MY NAME IS RED, A NOVEL BY ORHAN PAMUK (BOOK REVIEW AND RECOMMENDATION)

Hello dear friends and fellow bloggers! I'm back with another reading recommendation. My Name is Red is a novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk.  Published in 1998, this lengthy postmodern historical novel focuses on a group of miniaturists working in sixteenth century Istanbul. Most of the major characters are a part of the same group of artists. The novel opens with a murder mystery. What follows is a story that has two main characters  (protagonists if you will) but also subplots.

 There is a love story of sorts within this murder mystery, but  My Name is Red is not a typical romance. It's, in many ways, a philosophical and detailed dive into Ottoman Empire. The realism of this novel is at times graphic (featuring graphic descriptions of violence) and at times dreamy (featuring poetical descriptions).

 My Name is Red often focuses on philosophical debates about the nature and purpose of art. It uses postmodernist writing techniques and is narrated by various characters, some of which are fantastical, for example a tree or a dog. The very first chapter is narrated by none other by a corpse- a man who was killed by an unknown killer. From then one, the novel switches narrators pretty much every chapter. Some readers might find this shifting narrative confusing, especially as the readers dive deeper into the intrigues. 

“Let me first state forthright that contrary to what we've often read in books and heard from preachers, when you are a woman, you don't feel like the Devil. ”

 There is self-awareness to this narrators. The narrators often address the reader directly. Some of narrators are unreliable narrators. Some are fantastic, for example a talking dog. However, the novel really flows once you get used to its magic realism. In many ways, My Name is Red invokes the magic realism, particularity magic realism of Latin American writers.  At the same time, it is deeply rooted in Turkish culture. 

“For if a lover's face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.”

“…he quit drinking coffee, and naturally, his brain stopped working.”

When I first read this novel back in 2011, this is what I wrote: "I think it could have benefited from being shorter. It is not that I detest long novels, I just feel they should be long for all the right reasons. However, it is filled with such wonderful thoughts about art and life that minor faults can really be forgotten."

“Before my birth there was infinite time, and after my death, inexhaustible time. I never thought of it before: I'd been living luminously between two eternities of darkness.”

I still stand by my words in the sense that I feel that the novel might be too long for most readers. However, I think a patient reader will be rewarded. This is not a novel for everyone, but there are many readers who will enjoy it.

You might like this novel if you:

- enjoy Pamuk's work in general or are familiar with it,

- enjoy complicated narrative structures (or at least don't mind them),

- don't mind characters addressing you as the reader,

- like magic realism,

- have an interest in Ottoman Empire,

- enjoy philosophical debates about the nature of art,

- are fascinated by the contrast between the East and the West, 

- don't mind lengthy descriptions and digressions, 

- don't mind graphic details, descriptions of violence and some mature content.

PAINTING IS THE SILENCE OF THOUGHT AND THE MUSIC OF SIGHT

This novel has some of the most beautiful quotes. It's a highly quotable novel! At times the poetry of its prose is simply magnificent. It's the kind of book that makes you think. 

WHAT IS IT TO BE A COLOUR?

“I hear the question upon your lips: What is it to be a colour?

Colour is the touch of the eye, music to the deaf, a word out of the darkness. Because I’ve listened to souls whispering – like the susurrus of the wind – from book to book and object to object for tens or thousands of years, allow me to say that my touch resembles the touch of angels. Part of me, the serious half, calls out to your vision while the mirthful half sours through the air with your glances.

I'M SO FORTUNATE TO BE RED!

This novel is named after one colour- and his colour actually addresses the reader. The colour of blood is also the colour of love and life. It's not just any red that addresses the reader- it's bold red. It is full of energy and kind of full of itself too. When you read the novel, you'll understand what I mean.

I’m so fortunate to be red! I’m fiery. I’m strong. I know men take notice of me and that I cannot be resisted.

I do not conceal myself: For me, delicacy manifests itself neither in weakness nor in subtlety, but through determination and will. So, I draw attention to myself. I’m not afraid of other colours, shadows, crowds or even of loneliness. How wonderful it is to cover a surface that awaits me with my own victorious being! Wherever I’m spread, I see eyes shine, passions increase, eyebrows rise and heartbeats quicken. Behold how wonderful it is to live! Behold how wonderful to see. I am everywhere. Life begins with and returns to me. Have faith in what I tell you.”

