Istanbul: Memories and the City

In all Pamuk's novels, I like the digressions, descriptions and ambience most; I don't think the plot construction is his strength. That is why "Istanbul. Memories of the City" might be his best book - it is not a novel and there is no plot. There are three planes present in "Istanbul". The first one is made of Pamuk's memories of the city, its specific kind of melancholy, which affects all Istanbullis ("huzun", which the author describes in comparison to the feeling studied by Robert Burton in "The Anatomy of Melancholy" and other melancholic European writers, finding examples also in the works of the writers who visited Istanbul and on whom the city left its unique mark, as well as bringing to mind the typical Sufi attitude), its dying, disappearing old neighborhoods with decrepit wooden houses and mansions, and the atmosphere of a former capital, which days of splendor passed long ago. Pamuk, born and raised in Istanbul, has never really left the city and still lives there, having come back to the apartment building, belonging to his family, where he spent most of his childhood. He reflects on Istanbul's influence on its denizens, including himself, and passionately describes his own ambiguous attitude to his city, his love mixed with hatred and boredom, his desire for change combined with his need to preserve the old charm... The second level is the history of Turkey, from Byzantium, according to Pamuk, neglected and deemed unimportant by the Turks as a period which has left only the Greek minority and not much else behind, through the Middle Ages, times of Ottoman Empire and Ataturk, to the end of the twentieth century. Each period is described with nostalgia, but not without sharp criticism. Pamuk demonstrates his distance both towards the urge for westernization, the copying of European standards, and towards nationalism, chauvinism, feeling of superiority and dislike for Greek, Armenian and other minorities. He expresses his views firmly yet gently, without offense but leaving no doubt what is his opinion. Interestingly, the third level, the most personal one, which is the memoir of the author's childhood and youth, shows his own doubts, prejudices and mistakes and his search for his own identity as a modern Turk as well as a creative artist. While the chronology of the Istanbul and Turkish history is not very precise, Pamuk's life proceeds from his birth to the student times more or less in order. He describes his life with the extended family, full of quarrels and hypocrisy, and his closest relatives - his mother, who seemed full of longing for something better, his father, failing in his business enterprises and living a second, separate life, his older brother, meticulous and teasing, and his grandmother, the queen of the household, who observed everything from her bed. Then, he proceeds to the account of his earliest, most personal, intimate feelings, then his school years, his artistic ventures, first, romantic love, unfortunat

Pamuk spans the distances of time and memory in this novel as he searches for the meaning of the melancholy, or huzun as he calls it, of the city of Instanbul. Born into a wealthy Turkish family, Pamuk slowly watches his family's fortune dissolve in the hands of his father. He recounts his memories as his family moves from one quarter to another, interspersing personal accounts with various literary observations. Through it all we experience the uneasy balance between Islamic and Western forces that have shaped the city over the centuries. He explores through the writings of Europeans, how foreigners perceive the city, and how Turkish writers have attempted to respond to these views. Pamuk has such an elegant way of writing, with many undercurrents, like the Bosphorus which he so much loves. I particularly liked his literary chapters, like that of the four melancholy writers of Istanbul, and their attempts to forge an identity for the city. These attempts may have fallen short of their grand expectations, but the books became treasures, and helped to define modern Turkish writing. There are also his amusing observations on Flaubert, Nerval and other French writers and painters, who became absorbed in the city and to whom he felt modern Turkish writing owes a substantial debt. While Pamuk tries to escape this melancholy in his painting, ultimately finding a muse on which to hang all his hopes, he can never fully escape it, as he too becomes absorbed in this great city, which proves to be his literary release.

Is any city as mysterious or compelling as Istanbul? To be the seat of the Ottoman Empire for centuries only to see itself poor, downtrodden and defeated in the modern age must produce a melancholy unknown in the West. Turkey's greatest living national treasure, Orhan Pamuk, gives us an insider's view of Istanbul. And he does so in the best possible way - by using his own life as a guide for Istanbul's intrigues in a highly personalized story of the city. ISTANBUL therefore is not a detailed or comprehensive history of the town. Rather, its thirty-seven chapters provide bitesized snapshots of Istanbul through the lens of a young man growing up knowing that his city was once great and also knowing, alas, that its best days are behind it. Istanbul residents even have their own word for the melancholy this produces and this sense of huzun infuses the entire book. Pamuk covers many things in ISTANBUL, including growing up in the shadow of a once great empire, the intimate relationship city residents have with the Bosphorus river, tales of various writers and artists who have visited Istanbul and the legacy they left behind, and the picturesque nature of outlying neighborhoods. The reader finds himself strangely drawn to Istanbul at the same time as he feels the pain and isolation of its residents. Given the personal nature of the writing, Pamuk also focuses quite a bit on the odd pull the streets, buildings and citizens of Istanbul have had on him. I once heard an interesting question about rock-and-roll. Would U2 have been a spectacular supergroup had they been from Oklahoma City rather than Ireland even if all else, the music and talent, had been the same? An interesting thought to chew on and one that is relevant here. Pamuk is one of the more important writers today. But where would he be if he had been born somewhere besides Istanbul? The city so infuses his soul that it is difficult to imagine him being from anywhere else and writing the books that he does. A non-native could not have written ISTANBUL and we should be thankful that it has a native son like Pamuk to do the job for us.

