My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of My Name Is Red
Book Review: Excellent Novel
Summary: 5 Stars
Pamuk's masterpiece is not an easy read, but it is an enjoyable one. The work is an historical novel, a murder mystery, a coparison of the aesthetics of Islamic and western art, and an exploration of Turkey's dilemma of being caught between east and west. Pamuk's movement back and forth between different narrative voices is at times jarring (as when the novel opens with a discssion form a corpse) and ends with the protagonist's wife warning us not to trust Orhan's telling of the story, but the development of a series of complex characters in a fascinating setting makes this a wonderful book. Make sure to read the appendix with a timeline of Ottoman history if you are not familiar with Turkish history. The book is set at a crucial time when the Empire's fortunes may be ebbing after defeat to Christian forces at Lepanto and a wave of religious fundamentalism is engulfing Istanbul.Book Review: Excellent book
Summary: 5 Stars
I read this book while exploring Istanbul. What a joy! Great story, great writing. Loved it.Book Review: Faith's Blindness
Summary: 3 Stars
There's surely something for everyone in Orhan Pamuk'sdense historical novel. For readers interested in religion, history, art, philosophy, Ottoman culture, politics, romance, sex, and murder, and how all these forces interact to form human experience, this book delivers. Set in Instanbul in the 16th century, a time when the tenets of early Islam were under assault from creeping Western culture, it resonates with all the tension that results when change threatens faith.
At its core, "My Name is Red" is a murder mystery. A gifted miniaturist, in the midst of a working on a book for the sultan glorifying his reign, is murdered and thrown down the well. His only offense is that he's discarded the ancient prohibition against figurative drawing, falling in line with modern European dicates about art and the human form.
From there the book branches out like the tree of life. Often the question of who murdered poor Elegant Effendi is lost in the oceans of debate, philosophy and speculation over God, art, love and honor. Dialoguess and monologues go on for pages and pages of dense, tortured argument. This is not an easy book to take to the beach and expect to be carried along by brisk and engrossing narrative. If your taste ranges more toward Kant, Hegel, St. Thomas Aquinas and Bernard Berenson and less toward Agatha Christie, you'll find this book a delight.
Of course, it's enlivened every hundred pages or so by the romance between Black and Shekure, the tortured cousins who've loved and lusted after each other for a dozen years, always in the shadow of his art and indecision. Their interaction provides just enough sexual tension and even steaminess to counteract the relentless thought discipline of the rest of the book. If you find yourself skipping pages to catch up with Black and Shekure's assignations, you'll miss everything the book strives for. But for most humans the temptation will be strong.
If you open your eyes to the book's points about color, blindness, and the power of sight, you'll glean much from the experience. But don't expect an easy time of it. Sadly, it seems most people can't really see what this noble work wants them to.
Book Review: Faithful Art
Summary: 4 Stars
"Contrary to what is commonly believed, all murderers are men of extreme faith rather than unbelievers." (How true in today's world, torn apart by the terrorists!) This truth uttered by Master Osman, one of the main characters of the novel, sets the tone of the plot, that beautifully dissects the minds of the master artists, caught between the urge to create something new and the obligation and fear to toe the religious line. To quote Master Osman again, "genuine artists have an instinctive desire to draw what is forbidden." And the list of what is forbidden in Islamic art is really unending. There should be no perspectives; ("....the art of perspective removes the painting from God's perspective and lowers it to the level of street dog".); no shadows; no human figure occupying centre position in the painting; no painting of portraits; no imitation of Franks (Europeans) and other infidels and so on and so forth ("...using the Frankish techniques so that the observer has the impression not of as painting but of reality, to such a degree that this image has the power to entice men to bow down before it, as with icons in churches.")
But these restrictions are nothing compared to what other strict interpreters of Islam have to impose: art should never go beyond calligraphy and ornamentation. "Painting leads to .....challenging Allah." Pretty confusing? Yes, all the major characters of the novel--most of them master artists of Istanbul in the 1590s--are oscillating along the many extreme views of Islamic art and life.
This confusion comes to a head when the ruling Sultan commissions a book , which must contain paintings that employ techniques and methods of the Franks. Elegant Effendi, master gilder and an important member of the project , undergoes tremendous mental strife. According to him the new book that uses "science of perspective and the method of the Venetians was nothing but the temptation of Satan." He goes on, "There's one final picture. In that picture Enishte (the project head) desecrates everything we believe in ." For his mental confusion he has to pay with the price of his life and the plot of the novel revolves around solving his mysterious murder.
For unraveling the truth behind the crime, the characters analyze Islamic art traditions, techniques and history threadbare. The rich treasure trove of Islamic miniature paintings is showcased in minute details to get a clue of the present crime (this is where the novel drags a bit). A romantic angle runs along this high falutin art trail, and provides periodic relief form the dim world of the miniature artists. Shekure, exquisitely beautiful daughter of Enishte, is leading a miserable life with her two sons as her soldier husband has gone missing in one of the campaigns. Black, her cousin and one time suitor, returns to Istanbul after a gap of twelve years and kindles the old flame. But, like in the world of art, things do not go smooth and the lovers undergo a plethora of bitter experiences before achieving their union, which can best be described as a ''cripple'' one.
`My Name Is Red' holds a mirror to the Islamic mind: how it is colored and controlled by bigotry and how religious faith has an all-pervasive hold over Islamic life. The Western mind, nurtured in an atmosphere of liberalism and flexibility, would do well to comprehend the Islamic view of life in its entirety and stop tinkering with it at the surface level. Only that way peaceful coexistence of the religions of the world may be ensured.
(The reviewer is the author of Hits and Misses)
Book Review: Fantastic! Deserving of his nobel prize!
Summary: 5 Stars
I started reading this novel a month ago, and it's not a novel that you can read in a day or two. One needs to read a few chapters and then stop and deliberate over the meaning over what the author has written.
The book centers around Istanbul, Turkey during the 1590's. Sultan Murat III commissions a book in secret to be illuminated by the Master Miniaturists and overlooked by Enishte Effendi.
The book is to be illuminated in the European/Frankish style and soon we find that one of the Master's have been murdered.
Enter Black, Enishte Effendi's nephew, is requested by his uncle to find who the murderer is, and intending to win the heart of the lovely daughter of Enishte Effendi, Shekure, Black agrees.
The story unravels in a strange form with interesting and peculiar narrations from different parties, including a gold coin, a tree, a dog, etc.
The book give us enlightening insight to the world that is set in tradition and is afraid of change due to its rich cultural heritage and power. The Ottoman Empire ruled for six centuries (from the 1300's!) and only ended in 1922.
The conflict between the East and the West is noted in this novel and is under discussion by readers and is often thought provokind.
Miniatures are a form of art and I have managed to find a few which Orhan Pamuk, the author, has advocated for the use of reference to his novel:
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Orhan Pamuk definitely deserves the Nobel Prize in Literature 2006 which he won for this novel. It was fantastic and it kept me in suspense right until the end.
Although this was a long, and thought provoking book, filled with intrigue, jealousy, love, religious influence, it was a mentally stimulating read which I quite enjoyed and I would award it 10/10.