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Read My Name Is Red (2002)

My Name is Red (2002)

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3.81 of 5 Votes: 5
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ISBN
0375706852 (ISBN13: 9780375706851)
Language
English
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vintage

My Name Is Red (2002) - Plot & Excerpts

تحذير لا بد منه: انتبه عند قراءتك هذه الرواية لئلا يخزّك مخرز أورهان فتعمى بصيرتك."فاحذروا كل الحذر من الوثوق في "أورهان" لأنه ليس ثمة كذبة لا يقدم عليها لتكون حكايته جميلة وصادقة "ضحكت وأنا أبدأ مراجعتي من آخر فقرة في الرواية...ربما لأن هذا فعلا ما أحسست به وأنا أنهيها...حيرتني هذه الرواية في رد فعلي تجاهها...وحيرتني عند تقييمهاإنها كالروح الخفية التي تنسل لروحك...تتلبسك...تنقاد لها دون أن تشعر...تسلمها كل إحساسك...تحبها وتكرهها بنفس القوة في نفس الوقتمن أين جاء أورهان بتلك الفكرة الرهيبة...وكيف عجن حروف روايته بتلك الطريقة؟؟ومن أين استقى أسلوبه البارع في تلوين شخوص روايته وأحاديثهم؟؟...فعند أورهان للمشاعر ألوان!!!0قلت في نفسي للحظات ربما تلبستني بعض أرواح رسوماته المجردة التي ما فتئ يصفها...وربما أرواح شخوصه التي خلطت الحابل بالنابل والخير بالشروصدمتي الكبرى كانت في خاتمة الرواية...اشمأزت نفسي من وصفه لحادثة القتل وتزيينها بأسلوبه البارع وكأنك لا تشاهد عنفا صوّره أورهان فأبدع...وفي النهاية كما يقول أورهان: "كل شيء على ما يرام مثل حديقة ورد"...ربما هي حديقة ورد لا تخلو من أشواك سامة قد تقتلك وأنت مستمتع بالنظر لجمال تلك الوردةأنت مع أورهان في عالم مختلف تماما عمّا يمكن لخيالك أن يصل إليه...إنها فعلا رواية غير عادية...كما أنه لن يكتب مثلها كل يوم، فإنك لن تقرأ مثلها كل يوم!!!0أورهان بلغ أقصى حدود الجهد وهو يستقصي في التاريخ ويرتب الأحداث، وبالتأكيد ينقل من خلالها الكثير الكثير من الأفكار التي يؤمن بها، والتي ستتساءل عن مدى صحتها وصوابها في كل صفحة...أو تستسلم له فيقودك لما يرغب به ولكن دون أن تشعر بأنه يقحم الفكرة في عقلك إقحامايجذبك للرواية أولا اسمها الاستثنائي، ومشهدها الافتتاحي الروائي الأول بحادثة القتل والتي تشدك حتى النهاية.تدور أحداث الرواية في زمن العثمانيين في تركيا، في مجتمع النقاشين ممن يتقنون فن النقش والرسم على الكتب، والمدارس المتنوعة في هذا المجال، والصراع الذي يسوده...وكمّ هائل من المعلومات التاريخية والأدبية والثقافية عن النقش والنقاشين في ذلك الزمان...وهو كمّ غائب عن وعي الأغلبية، لا نكاد نستبين منه إلا القليل القليل.فمن ناحية فنية ركز أورهان على فن النقش وزخرفة الكتب، من حيث الأسلوب والتوقيع والزمن، والنقاش الخاص والعادي...