In 1923 when Turkey became a republic, Muslim Turks made up half of Istanbul's population of 500.000. The other half consisted of Jews, Armenians, Greeks, Italians and other non-Muslim ethnic groups. The city was truly cosmopolitan and highly fashionable in the 1960s when Pamuk was growing up in upscale Nisantasi district: Non-Muslim religious temples outnumbered mosques even then, although the population has unevenly grown to 1.5 million in favor of Muslim Turks. One could order ham or pork sausages for breakfast in most restaurants or drink lemon flavored vodka at Rejans, a Russian restaurant run by two emigrant White Russian ladies, in Beyoglu. In those days, Istanbul was a visibly secular, highly sophisticated, cultured and refined city. Today, Istanbul has a bustling population of about 12 million people where the non-Muslim population can hardly reach 100 thousand in total. Some churches and synagogues are closed most of the time because of lack of attendance and funds. Pera (or Beyoglu) is no longer a cosmopolitan community despite its long surviving name. The city has a much different, lackluster character now. It looks tired, burdened by heavy traffic, crowded streets and dense housing. When Orhan Pamuk reflects on his life in Istanbul, he cannot help feeling melancholic about it because the city has now been inundated by an influx of conservative migrants from rural Turkey. While walking around in working-class districts similar to Fatih or Carsamba, a secular Istanbullu (like Pamuk himself) would indeed feel depressed. Clad in clothes compliant with Islamic values, overpowering number of bearded men and headscarved women would contrast very poorly to the secular images of the past. For me, this book is not as simple as it appears at first glance. Here, in disguise there are strong political and social messages about the current tendentious issues in Turkey. Again, author Orhan Pamuk delivered us a gem in "Byzantine" style. Bravo!

Ah, to understand a Turk. To comprehend a vast, neglected city like Istanbul, a once-splendid hub of empire and now the veritable locus of "East Meets West." Even better, to glimpse intimately, what makes a great author, great. If you haven't read any of Orhan Pamuk's work, reading this fine memoir is the perfect place to start, it can only whet your appetite for future readings. If like me, you lament that nothing remains unread in Pamuk's translated canon, then this book will feel like pure luxury, like a series of grace notes floating over a collection of excellent fiction. "Istanbul: Memories and the City" has many tender accounts of the author's childhood and family life along with insightful musings on the character of Istanbul and its denizens, the Istanbullis. Certainly, the book's central theme is an exploration of how relationship and birthplace make us what we are. As Mr. Pamuk makes plain, (and lucky for us) he was born in no ordinary city. In addition, the book harkens directly to the zany, dream-afflicted characters found abundantly in Mr. Pamuk's work, which the memoir makes amply clear, are so much in their parts . . . like unto himself. Once again, Pamuk has us pondering the structure and nuance of Identity, this time as a grand idea explored through the medium of childhood and birthplace. The sensitive candor with which Mr. Pamuk describes his background and relationship to the City is quite touching. The chief literary pleasure of the book has to be the chapter describing "Huzun" (which may be an aging sister to notions of "Kismet"). "Huzun," according to Pamuk, is a collective melancholy consisting of, in differing degree; longing, nostalgia and unrequited love. Mr. Pamuk explains how the experience of "Huzun" both limits and expands the life of Istanbul, its citizens and himself, as a quality central to shared identity. Despite Istanbul's storied allure, the book highlights the deeper mystery of Istanbul's past, belying old notions of "orientalism," while revealing the cultural affect of early 20th century "Westernization" and its resulting distortions. The Ottoman past becomes the modern Turkish state within the lifetime of his grandmother and parents. This transformation is most opaque when Mr. Pamuk recalls the interminable, empty "western-style "sitting rooms" used by the apartment dwellers to bear witness to their incipient "Westernization." Photographs of neglected Ottoman-era houses leaning sadly into each other over the Bosphorus, along with pictures of the author's family are an exceedingly pleasant accompaniment to the text. Also not to be missed, is the chapter on the never-quite-completed and wholly subjective "Encyclopedia Turkey." This chapter captures a certain frenetic intensity that lies with The Turks, a people who did the unthinkable by adopting new habits of dress, writing and socio-political organization within an unimaginably short period of time. The energy behind this intensity appears (to this r