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.
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