After he won that Nobel Prize.
Which is sort of encouraging, isn’t it? I mean, if I were him, I would make a nest of my laurels and not so much rest upon them as grow completely catatonic for the next decade or so. I guess it’s a good thing that the most famous living Turkish writer is not secretly a post-Soviet American lady who specializes in modern drama and screeching about judicial reform.
And as far as Pamuk’s work goes, I’m talking about “The Museum of Innocence,” of course. I’ve never known a book to be so delightfully geeky and yet sensual at the same time. Sensual geekdom – Pamuk has managed to achieve it. If I wore hats, I’d throw mine in the air.
As such, I just have a cool headband that I bought specifically for the festival in Istanbul that I want to advertise at this time:
Istanbul’s public transport in May. It was a happy time. It made me feel more mysterious than I actually am. It’s the same feeling I get when I read Pamuk – that whole notion that people are secretly complicated, and most rules of decorum were established to hide this fact.
Of course, “The Museum of Innocence” is a catalogue of ignorance first and foremost. The objects displayed in the museum are like stand-ins for character flaws: lack of self-awareness, stunted emotions, and so on. When you think you’re taking possession of love, what you really end up with, in the end, is flotsam.
Natalia A. 