The Museum of Innocence, Orhan Pamuk (August Reading Recap)

Posted on by Josh Nudell

For reasons that included a trip to Utah and a whole lot of academic stuff that needed to happen before the start of the semester (even being on fellowship this year), I only read one book in August, Orhan Pamuk’s 2008 novel, The Museum of Innocence. Pamuk’s books also take a while to read because they defy being read quickly, at least for me. I need to be in a place and time that I can be sucked in.

Kemal Bey is the scion of upper crust of the Istanbul bourgeoisie and in a good place in 1975. He is thirty, manages his father’s business, and is about to be engaged to Sibel, his “steady” girlfriend. The way that Kemal tells it, the “steady” is important because it is the only way to be sexually active before marriage without frequenting prostitutes, despite that Sibel and her friends aspire to be liberated western women. The engagement party is going to be the event of the year where anybody who is anybody will be there and most of the black market western booze in the city will be served. But the reader knows that this happy, ho-hum existence cannot last, since, in the very first paragraph of The Museum of Innocence, Kemal declares that a sexual encounter with Füsun was the happiest moment of his life.

At first Kemal is what passes for normal. He has his important and beautiful girlfriend, his company, and his life. Then, while in a shop, he runs into Füsun, a distant relative who he hasn’t seen in years. She is eighteen and studying for her exams, so Kemal, inflamed by what he calls love, but that I would describe as lust, offers to tutor her. Naturally, their tutoring sessions mostly involve sex, and Kemal’s life continues with only minor interruption. When this routine is broken and Füsun disappears, Kemal’s life falls apart, becoming estranged from his fiancee, his friends, his business partners, and eventually his family. His only obsession is finding her. When he does finally find her, Füsun is married and still living with her family, and Kemal worms his way into their life. The process takes eight years and only at the end is there any prospect of payoff. Along this journey Kemal begins to collect items associated with Füsun and uses them as a surrogate for being near to her. These objects form the seeds of the collection of the eponymous museum, which opened in 2012.

This is the barest outline of the story and it feels inadequate. I excluded entire plot points, such as the profound changes wrought by deaths in the family, that Füsun was molested as a child, the founding of a movie studio, details of Füsun’s (probably happy) marriage, and Kemal’s teaching Füsun how to drive. The story may be divided into five phases, the initial lust, madness of loss, patience, love, and remembrance, each from the point of view of Kemal, though, as is often the case with Pamuk’s work, the narrator is not necessarily the narrator.

Early in the reading of The Museum of Innocence I hated Kemal, liked Füsun ( who is mature beyond her years), and loved the fiancee Sibel, and was bemused that Pamuk would offer this shallow man who seemed determined to throw away his happy life because he lusted after a beautiful eighteen year old woman as his protagonist. His love, he maintains, inflamed him and was inescapable, but it is petty, jealous, and more interested in possessing her physically than anything else. Over the course of years, though, that seems to change, still lusting, but also developing into something deeper and more sincere, at least in how he narrates the story. Ironically, Füsun doesn’t ever seem to appreciate the change, while her mother seems to have seen the love from the outset. This whirlwind of perspectives even while having a single narrator is something I associate with Pamuk’s writing and was particularly true in The Museum of Innocence as the reader gets selective entree into the other viewpoints and for large swathes of the story characters who were likely present simply disappear from the retelling as the narrator obsesses over his out-of-reach object. For instance, Kemal says that he thinks that Füsun’s marriage was happy sexually in its early years, but, while narrating those years, her husband is a non-entity, being written out by Kemal who would rather not think about that.

The facet of the story that I found most moving was the underlying premise that everybody wants something and, frequently, that desired object is out of reach. The most blatant is Kemal’s pursuit of Füsun, but Sibel wants a “normal” marriage, Füsun wants to be an actress, Kemal’s mother wants her son not to embarrass the family, his father wants him to be happy (and many more). Everybody wants something and each of these desires is at least deferred. Kemal manages to reach a point of acceptance, others are less fortunate.

