Randomness. And some links.

Sigh. I am tired. I have been unwell since Saturday - a bout of the flu apparently. Awful blocked nose and fever and a very sore throat. Also been facing general non happy situation at work, so it's been a shitty few weeks. Major cheer up happened yesterday, though. I got published! No online source I can link to unfortunately, but I was mailed the PDF version of the article yesterday and have been quite kicked about it since. Basically a reworked version of the food in Istanbul post. I've seen my byline in print before, but never had my photographs published. And I get paid for it too. So nice.

Life has been rather uneventful - I don't even have much to write about. I'm trying to study for the GRE and have been thinking about grad schools and applications and what I propose to do if I get in. The whole process is so painful. Most of my reading of late has been confined to the topic of Turkey, as a result. And in between, snatches of poetry - Lorca and Pessoa, as of now. I borrowed Mohammed Hanif's A Case of Exploding Mangoes but haven't started it yet. I also really want to read Joseph O'Niell's Netherland - I have been for a fairly long while -, though is it wrong for me to admit that this is also in some part due to the fact that O'Niell is rather hot? (So, I googled O'Niell while I am writing this and Wikipedia informs me that he has Turkish ancestry? Are you kidding me?)

On the topic of authors (and Turkey) Orhan Pamuk's new book Masumiyet Muzesi came out in Turkey a couple of weeks back. It'll still be a year plus or so till the English translation comes out, which kind of sucks. Pamuk has been doing the round promoting the book - he was at the Frankfurt Book Fair and Deutsche Welle had a rather nice interview with him. He also spoke with Today's Zaman about, among other things, the museum he is setting up in Çukurcuma. I love that he says "I have always loved those neighbourhoods", because those are my favourite areas of Istanbul, too. God only knows how many hours I have spent in the narrow lanes and antique shops of Çukurcuma. That museum has been in the works for a while, and when the whole 301, death threats nonsense happened there was talk about it not opening. I'm glad it is. My friend's professor is helping Pamuk with the museum, so I am also kicked at having some two degrees of separation from the man. My friend herself has interacted with him and as a result I learnt all sorts of gossip about him over the Istanbul trip. Most amusing stuff. Also, I must be the only freak to notice these things but apart from the fact that Pamuk's desk resembles my own, as it is now, in terms of messiness he also has new sexy (and geeky!) glass frames. I approve.

And to end, things on the internets you should be reading. Fëanor has set up a new blog Sundry Translations and Other Tangentialia intended for translated articles from the non-English world. The first post on Armenian Istanbul, has been translated by him from the original Russian set of articles by Mark Grigorian.

For anyone who likes food, beautiful pictures or just wants to read something that makes them feel happy and all fuzzy, please go read Tori's wonderful blog Loves Apples which is not a food blog as much as a celebration of food.

Over at Slate, Juan Cole argues that only difference between Muslim fundamentalists and Sarah Palin is lipstick. And (via Beth) why rednecks may rule the world.

How not to love this man?

Pamuk on football in Der Spiegel.

"The image that I remember most of all is of the Fenerbahçe players storming into the stadium before kickoff. They were called the canaries because of their yellow jerseys. It was as if they, like canaries, were fluttering into the stadium out of a hole. I loved it. It was poetry"

This was endlessly amusing too:

Spiegel: Albert Camus once said this about his days as a goalkeeper: " All I know most surely about morality and obligations, I owe to football."
Pamuk: Oh, come on. That may have been true in Algeria in the 1930s, but today it's naïve. Morality is probably the last thing one can learn from football today.

Of course this being Pamuk, some nonsensical controversy can't be far behind - what do you know, the man is an "inadequate nationalist'! Jeez.

I have been (an still am) stuck without internet and cable at home so haven't really seen the Euro 2008 matches yet - didn't miss much as France had a shittily boring and useless opening match. And as expected the Zizou ghost did come up - I miss him! I am totally for Turkey too (on principle alone - I can't not be right?) except for the fact that they must be the frustrating team ever and I have less than zilch expectations.

Also, I have been told this is Female Sexual Desire Week, so yeah, photos in this post are an added bonus. Excuses to still put up Zizou pictures are always welcome. And I don't think I've ever put up a picture of Pamuk before. It was the man's birthday on Saturday. Belated doğum günün kutlu olsun to him!

Older

Amusingly enough, Borders seemed to be aware of my birthday – they had Orhan Effendi’s books on their three for two offer. Now I do own a copy of My Name is Red, after gifting away countless numbers of the book, telling people they have to read Pamuk. I am excited about rereading it; it has been a while. So, the birthday was brought in reading the beloved author [1], till the people at Borders decided to shut shop and kick me out. Bookshops should be open 24x7. And so should libraries.

