Talking about Orhan Pamuk in Istanbul
This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.
I’m staying in Istanbul with my American friend Gloria Fisk, a literature professor who is working on a book about the Turkish author Orhan Pamuk and his reception at home and abroad. Last year she explored the ways her college students read the Nobel Prize-winning novelist in an article for n+1 magazine. Here we talk about her perceptions so far:
Q: How has Orhan Pamuk’s work shaped your ideas about Turkey?
Gloria Fisk: I read ‘The Black Book’ years ago, and it created this really vivid image of the city that I always wanted to come visit. I started paying attention to Turkish culture and politics.... [Pamuk’s 1994 novel] had these really beautiful images of the city and the characters were really lively. To me it was ... evocative and real. But now I realize that most Turkish readers hate that book and think that that was the beginning of his downfall, and consider readers like me who got sucked into it Orientalist dupes.
Q: In Turkey, Pamuk is not universally adored?
GF: He’s universally hated.
Q: Really?
GF: I’m being a little flip. That’s an exaggeration, but he alienates most Turkish readers, for one reason or another.
Q: Pamuk made people angry by making public comments about the Armenian genocide of 1915-1918, right?
GF: He alienated the ultra-nationalists with that. What didn’t happen was the sort of rallying around him that you might expect from intellectuals and progressives.
Q: Or the secularists?
GF: Definitely not. Many of the most extreme nationalists are also secularists. Because the Turkish republic has secularist foundations, any threat to the nation is perceived as a threat to secularism, too. And any recognition of the Armenian genocide can be understood as a threat to the nation. Pamuk alienated hardline secularists by speaking to a foreign journalist about this shameful event that happened during the formative years of the republic.
Q: So when he spoke up about the Armenian genocide, he alienated the extreme nationalists. Why wasn’t there more support from the progressives and intellectuals who’d raised the issue before?
GF: Part of it was that there was a perception that he was grandstanding about it. Part of it is just because he’s a kind of divisive figure. If you talk to 100 people, you’ll hear 100 reasons why they weren’t on his side.
Q: He got the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. Did that change things?
GF: There was a really interesting poll in the newspaper Millyet asking people if they were happy that he’d won the prize. It’s Turkey’s first Nobel Prize (not just for literature, for anything at all) – you’d think, in such a nationalistic country, that it would be an occasion for celebration. But only 26% said they were happy; 36% said they weren’t happy. Because it’s perceived as confirmation that the West will give someone a prize if they shame Turkey.
Q: Shame is a strong word.
GF: It’s a pretty strong idea. There’s a perception that the country will literally fall apart if the shameful parts of Turkish history are exposed.
Q: As a Western admirer of Pamuk’s work, has this changed how you read him?
GF: I’m kind of an ambivalent admirer myself. But I find myself rallying to his defense all the time, because he has so few defenders here, and so many attackers.
Q: What Pamuk books would you recommend to people who are interested in Pamuk but aren’t interested in becoming Orientalist dupes?
GF: I don’t necessarily agree with the description of “Orientalist dupes,” although I do see the argument. I would recommend “The Black Book;” it’s kind of a stylized and very place-driven mystery. Also, “Snow,” which I think is his most ambitious and is my favorite. Or “Istanbul,” which is a book of autobiographical essays. I think everyone should visit Istanbul, and they should read ‘Istanbul” before they come.
Carolyn Kellogg
photo of Istanbul and the Bosphorus at twilight by Carolyn Kellogg