I really liked Museum of Innocence and want to talk at greater length about Pamuk’s oeuvre, probably after I finish reading my current book, his novel The New Life (and possibly one other). Something that hit me about the novels is that, even though they are not a series, Pamuk has populated Istanbul with characters that continually crop up in different ways in different stories, which has a way of enriching the stories in small ways because the the streets, the shops, the stories, and the newspaper columns are familiar. These are not merely easter eggs for the astute reader, but compose the fabric of the story.

Memories in a City [1]

Posted on by Josh Nudell

One of the few mass email lists I have not unsubscribed from is from Lonely Planet, the travel company. I started getting an email newsletter when I used several of their guides to travel around Greece and Istanbul. I now keep the newsletter because there are occasionally interesting articles about places I wish to someday see. In short, there is enough of a return for me to bother with deleting the ones I don’t care about or don’t have time for.

This past week the headline story was Five reasons to wake at dawn as a traveller. Each of the five reasons featured a different location and explained why going there first thing in the morning is so much better than going there at any other time of day. I agree with the reasoning in the article and my favorite thing to do (if possible) is to be awake and doing the “tourist” things early in the morning so that the afternoons and evenings can largely be spent just enjoying the place, whether that is people watching, dining in a cafe, or learning how to play backgammon from a local person with whom you hardly share a language. [2]

The fifth item on the list is the reason for this entry. Lonely Planet suggests being awake for the early morning call to prayer at Fes, Morocco, preferably from a rooftop in the city. I have never been to Fes, or anywhere else in Morocco, but I was awake for the early morning call to prayer in Istanbul the first morning I was there. Quite by accident, too. I had actually meant to sleep in the airport and catch a train into town early in the morning, but I ended up going into the city with a family I met in Amsterdam and walking around the city at around one in the morning before sleeping just outside the Blue Mosque. So I was awake for the call to prayer blaring from speakers on the minaret directly overhead. I was already awake and writing at the time, seated on the same spot where I slept. Lonely Planet was right, it was a cool experience. [3] And already being awake means that you can beat the travel crowds. That trip was this time three years ago.

[1] The title is, of course, an homage to Orhan Pamuk’s memoir Istanbul.
[2] In this case the guy was the night man at the hostel. He got frustrated when I beat him with his help in the first game and mad when I beat him mostly without his help in the second. He was really nice and I liked him a lot.
[3] I also thought it was neat to sleep outside in a foreign country in 2010. Modern comforts are nice, but there is something exciting about getting to experience something like the time of P.L. Fermor while traveling. Next time I want to bring a tent and do more camping.

Assorted LInks

Posted on by Josh Nudell
  1. Naftali Bennett and Israel’s Rightward Shift– An article in the New Yorker that traces a rightward shift in Israel’s political alignment that includes both jettisoning moderate members of Likud and an uptick in membership of far-right parties that are likely to take the third most seats in the upcoming election if they don’t come in second outright. Naftali Bennett is the head of the party profiled; he, and others like him, are campaigning on a platform that opposes the peace process and also opposes the current security measures as being wasteful and inefficient–in a way that conquering greater Israel would not be. Moreover, at least some of the members of this party favor the construction of the third temple, expunging the Israeli democracy, and, quite in contrast to earlier generations of zionists, support a fundamentally religious zionism.
  2. Neolithic Remains Unearthed in Istanbul– While constructing a rail line on the Asian side of the Bosporus (because all manner of nifty things surface during rail construction), remains from a neolithic village have been discovered. Among the preliminary finds, researchers have been able to determine that the inhabitants ate a significant amount of sea food. Byzantine structures have also been found.
  3. France and West Pledge Support After Islamists Start Offensive in Mali– Ansar Dine began a sudden offensive into government held territory and as a result France has pledged to commit more military aid (advisors and supplies have already been in place). It is as of yet unclear, but France might be committing armed forces and there have been efforts to get an African-led military force into Mali. Part of the package, though, is that Mali must recommit to restoring its democratic-republican government in the entire country.
  4. France Claims Gains in Airstrikes Against Mali Islamists– As as follow up to the announcement that France would begin to use force, airstrikes have commenced and French troops from the UN mission in the Ivory Coast have entered the country. Despite hostages held by Ansar Dine, French President Hollande has reiterated that more French support troops are on their way and he is encouraging the UN to put together a West African peacekeeping force.
  5. Sweden Train Crash– A woman obtained keys to a train and crashed into a house. Here is a picture.

