Orhan Pamuk's novel, The White Castle, deals explicitly with the issue of identity, not surprisingly, as his autobiography Istanbul deals a great bit with that topic as well. Throughout The White Castle, the question of whether and individual can be replaced by another and whether anyone would really notice is proposed.
It is a bit twisted, of course, but a fascinating idea. Really, what does our identity mean and what does it lie in? What would it matter if we died today? It was odd because as I was reading The White Castle, I had already found myself pondering on a similar question on my own. I had remembered hearing about an almost tragedy that occurred to a boy I knew and thinking, momentarily, better him than me. I immediately felt ashamed for that thought and took it back, but it was too late. I had already released it fromt he vault. Now why better that boy than me? Why better one person than another? Is any one person's identity really worth that much more than any other person's, and if so, why?
The White Castle deals with this issue in exploring the life a man who becomes enslaved by a man whom is referred to as Hoja, meaning master, in Istanbul, a man whom he also happens to look strikingly similar to. The Hoja is obsessed with knowing every detail of the young man's life, as well as recording all of the details of his own. The entire novel focuses on a search for self-knowledge as the slave and the Hoja sit down and try to record and understand why they are what they are. They come to an ultimate conclusion about stories, that “the ideal story should begin innocently like a fairy-tale, be frightening like a nightmare in the middle, and conclude sadly like a love story ending in separation.”
One has to wonder after finishing the book, if there were even really two characters at all, or if it was only ever the slave, or only ever the Hoja talking to himself in the mirror. Probably not, but Pamuk makes this feel like a possibility, which is where the brilliance of his book lies. It also lies in that he was able to write a story that followed exactly the recipe that his characters decided upon within the novel. However, whether the characters were real, whether they were simply talking to themselves or writing down something fantastical, whether any of it was really true at all, it does what a good novel should do, in that it makes the reader question identity and grapple with the same questions the characters are grappling with. Why am I what I am, every reader must ask themselves, perhaps while staring into the mirror for so long that their face no longer seems to resemble a face anymore by the end of it. And hopefully, after all that staring and all that thinking, and with the help of Pamuk's characters' conclusions as well, one will come to some answer, some sense of self-discovery. In this way, Pamuk hit the nail on the head, because identity and self-discovery are truly the issues that the human race, from my perspective anyway, seems ultimately most concerned with.
Friday, December 21, 2012
A Tale of Love and Darkness: Reading Response
Amos Oz's A Tale of Love and Darkness talks about his own personal life. It is always interesting to read the autobiographies of author's whose other novels we have read in class, Oz's novel being one of my favorites, My Michael.
A Tale of Love and Darkness seems to show a lot of where Oz was coming from when he wrote My Michael. The issues prevalent to people living in Jerusalem in the mid 20th century are ones that I otherwise would never have picked up on, being an American born on the cusp of the 21st century in Massachusetts. I constantly have to remind myself that while autobiographies are an account of an individual's life, they are also a social commentary as much as anything else. Oz's book served to reiterate this to me once more.
The complexity of the relationships between the different members of Oz's family was one of the most striking things for me, especially the relationship between his grandmother and grandfather. He painted a picture of a man in his grandfather that I would have most liked to meet. Though he went to elope with Oz's grandmother as a young man, he allegedly fell in love with another girl along the way and was said to have been dragged to the altar by his ear, and dragged all the way to Jerusalem. Throughout the course of their marriage, the grandmother is fairly brutal with the grandfather, ordering him about to beat the carpets and clean things- cater to her germaphobia, and basically carry out a miserable existence. Still, he is described as a kind and intellectual man. My favorite part comes, however, when the grandmother dies and Oz describes the kind of sexual awakening he believes occurred for his grandfather. Now in his seventies, the man was suddenly freed from a life of deep enslavement and took advantage of it, by taking his sexual pleasure among as many lovers as he could find.
"When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf life in some corner of an out-of-the-way library somewhere, in Reykjavik, Valladolid, or Vancouver," [Oz 23.] On this same page where he writes such a brilliant and fascinating description of the way that books survive man, he also manages to sexualize books, and indeed, much of the novel is fascinated with sexual depictions of things. It seems odd that even as a small boy Oz would have picked up on the sexual undertones and aspects of things in so much of the world, but then again, one must remember this is Oz looking back at his youth through the lens of age.
