My review of My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
Review of My Name is Red
If it was William Faulkner who first really promoted the multi-narrator novel as a way of showing the unreliable point of view of characters such as Caroline, Quentin and Benjy in The Sound and the Fury, Orhan Pamuk takes this whole approach to another level.
Here we have a narrative about the Ottoman Empire told from the point of view of a horse in a painting, a corpse, a gold coin, Satan and the colour red as well as the more conventional narratives of the various artists or miniaturists who are involved in the creation of the great work itself.
At times as a reader you feel confused, at times almost overwhelmed. I found it best simply to allow myself to be swept along by the various narratives as if I were sailing on the great Bosphorus itself. Don’t feel obliged to follow every detail. Simply let yourself be carried along on the poetry of it all. You can taste the city. Later it becomes clearer through the overlapping layers of narrative. Gradually you begin to understand a little of the puzzle about what is going on.
There is such richness in the evocation of Istanbul itself, in the smells of the marketplace and the dark shadowy houses and the bitter cold of the winter nights. And in the narrative of the very beguiling Shakure with all her inconsistency and very physical adoration of her children, Pamuk is at his best.
Here is a writer who can convey emotion at its most visceral while also discussing very subtly the intellectual and religious differences between east and west in the great melting pot that is Istanbul. Pamuk writes about the great truths. He writes with soul.
