My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of My Name Is Red
Book Review: Colorful historical tale
Summary: 5 Stars
My Name is Red delves even further into the influence of the West during the 16th-century Ottoman Empire, discussing at length the influence of western portrait art as a symbol of the growth of individualism, and its conflict with Ottoman illumination style which supposedly negated individual style. I say supposedly, because even those artists and characters in the book that seek to keep out western artistic influences, can upon close examination find out which artists illuminated each manuscript, that even though the artistic conventions of the period frowned upon individualism, there was no way to completely snuff it out, even among those most devoutly adhering to traditional artistic practices. But at the same time, My Name is Red is an in depth history of Islamic illumination and manuscript art, from the days of the glory of Baghdad through Safavid Iran to Herat and Afghanistan to Mogul India and Ottoman Istanbul. What he shows is a complex and growing artistic tradition that was far from static, as perceived by many in the West, but indeed ever evolving, much as art was evolving in the Europe. Ottoman Turkey was far from being `backward' as many in the West believed then and now, but on its own path toward modernity.Book Review: Compelling Reading
Summary: 5 Stars
Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in a large family. As Orhan Pamuk writes in his autobiographical book Istanbul, from his childhood until the age of 22 he devoted himself largely to painting and dreamed of becoming an artist. After graduating from the secular American Robert College in Istanbul, Orhan Pamuk studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University for three years, but abandoned the course when he gave up his ambition to become an architect and artist. Thankfully for his many readers he decided that his first love was writing and now has several excellent books to his name.
It is the late 1590's the great city of Istanbul, where east meets west is a thriving multi cultural metropolis, the gateway to Asia and all the delights unknown to the people of the west. The Sultan secretly commissions a great book, a book that is to be a celebration of his own life and his mighty empire. He wishes the book to be illuminated by the best artists of the day, but in the European manner. But when one of the artists goes missing and it is feared that he may well have been murdered, their master seeks help in solving the mystery.
This book is essentially a murder mystery, but by its very existence it gives the reader a powerful insight into one of the oldest and certainly one of the most beautiful cites in the world. A place that on one hand can compete with other modern cities in both its architecture and culture and on the other hand stays dreamily unchanged through the centuries. The book also raises the tensions between east and west that have simmered over time.
Book Review: East and West....Will the twain eventually ever meet?
Summary: 5 Stars
Set in Istanbul, Turkey, (1574-95) during the reign of the Ottoman Empire, the novel opens with a master miniaturist, Elegant Effendi, freshly murdered and his soul lingering in the after-life as he openly reflects on this ethereal after-life.
Meanwhile, Enishte Effendi, who, under the Sultan's decree, has assigned a highly secret and dangerous job to a few of his most talented artists, is reading Book of the Soul.
Book of the Soul deals with the subject of the Islamic understanding of life after death according to the Koran, the Sunna, and the doctrine of the Salaf and the Four Imams. It holds that the dead can hear the living and know of them. Pamuk uses this to cleverly move the narration forward, speaking from the grave and even sometimes as inanimate objects.
This part pedantic, part uniquely ingenious novel has to be read slowly and with close attention, as Pamuk packs a wallop in his dense narrative style....think textures and intricate patterns of rare Persian carpets with the blinding rich palettes of bright lush colors!
MNIR tells us that the Renaissance introduced a way of seeing art that challenged the miniaturists and illuminators that served Allah.
The Turkish portraits of Sultans following the Renaissance were inferior and flimsy copies, poor imitations of the European Frankish style.
The miniaturists in this novel gradually come to realize that they are the last of their kind.
Black, the maternal nephew of Enishte Effendi, converses with the murderer of another miniaturist and muses: "'Everybody secretly desires to have a style,..... 'Everybody also desires to have his portrait made, just as Our Sultan did.... 'Is this affliction impossible to resist?...... As this plague spreads, none of us will able to stand against the methods of the Europeans."
Thus, with the Renaissance, the seeds of change, began to tug away from the established, traditional Eastern art; an art form that gave no freedom to the artist to impose his own will. His recognition came from the ability to exactly copy or re-create the images of the great masters who painted before him.
Butterfly..... the most worldly, in the end wisely replies: "An artist should never succumb to hubris of any kind, he should simply paint the way he sees fit rather than troubling over East or West."
And here we are, East and West, at war once again.... "To God belongs the East and the West," the book quotes the Koran. And that tenet helps in understanding the threat that the West poses to the East in the cultural clash echoing yet today.
Only this time change threatens in a new way..... a pizza franchise, a Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant, a McDonald's, and others are already now in Mecca where infidels are considered the work of Satan.
Western music, customs, and literature spill over borders and new ideas continue to resonate in the staunch fabric of folklore of the traditional beliefs of many Muslims.
And the famous words of Rudyard Kipling resound their timeless wisdom....
"OH, East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet.
Till Earth and Sky stand presently at God's great judgement Seat;
But there is neither East nor West, Border, nor Breed, nor Birth,
When two strong men stand face to face, tho' they come from the ends of the earth!".......
Highly recommended!
Book Review: Enjoyed it
Summary: 4 Stars
I really enjoyed this book with 3 caveats;
1) too long
2) Repetitive
3) Confusing in parts
Book Review: Eternal Arts meets the New Millenium
Summary: 5 Stars
I started reading Orhan Pamuk's My Name is Red in 2003 when a friend lent to me while abroad. It was right after I had taken a course in Islamic art so a lot of the information about the popularity of Persian painting was fresh in my mind. When I finally got around to reading the whole book it was several years later, the art history information was less fresh in my brain, but that did not diminish the perfect wonder that is in this book.
I may have been reluctant to pick up this book as it would be another in the subgenre of art history narratives like Girl with a Peal Earring or The Agony and the Ecstasy which I do not like. A large part of the problem with those is that they are celebrations of people you already know are great, and they take a canonized view of western art history which each old master's genius is inevitably going to come to fruition despite the melodrama surrounding it. The past is finished and isolated. Fortunately this is not the case in Turkey.
The narrative describes the complicated relationship between Christianity and Islam in the day-to-day practices of art and life. To present this debate Pamuk employs a many narratives, some of whom are hiding their true identities from the reader. Though the novel is narrated by many different voices which take different sides of the debate they all sound similar in a way that both helps keep the secrets of the story. It also makes the text of the novel part of the debate of "true style" versus "personal style" debate that informs the book. The debate is so much part of the story that the actual murder mystery just gives the form for these ideas to be expressed and changed.
It is a wonderfully complex tale filled with complicated characters that keeps you guessing and works as an exploration of interpreting any form of representation.