The day was exhausting if only because my Saturdays are usually terribly hectic and I need all of Sunday to recuperate – usually by sleeping straight through the day. It was also emotionally tiring – a terrible mix of happy moments and ridiculously bizarre ones. I need to read happier things because breaking out into tears for most of the train ride is not good. Later on, I had copious amounts of delicious fatty Malay food for lunch, and had a box of the best lokum in the world all the way from Istanbul awaiting me at Turkish class. And then I was gifted this lovely book by friends over dinner of very good Indian food (and also very good wine). As I told my friend, I am probably the most obvious person in the world to buy gifts for. Also a shout out to the person who called in the middle of the night after getting my number from god only knows where - thank you.

Birthday wish that has been constant since forever is to have a house full of books. (And to have them magically clean and arrange themselves, too). I am convinced though, that I am going to turn into one of those old people who live all alone in a house full of books and it takes weeks for people to even find out that they have died [2]. Really, I can even see it happening. Oh well, there’s a lot to be done next year and the thought of a lot of it scares me. I just hope everything works out.

[1]No, really, I think Pamuk is the closest I actually come to being in love with someone. I KNOW I need help, but what to do?
[2]Might be a side effect of reading A.B. Yehoshua’s A Woman in Jerusalem, but I doubt it. It’s called falling in between the cracks, no? The book is excellent. No, beyond excellent.

Around the world

Thessaloniki

Delhi

Vienna

Florence

Istanbul

Vienna

Venice

Istanbul

Siem Reap

Dachau

Delhi

Venice

Angkor Thom

Am contemplating buying a new camera. Have shortened it down to the Panasonic Lumix FZ18 and the Canon S5 IS (though I am leaning more toward the former). Any input is welcome.

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Columbia Magazine has an interview with Pamuk (via 3QD). His new book Masumiyet Muzesi (The Museum of Innocence) will be out in Turkey in December. He has said earlier it’s his most ambitious project to date and I am really looking forward to it. So, here’s hoping the English translation comes out soon!

Another interview (quite an old but interesting one) talks about the trouble he has had with publishers and translators. “Guneli’s translation of The New Life in England received The London Times award for the worst translation of the year, while the American Translators Association gave her the prize for the best translation, which made only more confusion for me.”

I didn’t enjoy Gun’s translation of The Black Book and left it midway to pick up Maureen Freely’s new translation of the book that is now one of my favourites. I keep hoping a new version of The New Life comes out. It’s such a bizarre book I still don’t know what to make of it.

Pamuk was also on The Charlie Rose show a couple of months back and I really loved the interview. He is just completely adorable. You can watch it here.
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After a post on the intermingling of food cultures, it’s perhaps apt that I should write about dance cultures. A couple of weeks ago at a seminar and dinner gathering I was attending on ‘Islam and the Arts’, the roots of the Malay Zapin dance were traced back to the Muslim missionaries who came to the region from Hadramut in Yemen. Though traditionally performed only by males during religious functions the many variants of Zapin are now part of the secular artistic heritage of the area, with women dancers a common sight too.

I found a video of a dance that is very similar to the one I had the pleasure of watching except that the boys (in their late teens I would guess) wore lose jeans, tight shirts and looked strangely like docile punks dancing away to the wonderful music of the oud. One particular young man had the entire female population in the audience drooling including the very elderly lady sitting next to me who turned to me and said “Isn’t he beautiful?” the moment he started dancing. My friend later found out he was half Arab and a quarter Malay and Chinese each. “Ah, clearly he’s taken the best features of each,” she commented knowingly.
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Have been listening to a lot of Abida Parveen of late and by default a lot of Faiz and Bulleh Shah as well. And as much as I love Tere Ishq Nachaya [1] what I have been listening to most has been Abida singing in praise of Shahbaz Qalandar in Lal Meri Pat Rakhiyon..[2]. All this of course makes you feel even more crappy about the shit that is happening across the border.

Strangely enough the NYT had a profile of Aitzaz Ahsan, who is currently in jail, a few days back. Strange because I had just borrowed his book The Indus Saga – From Patliputra to Partition from the library. I haven’t read it yet, only the introduction, but it will be my companion on the metro this week.

All of this reminds of another favourite, Hikmet, and his apt and beautiful words:

Ne devlet ne para

insanın emrinde dünya

belki yüz yıl sonra

olsun

mutlaka bu böyle olacak ama

The world is not run by governments or money

but people rule

a hundred years from now

maybe

but it will be for sure [3]
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[1] I didn’t know till about a year back that Chaiyya Chaiyya (and also of course Thaiyya Thaiyya) were inspired by Bulleh Shahs famous poem. I did however know that Rabbi Shergill was singing Baba Bulleh Shah in his lovely song Bullah Ki Jaana. (Translation here.)

