My Name Is Red

The year is 1591. Sultan Murat III rules an empire that stretches from the Danube to the Nile, from the Barbary Coast of Algeria to the headwaters of the Tigris and Euphrates. As a patron of the arts, the Sultan commissions an illuminated manuscript that comes close to violating the Koran's ban on the depiction of living creatures. At the Last Judgment, those who have depicted men and animals will be required by Allah to bring them to life. As they cannot but fail to usurp this function of the Creator, they are cast into hell for their mimicry of His divine powers. The tight world of those few artists who are executing the Sultan's commission glance fearfully over their shoulders as a fundamentalist cleric, the Nusret Hoja of Erzurum, mounts an increasingly violent campaign against the "blasphemers" and "heretics." When the body of Elegant Effendi, the well-known gilder of manuscripts is found dead in a well, the artists decide to take action.It is the second death, that of Enishte Effendi, that finally results in action. The miniaturist (as these artists are referred to throughout the book) known as Black is enlisted by Enishte's daughter Shekure to find the killer. Black had loved Shekure for many years unrequited, but with Enishte gone, Shekure promises to marry him if he succeeds.In his novel THE BLACK BOOK, the author writes: "... the only way to be one's self is by becoming another or by losing one's way in another's tales." Orhan Pamuk in this novel tells his story through the mouths of twenty narrators, ranging from the main characters to the corpse of Elegant Effendi, the color red, a dog, a horse, Satan, Death, a tree, an unnamed woman, and so on. Where this technique could be expected to fragment the tale so that it becomes difficult to follow, here it succeeds brilliantly. The story passes from one narrator to the other almost seamlessly, and the trail is never lost.One result of this technique is an incredible feeling of density and richness. Sixteenth century Istanbul is depicted here from its beggars to its coffee shops and wandering clothing merchants. From the Sultan's palace to an eerie abandoned dervish lodge, we see the gamut of Turkish society at the height of its power -- and at a point where it was beginning to be influenced by its old enemy, Christendom.In the afterlife, Enishte hazards to ask Allah a question:"Over the last twenty years of my life, I've been influenced by the infidel illustrations that I saw in Venice. There was even a time when I wanted my own portrait painted in that method and style, but I was afraid. Instead, I later had Your World, Your Subjects and Our Sultan, Your Shadow on Earth, depicted in the manner of the infidel Franks."Enishte does not recall the deity's voice, but the answer comes through loud and clear:"East and West belong to me."He hazards one more question, about the meaning of it all. This time, the one word answer sounds like "mystery" or "mercy" -- he is not sure which.This is a grea

Of Miniatures and Murder One of these days, Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk will be awarded the Nobel Prize for literature. As is usually the case with this prize, it will be given for all the wrong reasons: a Muslim may be needed that year or the clash of East and West may demand a winner who is from both cultures. That said, it will be an honour long overdue and richly deserved. For 20 years, Pamuk has been spinning his postmodern yarns in Istanbul and getting better with every book. In Turkey, he is a publishing sensation (after his latest book his publisher successfully sued a newspaper which refused to believe the sales figures) and his books have been translated into 20 languages. His latest effort My Name is Red is a magnificent historical mystery, which manages to be a thrilling page-turner as well as a dense novel of ideas. The book is set in Istanbul in 1591. The Ottoman Empire is a major superpower, perhaps the most powerful in the world, and the sultan has commissioned a new book of paintings. These are not just any paintings. They are to be rendered in the 'new' Venetian manner, a style that flies in the face of all the rules of Islamic miniature art. The book is so secret that even the miniaturists working on it are unaware of the whole picture. Only Enishte Effendi, the official supervising the book, knows how all the pieces will fit. But rumours of heresy and blasphemy swirl around the project and an extremist preacher, incensed at the new western influences, is preaching murder. When one of the miniaturists working on the book is killed, anyone could be the killer. Was he killed because he was committing heresy? Or because he had discovered heresy and was about to unmask the heretic? Enishte and his lovesick nephew 'Black Effendi' are racing to find the killer when another murder is committed. Meanwhile, there are other complications: Black Effendi is in love with Enishte's widowed daughter Shekure, who is also being pursued by her brother-in-law. She is flirting with both through a Jewess who carries her messages through the streets of Istanbul. And always in the background is the conflict between the self-contained and insular Islamic civilisation and the brash and uncomfortably individualistic new challengers from Europe. The book is written in the form of 59 short chapters, each a monologue by one of the characters. Most of the chapters are narrated by the central characters - Black Effendi, Enishte, Shekure, the miniaturists and so on - but several are unconventional. The opening chapter is narrated by a freshly killed corpse, while others are narrated by the picture of a dog, a horse and even the colour red, from which comes the title of the book. The multiple perspectives work very well as a murder mystery - the narration by the killer, for example, invites the reader to guess at his identity through his style - and help Pamuk to push his complex cultural debate much better than any single perspective could have managed. The

Seldom do we find in literature a work with so many well-elaborated facets. This is the case with "My Name is Red," a novel which not only has a murder plot and a love story, but is also richly adorned with history, art, politics, while addressing deep philosophical/religious issues.The novel has an architectural strucure made up of 59 chapters, each one representng the perspective of every character involved in the plot, besides inanimate objects (a corpse, a coin, the color red, death), figurative characters such as a dog, a horse, and Satan. The result is a cubistic outlook in which each piece has its own autonomy and at the same time remains dependent upon each other. Although "Black" is the main figure, none of the characters is fully developed; they serve as means to painstakingly and repeatedly address the central issues of the novel: the political allegories and the philosophy of art.The plot evolves around the story of an art book requested by the Sultan (back in the 16th century) in order to glorify the life and deeds of the monarch. The miniaturists (Butterfly, Stork, Elegant, and Olive) commissioned to perform the paintings have to struggle between adherence to conservative techniques of a two-dimensional painting versus the introduction of the new western approach to art, using perspective (three-dimensional) and portraiture. This clash eventually brings a disruption of the old stability and results in the murder of two miniaturists.The author is a progressive Muslim intellect who opposes the conflict between East and West (East and West being relative terms and as the Koran rightly states "To God belongs the East and West), and holds to the principle that "all good art comes from mixing things from different roots and cultures." Two cultures should not generate conflict but rather an amalgamation in which the values of each one are preserved and respected."My Name is Red" is an outstanding novel, exquisitely crafted, with intense monologues and dense passages, demanding close attention and persistency from the reader. A most gratifying experience which undoubtedly places Ohran Pamuk as one of the most gifted contemporary writers.

There are plenty of books and TV shows on Islam, but they tend to be repetitive and factual, giving us the important dates and information over and over again. My Name Is Red takes up where all the non-fiction leaves off, bringing us into the very soul of Islamic thought as it is realized and articulated by a group of 16th century miniaturist painters who have been asked to construct an illustrated book not in traditional islamic style but in Venetian single-point perspective. Orhan Pamuk not only captures the world of 16th century Istanbul, but also is able to open an entire philosophy of art to Western readers. I was amazed by what I learned in the book, but was even more taken by Pamuk's skill as a novelist and stylist. Using a strange mix of first person vignettes that actually advance the story from one character to the next, Pamuk constructs a postmodern parable of his own yearnings. As if that weren't enough, Pamuk also kept me on the edge of my seat. (Did I mention My Name Is Red is also a murder mystery?) This book acted as my antidote for post 9-11 TV, bringing me face to face not only with Islam but, more importantly, with a brilliant and profound Muslim artist.