The White Castle: A Novel
by Orhan Pamuk
List Price:
Our Price: $1.95
You Save: $12.05 (86%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Orhan PamukEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1998-03-31
ISBN: 0375701613
Number of pages: 176
Publisher: Vintage
Book Reviews of The White Castle: A Novel
Book Review: Another Perspective
Summary: 3 Stars
It appears that nobody else has spoken about this, so I'd like to add my two cents to the discussion. It appears to me that The White Castle is, beyond being merely a reflection on identity and the nature of subjectivity, a self-reflexive interrogation of the Western novel. I can't help but feel that much of the novel is concerned with the psychology of the writer- writing in the White Castle seems to be an act of ablution and exorcism, a means to externalize and project one's guilt upon a sheet of paper. The examples of confessional works abound in modern letters- Rousseau's Confessions, Dostoevsky's Notes From The Underground, Camus' The Fall, Rimbaud's Season In Hell, most of Henry Miller's work, Pessoa's Book of Disquiet, Proust, Gide, Genet- literature has always had a purificatory/cathartic function.
Of course, it is this sense of irrevocable, indestructible guilt that the author brings with him to Istanbul, along with all the Renaissance humanist concepts of the soul and the inalienable dignity of the sovereign individual. This humanism, of course, would later evolve into the Enlightenment variant that we have effectively inherited- the individual as self-sufficient, self-aware substance, with a number of invariable traits and properties. In the light of the works of Derrida and Foucault, Pamuk's work hardly seems to break new ground. His questions are, to us postmoderns, quite familiar- can one speak of a stable, invariant 'core' of subjective experience? are we merely just walking agglutinations of inherited cultural presuppositions, half-digested texts and hazily-recalled memories? can one ever speak the 'truth' about oneself? can one excavate, from this nebulous morass of discontinuous reveries, imaginings and memories, an impermeable essence that attests to one's absolute singularity?
I think it is these questions that haunt our friend Hoja as he subjects Polish peasants to interrogation. Beyond the pleasure that he derives from being a confessor (and this voyeuristic jouissance is what all novel-readers relish), he is tormented by a conviction that the soul exists, that we are something more than superfluous receptacles of sensory stimuli and arbitrary recollections. Here, psychology is born. This obsessive desire, nay, DEMAND for Truth (with a capital T) and Knowledge (of the irrevocable, essential differences that separate 'us' and 'them', eerily foreshadowing Huntington's myth of the 'clash of civilizations') is characteristic of our civilization, and, as Said has so elegantly demonstrated, is inextricable with the exercise of Power. Hoja, beyond being a naive and bumbling positivist, is veritably Promethean in his insatiable yen for knowledge- he dreams of a day when his comprehensive taxonomies and scientific treatises will be used for world conquest. Again, one cannot help but think of Said's magisterial 'Orientalism', which thoroughly probes the intimate relationship between 'scientific' discourse and governance.
Hoja's monomania separates him from his kin, who, instead of concerning themselves with originary principles and eternal verities, still live in a world of symbols and analogy. One of my favorite episodes in the book is one concerning the plague- the author meditates upon his enveloping fear of death, while Hoja speaks brazenly about his acceptance of celestial decree. If one dies, one is fated to die, why fight it? Allah has assigned us all a destiny, Hoja proclaims, inspirited by his stoicism. Yet, as he converses at length with the author and ponders over his propositions, he begins to reflect upon this position, one that he had never entertained doubts about previously. This encounter with the West casts all his heretofore sacrosanct values in question, and this dialogical dialectic goes both ways- the author gradually assumes Hoja's world as his own. As the Proust quote at the front of the book proves, and as the old saying goes, the grass is greener...Cue Hegel- the opposites pass into each other. Of course, there is no tidy aufheben into a unitary synthesis- Hoja and the author don't become a composite whole, nor do they survive their encounter intact, each wiser than before. Instead, what we are left with is a Derridean situation- the precarious margins between them become dangerously unstable, and they become increasingly indiscernible from one another. This dialectical waltz continues until the close of the book.