[2] I need to mention that Faiz more than anyone makes me cry. Last week I wept just listening to his ghazals and I do not know why. I just remember hugging my pillow and sobbing away. With some of his poems its even worse - I remember reading a thin little volume in the library and before I realised it tears were streaming down my cheeks. So there is only so much Faiz I can take at a time and I think listening to Dam Mast Qalandar has been one way of not getting overly depressed.

[3] The poem in full

İyimserlik
Şiirler yazarım
basılmaz
basılacaklar ama

Bir mektup beklerim müjdeli
belki de öldüğüm gün gelir
mutlaka gelir ama

Ne devlet ne para
insanın emrinde dünya
belki yüz yıl sonra
olsun
mutlaka bu böyle olacak ama

Optimism
I write poems
they don't get published
but they will

I'm waiting for a letter with good news
maybe it will arrive the day I die
but it will come for sure

The world is not run by governments or money
but people rule
a hundred years from now
maybe
but it will be for sure

Nazim Hikmet, 12 September 1957
The American Poetry Review, Jan/Feb 2002

I get thrilled when I can read Turkish and understand it. The downside is that translations somehow don’t match up to the original then. But, well, they bring their own perspective.

Book Tag

Book tag by way of Alok.

Total number of books owned: No idea. Have a whole roomful in Delhi not all of which are mine of course. Many of them belong to my parents…some have been handed down. Plus there are quite a few of the earliest books I ever owned still around, including Red Riding Hood and Snow White (which my mom used to read out to me!), collections of Amar Chitra Katha, Hans Christian Anderson, the abridged version of classics like Count of Monte Cristo, Oliver Twist etc. (The unabridged versions are there too). And there are also books bought during the teenage years that I am quite ashamed about now – Jeffrey Archer, Michael Chrichton, even a couple by Sidney Sheldon and the like. No Mills & Boon or the sort – never read those. Don’t have many in my room now, only a couple of shelves, mostly because I use the library rather than buy books these days.

Last book bought: Heh. Orhan Pamuk. Other Colours.

Last book read: Ghassan Kanafani’s Men in the Sun and Other Palestinian Stories. I can not recommend this book highly enough. It is simply one of those books that everyone should read. Please do. It is a slender volume – only about 100 pages – and would probably take only a couple of hours to read. The short story, The Land of Sad Oranges is one of the most poignant, moving (these words seem so hollow but what else can I use to get my point across?) I have read in a very long time, leaving me feeling as if I was stuck in a vacuous, pointless, senseless space with just no way out.
More on Kanafani here.

Currently reading: Other Colours, of course. Apart from that Ramchandra Guha’s India After Gandhi. I lugged it (literally – it’s a ridiculously unwieldy book) back from Delhi because it was just lying at home and I was contemplating buying it anyway. Because of its size, reading it on the train is not feasible so I have been reading it at night before going to bed and it’s been slower progress than I would have liked. (I usually fall asleep while reading table lamp on et al and wake up with a start only when my alarm goes off the next morning…sigh. This work thing is not fun; I have eye bags that could rival a raccoon.) Anyway, have been reading Guha for the last two weeks (discount weekends) and am about 60% through, and so far it has been quite good, detailed and engrossing. That is saying quite a bit given the scope and scale of the book in which it definitely transcends usual one volume introductory texts on India.

Books plan on reading next: On my bookshelf Elias Khoury’s Gate of the Sun; Sunil Khilnani’s The Idea of India (which I have heard only good things about); Maria Vargas Llosa’s Aunt Julia and the Script writer (I still haven’t read Llosa – utterly shameful, I know, but this shall be rectified soon). Suggestions on which to read first?

Five books that mean a lot to me: Jeez…I really had to think hard about this.

The Black Book – Orhan Pamuk
I struggled between My Name is Red and The Black Book…and really I should have copped out and chosen both. Perhaps Kara Kitap is still fresh in my mind because I read it recently and because when I think of the stories that populate its pages – of the Istanbul mannequin maker who had no buyers when mannequins became all the fashion because his were too “Turkish”, of the back streets of Cihangir, the dark kahve shops, of dear Aladin’s shop where you could find anything under the sun – they all remind me of the city where I spent probably the happiest two weeks I can remember.
But this also made me feel that perhaps a reread of Benim Adim Kirmizi is in order. For I truly fell in love with Pamuk (I always liked him a lot but My Name is Red blew like out of proportion) while reading that book. And because it contains probably my two favourite lines in a Pamuk book:
“To God belongs the East and the West. May He protect us from the will of the pure and unadulterated.”

L’Étranger – Albert Camus
While I love Camus’ essays – The Myth of Sisyphus and The Rebel in particular - L’Étranger is probably my favourite book by him. Cold, indifferent Meursault who cannot even cry at his mother’s funeral…who in the end seems to us to be the internally rational and logical person. For the world, in the end, is only as sensible as we make it.
Side note: Camus over Sartre – Yes?

