Pamuk takes the reader back to sixteenth-century Istanbul to focus on miniaturists, particularly on the murder of one named Elegant Effendi. While, in essence, the novel is concerned with uncovering who the murderer is, there are a lot of other threads—most, if not all, related to the murder at hand—in this novel that made it far more complex than I expected. There are numerous characters narrating this expansive and complex story, and the reader must piece together these characters’ limited perspectives to figure out who the murderer might be. In addition to this whodunit story, Pamuk writes a sweeping love story between two characters, Black and Shekure. He also draws significant attention to art of this region and time period and its reception. The anxiety around art and religion (and, relatedly, East and West) was particularly interesting to read, especially with how it related to the murder.
I will say that considering the sheer number of moving parts in this novel, it’s very likely that a lot of readers—including myself—will miss a fair amount of details, especially if they’re unfamiliar with the culture and history of this region and time period. I think what made this novel particularly challenging was the literary and philosophical components that were woven in that I was not at all familiar with. Upon further research, though, I discovered how central they were to Pamuk’s crafting of this novel. In addition to multiple moving parts, Pamuk took a very unique approach to structuring his novel, ranging from the many characters narrating the story, stylistic choices in how the story is told, to breaking the fourth wall on a number of occasions to incorporate the reader into the novel. This is all to say that each chapter gives a lot for the reader to puzzle over.
Even if I didn’t fully grasp everything that was happening, I can at least appreciate the incredible time and thought that clearly went into this novel. I was also really taken to Göknar’s beautiful translation, and I can only imagine how much more enchanting it is in the original Turkish. I think this book will work for some readers, even if they don’t have a full grasp of everything, but I can also see how many others will find the prose and structure unwieldy.
Graphic: Death and Murder
Moderate: Violence, Antisemitism, and Ableism
Minor: Suicide and Slavery