It's unputdownable and yet The Museum of Innocence gets tedious
It's unputdownable and yet The Museum of Innocence gets tedious
The Museum of Innocence
by Orhan Pamuk, published by Faber and Faber,u00a0
Price: Rs 599
***u00bd
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The book tells a love story and the descriptions of longing and passion are compelling. About a third of the way in, however, I had started thinking "get on with it, will you!" The plot separates the book into four distinct phases and each one has its own charms but honestly, each is a little too long and gets tedious.
Another thought I had early in the book was: If I was Turkish, would I really need to be told how, after Atatu00fcrk instructed the Turkish people to take surnames for themselves in 1934, it became fashionable to attach one's new name to one's newly constructed apartment building?
Or that "in a country where men and women can't be together socially, where they can't see each other or even have a conversation, there's no such thing as love"? Or that "to sit together" could mean "to pay a visit," "to drop by," or "to spend time with someone" not to be found in a dictionary? There are many other such details and insights, and I felt resentful that Orhan Pamuk was writing for readers outside his own culture, and interpreting it for them through a western perspective.
But as I continued to read and enjoy the book (though still wishing that it didn't go on and on so), it struck me that one of the biggest charms of the great stories of the world is that they bring other cultures alive for us. No one can truly tell the story of Romeo and Juliet or Laila and Majnu unless they also paint a picture of their cultural setting. This helps outsiders to understand it while insiders can enjoy having their cultural peculiarities highlighted.
So through the hero Kemal and heroine Fu00fcsu00fcn, who is the focus of Kemal's obsessive but ultimately futile adoration, we learn how Turkey's influential and moneyed bourgeoisie live; their aspirations, habits and preoccupations.
Through this highly-strung and ridiculously self-indulgent pair, we experience Turkish menus, the feelings people have towards their government, the subtle social divisions that drive Turkish people to do what they do and the special relationship they have with their faithful and nearly-invisible domestic staff.
Of the two central themes of this book, most important is the value this society places on virginity. Turkey, being a nearly-modern society teetering as it has for decades on the brink of the European union, still values (in this book) virginity as an ultimate badge of a woman's character, her future happiness and in fact even her worth as a human being.
The other is obsession and some of its functionalities. Pamuk is a writer who occasionally slips into an unorthodox story-telling device and in this book, he himself features in what I first thought was a guest appearance. But then he turns out to actually be the ghostwriter of this book and does a great job of personally summing up the story.
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