Discovery of India – Jawaharlal Nehru
Nehru is so often portrayed as a romantic… a dream in his eyes, rose in his button hole and the sort. (It is an apt description I guess - when he made his “Tryst with Destiny” speech he was wearing a rose the button hole of his silk kurta, and no doubt he had a dream). Some of this comes across in his writings as well. He could ramble on with metaphor after metaphor but more often than not his prose was elegant and his writings hugely expansive ion scope. This is most obvious in Discovery of India, where he seems to be almost narrating a common national heritage into being.

Why I Am Not a Christian: And Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects – Bertrand Russell
Bertrand Russell is one of the most egotistical people I have ever read. And also the most brilliant. He had an opinion on everything and he usually put down his point for view, which is why he must be one of the most prolific writers ever. In all his books his prose is simple, logical, to the point and extremely witty. And it’s probably at its best in Why I Am Not a Christian. I also love his Marriage and Morals and History of Western Philosophy (which while biased, is still a really good read) among others.

Ramayana – Valmiki
The version I read was a ridiculously fat tome with the original Sanskrit, supplemented by Hindi, supplemented by English. It’s a great story, beautifully written and I think it’s important to read a lot of texts in their original form just to realize the grotesque misrepresentation of them by the religious fundamental asshats. Plus reading the Valmiki Ramayana is a good base to read the other versions as well – the Ramacharitamanasa (just so beautifully lyrical), the Kamban Ramayana, C.Rajagopalachari’s English version (which is probably still the best English version of the epic, and miles ahead of his English version of the Mahabharata) or even watching the TV serial (I still do when I’m in India!).
I usually avoid the Uttara Kanda because it seems like nothing more than a tacked on epilogue. It is offensive of course, but so are other parts of the Ramayana… and Rama is different from the idealized version of him we are usually fed. But he is still a most fascinating character, hugely human and very charismatic. And simple. In this he is miles apart from Krishna, who in all honesty is way beyond my comprehension. I wonder if I would ever be able to read the entire Mahabharata in a remotely original form, that text is so long, meandering and plain confusing, just the thought of it overwhelms.

Ok…this took me longer to finish than I would’ve thought possible. Needless to say I have rambled on aimlessly. I tag Falstaff, Veena, TR and Elizabeth. (It’s a nice tag – so please do do it!)

Other Colours; Book Covers

I bought my copy of Other Colours day before yesterday and it has been the source of much joy since. I thought I would space it out and read it over time but that didn’t work out at all and I have been reading not only at home but on the train (even taking a longer route home so that I could read at a stretch), while walking from home to the station and from the station to work and vice versa. And no doubt people who watch me reading think I’m slightly deranged what with the silly smiles and giggles Pamuk brings out….(this happens with me a lot but the responses are so much more magnified when I read Pamuk.)

On a side note, when I was buying the book I couldn’t decide which version to pick up. The print by Faber and Faber (paperback) or the Alfred A. Knopf (a hardcover) version. Both were for the exact same price and I walked from Borders to Kinokuniya twice because I couldn’t decide which one to pick up. I eventually picked up the hardcover because it somehow seemed more apt for a collection of essays and because the pages were so wonderful – thick rich paper, slightly jagged at the side. This despite the fact that I love the cover of the Faber version (it’s a picture that first appeared in Istanbul. The young Orhan Pamuk still dreaming of being a painter). And also despite the fact that Knopf spells colour as “color” and I do actually prefer the British spelling. In any case, once I had bought the book there wasn’t much I could do but I did agonise over my decision.

This sort of anal pickiness over which book to buy is so typical of me. I have hardly been buying books for the last few years because they are just so expensive and also because the library is so good that my library card is my single most valuable possession. So when I do buy a book it is a sort of emotional investment. I chose the copy with the better cover, sometimes smell the pages, always try to get a hold of how it feels in my hand. Other Colours has been my first purchase since I started work and now that I am earning I keep eyeing books that I really want to own (top of the list is this version of the Shahnameh). Clearly this is where all my money will go.

But here is the thing. After all the fretting about which copy of Other Colours I should buy because of the cover I felt a bit validated when I read this essay in the book:

Nine Notes on Book Covers

• If a novelist can finish a book without dreaming of its cover, he is wise, well-rounded, and a fully formed adult, but he’s also lost the innocence that made him a novelist in the first place.

• We cannot recall the books we love most without recalling their covers.

• We would all like to see more readers buying books for their covers and more critics despising books written with those readers in mind.

• Detailed depictions of heroes on book covers insult not just the author’s imagination but also his readers’.

• When designers decide that The Red and the Black deserves a red and black jacket, or when they decorate books entitled Blue House or Château with illustrations of blue houses or châteaux, they do not leave us thinking if they’ve been faithful to the text but wondering if they’ve even read it.

