I have a book review due on Thursday, but I also have a paper (on the Punic wars- darn those Romans with their excessive military activity and copious amounts of historians willing to record it) due on Friday and a problem set due two hours after the paper's due. I'm suffering massive writer's block, so I'm going to tell you, dear readers, about Orhan Pamuk's book My Name is Red.
The book is set in Ottoman Istanbul. I am currently enamored with the city of Istanbul (you would be too if you took a glance at the Aya Sophia or the Sultan Ahmet Mosque) but I know little about the Ottomans. I don't even know anything about their reputation, which is the second of the three things I'm supposed to write about. I'm supposed to talk about the Ottomans, how they're perceived historically and how the book is used as a foil for current issues today. Can I say that I have no clue what current issues are in modern-day Turkey, other than the fact that they want to be in the EU? This is probably why I'm at such a road block.
So, Ottoman Istanbul. Well, from what I can tell from the book, there are coffee houses, a lack of modern conveniences, and a lot of sex and violence. Ah, no, that's unfair, but if you go to read the book (which I quite recommend), be prepared for a little bit more information than you wanted about the character's personal, personal lives. The premise is that the Sultan of the Ottomans has commissioned a book to made that tells a story about the Sultan and contains his (gasp!) portrait. That's a main theme, right there, the idea of Venetian (from Vienna? See, 'cause I thought they were from Venice, ah well) painting which puts humanity front and center. This is a problem because 1) The portraits could become an idol for people, 2) The portraits are painted not from God's perspective but from the perspective of the artist and are thereby taking away God's creativity (Only Allah can create), and 3) they don't tell a story.
This story is told through the eyes of four miniaturists (each of which could be a murderer), their boss, his daughter, her sons and her childhood lover. The miniaturists' illustrations also speak. The beginning of the book is narrated by the corpse of the dead guilder for the miniaturists, killed by one of his compatriots. He was killed because he threatened to tell on his fellow miniaturists, to carry tales to the local religious extremists, who hate coffee (apparently Muhammad refused coffee like he refused wine) and artists in general. I'd lobby for a modern commentary on the treatment of artists, either by the government or by the people around them, but I don't know enough about Turkey to say that that's what the author's saying. And my TA shot that down.
There's an exorbitant amount of material about art in this book. They're all miniaturists (which means they draw little illustrations? I never got this- maybe on the margins of books or maybe like tiny little pictures? Glorified doodlers) and so they all talk about miniatures. They'll talk about drawing Chinese clouds and Persian horses in the style of the great masters of the past (and there's a good long section where two of the characters get locked in the Sultan's treasury to look at books and that's just a gigantic chunk of research wasted right there, because none of us appreciate it as much as we should) but they never complain that they are Ottoman's using the hybrid style of the past. Instead, most of the protestations come from people trying to blend Venetian and Ottoman styles (the daughter of the boss of the miniaturists regrets that the Ottoman style of painting will be gone, but she's willing to accept a new, happy life) and, indeed, the murderer is a proponent of these new forms. The word modernity keeps on coming up in lectures. Too bad I have no clue what kind of modernity problems Muslims in Turkey are facing today.
I mean, there's the presentation of religion in the book. It's ubiquitous. The people who aren't especially moral pray to Allah in times of crisis, like some other people I know, and the people who have killed other people still go to evening prayers like nothing's wrong. Yes, there's bashing of extremists (or maybe they're not extreme... I could have read that wrong) but there's no hating on religious people of every kind. And there's tongue-in-cheek secularist references (here's where I get in trouble with my TA because I don't have the space in a two page paper to include multiple, supportive examples of my arguments and still have it sound decent) but he's not pushing an agenda. The author says early on (when the corpse is talking, actually) that he's not talking about everyone's religious views, only his own. And I respect the kid for that. I guess I should respect him for his Nobel Prize, too.
So what have we got? A depiction of Ottoman Istanbul: check. A commentary on how the Ottomans are remembered: Not so checked. If I'm reading between the lines, they're at war, they like art and architecture (EPIC architecture), and they, like every other nation in the world, have to confront new ideas and decide how to make them their own, without losing all of their history. Oh, and they're Muslim. For the most part. There's a Jewish lady in the book. And a commentary on how social issues are foiled in the book: mildly checked. I think there's a lot to be said for how every religion must grow up into the world it's in or be left behind. No one worships Marduk anymore. Can I put that in my paper? No.
On the bright side, I can now spell miniature without having to check spell check. Mission accomplished.
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