وخاض في حيرة النقاشين وهم يطعمون نقشهم بأساليب الغرب في رسمهم، فيبتعدون عن الضوابط الإسلامية...وكتاب يتم إعداده من أجل السلطان بشروط محددة وبسرية تامة...واللون الأحمر الذي استمدت منه الرواية اسمها وهو اللون الغالب في النقشولكن الرواية لم تقتصر على الجانب الفني...برأيي كان هناك اتساق بين الكم الهائل من المعلومات والتفاصيل وكمّ هائل من الأفكار والرؤى يسير بمحاذاتها... فقد تكلم عن الموت و الشيطان والعشق والجمال وصراع الحضارات وكل ذلك من زاوية الرسم.مبهرٌ أسلوب باموق في جعل السرد يتناوب على لسان شخوصه والبعض منهم ليسوا بشرا، فقد جاء السرد على لسان الكلب والشيطان والنقود والشجرة والموت والحصان وحتى اللون الأحمر...يبث فيها الحياة، حتى تكاد تراها ناطقة أمامك بكل براعة...بل وتملك فلسفتها الخاصة العجيبةوببادئة ملفتة...اسمي...أو...أنا...مثل "اسمي قرة"...أو "أنا أورهان"...مما يجعلنا ننفذ إلى دواخل تلك الشخوص ونسبر أغوار نفسياتها...ونحيا بتفكيرها...ونتعاطف معها...ونلمح التفاعلات بينها...وما استوطنها من تناقضات ما بين الطيبة والورع، وبين الغيرة والحسد لدرجة القتل...بين المعنى ونقيضه، بعيدا عن التسطيح المنمط الذي يَسِم الشخوص بلون واحد...أبيض أو أسودقُرة وشكورة وحكاية حب لم تكتمل...إستر ورسائل العاشقين...ظريف أفندي بورعه وطيبته وحكاية قتله...لقلق وزيتون وفراشة الشخصيات الأجمل في الرواية والحيرة التي أوقعنا فيها أورهان ونحن نفتش عن الدليل على القاتل بينهم...أستاذ عثمان وفلسفته الغريبة عن العمى ودلالته على مهارة النقاش (العمى بداية مهرجان سعادة باعتباره الهم الأزلي للنقاش العظيم وإرادته السرية) كلها شخصيات سترسخ بذاكرتك ولن تنساها لفترة طويلةوالرواية فعلا كمخرز يترك علاماته -وإن لم تكن مرئية بوضوح-في الذاكرة وفي رؤيتك للأشياء من حولك وفي إيمانك وإدراكك للصالح والطالح والخير والشررافقني "جوجل" وأطلعني على الكثير من المفاهيم والصور التي تتعلق بالرواية...سفرنامة...قيافة نامة...بهزاد ورسومه الخالدة...خسرو وشيرين والشاعر نظامي...محمد الأصفهاني...وغيرها الكثير.ولم تعجبني المشاهد الجنسية والكثير من الألفاظ الخادشة والتي ألقي بجزء من لومي على المترجم بسببها...أظنه بذل جهدا كبيرا ومع ذلك كان بإمكانه أفضل مما كان...فقد أزعجتني الترجمة في بعض المواطن...من الرواية:- الرسم هُو تزهير الحكاية بالألوان. لا أحد يستطيع التفكير برسم دون حكاية.- إذا كان نقش وجه حبيبتكم يعيش داخلكم في قلبكم، سيبقى الدنيا بيتكم.- عمى الصمت. إذا دمجت ما قلته أولاً وثانياً يظهر لك العمى. إنه أعمق ما في النقش. في العمى الذي فرضه الله رؤية للواضح.- ثمّة لحظات تمُر في حياتنا جميعاً نُدرك عند حدوثها أننا سنقضي فترة طويلة جداً دون أن ننساها.