Once again, the autobiography is very rightly titled. A Tale of Love and Darkness seems to correctly describe the way Oz feels about life, as also exampled in his novel My Michael: that love [and sex] are often, if not always, tied up with darkness and despair as well. In fact, it seems nearly impossible to have one without the other. They go together, just like life goes with death, and so goes the story of Oz's life as well.
A Tale of Love and Darkness seems to show a lot of where Oz was coming from when he wrote My Michael. The issues prevalent to people living in Jerusalem in the mid 20th century are ones that I otherwise would never have picked up on, being an American born on the cusp of the 21st century in Massachusetts. I constantly have to remind myself that while autobiographies are an account of an individual's life, they are also a social commentary as much as anything else. Oz's book served to reiterate this to me once more.
The complexity of the relationships between the different members of Oz's family was one of the most striking things for me, especially the relationship between his grandmother and grandfather. He painted a picture of a man in his grandfather that I would have most liked to meet. Though he went to elope with Oz's grandmother as a young man, he allegedly fell in love with another girl along the way and was said to have been dragged to the altar by his ear, and dragged all the way to Jerusalem. Throughout the course of their marriage, the grandmother is fairly brutal with the grandfather, ordering him about to beat the carpets and clean things- cater to her germaphobia, and basically carry out a miserable existence. Still, he is described as a kind and intellectual man. My favorite part comes, however, when the grandmother dies and Oz describes the kind of sexual awakening he believes occurred for his grandfather. Now in his seventies, the man was suddenly freed from a life of deep enslavement and took advantage of it, by taking his sexual pleasure among as many lovers as he could find.
"When I was little, my ambition was to grow up to be a book. Not a writer. People can be killed like ants. Writers are not hard to kill either. But not books: however systematically you try to destroy them, there is always a chance that a copy will survive and continue to enjoy a shelf life in some corner of an out-of-the-way library somewhere, in Reykjavik, Valladolid, or Vancouver," [Oz 23.] On this same page where he writes such a brilliant and fascinating description of the way that books survive man, he also manages to sexualize books, and indeed, much of the novel is fascinated with sexual depictions of things. It seems odd that even as a small boy Oz would have picked up on the sexual undertones and aspects of things in so much of the world, but then again, one must remember this is Oz looking back at his youth through the lens of age.
Once again, the autobiography is very rightly titled. A Tale of Love and Darkness seems to correctly describe the way Oz feels about life, as also exampled in his novel My Michael: that love [and sex] are often, if not always, tied up with darkness and despair as well. In fact, it seems nearly impossible to have one without the other. They go together, just like life goes with death, and so goes the story of Oz's life as well.
Echoes of an Autobiography: Reading Response
Egyptian writer Naguib Mahfouz entitles his memoir, Echoes of an Autobiography, and very aptly so, because his autobiography is certainly nothing like the typical autobiography that one might pull off the shelf. "Echoes" is very much the key word here. Just as his novel Arabian Nights and Days was riddled with metaphors and mysteries, riddles and all things mystical, so is his autobiography.
A strange technique to employ indeed, as most of us expect such works of non-fiction as strictly categorized as "non-fiction" to be explicitly truthful. But Mahfouz likes to toy with the idea of truth as well as with the norms and structures of writing. His autobiography is a short collection of even shorter snippets- tidbits of wisdom, small vignettes that are almost parables or, rather, proverbs. They are never clearly explained and are certainly not stories that we can assume actually happened to Mahfouz in exactly the manner he describes them: some are far too fantastical than that. But each little story gives some vague, riddle-type piece of wisdom. One is not sure exactly what to take from the proverbs that make up Mahfouz's autobiography, and that is where the brilliance of it lies.
Mahfouz does not dictate his life to you, cut and dry, bland and straightforward. He gives it to you in a series of snapshots and allows the art to speak for itself, forces the reader to interpret his meanings. Never before have I seen a writer do this with his autobiography, but when looking at Arabian Nights and Days, it only makes sense, as that book too was not a whole story that that flowed from beginning to end but rather a collection of different peoples' stories, somewhat disjointed at times, somewhat confusing, even involving reincarnation at points, encounters with genies and sultans, mystical journeys. Nothing is explicit or clearly defined. It becomes obvious to the reader when reading Echoes of an Autobiography that this is just not Mahfouz's way. He would rather let his words speak for him, he would rather let his reader do some of the work, or indeed, almost all of the work, of interpretation.
