Orhan Pamuk: Being a novelist means reacting to current events

Hegel's sentence, which Orhan Pamuk quotes somewhere, can be applied to himself: As in the theater, History divides roles. And just like in the theater, only the brave climb the stage of history. It took a lot of courage for Orhan Pamuk to climb that stage. Pamuk is the only Turkish writer who had the courage to tell his country the truth about the Armenian genocide. He risked his life by doing so. And the Nobel Prize he received can be considered not only a literary, but also a moral recognition.

I met Orhan Pamuk for the first time before the Nobel Prize in Paris at a large international gathering whose theme was: What can literature do in the 21st century? - Tradition and modernism.

Pamuk caught my attention with his original views on the future of the novel. I also wanted to meet him because he reminded me a lot of Danilo Kish. Even though he was younger than Danilo, there was something that connected them, some youthful, unforced behavior, a way of expressing and holding, thinking, and if nothing else, it was their common Balkan climate that formed them in a similar way.

The meeting with Pamuk was arranged in the Louvre auditorium with 500 seats, but which could not satisfy even half of the audience.

And I was not at all surprised when Pamuk told me that he knew the work of Danilo Kiš. He accepted the interview on the spot. The conversation was published a day later in Vijesti, after receiving the Nobel Prize. Let me also say that they did not press around him then.

Recently, an extremely richly equipped department of Islamic art was opened in the Louvre, and on that occasion, two great men from Islamic countries were invited - Orhan Pamuk, Nobel laureate from Turkey and Abaz Kjarostami, cinematographer, winner of the Palme d'Or, from Iran.

Since Pamuk is recognized as a literary giant, this time I met him surrounded by security, because he is now being greeted by hundreds of fans whose élan needs to be channeled.

Despite the fact that the theme of the evening was about his museum, Pamuk constantly mixed the story of the museum and the book

The meeting with Pamuk was arranged in the 500-seat auditorium of the Louvre, but it could not satisfy even half of the audience, so the organizers had to let a good part of those who wanted to hear him go, even though they had to stand. The tickets were sold out a month in advance.

In that somewhat hysterical rush of curious admirers to Pamuk, I had the advantage of having Art in my hands - the cultural supplement of Vijesti - which contained a well-crafted interview with him.

When he saw this, he grabbed the newspaper, looked at the front page with his full-page photo, opened the middle pages where there were three more photos of him with text, gave a shout of pleasure, and all smiles, showed them to the lady who was following him.

When I offered him a black and white photocopy, he hugged the newspaper and said with a smile that he preferred the original. He was right, and I would have done the same. But since I, as an author, have the right to own that same original, I am turning to the editor of Art to give me one, now precious copy. I am convinced that this Art will end up in Pamuk's Museum of Innocence.

The Museum of Innocence was precisely the topic of that meeting with Pamuk in the Louvre. As is known, Pamuk also wrote a novel called the Museum of Innocence and opened a museum of the same name, with the subtitle Innocence of Objects.

This is the main idea of ​​the book - we are not able to free ourselves from love even though it forces us to do and say stupid things

Despite the fact that the theme of the evening was about his museum, Pamuk constantly mixed the story of the museum and the book. He began his presentation by explaining how he came up with the idea to create that museum.

"Once upon a time, at a dinner party, I met an old descendant of the sultan, Prince Ali Vasif Efendi, who was exiled back in 1924. The prince lived in Alexandria, where he worked in a museum and suffered from penury. He wanted to stay in Turkey and wondered what he could live on.

During the conversation, the idea was born that the prince could be a guide in the museum located in the former sultan's palace where the prince spent his childhood, so he could play his own role. ("And I was sitting on this armchair").

Then I came up with the idea of ​​what it would look like if I were a guide in the museum of my own memory, my own life. And then the idea of ​​a sentimental museum was born, and a novel was born from the museum. So, I imagined both the book and the museum at the same time.

So for that project - a book and a museum, I have been collecting material for the last ten years. These were objects from everyday use that no one paid attention to, such as a toothbrush, a trolley ticket, combs, various toys, dishes, clothes... or hairpins and hairpins that were in fashion and were once worn by beauties, but and my heroine Fisun, and now they are out of fashion.

