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My Name Is Red

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My Name Is Red
1st US edition cover
AuthorOrhan Pamuk
Original titleBenim Adım Kırmızı
TranslatorErdağ M. Göknar
LanguageTurkish
GenreHistorical novel
PublisherAlfred A. Knopf
Publication date
1998
Publication placeTurkey
Published in English
2001,
Media typePrint (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages448 pp. (original Turkish) 417 pp (1st English ed.)
ISBNISBN 975-470-711-1 (original Turkish) & ISBN 0-571-20047-8 (1st English ed.) Parameter error in {{ISBNT}}: invalid character
OCLC223008806
LC ClassPL248.P34 B46 1998

My Name Is Red (Benim Adım Kırmızı) is a Turkish novel by Nobel laureate author Orhan Pamuk. The English translation won the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award in 2003,[1]. The French version won the French Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger and the Italian version the Premio Grinzane Cavour in 2002. The novel and its English translation established Pamuk's international reputation and contributed to his winning of the Nobel prize. In recognition of its exceptional status in Pamuk's oeuvre, the novel will be re-published in Erdağ Göknar's translation as part of the Everyman's Library Contemporary Classics series in 2010. This is recognition of the novel's status in the international canon of literature along with the novels of authors like Joyce, Kafka, Mann, Nabokov, and Rushdie whose influences can be seen in Pamuk's work. BBC Radio 4 broadcast a radio play version of the novel in 2008.

Outline

The main characters in the novel are miniaturists in the Ottoman Empire. The events revolve around the murder of one of the painters, as related in the first chapter. From then on, Pamuk — in a postmodern style reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges — plays with the reader and with literary conventions in general. The last paragraph of the English translation is particularly playful in its implications about the artistic process in general and delves into metafiction.

The novel's narrator changes in every chapter, and usually there are thematic and chronologic connections from chapter to chapter. In addition to character-narrators, the reader will find unexpected voices such as the corpse of the murdered, a coin, Satan, two dervishes, and the color red. Each of these "unusual" narrators turns out to have been "contributed" by specific characters in the book and help round out the philosophical system of the world of 16th century Istanbul. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles, opening a window on the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III during nine snowy winter days in the Istanbul of 1591.

Enishte Effendi, the maternal uncle of Kara (Black), is reading the Book of the Soul by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a famous Sunni commentator on the Qur'an, and continuous references to it are made throughout the book. The most important of these is the fact that part of the novel is narrated by Elegant Effendi, a murdered miniaturist. Al-Jawziyya argues, in the same fashion as Islamic doctrine in general, that the souls of the dead linger on earth and can hear the living.

Pamuk suggests that to some of the characters, viewing miniatures or "perfected art" is a way to achieve a kind of glimpse of eternity. Thus Shekure seeks to look upon the reader like women who view miniatures of a distant time and place do, thereby escaping time and place - 'just like those beautiful women with one eye on the life within the book and one eye on the life outside, I, too, long to speak with you who are observing me from who knows which distant time and place.' The murdered Elegant Effendi accused his murderer of sacrilegious illustrations offending Allah or God. Is true art an expression of the individual artist or is true art a close to perfect representation of the divine in which the individual artist has succeeded in overcoming his personal vanity? This question becomes an existential question in Pamuk's tale.

Characters

  • Master Elegant Effendi, murdered miniaturist who speaks from the afterlife to the reader in the opening chapter.
  • Kara (Black), miniaturist and binder. Recently returned from 12 years away in Persia. Nephew of Enishte ("Uncle").
  • Enishte Effendi, maternal uncle of Black, who is in charge of the creation of a secret book for the {{Sultan]] in the style of the Venetian painters
  • Shekure, Enishte's beautiful daughter with whom Black is in love; Shekure (related to English 'sugar' refers to Shirin, meaning 'sweet')
  • Shevket, Shekure's older son (also the name of Orhan Pamuk's older brother)
  • Orhan, Shekure's younger son (also Pamuk's first name)
  • Hasan, the younger brother of Shekure's husband
  • Hayriye, slave girl in Enishte's household, Enishte's concubine.
  • Master Osman, head of the Sultan's workshop of miniaturists. This character is based on Nakkaş Osman.
  • Butterfly, one of three miniaturists suspected for the murders. Paints figures in the book representing Death, and the Melancholy Woman.
  • Stork, one of three suspect miniaturists. Paints the Tree and the Dog.
  • Olive, one of three suspect miniaturists. Paints Satan and the two Dervishes.
  • Esther, A Jewess peddler, a matchmaker, carries lovers' letters.
  • Nusret Hoja, A Conservative Muslim leader who may be based on an historical figure, opposes coffee and coffeehouses, bawdy stories, and figurative paintings.

