🦋 Fact and Fiction
I still have not gotten to the beginning of the inner story of The White Castle and already the layering of fictions is seeming intensely complicated. The book is dedicated to "Nilgun Darvinoglu: a loving sister (1961 - 1980)" -- I read this when I first opened the book and thought, Pamuk's sister lived such a short life! Then I started reading the preface (in which the outer story is begun), and leafed to the end of the preface to see it was signed "Faruk Darvinoglu". Hmm, think I, he attributes the preface to his brother-in-law. Perhaps that is meant as further tribute to the lamented sister. But then I read, at the end of the last paragraph of the preface,
Readers seeing the dedication at the beinning may ask if it has a personal significance. I suppose that to see everything as connected with everything else is the addiction of our time. It is because I too have succumbed to this disease that I publish this tale.
That totally knocked me for a loop. Does Pamuk have a sister who lived for the stated dates, who he is dedicating the book to? And if so, is that her name? Or is the dedication completely part of the fiction, the outer story -- or indeed part of the inner story that has taken over the life of the narrator, extruding itself into the outer story?
 Update: more info here.
posted evening of Friday, January 18th, 2008
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