• If, years after reading a book, we catch a glimpse of its cover, we are returned at once to that long-ago day when we curled up in a corner with that book to enter the world hidden inside.

• Successful book covers serve as conduits, spiriting us away from the ordinary world in which we live, ushering us into the world of books.

• A bookshop owes its allure not to books but to the variety of their covers.

• Book titles are like people’s names: They help us distinguish a book from the million others it resembles. But the book covers are like peoples faces: Either they remind us of a happiness we once knew or they promise a blissful world we have yet to explore. That is why we gaze at book covers as passionately as we do at faces.

Of Ramazan greetings and other things

Need to write about many things.

Of Pamuk’s new book – not much to write here actually except that in short the wait is killing me! But till then, links on him declaring himself “…a democrat, a secularist, a liberal and a westernization supporter”, talking about politics in general and a lovely excerpt from the book on barber shops in Istanbul.
(All the reviews of Other Colors I have read have been, not surprisingly, extremely positive).

Of Majid Majidi’s Beed- e- Majnoon (The Willow Tree), which I saw recently, weeping silently throughout. Also about Majidi’s other heartwarmingly adorable Bacheha- ye- Aseman (The Children of Heaven) which I saw quite a few years back.

Of Abraham Eraly’s Mughal Throne which I finished a while back all the while thinking of putting up excerpts here (perhaps as a photo commentary sort of post?). It was a great read.

But till I get time to write about these wanted to post wishing everyone on Ramazan which started yesterday. Ramazan bayramınızı kutlar! Most wonderful meal of baba ghanoush, hummus and harissa was had last night. All washed down with generous doses of mint tea. I reached home stuffed, happy and dead tired. Anyway, hope the coming month brings good tidings…..

Books, thoughts, links

Just finished (a few days back actually) Edward Said’s Out of Place. Thoughts while reading it were amusement at some similarities in childhood memories. Said writes about his ninth birthday gift – Tales from Shakespeare by Charles and Mary Lamb. I received the same book for my ninth birthday too. How his parents always nagged him about his posture. I am still told – "don’t slouch", "stand straight" etc. etc. Or how his father threatened to paint his nail with varnish so he wouldn’t bite them. I used to be a nail biter (gave up that habit many years back) but I used to be issued similar threats as well. Maybe everyone has a similar childhood.

Also finished Bernard Lewis’s What Went Wrong?: The Clash Between Islam and Modernity in the Middle East. Lewis infuriates me more often than not and yet I read him. Sigh. Clearly he has vast knowledge on the topic (ummm…well he clearly has a better knowledge of Turkey than the modern Middle East, so maybe not) so I don’t understand his position of supporting the Iraq war and the other overly simplistic nonsense that he spouts. Maybe he is just getting batty with age. Ian Buruma had an interesting piece on Lewis in the New Yorker a few years back. Maybe he’s onto something there. I need to read Rashid Khalidi as an antidote to Lewis I think. I still haven’t read Lewis’s Emergence of Modern Turkey even though it’s considered a modern classic type… I am a bit wary because I’d imagine is a bit out of date and Lewis is a bit too pro Kemalist for my liking. But I’ll probably pick it up sooner or later. Current read is Turkey: A Modern history by Erich J. Zurcher.

There are also a couple of Pamuk links I have wanted to put up for a bit now. Apparently his next project will be a novel with pictures (just come out with it soon, yes?). Also a Guradian interview with him at the Hay festival where he talks about the usual but also his experiences as a member of the Cannes jury.

I liked this:
The strength of a civilization, he suggests, "is most obviously expressed by the fact that the stories of that culture spread around the world and other stories, other histories are forgotten. The disintegration of the Ottoman empire, or the weakening of traditional Middle Eastern cultures, can best be observed, perhaps, in the decay of these cultures' classical stories. If I have done anything political in a literary sense, it is to rediscover and rewrite them."
.....Everything in his life, it seems, comes second to his love for writing, which, after 33 years, he can finally call his profession. "When I was a child, when I was a student, I used to daydream a lot," he says, recrossing his legs, running his hand through hair now almost wild with continual re-scuplting. "Being a professional writer legitimises your dreams, allows you to execute them and show them to others with pride."

In Istanbul I was in Nişantaşı (Pamuks neighborhood) one day. My friend refuses to believe I did not stalk him. Considering Pamuk now roams around with and armed guard I do not think that would have been the wisest thing to do.

Talking of Turkey, ever since the whole drama of the deadlock over the presidential candidate there’s been a fair amount of coverage in the America media. A lot of it has been blatantly bad but this op-ed piece really left me wondering whether I should laugh or cry. Sample only some of the many gems:
Euro-tourists are welcome to drink themselves sick and flaunt minimalist bikinis - as long as they remain quarantined in resorts.
Ummm ok. If you say so.

