that uses "science of perspective and the method of the Venetians was nothing but the temptation of Satan." He goes on, "There's one final picture. In that picture Enishte (the project head) desecrates everything we believe in ." For his mental confusion he has to pay with the price of his life and the plot of the novel revolves around solving his mysterious murder.
For unraveling the truth behind the crime, the characters analyze Islamic art traditions, techniques and history threadbare. The rich treasure trove of Islamic miniature paintings is showcased in minute details to get a clue of the present crime (this is where the novel drags a bit). A romantic angle runs along this high falutin art trail, and provides periodic relief form the dim world of the miniature artists. Shekure, exquisitely beautiful daughter of Enishte, is leading a miserable life with her two sons as her soldier husband has gone missing in one of the campaigns. Black, her cousin and one time suitor, returns to Istanbul after a gap of twelve years and kindles the old flame. But, like in the world of art, things do not go smooth and the lovers undergo a plethora of bitter experiences before achieving their union, which can best be described as a ''cripple'' one.
`My Name Is Red' holds a mirror to the Islamic mind: how it is colored and controlled by bigotry and how religious faith has an all-pervasive hold over Islamic life. The Western mind, nurtured in an atmosphere of liberalism and flexibility, would do well to comprehend the Islamic view of life in its entirety and stop tinkering with it at the surface level. Only that way peaceful coexistence of the religions of the world may be ensured.
(The reviewer is the author of Hits and Misses)
Book Review: If you would enjoy intrigues between 16C Turkish miniaturists, then...
Summary: 5 Stars
this is a book for you.
Pamuk accomplishes a stunningly complex historical novel, the best that the genre can offer. With this story, you enter a world fundamentally different from the present day, in which the concerns and world view of the characters are slowly revealed. While there are some constants, such as the search for true love, miniaturists in 16C Turkey are part of a tradition almost totally alien from art today. That Pamuk can weave their very consciousness into a complex mystery novel is truly astonishing. There are many levels that fascinate.
First, of course, there is a murder mystery. As the narrative from various points of view unfolds, clues and many false paths are left for the reader to piece together. It is a dazzlingly elegant labyrinth that kept my mystified to the very last chapters.
Second, there is a man and woman bound by family and seeking fulfillment in love. In thrall to Islamic and Turkish tradition, they perform a long mating dance. If is beautiful, taut with emotion, and as suspenseful as the murder itself.
Third, the time period is at the close of the Ottoman Turks' golden age, when the dynamics behind the expansion of the empire are giving way to a far more conservative society, one that will seek to preserve rather than create, becoming famously decadent over the next 400 years of decline. This turning point is wonderfully and subtly evoked, obliquely and by inference. You also get a feel for the other empires and princes nearby.
Fourth, the reader is introduced to the Islamic tradition of figurative art. As idolatry was forbidden by the Koran, the portrayal of images (rather than exclusively geometric designs) was a risky business. This too is wonderfully evoked and explained. While extremely esoteric, it was not art for the masses, but rather at the behest of the Sultan himself, who would keep the works in a forbidden vault for himself and a few others or sent them as diplomatic gifts. Needless to say, it is opposed by fanatic zealots, who believe that images are a sin against Allah and their absence is the reason that Islamic armies had been beating Western infidels over the last 1000 years.
Fifth, with the invention of perspective in painting during the Renaissance, world art is entering a revolutionary phase: reality is coming to be observed and reproduced in a far more accurate way, which opened the doors to the development of verifiable scientific observation. Rather than allegorical renderings reflecting a neo-platonic ideal in the mind (or as many believed in God's mind), the goal was becoming the accurate portrayal of living subjects. Of course, this shift is controversial and is seen by the ancient masters as a betrayal of their teachings, which they violently protected. Venice, the empire's great rival, is held out as the exemplar of this approach.
Sixth, you get a view into an elite of the period, the miniaturists. How they were trained, what they thought, and how they managed their careers are at the heart of the plot. It is great fun and offers an intimate window into Ottoman society. Their reasoning and concerns - bizarre to the Western reader, resulting in self-mutilation (blinding) and other unfathomable behaviors - are vividly alive and wholly believable. Only a novel can do this about another time.
I was utterly spellbound by this story from page 1. Admittedly, it is rather recondite, but the rewards of a close read are truly worth the effort. This is the best novel by Pamuk I have so far read.
Recommended with the greatest enthusiasm.
Book Review: No miniature this!
Summary: 5 Stars
MY NAME IS RED is a huge and densely-composed novel set in late-16th-century Istanbul among the small closed circle of miniature painters, who work their whole lives until (and even after) they go blind, illustrating books which may never been seen again by any other than their rich patrons. Though clearly a masterpiece (there has been talk about Pamuk as a potential Nobelist), it is by no means an easy read.
I came to this after reading Pamuk's later novel, SNOW. What the two have in common is a concern with Islam and an examination of its place in a secularized world; they also share a large scale and a certain sense of fantasy. But whereas SNOW is set in the modern world (albeit a distant outpost of it) and is told from a single perspective, MY NAME IS RED takes the reader back to 1591 and proceeds in a kaleidoscope of short chapters written by different characters in the story -- including Satan, a corpse, a dog, a tree, and (as in the title) a pot of red ink! Even the covers of the two books show their differences: SNOW almost monochromatic, MY NAME IS RED a collage of brilliantly colored panels and borders from miniatures such as those described in the book. The color, lightness, and even sense of fun draw the reader easily into the book until he is either held or repelled by the intensity of its philosophical argument.
There are two main plot strands: the mystery of a master miniaturist murdered by one of his colleagues, and a love story. The latter, actually, is not dissimilar to the situation in SNOW: an exile returning after many years, hoping to be reunited with a former sweetheart who has since married another man. But, as in much medieval and renaissance literature, the point is less the story than the many digressions within the story: lists, legends, historical precedents, parables and counterparables, and above all disquisitions on the nature and purpose of figurative art within a culture whose religion forbids it. Pamuk's handling of these sections is virtuosic, and they become the verbal equivalent of the miniatures and decorations in an illuminated manuscript, and the main reason why one opens the book.
I would have to say that Pamuk does not seem to put much emphasis on the delineation of character, or perhaps that he is not always successful at it. The major figures in the love story come over quite clearly: the writer Black, his beloved Shekure, her children Shevket and Orhan, and (to a lesser extent) her father Enishte. But the miniaturists -- nicknamed Olive, Butterfly, and Stork -- one of whom must be the murderer, are distinguished more by subtle differences in their attitude to their art than by qualities of character. So the reader has little alternative but to go along with the author in solving the mystery more as a theorem in aesthetics and religion than as an outcome of human nature.
The book's color and brilliance of linguistic invention reminds me a little of Salman Rushdie, though Pamuk is a much cooler writer. But the closest parallel that comes to mind (although it is a long time since I read the book) is Umberto Eco's THE NAME OF THE ROSE -- another murder mystery used to frame historical, religious, and philosophical disquisitions in the old manner. Readers who enjoyed Eco should certainly try Pamuk.