Chapters 1-3

In the first two chapters I found two things that caught my attention. The first is the ‘other Orhan.’ The second is the sitting room museums. I don’t think that it is by accident that they connect to the two ideas that I said I was going to focus on.

The ‘other Ohran’ is interesting because it give an insight in to the strange sort of alienation that Pamuk seems to feel towards himself. This goes to the first of the two main things that I want to focus on while reading the book: Pamuk’s life. The other boy that sometimes brings him dread but at other times seems to be him as he daydreams, or a him he wants to escape to but is afraid to.

He also seems to distance himself from his own story, or himself, in other ways. He says: “I feel compelled to add or so I’ve been told. In Turkish we have a special tense that allows us to distinguish hearsay from what we’ve seen with our own eyes… Once imprinted in our minds, other people’s reports of what we’ve done end up mattering more than what we ourselves remember. And just as we learn about our loves from other, so too do we let others shape our understanding of the city in which we live…. I’d have written my entire story… as if my life was something that happened to someone else…” (Kindle 140-152)

In the second chapter Pamuk talks about the “sitting-room museums.” They are full of things that are never used but are there to be testament to the inhabitants embrace of Western culture (Chinese porcelains, teacups, silver sets, sugar bowls, snuffboxes, crystal glasses, rosewater ewers, etc.) and also the family roots (the photographs and portraits). He talks about how sitting in these museums can make some on who is not fasting during Ramadan feel less guilty. But he also acknowledge that aside from a vague liberation from Islam, the point of westernization is unclear: “Although everyone knew it as freedom from the laws of Islam, no one was quite sure what else westernization was good for.” (Kindle 176)

Though he says early on in the book that he has always been in Istanbul, or always gone back to it, (he writes this book in the penthouse apartment of the same building the story starts in). Maybe Pamuk's roots are in Istanbul but where are Istanbul's roots? Istanbul is supposed to be the place where East and West meet, and that is part of what draws me to this book.

In his novel Snow the two main characters (the narrator and the poet) both seem to be struggling with a homelessness in terms of both place and culture: caught between Eastern Turkey and Western Europe. I have the impression that Pamuk’s life is like that as well; I think I got that impression from his Nobel acceptance speech.

I see the sitting-room museums as a symbol and manifestation of this homelessness.

I also made note that it isn’t until the third chapter that he makes mention of non-western literature. But then it seems to be to mention stories told to him as a child—stories of Turkish and Persian origin. He seems much more surrounded by western stories and literature: comic books, Disney films, stories by Italo Calvino and Jules Vern.

Chapter 3 introduces us to hi ‘bibi.’ This whole thing makes me think of St. Agustine. I guess the following quote seems to fit with him in my mind: “I worried that I had done something wrong or, even worse, that I had done so for pleasure: It was then that they very idea of pleasure became poisoned.” This is interesting and an idea I want to follow through the book.