Overall, though, the AKP has pursued a successful policy of creeping Islamization - instead of being murdered at high noon, Ataturk's constitution is suffering the death of a thousand cuts.
I don’t even know what that means. The present constitution is Turkeys fourth. The last two were implemented well after Ataturk died.

With Sunday's vote, Turkey chose Asia over Europe. Ankara wants to belong to the Islamic Middle East on the social side, while exploiting Europe economically. But the EU isn't obliged to subsidize Turkey's return to the Middle Ages (albeit with cellphones). Talks will drag on for years, but Turkey's hope of EU membership is dead.
Dear lord…where do I even begin.
Yes, good for laughs only I think.

Another more interesting article I read recently was on food and nationalism.

…a big discussion was held over the origins of the dessert baklava. The question was raised: "Does baklava have a national identity?" Such a question is utter nonsense. All these dishes have been transported from place to place for centuries. Different peoples prepare them in their own way and eat them in their own way. In the process, these dishes have absorbed something from every location and changed along the way.
What makes baklava baklava is not its Turkish, Greek, or Arab identity. Today, as a result of historical and societal influences, Baklava is eaten in Greece, Lebanon, Syria, and Armenia as well as in Turkey. The motivation behind the desire to account for the origins of a dish lies in the significance of nationalism in the modern world.

…These topics are not taken seriously in the media. The reports and commentaries nurture nationalism, allowing it to affect everyday life. As a result, people do not hesitate to think in the category of "We and Them." For this reason the concepts and language we use to express our thoughts about music, dance, food, and the like are very important. Consequently, there is a great potential for these discussions to become dangerous.

There’s also an interesting point raised about Turkish food in Germany.

Let's take a look at the importance of the döner in Germany. While the döner here has gained in popularity, it's obvious that it is associated with Turkishness. At the same time you can say that nobody notices what constitutes a döner, but instead who prepares it. On the other hand, what is regarded as a döner in Germany is very different from a döner in Turkey. Many Turks would doubt that the döner in Germany is a döner at all, because this dish has been completely Germanized, a bizarre snack in bread.


It’s very true. Even in Vienna there were "Turkish" stalls that sold not only döners but also pizzas and wursts. Also interestingly, the Naschmarkt is full of Turkish stalls selling falafels, baklavas, kebabs and what not… further out the Brunnenmarkt (the largest in Vienna, I think) is basically all Turkish. Everyone speaks Turkish, posters are in Turkish, Sezen Aksu plays in the background and I saw more headscarves there than I did in most of Istanbul.

By the way, the talk of baklava above reminded me that I have this great desire to go baklava tasting all over the Middle East. I have this ridiculous desire to visit Gaziantep (on route to Aleppo or Damascus ideally) for no other reason except that apparently you get the best baklavas there. (Even in Istanbul the best baklavas are supposed to be at Güllüoğlu which is a shop that is originally from Gaziantep). God knows when I will even get to visit though. No harm planning but, right?

Musil. Marlboros. Mother's Milk.

Do you know the feeling when you’re stuck in a rut? That’s how I have been feeling like for the past one week. It’s terrible. I have no motivation do anything – at all. Its mid term break at school only that it’s not a break of any sort because I have tons of work to do. And I have just no, no, no, none, zilch, nada motivation do any of it. I finally finished rewriting my essay on Wednesday. And I should have started working on the other 4,000 word essay I have due sometime soon. And studying for my philosophy mid term which is next week. But just the thought of them is enough to make me nauseous and I have been reading instead.

I have had a pile of books on my table that I have been meaning to finish. I hate school sometimes (most of the time?) because most of my reading gets limited to coursework. There’s always something due, some meeting and my mind is always occupied with stupid banalities. And sometimes I just want to watch movies. Or television series’. I finished watching Brideshead Revisited – that took close to 14 hours. (It was excellent, by the way). And then of course, it doesn’t help that I am absolutely inept at any form of time management.

Anyway. To come back to the point - books.

I still have about sixty pages of Edward St. Aubyn’s Booker nominated Mother’s Milk to finish. (It was considered something of an upset when Aubyn didn’t win. One of the judges Anthony Quinn wrote afterwards, when the book didn’t win, that he "felt quite devastated and wondered if I should go off and sulk"). The book so far has been a wonderful read. It’s a simple story, but it’s written with such lightness, wit and insight that reading it is very pleasurable indeed. And even though it’s melancholic, it has wonderful moments of humour.