At first look, Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red bears many resemblances to Umberto Eco’s The Name of the Rose: both take place in a period when manuscript illumination was a prestigious art, both deal in worlds where the licitness of books commanded great spiritual (and thus physical) importance, and both tell the story of a series of murders born out of the struggle for control of these things. Deeper consideration, though, shows that these two novels differ by more than the fact that the former in set in 16th century Istanbul, and the latter in 14th century Italy. Whereas Eco’s book centers on a group of clerics wrestling amongst each other (albeit in ways that represent much broader power struggles) over issues of faith, My Name is Red centers on secular artists, and though religion forms a thick blue vein through the story, Pamuk’s book is, before anything else, about art. In fact, to be even more precise, it is about perspective.First, we have the historical context of the events of the story, where the Ottoman Empire was in frequent contact and competition with various European powers, notably Venice. This fraught contact led to the tentative exchange of ideas, in artistic techniques, for example. Thus, we come upon a major conflict in the background of this story: the arrival of European perspectival techniques in painting. Perspective in the visual arts brought with it a deep problematic in a Muslim society at that time, as the Koran sets clear limits on the righteousness of visual representation. So, in this sense, we have another approach to perspective, that of competing interpretations of what constitutes righteousness and the righteous life. For Ottomans in the period in question, the official interpretation of the Koran and its religious authority were seated firmly with the Sultan. Pamuk’s story also introduces other perspectives, though, like that of Husret Hoja, a radical cleric who preaches an ascetic interpretation of the Koran, forbidding dancing, music, the drinking of coffee, and other “sinful” indulgences. His fanatic and violent followers reverberate with current fears of fundamentalist extremism of all stripes. Alongside the official, one might say moderate, interpretation and the extremist one, we have the many middling positions inhabited by the vast majority of the characters in the story: those who oscillate between secular and religious poles for reasons of fear, faith, and fastidiousness, among others. Perhaps the most clear sense in which this story is about perspective, though, is in how it is told: while the novel is written in the first person, each of the fifty-nine chapters is narrated by a different character, and while the main characters reprise their roles as narrator many times, we still have twenty (by my count) different perspectives on what transpires in the story. And the point of view shifts radically, ranging from the perspective of a master illuminator, to a dog, to a corpse speaking from beyond the grave. None of these narrators are to be considered wholly reliable, each one addressing the reader more or less directly, often with the aim of persuading us. Much of that persuasion is related to guilt or innocence, as this is a story centered on murder, but that theme doesn’t exhaust the ways in which the various characters try to win us to their standpoint. They argue for art, religion, common decency, and many other reasons. Part of what makes this book masterful is that each voice is distinct and (mostly) consistent. The few moments where it becomes difficult to distinguish the voices of certain characters are, you discover later, purposeful and functional. Let it be said: this is a superb book. It combines art, religion, and murder through a cunning weave of voices. No character is faultless, though many are deeply sympathetic, even in their faults. Where perhaps, at times, the story gets a little long-winded, especially in the exhaustive catalogues of paintings that characters marvel over, the expansive quality of the text makes for a good effect when Pamuk gets to the dirty business of violence and action; in a sense, the action is earned. For anyone interested in the period and culture of the middle Ottoman Empire, the text is fascinating and, without question, learned without being too overbearing in its smartness. Even in his great learning, Pamuk knows how to tell a story (to the point that it even becomes a joke in the text itself), even a murder mystery. I, for one, was never sure of the identity of the murderer before it was revealed, and this works well as a mechanism to keep the reader firmly invested in the narrative. Whodunnit?! Pamuk dunnit and dunnit well. That last sentence was hard to write, both because of the annoying spelling, but also because I struggle to grant respect to Pamuk the man. I’ve had an aversion to him since I read his Nobel Prize acceptance speech; I reacted strongly against his ideas of what art is, who gets to make it, and what place he inhabits in that scheme. I also hated how he wrote about his father. But, I have had to soften my distaste and separate the man from the work. While I might still disagree with his personal views on art and writing, I cannot dispute his mastery, and this at least makes it a bit easier to grant him pardon on those personal views: he is so good that it is not a surprise that he feels as he does about the act of creation. And though I am beginning to think he cannot write a woman character (chapter fifty-four, “I Am a Woman,” may be the most revealing testament to that, intentional or not), Pamuk has shown me that despite controversy, the Nobel committee often selects very, very well. My growing love of Mario Vargas Llosa also adds to this sentiment of mine, but we’ll see how it progresses. In any case, I recommend this book to anyone who has liked The Name of the Rose, even if I’ve already gone to lengths to show how the two books differ. Anyone interested should also not be scared off by the 666 pages: call him a devil, but if you commit yourself to the first four chapters, you’ll find yourself devoted to the rest of Pamuk’s tale. Besides, the pages turn easily; I found myself effortlessly reading one hundred pages in a sitting. If you’re still not certain, and if you haven’t already, try some of his other books first: Snow and Istanbul are both recommended. He still pisses me off, this Orhan Pamuk, but perhaps that is partly motivated by raw envy. In considering that, I realize that with My Name is Red, he has certainly taught me something, and that is his gift to give.

