READIN

Tuesday, October 20th, 2009

🦋 Opening the door of the museum

I am happy: The Museum of Innocence was published at long last today, the first novel Orhan Pamuk has published since I fell in love with his voice back in 2007. I have been anticipating this since last August when I saw it mentioned in McGaha's Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk...

I'm wondering idly -- only read a few pages this evening, they are nice -- they have the same beguiling prose quality I remember from the opening of The Black Book -- how well the metaphor of strolling through a museum will work for the experience of reading this book. Will I linger over certain images, walk briskly past others which are not as engaging? Will I want to stay past closing time or will I find myself wanting to go home early, when I have not even gotten to see the exhibit on the third floor?... I'm usually a bit intimidated by museums, I have not yet felt even a bit intimidated by Pamuk's prose* -- its inviting affect is the thing I love most about it. Well; we'll see.

Here are the epigraphs to this book:

These were innocent people, so innocent that they thought poverty a crime that wealth would allow them to forget. (from the notebooks of Celâl Salik)

[Celâl Salik? Is that Celâl from The Black Book? I sort of think so but not sure. Did the Black Book character have a last name? ...and, yes! the columnist in The Black Book is named Celâl Salik.]

If a man could pass thro' Paradise in a Dream, and have a flower presented to him as a pledge that his Soul had really been there, and found that flower in his hand when he awoke -- Aye? and what then? (from the notebooks of Samuel Taylor Coleridge)

[This is very nice, and definitely calls to mind the opening of The Black Book.]

First I surveyed the little trinkets on the table, her lotions and her perfumes. I picked them up and examined them one by one. I turned her little watch over in my hand. Then I looked at her wardrobe. All those dresses and accessories piled one on top of the other. These things that every woman used to complete herself -- they induced in me a painful and desparate loneliness; I felt myself hers, I longed to be hers. (from the notebooks of Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar)

*Oh wait, sorry, I am forgetting about The New Life. So make that "have not in most cases".

posted evening of October 20th, 2009: 1 response
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Thursday, September 10th, 2009

🦋 Distant Relations

This is kind of confusing: the New Yorker published a piece of fiction by Orhan Pamuk this week under the title, "Distant Relations" (translated by Maureen Freely) -- there is no sidebar to the effect that "Orhan Pamuk's new novel, Museum of Innocence, will be published in English next month; this piece is an exerpt" or something like that; but that is what the piece appears to be. It seems strange to publish it as a short story without any explanation of that; and it doesn't really work as a short story -- it does work pretty well as a teaser, though.

posted evening of September 10th, 2009: Respond
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Sunday, September 7th, 2008

🦋 A Happy Author

I am essentially a fiction writer, and if I ever cry, it's because I am worrying about the beauty of my book.

posted evening of September 7th, 2008: Respond

Wednesday, September third, 2008

🦋 “Hayatımın en mutlu anıymış, bilmiyordum.”

Ayse posts the first sentence of Museum of Innocence in my comments:

It was the happiest moment of my life, I did not know.

(See the comment thread for discussion of the translation.)

The official website for the book is here -- only in Turkish naturally, but with two lovely photo galleries: Pamuk in his study, and Pamuk around the town. There is also a Wikipædia entry of course, in English and in Turkish, but practically nothing written about it on the English site as yet.

...And, Banu Güven of MSNBC Turkey interviewed Pamuk about his new book yesterday. I am wishing I could understand Turkish...

posted morning of September third, 2008: Respond

Tuesday, September second, 2008

🦋 Masumiyet Müzesi published

Pamuk's new novel is out! (In Turkish only; the German translation will be published in two weeks, and hopefully the English will be available before too long.) Today's Zaman has a short piece with some information about the novel, a love story which will be Pamuk's longest book excluding his first.

Additionally, Pamuk has written two articles related to his new novel. The first article sheds light on the literary, personal and philosophical sources of "Masumiyet Müzesi," and the second one discusses the themes of famous love stories in general. The publication dates of the articles are not yet known.

So exciting! I can't wait to read these.

posted morning of September second, 2008: 22 responses

Saturday, August second, 2008

🦋 Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk

I read to the end of McGaha's Autobiographies of Orhan Pamuk today -- it is a good book and I think especially useful to the non-Turkish reader (i.e. myself) approaching Pamuk's books for the second time, to clarify cultural and historical references that might otherwise be lost. Does a really good job of drawing out common threads in Pamuk's books which the disparity of voices and styles can obscure. In short -- I would strongly recommend it if you have read all or most of Pamuk's novels to date and are thinking about rereading them. It also makes brief reference to the forthcoming Museum of Innocence, which will be translated by Erdağ Göknar -- in his application for a grant to do the translation, Göknar says,

the protagonist "comes from an upper-class Instanbul family who, after two failed relationships, goes on an obsessive journey in search of places and objects that remind him of his lost loves and that, once assembled, constitute the bulk of a museum of his obsessions"

McGaha ends by saying,

Orhan Pamuk is only fifty-five years old and is at the peak of his creative powers. There is every reason to believe that his best work still lies ahead of him. I look forward to reading his novels for many years to come.

Note: apparently Göknar's application did not pan out; Freely is doing the translation, which will be published in October '09.

posted evening of August second, 2008: Respond
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