I can't say that I loved this book- the prose is often opaque and the narrative is often crowded with (seemingly?) unnecessary detail. Indeed, it is this 'show without telling' dimension of Pamuk's style that is reminiscent of Kafka, but for the life of me I can't find the Kafkaesque humor that some of the other reviewers have spoken of. However, the better segments (the expedition to Poland, the conclusion of the novel) are outstanding. It does feel a little bit dated in '08 (and this, perhaps, doesn't bode well for the future, a strange outcome for a book that was published less than 3 decades ago), though this might have something to do with my weariness with 'postmodern' narrative. This is my first Pamuk novel, and I shall be moving on to 'The New Life' next. Hopefully that one is better.
Summary of The White Castle: A Novel
From a Turkish writer who has been compared with Borges, Nabokov, and DeLillo comes a dazzling novel that is at once a captivating work of historical fiction and a sinuous treatise on the enigma of identity and the relations between East and West. In the 17th century, a young Italian scholar sailing from Venice to Naples is taken prisoner and delivered to Constantinople. There he falls into the custody of a scholar known as Hoja--"master"--a man who is his exact double. In the years that follow, the slave instructs his master in Western science and technology, from medicine to pyrotechnics. But Hoja wants to know more: why he and his captive are the persons they are and whether, given knowledge of each other's most intimate secrets, they could actually exchange identities. Set in a world of magnificent scholarship and terrifying savagery, The White Castle is a colorful and intricately patterned triumph of the imagination. Translated from the Turkish by Victoria Holbrook.Historical Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Historical Books
Pirate Latitudes: A Novelby Michael Crichton
Harper; Published: 2009-11-24; Roughcut; Book
Best price: $2.28
Price in other shops:
The Master Butchers Singing Club: A Novelby Louise Erdrich
Harper Perennial; Published: 2004-02; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.83
Price in other shops:
The Last Witchfinder: A Novelby James Morrow
William Morrow; Published: 2006-03-14; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $3.95
Price in other shops:
Zorroby Isabel Allende
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-05-03; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $3.03
Price in other shops:
The Hot Kid: A Novelby Elmore Leonard
William Morrow; Published: 2005-05-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $2.89
Price in other shops:
The Last Kingdom (The Saxon Chronicles Series #1)Mass Market Paperback; Book
Bones of the Hills (Conqueror, Book 3)by Conn Iggulden
Harper Collins Canada; Published: 2008; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $44.70
Marchby Geraldine Brooks
Penguin Books; Published: 2006; Paperback; Book
Gates of Rome (Emperor 1)by Conn Iggulden
Harpercollins Pb; Published: 2003-09-01; Mass Market Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.80
Girl With a Pearl Earringby Tracy Chevalier
Harper Collins Audio; Published: 2002-06-17; Audio Cassette; Book
Best price: $86.82
Similar Books and other products
A Hero of Our Time (Penguin Classics)by Mikhail Lermontov
Penguin Classics; Published: 2001-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.94
Price in other shops:
Foeby J. M. Coetzee
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 1988-01-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.93
Price in other shops:
The New Lifeby Orhan Pamuk
Vintage; Published: 1998-03-31; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.85
Price in other shops:
The Secret Life of Saeed: The Pessoptimist (Interlink World Fiction Series)by Emile Habiby, Trevor Le Gassick
Interlink Pub Group Inc; Published: 2001-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $7.74
Price in other shops:
Seeing and Writingby Donald McQuade, Christine McQuade
Bedford/St. Martin's; Published: 2010-02-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $45.00
A History of the Muslim World to 1405: The Making of a Civilizationby Vernon O. Egger
NA; Prentice Hall; Published: 2003-12-05; Paperback; Book
Best price: $60.00
Price in other shops:
Snowby Orhan Pamuk
Vintage; Published: 2005-07-19; Paperback; Book
Best price: $2.75
Price in other shops:
Istanbul: Memories and the Cityby Orhan Pamuk
Vintage; Published: 2006-07-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.47
Price in other shops:
The Black Bookby Orhan Pamuk
Vintage; Published: 2006-07-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.95
Price in other shops:
My Name Is Redby Orhan Pamuk
Vintage; Published: 2002-08-27; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.50
Price in other shops: