A Review of ‘My Name is Red’ by Orhan Pamuk
While visiting a modern art exhibit recently, I exclaimed to a friend that I did not understand the painting in front of me. I told them that I found it amusing that the artist splashed a few colours on a blank canvas and called it art as millions of aficionados gathered around this piece of art and discussed its subliminal messaging. They then proceeded to ask me, why do you want this painting to confirm a certain style or a colour palette? Why do you think this painting must convey meaning when it so easily evokes an emotion in you?
Set in Istanbul under the rule of the Ottoman ruler Murad III, ‘My Name is Red’ is a first person narrative of the events surrounding the murder of a royal gilder working on a secret commission that seeks to rival the portrait style painting of the Venetian masters. This novel could not get better for it was a brisk historical murder mystery fiction spanning only 9 snowy days of the winter of 1591.
As we journey through the pages of the book we meet all the characters in story, including the murder, as they speak directly to us in a very ‘breaking the fourth wall’ style giving us a rare insight into not only the events of the story but also into the thought process of each of the characters. The murder who is also one of the main characters of the story taunts us at every turn challenging us to guess is real identity. I must admit here that I was not able to guess the same till the very end.
This is where I stop talking about the storyline and now discuss the ideas that form the soul of this book for I find it more and more difficult to not divulge details about this thriller.
Why did the first humans paint on the walls of their caves? How did they decide what to paint? What did they intend to depict? Which perspective did they choose to paint from? Have we ever wondered about these questions when looking at a painting?
Miniaturists all across the world believed that they were depicting the world as it is seen from the top of a minaret. This not only allowed them to cram in an entire timeline into a single painting but also removed the burden of perspective and shadow.
All the characters in the painting including the horses were drawn from memory and confirmed to very strict models. Each of the famous schools of miniature paintings had their own models and a learned master could easily find out who had painted a given portion of the painting.
It was generally frowned upon to sign a painting or leave any trace of individual style and all paintings strictly emulated the styles of the masters of Herat.
Some quotes I loved from the book:
For if a lover’s face survives emblazoned on your heart, the world is still your home.
This time I didn’t find myself immobilized by a staggering yoke of lust; both of us were stand by the flattering like a flock of sparrows of a powerful love that had entered our hearts chests and stomach. Isn’t love making the best antidote to love?
I’d like to be the mother in that picture. I’d want the bird in the sky to be depicted as if flying, and at the same time, happily and eternally suspended there, in the style of the old masters of Herat who were able to stop time. I know it’s not easy
My son Orhan, who’s foolish enough to be logical in all matters, k me on the one hand that the time-halting masters of Herat could never depict me as I am, and on the other hand, that the Frankish masters who perpetually painted mother-with-child portraits could never stop time. He’s been insisting for years that my picture of bliss could never be painted anyhow.
Perhaps he’s right. In actuality, we don’t look for smiles in pictures of bliss, but rather, for the happiness in life itself. Painters know this, but this is precisely what they cannot depict. That’s why they substitute the joy of seeing for the joy of life.
In the hopes that he might pen this story, which is beyond depiction, I’ve told it to my son Orhan. Without hesitation I gave him the letters Hasan and Black sent me, along with the rough horse illustrations with the smeared ink, which were found on poor Elegant Effendi. Above all, don’t be taken in by Orhan if he’s drawn Black more absentminded than he is, made our lives hard er than they are, Shevket worse and me prettier and harsher than I am. For the sake of a delightful and convincing story, there isn’t a lie Orhan wouldn’t deign to tell.
