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A review by april_does_feral_sometimes
My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
5.0
‘My Name is Red’ by Orhan Pamuk is a historical murder mystery in both its plot and its post-modern construction of characters who talk a lot using philosophy about Art in their narrative expositions. It took awhile before I realized authoritarian control of the Arts in a 16th-century Muslim miniaturist community in Istanbul is the main theme of this dense literary novel of many themes. I have always had a knee-jerk reaction to any sort of authoritarian control - enormous waves of anger and hatred sweep through me. I walked away from the book for awhile, gentle reader.
As a historical novel, it is well-researched and goes deep into the world of the Ottoman Empire of 1591. Each chapter is narrated by a character, including a drawing, a coin, the color red and Satan. The narration is chronological. A lot of the plot hinges on the religious philosophy of Islam towards the Arts, particularly in the correct religious way of drawing objects in respect to Allah’s supposed view of the object. Painting in the “Venetian style”, a new way of painting objects, is particularly causing heated argumentation. Introducing perspective in seeing Art is one of the main controversies. Yes, clearly Pamuk is using puns or, at minimum, the double meanings of words, in his book.
Pamuk has each character discuss the ongoing disputes about the ‘correct’ religious philosophy of Islam about painting and Art. Many of the characters take sides using violence. Superstitions of the Middle-East - fear of ghosts, jinns, curses - cause irrational decisions, confusion and chaos adding to the philosophical disputations.
There is an argument from traditionalists that using only memory from studying decorated books from hundreds of years ago to paint is correct. This results in simply copying the same paintings over and over for millennia in ornamenting texts. The new vision of doing Art is to actually use one’s eyes and look at an object. This philosophical division between the Old and New ways to paint is one of the causes of the most virulent fights. Also, painting accurate portraiture of real people instead of painting traditional fake faces with Chinese face attributes for Arabian and Muslim people is also a source of extreme rage. Plus, artists can be beaten into disability if they sign a work of Art. Every one of these arguments between the old methods of painting and the new ways to paint is about displacing or disrespecting Allah in His supposedly Creator’s pride of place as being First in all things. Artists cannot take any pride in their work or make any claims of creating anything - a great sin. However, the individual artists who are recognized as Masters can earn a lot of money.
The recognized Masters of miniaturist art sometimes start a school for apprentices. When these apprentices gain expertise, the school, the graduates, or the Masters hire themselves out to various rich folk and aristocrats to produce beautiful illustrated books. A miniaturist could earn a good living at decorating books. But during the time of this novel, traditional Islamic miniaturists were losing commissions to those artists willing to paint in the still forbidden and illegal ‘new’ styles.
The Sultan Murat III hires a miniaturist, Enishte Effendi, to create art secretly for a book decorated in the Venetian painter style. The worse thing about this is that the Sultan wants his exact representation in a portrait in the center of the artwork - totally usurping Allah’s supposed place in creation. Word gets out.
Another Master, Elegant Effendi, is murdered shortly after he publicly announces his own religious philosophy towards the Venetian style. Elegant thinks the new styles are sacrilegious. Who murdered him?
Meanwhile, Kara Black, Enishte Effendi’s nephew, returns to Istanbul after being away for twelve years. He still loves Shekure, his childhood love and his uncle’s beautiful daughter, but she married another man. This man has been missing for four years, but under Islamic law, there are a variety of hoops to jump through before she can be declared a widow. Once she is officially a widow, Hasan, the husband’s younger brother, intends to marry her. When Hasan becomes aware of Black’s interest in marrying Shekure, he begins a campaign of harassment and accusations of heresy against Black, aiming at getting Black arrested and punished for something, anything to stop his interference in his pursuit of Shekure.