What do You think about My Name Is Red (2002)?

I've spent quite a bit of time debating how to rate this book- more than once it nearly landed on my "May I please have these hours of my life back" shelf, mostly because it moves so, so slowly and because (for me) the detail that Pamuk puts into it turns into nothing more than tedium.However, parts of the story are so beautiful and well-written (see the chapters written from the perspective of the color red or the horse in the painting) that I don't feel that my time was entirely wasted.Why this book was difficult for me:-The book moves incredibly slowly; as best I was able to calculate, all 400+ pages of "action" occur in approximately one week. -I found it absolutely impossible to connect with the characters at an emotional level. Esther, who is a bit player, was the one I found most interesting and would really enjoy learning more about.-Did I mention that it's really, really slow-moving? Like molasses. In winter.Why this book was wonderful:-Pamuk's writing is lyrical, as it always is.-The cultural tension of being Turkish and the implications of the Eastern and Western influences; this was something that going to Turkey gave me a much greater appreciation for.Would I re-read it? Hell no. Should this be your introduction to Pamuk? Again, Hell no. Start with Snow. Or Istanbul. Anything but this. Is it worth reading? If you can tolerate the inertia, absolutely!
—Amalia

Generally, when a book starts out with a chapter entitled "I Am A Corpse," you know it's going to be pretty good. The novel is set up so that each chapter introduces a different narrator, including (but not limited to), Black, Black's uncle, Shekure, a dog, a horse, the murderer and various artists in the workshop. This type of structure for a mystery novel isn't new--Wilkie Collins, for example, employed it several times, most notably in The Moonstone--and it is an effective way to structure a story so as to hide the whodunit. Each character only tells as much as he, she or it knows and in Pamuk's novel even the murderer hides his or her identity.The structure in "My Name Is Red," though is less designed to sustain suspense and more to allow room for the various philosophical discussions concerning the purpose of art and, perhaps more importantly, the distinctions between Islamic states and Western Europe. The Frankish mode of painting, particularly of portraiture--to glorify the subject, to paint him or her in terms of his/her earthly wealth and power, to distribute such an image openly as a show of control, to demonstrate the creative abilities of the artist--is at the center of these debates and discussions. Black's uncle finds such images alluring and fascinating while others see them as abhorent. Master Osman, for example, sees himself as being forced to choose between the centuries old Islamic traditions he venerates and the more modern and distinctly foreign style he despises. Such a choice is not made easily, as the artists themselves discover. The Frankish method celebrates the individuation of the artist--it prizes the signature of the artist as much as the commissioner of the image. This reverence for the artist, as much as for the piece of art, proves to be a great temptation to the men involved and leads directly to the murder.The structure, however, also allows for a second discussion, not about art but about writing on art. As much as this is a novel concerning visual images, it is also a novel about ekphrasis--the verbal description of art. Ekphrasis has the effect of slowing down a narrative, of interrupting it. Thus, in Homer's Illiad, the great battle scene is suddenly punctured by a lengthy description of Achilles' shield. Pamuk plays with this model repeatedly. When the image of the horse, described several times in the novel, is given a voice of its own the narrative is not interrupted, but rather the description of the image becomes the narrative. And, moreover, as the image speaks it refutes the fundamental principles underlying Master Osman's devotion to Islamic traditions of art. Pamuk can hardly resist the joke--this is a novel about art in which not a single image appears, except the map at the beginning and the ones we create in our minds as we imagine the images described. But, are we creating an image of the ideal horse, the horse of God, or one we can actually touch, taste, and smell?
—Darcy

