Chapters 8-14

Chapters 8-14

I’ll just hit some highlights from certain chapters first. Then try to hit a major theme or three as clean up. This is hastily done… so it is longer that it should be and a bit sloppy… But oh, well. My apologies.

Ch. 8

The myth surrounding Blue is really wonderful. The way that the narrator—who is still unknown—tells it and then the way he questions it is nice. The way that he explains Blue’s own attitude towards his myth is interesting for me as well. He tried to neither confirm or deny anything so as to let the myth have a life of its own. This results in people taking what they want to believe as true in order to support their opinions about blue—if they like him they believe what they think is good, if the don’t like him they believe the parts that they think are bad.

I think this says a lot about public opinion and personality cults. It admits that interpretation and belief are more important than fact when it comes to the life and stories of public figures. I think that some American politicians (and political advisors) already know this all too well. I hope that the public starts to learn it. There are no real truths about public figures, it is all belief and interpretation. Oh, wait I kind of pinched that from someone didn’t I…

Related to that, we also see in this chapter how some people tend towards conspiracy interpretations of happenings. The suicides, it is suggested, are staged by the secularists to make the Islamists look bad. That is clever and not so far from what some people are actually saying in Turkey these days. Ex:

Hrant Dink, a writer and outspoken advocate for Armenians and Armenian causes in Turkey, was killed a few months ago. He was killed by a suspected nationalist who was upset with his views on the genocide among other things. However, some nationalists are saying that he was put up to it by the CIA in order to inflame tensions between the nationalist, Islamists and secularists. They say that by having Dink killed, and blaming it on the Nationalists, or Islamists it would cause problems which would lead to instability and evidence for the west to use when they argue against Turkey entering the EU. Others seem to think that it was a secularists conspiracy to make the nationalists mad so they would do something even more outrageous.

So it is not so far from reality to say that people are creating and believing these seemingly far fetched conspiracy theories.

I like how Ka is told to get up and leave when the conversation is over, not to linger. That is very amusing considering that it is actually Blue (and everyone else) that disappear first. What does that say about Blue and Ka’s meeting? Did Ka get the better of Blue, did he puzzle him? Or was Blue simply disappointed with Ka and give up on him? We will have to wait and see what happens if the meet again, or of Blue speaks or writes of Ka later.

Ka seems to be very naïve again when he says that ‘no one can be happy about getting a beating’ on page 74. (By the way AJ, I think we have books with different pagination.) That is a very Western (and I would say weak) way of thinking.

I do love what Blue has to say about his experience in Germany: that he realized that the westerners don’t belittle them but they belittle themselves by imagining what the westerners must be thinking. (This on page 73, or one page before Ka’s comment about beatings.) This ties in well with Blue’s ‘moral’ about the story he tells. The west has colonized the society and minds of the Turks so that even when they don’t westernize or believe in western things they can imagine how the westerns see and criticize them for resisting, for remaining ‘primitive.’ I think this is an important part or aspect of the tension between the west and the Muslim world—or the non-western world in general.

The comment that Blue leaves Ka with is brilliant: that the rest of the world has fallen under the spell of the west and has forsaken their own stories for the west’s. I think this is very true, and very sad. ‘Is that story worth killing for?’ It is a shame that that question even has to be asked.

Ch. 11

A lot happens in Ka’s mind (and soul) as he talks to the Sheikh. Much could be said but two things stick out for me.

First is the comment about modernizing and how that seems to be held up by religion. On page 96:

“’I’ve always wanted this country to prosper, to modernize… I’ve wanted freedom for its people,’ Ka said. ‘But it seemed to me that our religion was always against all this. Maybe I’m mistaken’… ‘I wanted to be like Europeans. I couldn’t see how I could reconcile my becoming European with a God who required women to wrap themselves in scarves, so I kept religion out of my life.’”

This of course leads to the Sheikh asking if they have a different God in Europe. That is a key point for me. I am a bit disappointed how it is brushed aside a bit in the rest of this chapter and hope it comes back later. This for me is a question of faith and revelation being put in contract with culture; more precisely the difficult question of where the line of enculturation is drawn.

What is the essence or kernel of the revelation, truth or belief and what are the cultural trappings that can be stripped away or modified? The question of Jesus’ gender seems to be a great example of this. Is it important that Jesus was male in some absolute sense? Or was it simply what had to happen given the time and place that he had to work in? I would love to debate this one… But that is another tangent.

I think issues like head scarves should be analyzed in terms of that distinction. And the question about having a different God in Europe or being western and still being a Muslim hinges on where you draw the line of enculturation. That is of course not an easy question to answer…

The second thing is the way that the Sheikh really seems to manipulate Ka, or tires. He tells him on one page that God understands his solitude. In the same breath he says that if Ka understood that he wouldn’t feel so alone. Then on the next page he implies that Ka’s solitude is really the result of pride and reminds him that the devil was cast of heaven because of his pride. This is clever, tricky and it sticks in my mind.

Ch. 13

Kadife’s proclamation that she will not discuss her faith with and atheist, or a secularist is both admirable and challenging. It is admirable because she seems to be admitting that there is no point because they will just not understand, that there is a fundamental disconnect between her and them. At the same time it is challenging and even scary because it may be that only a dialogue like that can bring about a respect that can lead to tolerance.

Hande is a very interesting character. I hope to hear more from her. It seems that she is scared of something because she knows that she will be obsessed with it, so she drives it completely away. There may be a wisdom in that…

Ch. 14
There is a lot here but one things sticks out… and I can’t even say much about it. I just need to quite it:

“Solitude is essentially a matter of pride; you bury yourself in you own scent. The issue is the same for al real poets. If you’ve been happy too long, you become banal. By the same token, if you’ve been unhappy for a long time, you lose your poetic powers…. Happiness and poetry can only coexist for the briefest time.” (Ka, p 127)

This sounds so true, but it is also a bit difficult to accept….

The analysis of Ipek’s father in this chapter is also quite good.

Themes:

1)

Ka and Kafka’s K. Might there be a connection between these two characters? K is tossed and turned beyond his will in The Trial. Ka lets himself be lead and pushed.

2)

Imposition of their own faith systems on others in such a way that tells the others what they really believed. This really seems to start in Ch. 8 in the discussion about suicide and atheism. Because no one with faith would ever commit that sin people who do must really have been atheists all along.

This is hit again very hard in the next chapter, ch. 9, when Ka talks with Necip and his friends. And it comes up again from Necip when he tells Ka about his science fiction novel.

Ipek does this a bit, but not as forcefully or deeply, with Ka at the end of Ch. 10 when he is about to leave to see the Sheikh. She is telling him that he is unhappy and needs to find solace. Her recommendation seems to be that he needs to find religion.

It comes back again in other places, in smaller ways and I have a feeling that it will be a reoccurring theme throughout the book from here on out.

Returning to Freud: it seems that Freud insisting that only the analyst can uncover the things that your unconscious is making you do, and why, is a bit like this. And I don’t buy it in either case. It seems a bit too much like some of the crazy Protestant ideas about salvation and outward signs that one in saved…. But that is a tangent that I will cut off and set aside. It is available upon request.

Really, I think this is a good thing for Pamuk to stress here because it is realistic and common. I think people do this sort of thing quite often, especially when it comes to religion; they place their framework of meaning/belief onto others and project ideas, beliefs, etc. on to them.