My Name Is Red

My Name Is Red
Orhan Pamuk, trans. Erdağ Göknar
Vintage International, 2002
432 pages
ISBN 978-0375706851
Recommended by: ongoing Orhan Pamuk project... the Nobel Prize committee?


This book is completely badass. Wikipedia page/limited reviews I have read/back cover copy are always comparing Pamuk to Borges, Calvino, Nabokov, Thomas Mann, but I am a little surprised that nowhere in these reviews has what I consider the obvious comparison come up: friggin Umberto Eco, am I right? The Name Of The Rose? They are not that similar stylistically; Pamuk doesn't digress to nearly the same extent as Eco in Rose, but both novels are murder mysteries centered around, narratively, the murders of men involved in the creation of illuminated manuscripts, and thematically, among other things, the questionable moral value of the creation of beautiful religious artifacts.

My Name Is Red, like Snow, once again tackles the tension between East and West that I suspect is a running theme in Pamuk's work (alongside other running themes that I suspect, like the way he subtly or just-barely slips himself into the text); this time in the context of sixteenth-century representative art. Have I ever mentioned how much I love illuminated manuscripts and lengthy philosophical discussions about the theological merit of art? Because it's a lot. Pamuk appears to a be a good writer to have addressed my "try-reading-more-than-one-book-by-a-given-author" project, because it seems-- having read only two of his novels at this point-- that he really is someone who is constantly addressing, battling even, the same themes; it seems as though they crop up not even on purpose, they are just always the things running through his mind. Religion and politics, art and morality, east and west, tradition and freedom, the role of the author in creating a text, the role of the reader.

Also, since every chapter is told in the first person by a different person, this is far and away the book in which I have appreciated running heads the most.

I would have started The Museum of Innocence today on my giant debacle of a bus ride, but someone has loaned me Istanbul, Pamuk's memoir/reflection on the eponymous city, and so I thought I would try to read that before taking off to said city, as I wouldn't want to accidentally wreck or lose someone else's book.

Also here, a lovely review of the novel in question.

The King Is Dead

A brief indie rock diversion, for a band who holds a special place in my heart.



The Decemberists' new album, The King Is Dead, is out today! I have been listening to it quite a lot since it started streaming on NPR. It is a very very nice, pleasant record-- it plays really well in the cafe, which I like, and it's a lot of breezy country fun-- it'll be a good record to play driving through the fields in the summer, which is an activity I value and enjoy.

But it's missing that something that has made me interested in The Decemberists over the years, lyrically-- it's missing the dark, violent side of their storytelling that makes their early albums so compelling. Because, really, what other indie rock outfit has so many songs about rape? If Hazards of Love was a bit too much of that side, unadulterated (although I will defend Hazards of Love; I think the harsh criticisms it received were not based in much that was legit), The King Is Dead, while providing a welcome relief, is still only half of what I like about the band-- good, fun songs that play well together and, especially, are excellent on their own, good for strumming around a campfire with you pals.

I enjoy a lot of the criticism they get for being kind of out-of-control and ridiculous and overly-theatrical. Which is exactly why I like them; I've always been kind of surprised that the cool kids like them in the first place.

All in all, it is a nice little record.

Snow Part II, in which there are some lengthy quotations

Snow
Orhan Pamuk, trans. Maureen Freely
426 pages
Vintage International, 2004
ISBN 9-780375-706868
Recommended by: Andre, obliquely (he had read The Museum of Innocence and recommended that to me, as it deals with a lot of the themes I was researching last year), Don B.


So by this point it's been way too long to say more than that I loved this book, I loved how it brought together everything that I want in a book-- politics, religion, art, sexuality-- and that I think Orhan Pamuk's ideas about a lot of these things are pretty similar to mine. For instance, it seems that he shares a similar interest in the relational politics of possession; I could have-- and should have-- written my thesis on Pamuk instead of friggin A.S. Byatt, the worst ever. Other than that, as with Kundera, his portrayal of women makes me a little nervous, although much less so. In Snow I think the problematic elements of Ka's relationship with Ipek, and with women generally, are more obvious; "love at first sight" is the first step in creating and possessing an "other"-- one of the many things Pamuk is exploring in this novel. Whereas I still don't know what to make of Kundera's women.

Exiled poet Ka, having lived in Germany for last several years, returns to Turkey and winds up in the border town of Kars (Turkish for "snow", I learned from my contacts in Istanbul). His says he is writing an article on the religious girls who have been committing suicide when ordered to remove their headscarves; while investigating the wave of suicides, he falls in love with an old classmate, becomes involved in a coup orchestrated by a theater troop and a famous terrorist and has some existential and religious crises. (It is almost like I didn't just cut and paste the back cover copy.)

Anyway, I'm just going to include some of the quoations I marked, and that'll be that. I left my copy of My Name Is Red at work on Thursday, which I am not excited about, but hopefully I'll finish it sometime this week.

"'The idea of a solitary Westernized individual whose faith in God is private is threatening to you. An atheist who belongs to a community is far easier for you to trust than a solitary man who believes in God. For you, a solitary man is far more wretched and sinful than a nonbeliever.'" (61)

"'You're deceiving yourself! Even if you did believe in God, it would make no sense to believe alone. You'd have to believe in him the same way the poor do; you'd have to become one of them It's only be eating what they eat, living where they live, laughing at the same jokes, and getting angry whenever they do that you can believe in their God. If you're leading an utterly different life, you can't be worshiping the same God they are god is fair enough to know it's not a question of reason or logic but how you live your life.'" (205)

"Here, perhaps, we have arrived at the heart of our story. How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, great deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known. Even if the world's rich and powerful were to put themselves in the shoes of the rest, how much would they really understand the wretched millions suffering around them? So it is when Orhan the novelist peers into the dark corners of his poet friend's difficult and painful life: How much can he really see?" (259)

"'But no one believes what they read in a novel,' I said.
'Oh yes, they do!' he cried. 'If only to see themselves as wise and superior and humanistic, they need to think of us as sweet and funny, and convince themselves that they sympathize with us the way we are and even love us. But if you would put in what I've just said, at least your readers will keep a little room for doubt in their minds.'" (426)

And reading those quotes again, I remembered just how brilliant this novel really is. It should be required reading for leftists everywhere.

Snow Part I: In which I acknowledge that I have read the book

I keep forgetting to bring Snow with me to wherever there is a functioning computer. Am currently about halfway through My Name Is Red. Looking forward to The Museum of Innocence which, at this rate, I will probably be reading in Istanbul.