One of the reasons I picked up Robert Musil’s The Confusions of Young Törless was Alok’s posts on him over at his blog. The Man Without Qualities seemed too daunting a book to pick up, especially mid term, so I went with Törless.
The theme of the book is similar to Lord of the Flies, but Törless is, I felt, a more contemplative book. The brutality and sadism of the boys at their elite boarding school coupled with their philosophical awakening, makes for disturbing reading. Musil incorporates a host of ideas - the confusions of adolescence, the intellectual rationalisation of sexual relations, sadism, psychology, religion, spirituality, even the mathematical concept of infinity. A much longer post would be needed to even begin to analyse the story. Suffice to say that it is a brilliant, thought provoking work.

The author Aleksander Hemon mentioned Miljenko Jergović’s Sarajevo Marlboro a couple of times in his BBC interview as part of their series ‘Sense of the City’. (Where authors talk about how their cities have inspired them and reflect in their works. Pamuk talks about Istanbul, Zadie Smith about London and Bapsi Sidhwa, Lahore.) Jergović’s wonderful, wonderful collection of twenty nine short stories paint an amazingly human, insightful, humorous and poignant portrait of Sarajevo and its citizens during the Serbian siege. Sarjevo Marlboro is one of the most beautiful collection of short stories I have read in a while – I really can’t recommend it highly enough.
[I am putting up one of the stories from the book below (does this count as copyright infringement?) and another two are linked to. Please go read them.]

I am still predominantly reading fiction from areas that made up the ex-Ottoman empire (or to put it less succinctly the Balkans, Turkey, Middle East, Caucuses and North Africa). Including Kadare’s Three Elegies for Kosovo and a short story (available online) The Abolition of the Profession of the Curser. (Speaking of Kadare, the second Man Booker International will be awarded this year and I wonder whom it will go to.) Other than that I think I have to push back my plan to finally seriously sit down with Naguib Mahfouz’s Cairo Trilogy to once school is over. Having read some of Mahfouz’s other works and some fifty pages of Palace Walk I think I’d rather read the book with full attention at a time more conducive for reading.

Right now I need to get back to school work. Sigh.

...hours spent reading Pamuk

I have had a totally crappy day. I had a paper due today. And I was half way through typing it when the computer crashed. And there went all my work. All of it. I can’t even begin to describe my absolute irritation right now. It doesn’t help that the paper was one of the most boring I have ever had to write. As if once wasn’t bad enough I now need to redo the whole bloody thing. And I needed to ask for an extension. This sucks. Its moments like this when I wish I could banish technology to Dante’s seventh circle of hell. But then again what purpose would that serve? Also, more idiocy followed. I got back from the library around midnight and found the juniors making a ruckus – they were really excited it was Valentines Day. Dunces.

Anyway, I had no desire to work on my paper at that point of time. And so I wasted my time, more importantly improved my mood, by watching Orhan Pamuk's Nobel Lecture, My Fathers Suitcase (Babamın Bavulu). (Well I didn’t listen to the whole thing – ummm because it was in Turkish and I could only understand few words and phrases - and I guess the only reason I wanted to see it was to see Pamuk speak in his native language). I thought Pamuk’s lecture was interesting – and very him. This was my second reading of it and I think I enjoyed it more than I did the first time. I love how it’s so personal and yet has something everyone can probably relate to. And I loved how Pamuk connected so many different threads together – his relationship with his father, his style of writing, his influences, politics, identity, Istanbul. Some excerpts (go read the whole thing, please):

The writer's secret is not inspiration – for it is never clear where it comes from – it is his stubbornness, his patience. That lovely Turkish saying – to dig a well with a needle – seems to me to have been said with writers in mind. In the old stories, I love the patience of Ferhat, who digs through mountains for his love – and I understand it, too. In my novel, My Name is Red, when I wrote about the old Persian miniaturists who had drawn the same horse with the same passion for so many years, memorising each stroke, that they could recreate that beautiful horse even with their eyes closed, I knew I was talking about the writing profession, and my own life….

….What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kind ... Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world – and I can identify with them easily – succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities. I also know that in the West – a world with which I can identify with the same ease – nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.

Pamuk’s Banquet Speech, which I read for the first time yesterday (this one was delivered in English, I think), is another little gem. It made me break out into a huge indulgent smile.

"Now, some years later, I've received this great prize. This time the same people begin asking another question: Aren't you a bit young to get the Nobel Prize? Actually the question I've heard most often since the news of this prize reached me is: How does it feel to get the Nobel Prize? I say, oh! It feels good. All the grown ups are constantly smiling at me. Suddenly everybody is again gentle, polite and tender. In fact, I almost feel like a prince. I feel like a child. Then for a moment, I realize why sometimes I have felt so angry. This prize, which brought back to me the tender smiles of my childhood and the kindness of the strangers, should have been given to me not at this age (54) which some think is too young, but much much earlier, even earlier than my childhood, perhaps two weeks after I was born, so that I could have enjoyed the princely feeling of being a child all my life. In fact now... come to think of it... That is why I write and why I will continue to write. "

So yes I spent my day with Mr. Pamuk, (for I then went and read parts of Kara Kitap) and it was apt indeed for I do love him dearly. He made me forget my horrible day, as always he made me marvel at the beauty of his prose and made me grin … what more could I ask for?

