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A review by macloo
My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk
3.0
I could muster no enthusiasm for this book or the story it tells. It is at least twice as long as needed to tell the tale it encompasses, and as for the so-called mystery — the reader needs to care about something if a mystery is to be of interest, and there was just nothing to care about here. The dead man seems to have no personality at all, and that is true for all of the various potential suspects as well. It's not lost on me that maybe that blandness was a deliberate move on the author's part, because a central theme here is the absence of individualistic characteristics in the traditional form of painting in the Ottoman empire in the 1500s.
This Ottoman style of painting was inherited or adopted from the Persians, and the miniaturists in Istanbul in this story still revere those ancestors — but this is the era of western ascendancy, and some of these Istanbul painters have seen the new painting style from Europe. Renaissance painting features not only linear perspective but also distinctive individual styles, such that you can recognize who made a painting. This theme — the recognizability of style, and the ascendance of individualism over collectivism — is at the core of the story.
Unfortunately, it is repeated over and over and beaten to a pulp until I, as a reader, wanted to scream. Pamuk is far too good a writer to have dedicated time to such a draggy, dull tale.
The most interesting parts of the book, for me, were those told by two women — who are not even involved in the painting work, because of course women would never have been allowed to make art. Chapters are narrated in the first person by all the different characters. Esther (a Jewish peddler) and Shekure (a beautiful young widow with two children) were the most three-dimensional people in the story. However, their roles are really peripheral.
There was lots of potential here, but it's drowned in detail and redundancy. In particular, I liked the thread about the religious fanatics who are trying to destroy figurative painting altogether just now that it teeters on the edge of becoming individualistic. The painters talk about representing the world as God sees it, not as humans see it. They talk about transferring to their images God's vision of the world, and there's a mystical element beyond mere talent. (I am fascinated by Sufi dervishes and really enjoyed the mentions of them in this story.) This enables the miniaturists to defend their painting of human figures, even though the Quran explicitly forbids it.
I also think this book might have suffered from the translation. The language is rather wooden and dull. In The Black Book by the same author — which I loved and want to read again — the language was rich and tantalizing, lovely, lush. I fear that maybe the translator of My Name Is Red was not up to the task.
This Ottoman style of painting was inherited or adopted from the Persians, and the miniaturists in Istanbul in this story still revere those ancestors — but this is the era of western ascendancy, and some of these Istanbul painters have seen the new painting style from Europe. Renaissance painting features not only linear perspective but also distinctive individual styles, such that you can recognize who made a painting. This theme — the recognizability of style, and the ascendance of individualism over collectivism — is at the core of the story.
Unfortunately, it is repeated over and over and beaten to a pulp until I, as a reader, wanted to scream. Pamuk is far too good a writer to have dedicated time to such a draggy, dull tale.
The most interesting parts of the book, for me, were those told by two women — who are not even involved in the painting work, because of course women would never have been allowed to make art. Chapters are narrated in the first person by all the different characters. Esther (a Jewish peddler) and Shekure (a beautiful young widow with two children) were the most three-dimensional people in the story. However, their roles are really peripheral.
There was lots of potential here, but it's drowned in detail and redundancy. In particular, I liked the thread about the religious fanatics who are trying to destroy figurative painting altogether just now that it teeters on the edge of becoming individualistic. The painters talk about representing the world as God sees it, not as humans see it. They talk about transferring to their images God's vision of the world, and there's a mystical element beyond mere talent. (I am fascinated by Sufi dervishes and really enjoyed the mentions of them in this story.) This enables the miniaturists to defend their painting of human figures, even though the Quran explicitly forbids it.
I also think this book might have suffered from the translation. The language is rather wooden and dull. In The Black Book by the same author — which I loved and want to read again — the language was rich and tantalizing, lovely, lush. I fear that maybe the translator of My Name Is Red was not up to the task.