I collected all kinds of objects that I found everywhere, from flea markets to collectors themselves. It was a time when people collected all kinds of objects. In my museum, the objects are not from the distant past like in other museums, but they are things from the recent past that are still remembered.

The most important question I asked myself when I started the book was: why is such a strong affection for another being born?

"The book Museum of Innocence is a story about the love of the rich heir Kemal and his poor, but beautiful cousin, Fisun. It is the story of a man who is obsessed with his love for a woman. The action takes place in Istanbul. It is a book about love, primarily a reflection on the nature of love. It neither beautifies love nor puts it on a pedestal.

I tried to give a realistic answer to the question - what is love? Love is a state of mind. I described what happens to us when we are in love. In a word, I wanted to show that love is to some extent a disease, and to some extent an irresistible passion for another human being.

This is the main idea of ​​the book - we are not able to free ourselves from love even though it forces us to do and say stupid things. Kemal thinks he is strong and will win back the woman he loves and has been chasing for seven years.

The title of the book has the word museum, and that's because my hero is so obsessed with love that at one point, in the absence of his beloved, he starts collecting things that she touched and these things give him comfort. During that time, he collects things for a museum that will represent that love and eventually creates a museum out of them.

All these things, ephemeral, which we used, talk about the city. That book is a document about the life and cultural space of Istanbul in the second half of the XNUMXth century. At a certain point when I had enough material - I made an experiment - I spread out in front of me everything I had collected and began to describe the memories that these things evoked in me. And there a love story erupted that connected various thoughts and heroes into one, and a novel came out.

I refer to Aristotle who says that time is composed of moments, like objects of atoms

The most important question I asked myself when I started the book was: why is such a strong affection for another being born? And how does that feeling transfer to the objects of the loved one who left you and how can these objects comfort you? The narration of that book is a story about a museum and a story about love. A novel is a picture that represents those emotions. The museum realizes those emotions.

After I wrote the novel, I wondered how to arrange all these objects, so I bought a house in a once-posh neighborhood that was then quite neglected after the expulsion of the non-Islamic population in the XNUMXs. And I hired three architects to renovate it.

It lasted for ten or fifteen years, and I spent a lot of money and time furnishing it. And last year in April, I opened the Museum of Innocence. This museum, which contains an exceptional collection, has both a poetic and a documentary side. This is Istanbul, my city that I love.

That's why the places where the lovers went are shown here - postcards, landscapes, photographs of that era... The Real Museum of Innocence is most reminiscent of an ethnographic museum in which not only the things that I carefully collected and described in the novel are presented, but also the works of the famous Turkish photographer Ari Gilera and my pictures. Maybe it's a museum - just those pictures told before our eyes.

Our museum talks about the history of objects and their innocence. When we collect objects, we connect them in our head and they make sense. There is also the temporal relationship of the objects - in them is the conception of time. Those objects connect the past with the present.

The art of writing prose includes a certain craftsmanship, which sometimes has nothing to do with higher art

I refer to Aristotle who says that time is composed of moments, like objects of atoms. Items are linked. The moment corresponds to history, objects correspond to the time in which they were created. Each object in history corresponds to a specific moment. Time is transformed into space, the meaning of time is a scene in a museum.

The time can be related to these clocks which refer to the time of Ataturk who introduced the solar rather than the lunar time reckoning that is valid for Arab countries. I am interested in the weather of both the West and the East. I wanted to create something artistic with that museum.

And while I was arranging those objects, the painter woke up in me, so even now, when everything is finished, I'm really happy. I had so many items and I didn't know what to do. I thought that every object should have its own story. When I was invited abroad, as soon as I had some time, I went to visit small museums.

The novel is also a reflection on the severe schism in the Turkish national consciousness: a split in its own traditions, illuminated by the glorious centuries of the Ottoman Empire and the desperate appeal of modernization and Europeanization. This is the sad history: the collision between Islam and the West. Since losing its imperial grandeur, Turkey has almost always tossed between the West and the East.