Assorted Links

Posted on by Josh Nudell
  1. Are You Smarter Than Your Grandfather– An article in the Smithsonian magazine that examines the rise in IQ scores over the last hundred years. The argument is largely that the environmental factors surrounding linguistic and scientific development of young people has led to a rise in IQ scores without necessarily an actual increase in “intelligence.”
  2. Istanbul’s Heritage: Under Attack– An article in the Economist about Istanbul’s world heritage status as there are plans for a suspension bridge across the Gold Horn that would obscure the skyline of the city and plans for a mosque in Taksim Square–facing the monument to Ataturk and the revolutionaries.
  3. Norwegian Fox Lured by Dying Rabbit App Steals PhoneA smartphone app summons foxes. When you leave the phone unattended, the fox will steal the phone…and evidently answer it when you call.
  4. Searching For Doggerland– A feature in National Geographic this month about relics and finds from Doggerland, the lowlying plains, once connecting Britain to Europe, but now covered by a shallow sea.
  5. Amherst College to launch the first open-access, digital academic press– A librarian at Amherst College is attempting to launch an all-digital, open access, peer reviewed academic press dedicated to the humanities. His stated purpose is to change the academic publishing industry in order to reduce costs and pressures on university libraries in tough fiscal times. Despite the limitations and hurdles to be cleared one school is taking action against the problems in academic publishing in the humanities. Hopefully the press will flourish–and that other like presses spring up elsewhere.
  6. A map…of every brothel, saloon, bar, and casino in the Levee District in Chicago from 1870-1905. Some of the highlights include “Satan’s Mile,” “Street of Whores,” and “W. 18th St. ( Wickedest Place in the USA)”

Assorted Links

Posted on by Josh Nudell
  1. A Critic’s Case for Critics Who Are Actually Critical-An op-ed in the New York Times that suggests that while nobody likes to be criticized, having these flaws is part of what it is to be human, and that real criticism is not petty putdowns, but thoughtful response.
  2. Ira Glass: By the BookAn interview in the Sunday Book Review with Ira Glass, the host of “This American Life.” He says that he would like to meet Edgar Allen Poe, but “I don’t have a question, but dude just seems like he could use a hug.”
  3. Siberian princess reveals her 2,500 year old tattoos-From the Siberian Times, an ancient mummy is being returned to the Altai Republic. Research and tests on her body reveal significant tattoos. There is a local movement to prevent further archeological digs in the area, particularly since the mound where this mummy was found is a sacred burial ground (though the ethnic group in antiquity is not at all related to the present inhabitants).
  4. Yemen: Days of Reckoning– A feature in National Geographic that examines the massive upheaval that is taking place in Yemen.
  5. Roman Frontiers-A feature in National Geographic that looks at the limes or boundaries of the Roman Empire. It charts a rather standard line on most of the issues here (except Hadrian’s beard), though the claims that the frontier strategy could not withstand a large, determined foe, is misleading since it seems that the Roman opponents around the time that the frontiers collapsed were actually weaker than Roman enemies of earlier times, but the Romans were proportionally even weaker. The article offers the Roman walls as a comparison to some of the wall-building today, but the lack of ability and lack of space for the author to actually grapple with the socio-political and economic causes for Roman decline makes the comparison superficial. There probably are comparisons to be drawn, but a deeper understanding and explanation of both the Roman frontiers and the modern situations (including intent, maintenance, and determination about keeping the walls impermeable) is needed before the comparison can really work.
  6. America’s Worst Historians-Via Jonathan Jones, a story in Salon about plagarism and the perpetuation of histories that lack rigorous standards, but are popular because of the ease of reading and catchy premises.
  7. Alcohol Apartheid: The New Turkish Laws that Segregate Drinkers– An article in the Atlantic about some new laws in Istanbul that seek to make certain neighborhoods in the city “dry,” thereby segregating drinkers to certain areas rather than tolerating a mixture of secular and religious groups (and tourists) that, in some ways, defines Istanbul.

    8. As always, comments encouraged. What else is out there?