One thing that it does seem safe to say is that Mahfouz is somewhat fixated on the theme of death, as it reoccurs all throughout his autobiography. Well, and why not? He was an older man at the time of its writing and the certainty that life will end in death and how that affects the life one leads has been a motif in both of the books we have read by him. One of his best "proverbs" spoke of him finding a rose with a note tied to it that read "Come, I shall be as you would like to find me." This proverb spoke to me more than any of the others, because I interpreted it as life speaking to Mahfouz. The proverb went on to sort of give Mahfouz a piece of wisdom- that life awaited him, and was his for the taking, that his legacy was whatever he would make it. He could leave any mark he chose on the city, but he had better do it if he desired, because someday he would be gone, dust and ashes. While he was alive, life would be whatever he made of it.
Perhaps this was not Mahfouz's meaning when he wrote that part of Echoes, but that's the beauty of it. I get to decide for myself what I feel like Mahfouz was trying to say to me, and most of the time, it is something pretty worthwhile.
A strange technique to employ indeed, as most of us expect such works of non-fiction as strictly categorized as "non-fiction" to be explicitly truthful. But Mahfouz likes to toy with the idea of truth as well as with the norms and structures of writing. His autobiography is a short collection of even shorter snippets- tidbits of wisdom, small vignettes that are almost parables or, rather, proverbs. They are never clearly explained and are certainly not stories that we can assume actually happened to Mahfouz in exactly the manner he describes them: some are far too fantastical than that. But each little story gives some vague, riddle-type piece of wisdom. One is not sure exactly what to take from the proverbs that make up Mahfouz's autobiography, and that is where the brilliance of it lies.
Mahfouz does not dictate his life to you, cut and dry, bland and straightforward. He gives it to you in a series of snapshots and allows the art to speak for itself, forces the reader to interpret his meanings. Never before have I seen a writer do this with his autobiography, but when looking at Arabian Nights and Days, it only makes sense, as that book too was not a whole story that that flowed from beginning to end but rather a collection of different peoples' stories, somewhat disjointed at times, somewhat confusing, even involving reincarnation at points, encounters with genies and sultans, mystical journeys. Nothing is explicit or clearly defined. It becomes obvious to the reader when reading Echoes of an Autobiography that this is just not Mahfouz's way. He would rather let his words speak for him, he would rather let his reader do some of the work, or indeed, almost all of the work, of interpretation.
One thing that it does seem safe to say is that Mahfouz is somewhat fixated on the theme of death, as it reoccurs all throughout his autobiography. Well, and why not? He was an older man at the time of its writing and the certainty that life will end in death and how that affects the life one leads has been a motif in both of the books we have read by him. One of his best "proverbs" spoke of him finding a rose with a note tied to it that read "Come, I shall be as you would like to find me." This proverb spoke to me more than any of the others, because I interpreted it as life speaking to Mahfouz. The proverb went on to sort of give Mahfouz a piece of wisdom- that life awaited him, and was his for the taking, that his legacy was whatever he would make it. He could leave any mark he chose on the city, but he had better do it if he desired, because someday he would be gone, dust and ashes. While he was alive, life would be whatever he made of it.
Perhaps this was not Mahfouz's meaning when he wrote that part of Echoes, but that's the beauty of it. I get to decide for myself what I feel like Mahfouz was trying to say to me, and most of the time, it is something pretty worthwhile.
Istanbul: Reading Response
For me, the most fascinating thing about Orhan Pamuk's autobiography, Istanbul was his portrayal of himself as a small child. Perhaps it is the writer in him- for writers notoriously pick up on and record details about lives, not only the lives of others, but their own lives as well- the reason that he was able to write about his childhood in such depth and with such perception.
Admittedly upon my first reading, I found young Orhan to be fairly disturbed. He starts out the novel saying, "From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: Somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me that he could pass for my twin, even my double," [Pamuk 3]. Later, he talks about thinking of himself not as himself, but almost in the third person and writes, "I'd have liked to write my entire story this way- as if my life were something that happened to someone else, as if it were a dream in which I felt my voice fading and my will succumbing to enchantment," [Pamuk 8]. And he talks constantly about games he would play with himself as a child, to escape his troubling reality: "Instead of learning to face my troubles squarely...I amused myself with mental games in which I changed the focus, deceived myself, forgot what had been troubling me altogether, wrapped myself in a mysterious haze," [Pamuk 89]. He later describes this feeling of a melancholic haze as something known in Istanbul as "huzun" and it becomes a central theme throughout the novel.