"I designed and installed all the showcases. In this showcase, for example, my mother is surrounded by women and tailors, and those were very exciting moments when the dresses were tried on, since at that time dresses were made to order.

Showcase 42. is Melancholy – when winter comes, the wind blows, the impossibility of the betrothed to get closer. In the latter - the lovers met secretly where there were many strange objects. That display case tells about Jealousy.

My prose is essentially about the energy of writing, and describing is about possession, control and dominance

Showcase 34 tells how the hero defines his loneliness as a dog in space - he feels like the loneliest man in the world and compares himself to Laika, whom they know will not return from space.

Showcase 74 is my father's chest of drawers, which is full of objects: cigars, medicines, articles. All these objects talk to each other, conduct a dialogue. I was very glad to save my father's chest of drawers, it was a source of joy for me. It should be viewed in a realistic way...".

The art of writing prose includes a certain craftsmanship, which sometimes has nothing to do with higher art. From that point of view, my understanding of prose art is not modernist. For me, being a novelist means being able to react creatively to current events.

I was thinking about Borgesian allegories. Borges helped me find my way of expression. My prose is essentially related to the energy of writing, and describing is possession, control and dominance...".

During Pamuk's stay in Paris, Galimar published a lavish catalog of the museum entitled - The Innocence of Objects written by Pamuk himself with various explanations and quotations from the book Museum of Innocence and a collection of essays entitled The Naive Novelist and the Sentimental Novelist.

The Museum of Innocence is the best museum of the imagination

Life itself is a collection of memories. It is these memories that form our identity. People - families, clans, nations - are united by memories. Non-objective human memory, for me as a writer, is much more important than so-called historical memory.

The book My Name is Red is constructed from Persian miniature paintings

Today is made up of yesterday, while the past always returns like the smell of Proust's madeleine. I think it is impossible to talk about the present without talking about the past. What is the past is the present. Every book tries to answer the question of what is the meaning of life, but all the answers are illusory.

Just trying to think about it gives us a sense of depth, which is beautiful in itself. Literature is an aesthetic creation with the motivations of dark forces. Many readers asked me if I was Kemal and if I collected my dear's things? I answer that I am not Kemal and that the writer's art consists in being both Kemal and a man who knows how to observe Kemal from the side..."

Poetry and drawing are brother and sister

On the second evening, an actor read parts from the book My Name Is Red, and then Pamuk himself spoke about that book. Before that he was signing books. And a good part of the listeners from the previous evening found themselves in front of Pamuk.

"The book My Name is Red is constructed from Persian miniature paintings. It is simultaneously thinking about art and presenting Persian painting. There I described the most beautiful old Persian miniatures made by the greatest masters and miniaturists.

These artists often devoted their lives to them so much that some even went blind, which for them meant that they had reached the pinnacle of art and being pardoned by God. After I left painting, I kept thinking that when I became a writer, one day I would write a book about a painter, and, well, I started writing about a painter.

I was often unhappy with literature, but never with painting

I wanted to present a panorama of all cultures in that book. I read, read, read and looked at the pictures. This was before the Internet – it was the glory days of photocopying. I read a lot about the miniature painting found in Ottoman culture. I researched that culture at the Metropolitan Museum and discovered a wealth of information.

I was glad to write that book - a book about a painter because the joy of a painter is great happiness. I tried to idealize those feelings. Now I would like to describe these pictures in words, I would like to convey to my readers in words the differences and similarities between painting and writing, to adjust the words and write about the picture so that it can be seen.

I will try to express the feelings that those pictures evoked. Painting and literature are sisters. Painting speaks directly to the heart. This applies to me because I am full of images. Image is the greatest expression and the one that man understands best. Poetry and drawing are brother and sister, like words and colors. The picture is silence for the spirit and music for the eye.

As soon as I have time, I will return to painting. I was often unhappy with literature, but never with painting. Now I'm happy to have made a museum. I managed to write that book too. It has been translated into 55 languages. The Chinese published it in a circulation of half a million copies.

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