My fickle heart longs for the West when I'm in the East and for the East when I'm in the West.My other parts insist I be a woman when I'm a man and a man when I'm a woman.How difficult it is being human, even worse is living a human's life.I only want to amuse myself frontside and backside, to be Eastern and Western both.This is Pamuk's enduring, never ending obsession. He's written fiction and non-fiction, journal articles and newspaper bites, and given endless interviews on this theme. He's even been thrown in jail and put on trial for the identity he has chosen. He's won the Nobel Prize in Literature for his commitment to expressing his deeply divided mind and spirit, and that (at least he and many others believe) of his country- Turkey. (I apologize in advance if this ends up being something of a ramble through the literary bramble, but I can only say that that would mirror the experience of reading this book.) My Name is Red will tell you that it is a murder mystery, set in 16th century Istanbul, under the rule of the Sultan. But it will also tell you that it is about many other things, each of which changes, ephermerally, by the moment. The atmosphere of the story digs a little bit into Garcia-Marquez's garden, but storytelling would never be mistaken for his. Each chapter is told by a different voice- some of which are plausible members of a storytelling round, and some of which would really only belong in that category if you were on acid, but they all seem about equally credible, due to the fact that nobody is really credible, so one might as well be fiction or myth as fact. (For instance, we hear from the voices of the drawing of a horse, the fake voice of a woman who is actually a man, a gold piece and the color red.) It is ethereal, elusive, and there isn't one incarnation of the mind that can be trusted here. Don't fall into the trap of assuming that what you read has anything to do with anything other than the particular pyschology of the moment- Pamuk is a master of depicting the every day track of a mind, and how unreliable each feeling of a moment is- how everything important is changed by the fact that one just happens to feel hungry at a particular moment, or desperately horny at another. It is an absolute masterwork of insight on the psychology of a particular people at a particular time, and all the various reasons why they are that way, and yet he is able to make them as relatable as possible through it all. What struck me the most throughout the entire book was how terrified, it seemed, that Pamuk was of missing something. While other authors might be striving to become masters of literature, masters of form, I think Pamuk wished that he could be nothing so much as a master of tapestry-making. I think he would die happy if he could have given this book to the theoretical Weaver in the sky and gotten it back as a divine scrap of worked fabric. There are lists upon lists upon lists of endless things that go on for pages, only to stop and start up once again. As a part of his contradictory feelings towards the West, in a culture whose stories and traditions often originated in the East... although he longs for the West, he's terrified, just as his characters are, that everything they know from the East will disappear. It seems like he can't stop himself- there's some sort of driving fear if he doesn't list everything about history and culture and myth, and repeat all the stories again and again to make sure we remember what they are, it will be gone forever. His expression of ambivalence towards Western culture perfectly expresses the mindset of illuminators in 16th century Istanbul terrified that their entire lives are about to become irrelevant.The other absorbing, fascinating, and horrifying thing was how well Pamuk illustrates the idea that absolutely nobody speaks with their own voice, both through his painters, constrained by centuries of adherance to a perfect style that some random master brought out of Baghdad that depicts the "perspective of Allah." It is considered heresy and a fault to have a "style", and "signatures" are furitively hidden away as much as possible- the idea that blindness is the ideal to be obtained for these artists is just heartbreaking- at least to someone coming at it from a Western perspective, where seeing painters deliberately rob themselves of their sight, their most precious commodity, over and over again, in the course of obtaining a meaningless idea of perfection that is not their own. The murderer throughout this book strives endlessly to hide himself by speaking in a voice that does not at all resemble how we see him in other places. The majority of people who are speaking a themselves tell stories in order to express their feelings- in fact at the beginning all the suspected illuminators speak almost entirely in story form in order to answer any important question on any philosophical, religious, or even personal topic. Expressing one's feelings just isn't done. One doesn't go up to the pretty boy one would like to fuck and tell him so, one tells him a parable about a gorgeous boy in order to show your admiration for him. Much as the pictures are seen as the "perspective of Allah," it seems that there is only one way to speak, too, in the "words of Allah," or those stories which are sanctioned by the authorities as legitimate- the authority of Allah on earth. It was the ultimate tragedy of the book from the Western perspective, and the ultimate triumph of the book from the accepted ides of the time, all of these de-individualized people (as much as can be done or denied or pushed from sight) striving towards the goal of seeing as Allah does, ever in the correct way.But everyone recognizes the end of the "Eastern" way of life coming from the West, in the guise of the "Venetian" ways that everyone will want to slavishly follow in the future, ways which reactionary preachers and religious people are protesting against before they've even made serious headway, trying to keep their way of life "pure." But the rest of the book poitns out again and again that there is no way that the culture of the Ottoman Empire was pure in any way- no constantly conquering culture with a large army and a long reach could ever be. No autocratic society that entailed artisans, craftsman and soldiers to pick up and serve someone else once their lord was defeated (if they weren't killed out right) could develop in isolation without any influence from the outside. He shows globalization already happening, back in the 16th century, and how deep the effects penetrate then and now.I loved his Istanbul for his brilliant evocation of identity, living with a burdensome past and an uncertain future, for its poetry and its memory. My Name is Red accomplishes much the same thing, with more magic- but just enough dirt to bring it right straight home where it belongs in 2009.
—Kelly

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