Another fascinating aspect to Pamuk's work was his obsession with viewing things in black and white, and how this in turn affected his world view. He spoke eloquently of the streets of Istanbul, but also in a very dark and tragic way, as someone who from a very young age, saw the city for what it truly was, not just the glittery or glamorous aspects, but the frightening parts: "I love the overwhelming melancholy when I look at the walls of old apartment buildings and the dark surfaces of neglected, unpainted, fallen-down wooden mansions; only in Istanbul have I seen this texture, this shading. When I watch the black-and-white crowds rushing through the darkening streets of a winter's evening, I feel a deep sense of fellowship, almost as if the night has cloaked our lives, our streets, our every belonging in a blanket of darkness, as if once we're safe in our houses, our bedrooms, our beds, we can return to dreams of our long-gone riches, our legendary past," [Pamuk 35].
I think the interesting thing about when Pamuk describes Istanbul is that his description, for him, is so very specific to that city, but for me, it seems it could be applied almost anywhere you live. Granted, the cities I am familiar with (Boston, New York City) are not mere shadows of their former grandiose selves, but there is still a certain sense of fellowship as you walk the streets of your city; there is a knowledge that everyone has a story, a past, a darkness within them, that everybody is just trying to get along. The people may be laughing, may be drinking and partying, may be celebrating the night, but there is a communal-ness about living in cities that I think must be universal, and Pamuk describes it incredibly within Istanbul.
Perhaps the way he describes the city can also be seen as a metaphor for the people. In fact, I am certain that is what his intention is. I think it is a most apt comparison. The way people are run-down and neglected, the way they look so forlorn and washed out, if taken at surface value. We forget to see people as they once were, as they might have been, had life treated them differently. We forget to remember the past. Pamuk illustrates this in his biography more beautifully than anything else.
Admittedly upon my first reading, I found young Orhan to be fairly disturbed. He starts out the novel saying, "From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: Somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me that he could pass for my twin, even my double," [Pamuk 3]. Later, he talks about thinking of himself not as himself, but almost in the third person and writes, "I'd have liked to write my entire story this way- as if my life were something that happened to someone else, as if it were a dream in which I felt my voice fading and my will succumbing to enchantment," [Pamuk 8]. And he talks constantly about games he would play with himself as a child, to escape his troubling reality: "Instead of learning to face my troubles squarely...I amused myself with mental games in which I changed the focus, deceived myself, forgot what had been troubling me altogether, wrapped myself in a mysterious haze," [Pamuk 89]. He later describes this feeling of a melancholic haze as something known in Istanbul as "huzun" and it becomes a central theme throughout the novel.
Another fascinating aspect to Pamuk's work was his obsession with viewing things in black and white, and how this in turn affected his world view. He spoke eloquently of the streets of Istanbul, but also in a very dark and tragic way, as someone who from a very young age, saw the city for what it truly was, not just the glittery or glamorous aspects, but the frightening parts: "I love the overwhelming melancholy when I look at the walls of old apartment buildings and the dark surfaces of neglected, unpainted, fallen-down wooden mansions; only in Istanbul have I seen this texture, this shading. When I watch the black-and-white crowds rushing through the darkening streets of a winter's evening, I feel a deep sense of fellowship, almost as if the night has cloaked our lives, our streets, our every belonging in a blanket of darkness, as if once we're safe in our houses, our bedrooms, our beds, we can return to dreams of our long-gone riches, our legendary past," [Pamuk 35].
I think the interesting thing about when Pamuk describes Istanbul is that his description, for him, is so very specific to that city, but for me, it seems it could be applied almost anywhere you live. Granted, the cities I am familiar with (Boston, New York City) are not mere shadows of their former grandiose selves, but there is still a certain sense of fellowship as you walk the streets of your city; there is a knowledge that everyone has a story, a past, a darkness within them, that everybody is just trying to get along. The people may be laughing, may be drinking and partying, may be celebrating the night, but there is a communal-ness about living in cities that I think must be universal, and Pamuk describes it incredibly within Istanbul.
Perhaps the way he describes the city can also be seen as a metaphor for the people. In fact, I am certain that is what his intention is. I think it is a most apt comparison. The way people are run-down and neglected, the way they look so forlorn and washed out, if taken at surface value. We forget to see people as they once were, as they might have been, had life treated them differently. We forget to remember the past. Pamuk illustrates this in his biography more beautifully than anything else.
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