Books within the book

A number of books illustrated by famous miniaturists are referenced by the characters in My Name is Red:

  • Book of the Soul by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya
  • Book of Festivities or An Imperial Celebration by Surname-I Hümayun, in the story still under completion
  • Shahnameh or the Book of Kings by the Persian poet Firdawsi, is the national epic of the Persian speaking world
  • Chronicle of Sultan Selim
  • The Convergence of the Stars, ordered by Sam Mirza, brother of Shah Ismail
  • Hüsrev and Shirin by Nezami (English: Khosru and Shireen), this love story forms the central idea behind the love story in My Name is Red
  • Book of Equines by the Bukharan scholar Fadlan (a drawing of a horse is the key to finding the murderer in My Name is Red)
  • The Illustration of Horses, three volumes on how to draw horses: The Depiction of Horses, The Flow of Horses, and The Love of Horses by Jemalettin of Kazvin
  • The Blindman's Horses, a critique on the prior three volumes by Kemalettin Riza of Herat
  • History of Tall Hasan, Khan of the Whitesheep by Jemalettin
  • Gulestan by Sadi
  • Book of Victories with the funeral ceremonies of Sultan Süleyman the Magnificent
  • Book of Skills

Reception

My Name is Red met with unanimous praise from reviewers. A reviewer for Publishers Weekly admires the novel’s ‘‘jeweled prose and alluring digressions, nesting stories within stories,’’ and concludes that Pamuk will gain many new readers with this ‘‘accessible, charming and intellectually satisfying, narrative.’’ A Kirkus Reviews critic describes the novel as ‘‘a whimsical but provocative exploration of the nature of art in an Islamic society. . . . A rich feast of ideas, images, and lore.’’ Jonathan Levi, writing in the L.A. Times Book Review, comments that ‘‘it is Pamuk’s rendering of the intense life of artists negotiating the devilishly sharp edge of Islam 1,000 years after its birth that elevates My Name Is Red to the rank of modern classic.’’ Levi also notes, as other reviewers did, that the novel, although set four hundred years in the past, reflects societal tensions that can still be found in the world today. For this reason he refers to it as ‘‘a novel of our time.’’ In the New York Times, Richard Eder describes Pamuk’s intense interest in East-West interactions and explains some of the metaphysical ideas that permeate the novel. He also comments that the novel is not just about ideas: ‘‘Eastern or Western, good or bad, ideas precipitate once they sink to human level, unleashing passions and violence. ‘Red’ is chockfull of sublimity and sin.’’ Eder also has high praise for the characterization of Shekure, which he regards as the finest in the book. She is ‘‘elusive, changeable, enigmatic and immensely beguiling.’’ Eder concludes with this comment about how readers are likely to experience the novel: “They will . . . be lofted by the paradoxical light- ness and gaiety of the writing, by the wonder- fully winding talk perpetually about to turn a corner, and by the stubborn humanity in the characters’ maneuvers to survive. It is a humanity whose lies and silences emerge as endearing and oddly bracing individual truths.”[2]

English translation

Erdağ M. Göknar's translation of My Name is Red ushered Pamuk onto an international literary stage and was a contributing factor in his selection as Nobel laureate; upon publication, Pamuk was described as a serious Nobel contender for the first time [3]. The translation received very high praise from many reviewers including John Updike in The New Yorker: "Erdağ M. Göknar deserves praise for the cool, smooth English in which he has rendered Pamuk's finespun sentences, passionate art appreciations, sly pedantic debates, [and] eerie urban scenes."[4] Many readers and critics consider My Name is Red to be Pamuk's best work in English translation. It has won more international awards than any of his other novels. Göknar was present on Pamuk's behalf to accept the IMPAC award at Dublin, and, as is customary with this award,[5] received a one-quarter share of the prize.[6]

Release details

  • 1998, Turkey, Iletisim Yayincilik (ISBN 975-470-711-1), Pub date ? ? 1998, hardback (First edition - in Turkish)
  • 2001, USA, Alfred A Knopf (ISBN 978-0375406959), Pub date ? August 2001, hardback (1st English edition)
  • 2001, UK, Faber & Faber (ISBN 978-0571200474), Pub date 2 November 2001, paperback
  • 2002, UK, Faber & Faber (ISBN 978-0571212248), Pub date 31 July 2002, paperback
  • 2002, USA, Vintage Books (ISBN 978-0375706851), Pub date ? September 2002, paperback (Erdag Goknar translator)
  • 2008, UK, Dramatised on BBC Radio 4 in 2 parts by Ayeesha Menon, directed by John Dryden, August 2008.

Footnotes

  1. ^ IMPAC prize citation
  2. ^ Richard Eder, "Heresies of the Paintbrush," New York Times Book Review, Sept. 2, 2001.
  3. ^ Maureen Freely, Review of My Name is Red, in New Statesman, Vol. 130, No. 4552, Aug. 27, 2001, p. 41 and Richard Eder, "Heresies of the Paintbrush," in New York Times Book Review, Sept. 2, 2001.
  4. ^ Vintage Catalog
  5. ^ IMPAC award FAQs
  6. ^ BBC report
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