The novel expresses a surprising amount of overheated hothouse extravagant passions over religious philosophies about Art, a revelation for this western reader! Many of the characters feel boiling burning excess of emotions over, to me, various stupid minutia of Art techniques, like whether a drawing of a horse’s nostrils is acceptable or forbidden by Allah. Religious assumptions about Allah feelings about Art are not considered as only a maybe, but these supposed understandings about Allah’s feelings are absolute facts for the different Masters. Despite that every Master has a different viewpoint on what Allah is thinking about Art, these supposed feelings must be taken into account or there will be consequences of severe punishment by the Masters or other legal authorities or mobs of outraged citizenry. Traditional stories passed down in Turkish culture and from other nearby cultures, such as the Persians and Chinese, and from extremely old illustrated books, are accepted as being Allah’s opinions, I guess. The older an illustrated text is or story is, the more religiously correct the Art which has copied it exactly is. To me, this is utter crap.
Creativity of any kind is a Sin to these Muslims of the sixteenth century. The clearly obvious creativity of artists of works passed down from hundreds of years ago, though, are understood as Permanent Models by Allah of what is permitted by artists to do. Many reviewers have noted this attitude of religiosity towards the flat primitive paintings of the long-ago past as being Perfect Representations Of An Object To Never Be Altered In A New Painting Of The Object Forever in newer works of Art as being similar to the philosophy of an Ancient Greek polymath, Plato. But Plato never suggested artists copy and copy and copy over and over and over these supposed Heavenly Original Forms of all objects on earth without any artistic creativity or reinterpretation! What a completely asinine belief!
*ahem*
Minds are also overwhelmed and overwrought, sustained for years!, from hearing romantic Middle-Eastern epics and poetry and storytelling of which many samples are included in the book. Sexual passions, using the stories as a foundation, are stratospheric to those sufferers of unrequited love. My opinion is today we consumers of movies, books, and TV shows have become much more immune to the power of stories and, yes, Romance.
The book is a Grand Literary Effort, but it is difficult to read. I don’t know if this is because it is a translation. It also is dense with the mention of real life characters and famous illustrated texts. There are arcane and very foreign ideas about Art constantly being discussed which I found difficult to grasp at first. To me, these violent philosophers of religious minutia were similar to those suffering from obsessive compulsive disorders who fight hard over whether shirts should be tucked into pants or worn outside of pants, or who come unglued because someone likes to stand with their hands inside of the pockets of a jacket. My buttons were pushed which created noise in my head, too. However. But. The book is unquestionably a literary masterpiece of multi-dimensional writing Art about Art (hehe). No reader who attempts the novel will come away without learning something about early Muslim culture and Art.
As a historical novel, it is well-researched and goes deep into the world of the Ottoman Empire of 1591. Each chapter is narrated by a character, including a drawing, a coin, the color red and Satan. The narration is chronological. A lot of the plot hinges on the religious philosophy of Islam towards the Arts, particularly in the correct religious way of drawing objects in respect to Allah’s supposed view of the object. Painting in the “Venetian style”, a new way of painting objects, is particularly causing heated argumentation. Introducing perspective in seeing Art is one of the main controversies. Yes, clearly Pamuk is using puns or, at minimum, the double meanings of words, in his book.
Pamuk has each character discuss the ongoing disputes about the ‘correct’ religious philosophy of Islam about painting and Art. Many of the characters take sides using violence. Superstitions of the Middle-East - fear of ghosts, jinns, curses - cause irrational decisions, confusion and chaos adding to the philosophical disputations.
There is an argument from traditionalists that using only memory from studying decorated books from hundreds of years ago to paint is correct. This results in simply copying the same paintings over and over for millennia in ornamenting texts. The new vision of doing Art is to actually use one’s eyes and look at an object. This philosophical division between the Old and New ways to paint is one of the causes of the most virulent fights. Also, painting accurate portraiture of real people instead of painting traditional fake faces with Chinese face attributes for Arabian and Muslim people is also a source of extreme rage. Plus, artists can be beaten into disability if they sign a work of Art. Every one of these arguments between the old methods of painting and the new ways to paint is about displacing or disrespecting Allah in His supposedly Creator’s pride of place as being First in all things. Artists cannot take any pride in their work or make any claims of creating anything - a great sin. However, the individual artists who are recognized as Masters can earn a lot of money.
