cotton-man

While I was away I read two books, both by Orhan Pamuk.

The first, Snow (Kar) I had bought last June when I got an obesssive bookshopping mania, the second, Istanbul, was a great present. I am never good at explaining something or describing it when I like it so much. My impulsive subjectiveness does not allow me to see anything wrong with “it”. So, bear in mind.

Snow is a great book, particularly when read in a location where snow is everywhere around. Even though the pictures described in the novel simply could not correspond to the location I was while reading it, this feeling of what the writer himself at the very first chapter calls “the silence of snow” is the one shared, allowing the reader to get into the mood. I liked the story of this journalist/poet who travells from Istanbul to Kars trying to get an understanding of the “suicide epidemic” that has plagued the covered young women of Kars. Instantly, I see a symbolism (unaware of its intent): from West to East, from one side of Turkey to the other, from Istanbul to Kars. The novel after all treats issues like culture, nationalism, religion and ethics along the lines of the so-called West-East divide. The contradictions that characterise today’s Turkey, are laid down in a story which Pamuk reads as his; he is the one who tells the story of his journalist/poet friend, Ka. This is a personal story, regardless of its real-life factuality. In the end (I think) it’s all about identity.

Istanbul, which I only finished last night, is a close to autobiograhical book on the city. Pamuk is trying to describe the feeling of hüzün, this steemy gloom, melancholy shared by a city. A series of excellent photos by Ara Güler dress this journey. Pamuk discusses his Istanbul and provides with glimpses of a city the way he has seen, he has understood. References to his father to whom the book tellingly is dedicated (Pamuk describes a generally absent father), mother and brother as well as to his grand mother, aunts and uncles as well as to his first love. From his childhood school memories, to his painting period up until his entrance to the Architectural Faculty and his leave two years later. Also, references to artists who described Istanbul in the past as well as a chapter “Conquest or Decline? The Turkification of Constantinople” with mention to the 1955 pogrom suffered by the Greek and Armenian minorities. All the while, the setting of Istanbul; Taksım, Beyoğlu, Cihangir, Galata, Üsküdar… The Bosphorus.