Shayne’s Reviews > My Name Is Red > Status Update

The murderer, during and shortly after the funeral, recounts his past with Elegant. He follows Black and Enishte to Enishte’s home while thinking about the evil inside him and its necessity to the artist.

Shekure argues with her father about the prospect of divorce and remarriage and reveals to the reader the secret relationship between her father and Hayriye.

Esther lets Hasan read Black’s letter to Shekure. Hasan also gives her a letter for Shekure to whom she then delivers both and is disheartened by them, saying she is waiting for her husband to return.

Black visits the other two master miniaturists. Stork tells three parables about the value of time in illustration. Olive relates three stories that exemplify the virtue of blindness in art and how it connects the artist with the world as Allah sees it.

Black first visits Butterfly, who narrates three parables related to style and signature, and then is questioned by Black about Elegant’s disappearance.

Black, after mulling over the meaning of Shekure’s letter and appearance at the window, makes his way to the Sultan’s workshop. Here he reunites with Master Osman after 15 years and is shown what is being worked on including the illustrations for the Book of Festivities. They speak about the four master miniaturists and the growing influence of western art styles, heretical to the Islamic tradition.

A sketch of a tree doesn’t want to be a tree, it wants to be its meaning.

As she quickly closes the window from which she saw Black, Shekure recounts growing up with him as well as her marriage to her husband and later her unhappily living with her in-laws after his disappearance.

Esther recounts how she came to possess the letter and what she makes of it.

Orhan interrupts the meeting of Black and Enishte, briefly meets Black, and is scolded by his mother. Black’s mind is occupied by thoughts of Shekure as he wraps up his visit and begins the his journey to the Sultan’s workshop. He runs into a peddler named Esther who gives him a mysterious letter and points him in the direction of a window where is love is looking from.