The recognized Masters of miniaturist art sometimes start a school for apprentices. When these apprentices gain expertise, the school, the graduates, or the Masters hire themselves out to various rich folk and aristocrats to produce beautiful illustrated books. A miniaturist could earn a good living at decorating books. But during the time of this novel, traditional Islamic miniaturists were losing commissions to those artists willing to paint in the still forbidden and illegal ‘new’ styles.
The Sultan Murat III hires a miniaturist, Enishte Effendi, to create art secretly for a book decorated in the Venetian painter style. The worse thing about this is that the Sultan wants his exact representation in a portrait in the center of the artwork - totally usurping Allah’s supposed place in creation. Word gets out.
Another Master, Elegant Effendi, is murdered shortly after he publicly announces his own religious philosophy towards the Venetian style. Elegant thinks the new styles are sacrilegious. Who murdered him?
Meanwhile, Kara Black, Enishte Effendi’s nephew, returns to Istanbul after being away for twelve years. He still loves Shekure, his childhood love and his uncle’s beautiful daughter, but she married another man. This man has been missing for four years, but under Islamic law, there are a variety of hoops to jump through before she can be declared a widow. Once she is officially a widow, Hasan, the husband’s younger brother, intends to marry her. When Hasan becomes aware of Black’s interest in marrying Shekure, he begins a campaign of harassment and accusations of heresy against Black, aiming at getting Black arrested and punished for something, anything to stop his interference in his pursuit of Shekure.
The novel expresses a surprising amount of overheated hothouse extravagant passions over religious philosophies about Art, a revelation for this western reader! Many of the characters feel boiling burning excess of emotions over, to me, various stupid minutia of Art techniques, like whether a drawing of a horse’s nostrils is acceptable or forbidden by Allah. Religious assumptions about Allah feelings about Art are not considered as only a maybe, but these supposed understandings about Allah’s feelings are absolute facts for the different Masters. Despite that every Master has a different viewpoint on what Allah is thinking about Art, these supposed feelings must be taken into account or there will be consequences of severe punishment by the Masters or other legal authorities or mobs of outraged citizenry. Traditional stories passed down in Turkish culture and from other nearby cultures, such as the Persians and Chinese, and from extremely old illustrated books, are accepted as being Allah’s opinions, I guess. The older an illustrated text is or story is, the more religiously correct the Art which has copied it exactly is. To me, this is utter crap.
Creativity of any kind is a Sin to these Muslims of the sixteenth century. The clearly obvious creativity of artists of works passed down from hundreds of years ago, though, are understood as Permanent Models by Allah of what is permitted by artists to do. Many reviewers have noted this attitude of religiosity towards the flat primitive paintings of the long-ago past as being Perfect Representations Of An Object To Never Be Altered In A New Painting Of The Object Forever in newer works of Art as being similar to the philosophy of an Ancient Greek polymath, Plato. But Plato never suggested artists copy and copy and copy over and over and over these supposed Heavenly Original Forms of all objects on earth without any artistic creativity or reinterpretation! What a completely asinine belief!
*ahem*
Minds are also overwhelmed and overwrought, sustained for years!, from hearing romantic Middle-Eastern epics and poetry and storytelling of which many samples are included in the book. Sexual passions, using the stories as a foundation, are stratospheric to those sufferers of unrequited love. My opinion is today we consumers of movies, books, and TV shows have become much more immune to the power of stories and, yes, Romance.
The book is a Grand Literary Effort, but it is difficult to read. I don’t know if this is because it is a translation. It also is dense with the mention of real life characters and famous illustrated texts. There are arcane and very foreign ideas about Art constantly being discussed which I found difficult to grasp at first. To me, these violent philosophers of religious minutia were similar to those suffering from obsessive compulsive disorders who fight hard over whether shirts should be tucked into pants or worn outside of pants, or who come unglued because someone likes to stand with their hands inside of the pockets of a jacket. My buttons were pushed which created noise in my head, too. However. But. The book is unquestionably a literary masterpiece of multi-dimensional writing Art about Art (hehe). No reader who attempts the novel will come away without learning something about early Muslim culture and Art.