WHAT WAS LIKE READING MY NAME IS RED FOR THE THIRD TIME?

I started rereading this novel about a month or so ago.  I must admit that I skimmed it towards the end because the whole murder mystery and intrigue didn't interest me that much. The characters also left me a bit cold. I felt like I learned what I could from them the first time around.

I LOVE HOW UNIQUE THIS NOVEL FEELS

“The larger and more colorful a city is, the more places there are to hide one's guilt and sin; the more crowded it is, the more people there are to hide behind.”

I do like how bold this novel is at times, with all its experimental and postmodernist writing techniques and all. It's an unique bland of old and new. Set in 16th century, it really conveys that historical feeling. You can see that the writer really knows his stuff. Pamuk goes into great detail describing the life in Istanbul during Ottoman Empire. His knowledge of Eastern art techniques is truly impressive. 

“As in many other cities, money no longer had any value in Istanbul. At the time I returned from the East, bakeries that once sold large one-hundred drachma loaves of bread for one silver coin now baked loaves half the size for the same price, and they no longer tasted the way they did during my childhood.”

As a reader, you do really feel like you're transported back in time. In that sense, the novel is authentically historical.  For example, women are very restricted in their movements. You see all the characters acting if they really belonged to  and lived in some other past times. It's not just that the culture described feels genuinely unique, it is also that it feels genuinely historic. 

“A city's intellect ought to be measured not by its scholars, libraries, miniaturists, calligraphers and schools, but by the number of crimes insidiously committed on its dark streets over thousands of years.”

 At the same time, there's the magic realism. There is a Jewish woman who is illiterate but reads letters of lovers, serving as a bridge between characters:

“A letter doesn't communicate by words alone. A letter, just like a book, can be read by smelling it, touching it and fondling it. Thereby, intelligent folk will say, 'Go on then, read what the letter tells you!' whereas the dull-witted will say, 'Go on then, read what he's written!”

There are people looking for answers and those wanting to give them: 

“I'm a dog, and because you humans are much less rational beasts than I, you're telling yourselves, 'Dogs don't talk.' Nevertheless, you seem to believe a story in which corpses speak and characters use words they couldn't possibly know. Dogs do speak, but only to those who know how to listen.”

Some narrators just want to tell their story, some want to teach us a lesson, and some perhaps both:

“Maybe you've heard the story of the man who was so driven by this curiosity that he roamed among soldiers in battlefields. He sought a man who had died and returned to life amid the wounded struggling for their lives in pools of blood, a soldier who could tell him about the secrets of the Otherworld. But one of Tamerlane's warriors, taking the seeker for one of the enemy, cleared him in half with a smooth stroke of his scimitar, causing him to conclude that in the Hereafter man is split in two.”

READING THIS NOVEL AS A PAINTER FELT DIFFERENT!

This rereading made me focus on all the Art talk. I remember talking about this novel back in 2011 with a fellow student (yes, back then I was still in school) and saying how this novel taught me to look at Eastern art with new eyes.

Now, reading about Art felt even more intense this time. Maybe because I'm a sort of a painter myself now. People commission art from me. So, I definitely payed even more attention to all those profound Art discussions. Some of those art quotes really stayed with me.

“To know is to remember that you've seen. To see is to know without remembering. Thus painting is remembering the blackness.”

“It is indeed important that a painting, through its beauty, summon us toward life’s abundance, toward compassion, toward respect for the colors of the realm which God created, and toward reflection and faith. The identity of the miniaturist is not important.”

“A great painter does not content himself by affecting us with his masterpieces; ultimately, he succeeds in changing the landscape of our minds. Once a miniaturist’s artistry enters our souls this way, it becomes the criterion for the beauty of our world.”

“In the realm of book arts, whenever a masterpiece is made, whenever a splendid picture makes my eyes water out of joy and causes a chill to run down my spine, I can be certain of the following: Two styles never brought together have come together to create something new and wondrous.”

“In actuality, we don't look for smiles in pictures of bliss, but rather, for the happiness in life itself. Painters know this, but this is preciously what they cannot depict. That's why they substitute the joy of seeing for the joy of life.”

