Enchanting obsession
By Maureen Howard |
November 1, 2009, Sunday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
ORHAN Pamuk favors short chapters that lead the reader from one entry to the next, turning back to correct or amend. He is directorial in "The Museum of Innocence," his enchanting new novel of first love painfully sustained over a lifetime.
In 83 chapters, a privileged Istanbul resident named Kemal tells of his obsession with Fusun, a beautiful shopgirl.
The story of this ill-fated passion is preceded by a map of the city. Pamuk's earlier readers may recall the broad sweep of the Bosporus, the mosques and market streets, the Pamuk Apartments in Nisantasi, from his historical and autobiographical book of wonders, "Istanbul: Memories and the City."
Kemal renders all views -- the abandoned apartment of his transporting sexual encounters with Fusun, the years of twisting his life out of shape to honor his enduring passion.
He writes from Istanbul, not America where he studied, not Paris where upper-crust Turks were acquiring their gloss of "free and modern."
The city is on exhibit: the romantic touch of decaying wooden houses, the sturdy apartments of the nouveaux riches, postcard views of the shimmering Golden Horn and a Frenchified restaurant once in favor. Kemal often reminds us that he writes from memory.
The lovers meet in the Merhamet Apartments, in a flat abandoned by his mother. He dates his first clandestine meetings with Fusun to the spring of 1975. Or was it earlier, a family outing? (Fusun is a distant cousin.) He understands documentation as a serious pursuit in his life-absorbing love affair, "having become -- with the passage of time -- the anthropologist of my own experience."
At that time Pamuk's fledgling curator was to marry the lovely Sibel, a fashionable young woman with enlightened views, so enlightened she had gone the limit with Kemal. Virginity becomes a leitmotif -- who will not break the code of no sex before marriage, honored in Turkey back then.
There's not much plot to "The Museum of Innocence;" and why should there be, if the artist is free? Still, Pamuk comes up with a cinematic ending, easy and swift as though churned out in a Turkish B-movie.
But if, as Kemal recommends early in the novel, I turn to "Happiness," the last chapter, I discover how he sought "the esteemed Orhan Pamuk, who has narrated the story in my name, and with my approval."
On the last page, Pamuk reveals the dates of composition: 2001-2, 2003-8. The hiatus may be explained by the fact that in 2003 he published "Istanbul" an autobiography overlaid with the history of his city.
It tells of his mother's discarded apartment where, as a boy, he studied, painted, read and chose, perhaps in innocence, to make his way as a writer. There was a girl who posed for him in that studio, a model quite beautiful we may imagine, preserved in memory for this enchanting story.
In 83 chapters, a privileged Istanbul resident named Kemal tells of his obsession with Fusun, a beautiful shopgirl.
The story of this ill-fated passion is preceded by a map of the city. Pamuk's earlier readers may recall the broad sweep of the Bosporus, the mosques and market streets, the Pamuk Apartments in Nisantasi, from his historical and autobiographical book of wonders, "Istanbul: Memories and the City."
Kemal renders all views -- the abandoned apartment of his transporting sexual encounters with Fusun, the years of twisting his life out of shape to honor his enduring passion.
He writes from Istanbul, not America where he studied, not Paris where upper-crust Turks were acquiring their gloss of "free and modern."
The city is on exhibit: the romantic touch of decaying wooden houses, the sturdy apartments of the nouveaux riches, postcard views of the shimmering Golden Horn and a Frenchified restaurant once in favor. Kemal often reminds us that he writes from memory.
The lovers meet in the Merhamet Apartments, in a flat abandoned by his mother. He dates his first clandestine meetings with Fusun to the spring of 1975. Or was it earlier, a family outing? (Fusun is a distant cousin.) He understands documentation as a serious pursuit in his life-absorbing love affair, "having become -- with the passage of time -- the anthropologist of my own experience."
At that time Pamuk's fledgling curator was to marry the lovely Sibel, a fashionable young woman with enlightened views, so enlightened she had gone the limit with Kemal. Virginity becomes a leitmotif -- who will not break the code of no sex before marriage, honored in Turkey back then.
There's not much plot to "The Museum of Innocence;" and why should there be, if the artist is free? Still, Pamuk comes up with a cinematic ending, easy and swift as though churned out in a Turkish B-movie.
But if, as Kemal recommends early in the novel, I turn to "Happiness," the last chapter, I discover how he sought "the esteemed Orhan Pamuk, who has narrated the story in my name, and with my approval."
On the last page, Pamuk reveals the dates of composition: 2001-2, 2003-8. The hiatus may be explained by the fact that in 2003 he published "Istanbul" an autobiography overlaid with the history of his city.
It tells of his mother's discarded apartment where, as a boy, he studied, painted, read and chose, perhaps in innocence, to make his way as a writer. There was a girl who posed for him in that studio, a model quite beautiful we may imagine, preserved in memory for this enchanting story.
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