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Sunday, August 26th, 2007
I have gone very quickly from having trouble with the narrative structure in My Name is Red to being totally entranced by it. I particularly love the variations on "my name is" in the chapter titles. "I Will Be Called a Murderer"! That strikes home before I even start reading.
posted evening of August 26th, 2007: Respond
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An idea whose time has come: a mashup of "Mr. Toad's Wild Ride" from The Wind in the Willows with Frog and Toad Together. Gee, I wonder if this has ever been done -- it seems like a totally obvious thing for someone with the gift of mashing up -- I'm not totally sure how one would go about it and do not have the requisite graphical skills but. Mr. Toad takes his loyal friend and companion on a crazy ride in his new roadster in order to keep both of them away from the jar of cookies on the top shelf or something.
posted evening of August 26th, 2007: Respond
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I was lucky enough to make it out to NYC this afternoon to the Film Forum's NYC Noir festival. Watched The Wrong Man (which was just so-so, kind of corny for Hitchcock), and Rear Window, which was amazing -- I either haven't seen it before or it was long enough that I had forgotten most of the bits of the plot. This was (I think) a newly restored print and it was just amazing to look at -- it took me a couple of minutes of just goggling at the scenery before I could start getting into the film. (Rather like Jimmy Stewart's character I guess).
posted evening of August 26th, 2007: Respond
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My Name is Red is set in Istanbul in 1591, at the height of the Ottoman Empire's power. In discussions of the innovation of artistic style (which I referenced yesterday), the innovation is generally identified as coming "from the East" and/or from Europe. But now in Chapter 12, in "Butterfly"'s ج fable, I see the princess of Kasvin identifying the æsthetic tradition which identifies artistic style as a flaw, as coming "from the East" -- she does not say this in a derogatory manner, which is how I had read the previous references. So this is making me wonder whether Ottoman culture saw itself as not at all innovative. "From the East" makes sense (I think) as a description of the source cultural traditions; my understanding is that Turks originated in central Asia and migrated to the west, to Anatolia. (My understanding is also that "Ottoman" means the same thing as "Turk"; that could be totally wrong.) In this case "from the East" would have a separate meaning when it was used to identify the source of traditions, and when it was used to identify the source of putatively pernicious innovations.
posted morning of August 26th, 2007: Respond
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I don't generally do much underlining or keeping of marginal notes when I am reading. I sort of made a point of underlining passages that I found striking when I was reading Snow; I'm not sure what purpose it served or will serve, but it seemed like the right thing to do. Now that I'm reading My Name is Red, I'm finding myself drawn to underline passages -- to the extent that if I don't have a pen handy, I will seek one out. I wonder if this is going to be my new way of reading going forward, or if it's just something about Pamuk.
posted morning of August 26th, 2007: Respond
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Saturday, August 25th, 2007
Snow and My Name is Red are very different books. One thing I am thinking (at this early point) they might have in common, is a theme of embarrassment and shame motivating the principal characters. Is that too broad I wonder? The only electronic source I have been able to find for Nezami's poetry in translation, is this version of the tale of Hüsrev and Shirin at the Mediæval Sourcebook. -- Oh wait, strike that, that is only an excerpt, and the exact same text is at the Wikipædia link as well. (Note: a difference between the books is, My Name Is Red seems to be much faster reading than Snow, where reading 15 or 20 pages in a day would seem like a lot, and where I would put the book down for a couple of days and have plenty to chew on. This book is much more difficult to put down, at least in its early portions. I think I will go read some more.)
posted afternoon of August 25th, 2007: 1 response
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Here is a very interesting passage from Chapter 4 of My Name Is Red. The master illuminator is showing his apprentice a classic example of the genre: "This is by Bihzad," the aging master said... "This is so Bihzad that there's no need for a signature." Bihzad was so well aware of this fact that he didn't hide his name anywhere in the painting. And according to the elderly master, there was a sense of embarrassment and a feeling of shame in this decision of his. Where there is true art and genuine virtuosity the artist can paint an incomparable masterpiece without leaving even a trace of his identity. Fearing for my life, I murdered my unfortunate victim in an ordinary and crude manner. As I returned to this fire-ravaged area night after night to ascertain whether I'd left behind any traces that might betray me, questions of style increasingly arose in my head. What was venerated as style was nothing more than an imperfection or flaw that revealed the guilty hand. A couple of reactions: - I wonder whether Erdağ Göknar is an inferior translator to Maureen Freely. Some of the constructions here seem a little bit strained. (Whereas for Snow, I found the easy fluency of the language to be a major selling point.)
- I of course disagree with the narrator about the æsthetic status of style; I believe I have already made stabs, here and elsewhere, at stating that I think the ultimate goal of good art is to achieve complete identity between the artist and the audience -- to "put you in his head". So style is a primary criterion of great art.
- That said I like the way the narrator states his case a lot. My first thought is that it demonstrates a Platonic world view; each individual artist is striving to transcend -- or "is judged by how far he can transcend" -- his identity to approach the ideal Artist, to create the ideal Work of Art.
- The juxtaposition of "failure to create the ideal Work of Art" and "failure to commit the Perfect Crime" is fun.
posted morning of August 25th, 2007: Respond
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Friday, August 24th, 2007
...Reading on; as of the beginning of Chapter 4 I find myself irreversibly hooked: As I stare at people's faces, I realize many of them believe they're innocent because they haven't yet had the opportunity to snuff out a life. It's hard to believe that most men are more moral or better than me simply on account of some minor twist of fate... wandering the streets of Istanbul for four days was enough to confirm that everyone with a gleam of cleverness in his eye and the shadow of his soul cast across his face was a hidden assassin. Only imbeciles are innocent.
posted evening of August 24th, 2007: Respond
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At the beginning of My Name Is Red, I am mostly noticing ways it is different from Snow -- a bad habit and probably not useful. Snow began very vividly and pulled me right in; Red by contrast seems gauzy and amorphous. I am trying to get a handle on the narrative structure -- each chapter is first-person, but it's up to the reader to figure out who is speaking. The dog (or possibly "storyteller impersonating a dog") who narrates Chapter 3 has me grinning and flashing on Mason & Dixon.
posted evening of August 24th, 2007: Respond
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I went to the bookstore yesterday and got two new books: My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk, and The Blue Flower by Penelope Fitzgerald, she whose name is at the top of this blog. (The latter I got on the recommendation of Matt Weiner, the former on that of Dr. Snarkout.)
posted evening of August 24th, 2007: Respond
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