“A miniaturist creates his art by heeding his conscience and by obeying the principles in which he believes, fearing nothing. he pays no attention to what his enemies, the zealots and those who envy him have to say.”

“An illustration that does not complement a story, in the end, will become but a false idol. Since we cannot possibly believe in an absent story, we will naturally begin believing in the picture itself.”

“Where there is a true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity.”

WHAT LOVE IS SUPPOSED TO BE LIKE!

I have to admit that the ending, albeit realistic, felt a bit too anti-climatic. Still, I enjoyed the story of Black and his beloved Sugar!

“We embraced. This so pleased me that I felt no guilt. I let myself be borne away by sweet emotion. I hugged him tighter. I let him kiss me, and I kissed him back. And as we kissed, it was as if the entire world had entered a gentle twilight. I wished everybody could embrace each other the way we did. I faintly recalled that love was supposed to be like this.”

“Maybe you've understood by now that for men like myself, that is, melancholy men for whom love, agony, happiness and misery are just excuses for maintaining eternal loneliness, life offers neither great joy nor great sadness.”

MORE ABOUT THE AUTHOR (CITED FROM BRITANNICA)

Orhan Pamuk, (born June 7, 1952, Istanbul, Turkey), Turkish novelist, best known for works that probe Turkish identity and history. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

Raised in a wealthy and Western-oriented family, Pamuk attended Robert College, an American school in Istanbul, and went on to study architecture at Istanbul Technical University. After three years he dropped out and devoted himself full-time to writing. In 1977 he graduated from the University of Istanbul with a degree in journalism. From 1985 to 1988 he lived in the United States and was a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York and the University of Iowa. Pamuk began writing seriously in 1974 and eight years later published his first novel, Cevdet Bey ve oğulları (“Cevdet Bey and His Sons”), a sweeping history of an Istanbul family during and after the establishment of the Turkish republic. He followed it with Sessiz ev (1983; Silent House), relying on multiple narrators to shape the story of a family gathering on the eve of the Turkish military coup of 1980. Pamuk first achieved international fame with Beyaz kale (1985; The White Castle), his third novel, which explores the nature of identity through the story of a learned young Italian captured and made a slave to a scholar in 17th-century Istanbul. His subsequent novels, which were widely translated, included Kara kitap (1990; The Black Book), a dense depiction of Istanbul, and the mysteries Yeni hayat (1996; The New Life) and Benim adım kırmızı (1998; My Name Is Red).

MORE MAGIC REALISM READING RECOMMENDATIONS

BLACKBERRY WINE BY J.HARRIS

SWIFT AS DESIRE BY LAURA ESQUIVEL

EAST, WEST BY SALMAN RUSHDIE 

KAFKA ON THE SHORE BY MURAKAMI

AUNT JULIA AND THE SCRIPTWRITER BY MARGIO VAGAS LLOSA

OF LOVE AND SHADOWS BY ISABEL ALLENDE

OF LOVE AND OTHER DEMONS, BY GABRIEL MARCIA MARQUEZ 

MORE MEMORABLE QUOTES

“...it seemed to me that the entire world was like a palace with countless rooms whose doors opened into one another. We were able to pass from one room to the next only by exercising out memories and imaginations, but most of us, in our laziness, rarely exercised these capacities, and forever remained in the same room....”

“...The beauty and mystery of this world only emerges through affection, attention, interest and compassion; if you want to live in the paradise where happy mares and stallion live, open your eyes wide and actually see this world by attending to its colors, details and irony.”

“We passed through forests of fire, forded rivers of light and forged dark seas and mountains of snow and ice.
Each crossing took us thousands of years, though it seemed no more than the blink of an eye.”

Anyhow, I presented two outfits to you today. One suitable for warm autumn days and one for colder ones. Both outfits feature the same wool silk skirt with red details. I had to have red details for this book review. Interestingly, I often wear this skirt when I post about books. For example, see this post from 2016.

How are you doing? Last weekend, I have finally found some time to catch up with my blogging friends. I always have a dozen posts in my drafts, but I don't like to post when I'm not around. Automatic posting just isn't for me, you know.  I like to post when I can be actually present in the blogging world.