Jan 19, 2016 08:01 PM
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In this enchanting story, the greatest Turkish novelist has employed such illustrious figures as Aristotle, Forster, Flaubert, Balzac, Dostoevsky, Proust, Naipaul in the telling of the story. He takes the back seat, featuring even as a character in the narrative, and lets the aforenamed pens write a story to remember. How, I'll tell you.
Before reading any of his novels, it's a good idea to read Pamuk's "The naive and the sentimental novelist", and I was fortunate enough to do that. Once one has read that, one can see those influences at work almost organically in his books. What shines, more than anything else, is the enviable intelligence of Pamuk, who is without doubt the consummate novelist of our age.
The monologues that are characteristic of the protagonist Kemal are reminiscent of Dostoevsky and Murdoch whose central characters, such as the ones in Crime & Punishment and The Sea, The Sea respectively, are known to break into endless obsessive self-scrutiny. Nostalgia and memory feature as prominently as they do in Proust's work.
Fusun, the protagonist's ladylove, is one of the most attractive characters to have been written in recent times. The story is unavoidably tragic, but it is so beautiful that one forgives all the moroseness. It is a daring act, for a reputable novelist, a Nobel winner no less, to try his hand at a traditional romantic novel. Pamuk, here, has done it with the deftness of a surgeon. And in doing so, he has put the Turkish culture coming of age in the turbulent decade of the 70s under the microscope, and has explored class relations masterfully. Certainly one of the most defining works of our age.