P.S: The great desire to read Pamuk arose, I think, because I bought someone My Name is Red as a gift yesterday. This is the sixth copy of the book I have gifted someone over the last year or so. The irony of it is that I still don't own the book. Sigh.

P.P.S: So the Turkish Daily News mentioned this last week and the Guardian reported it yesterday, Pamuk is apparently now in exile in the US. I really don't know what to make of it because for one the Turkish press tends to go overboard and secondly he has been teaching in the States for the past few months. I do know that he cancelled a German book tour following the murder of Hrant Dink. One of the suspects in Dink's murder did publicly state that "more people will die" and told Pamuk to "wise up" as he is considered a target for Turkish nationalists. Dink and Pamuk were friends and both were tried under Article 301 of the Turkish Constitution for "insulting Turkishness" last year. After Dink's murder Pamuk had stated, "The murder of my courageous, golden-hearted friend has soured my life. I am furious at everyone and everything, and I feel boundless shame."
All this makes me terribly sad and angry. It reminds me of what Einstein said "Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race."

British thespians, Borat and other random mumblings

A friend of mine, P, was in town on break from her studies at Columbia. It was good fun to meet up with her after months really. The evening was spent talking about my trip, books, authors (Pamuk teaches at Columbia. She said he’s a bit of a diva, but a really good teacher anyway), and watching a ridiculous amount of E!
Including a show they had on called ‘The 100 Hottest Bodies in Showbiz’. Ralph Fiennes was #95. It was terribly amusing to see his deadpan reaction. “Uh? When was this? Ten years ago?” I didn’t see anymore of the show after that. Seeing Fiennes on E! was more than I could have hoped for. He also probably brought more class to the channel than they could handle so it was probably be safe to assume that it would only go down hill from there.

Right. Anyway. Ralph Fiennes is currently acting in Samuel Becketts ‘First Love’, down under, in Sydney. How much does it suck that he wasn’t on stage when I was in London. I mean, really. It sucks.
The theatre scene in London in general, however, makes me go green with envy when I think of people who get to actually live there. It’s so unfair. Given my love for British thespians, I just think it’s so unfair that Londoners get to see them all over. Before I left, the RSC was heavily advertising its production of ‘Antony and Cleopatra’, with Patrick Stewart as Antony. It made me wish I could postpone my return by a few days just so that I could catch the opening night.

Then there was all that heavy promotion for the movie ‘Venus’ (it releases later this month in the UK). I have only heard superlative praise for Peter O’Toole’s performance in the movie and I really, really want to see it. O’Toole has been nominated for the Golden Globe and Screen Actors Guild awards for the movie already, and I really do hope he gets an Oscar nod. Plus, the script is by Hanif Kureishi, which in itself raises my expectations, as he happens to be one of the most bitterly funny authors I have ever read.

I was loitering around HMV the day before I met P. And I happened to find the DVD of ‘Brideshead Revisited’, (Jeremy Irons plays Charles Ryder). Had it not been terribly expensive, I would have bought the set in a flash. When I told P she asked me, “But you have seen it, haven’t you??” When I replied in the negative, she whacked me with the nearest cushion she could find, “How can you not have??!!” I have of course known about the mini series for a while, but I just never went out of my way to look for it. P told me that it is the best adaptation of a book she has ever seen and anyone who has ever read and loved the book (how can anyone not like Brideshead Revisited?!) must see it. Anyway, I found out my library has a copy, but only for “restricted use”, which explains why I have never seen it there. So am headed there soon to find out what the hell this restricted use thing is. Seriously, wtf?

In any case, P told me that though she thinks Jeremy Irons is the most beautiful man ever, and as excellent an actor he is, the actor playing Sebastian (Anthony Andrews) is excellent and is probably the most brilliant piece of casting ever. This of course has piqued my curiosity and now I really just have to see the series. For the record, Jeremy Irons is another one of those British actors I adore. If a movie version of 'Death in Venice' is ever made Irons should be cast as Gustav von Aschenbach. Well, I think so anyway. Plus, if anyone ever deserved an Oscar for voicing a character it is him. What would the Lion King be if he hadn’t voiced Scar? Not even half as good, that’s what.

While talking to P, I was trying to think of British actors I don’t like and admittedly came up short. I think one reason I like the Harry Potter movies is because they stuck to having British actors in the movies. Alan Rickman (excellent as Snape) Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Ralph Fiennes et al – that’s class. And I would have thought it impossible to be able to pull of a TV version of ‘Jeeves and Wooster’, but Stephen Fry and Hugh Laurie actually do manage to do the impossible. P, however, had a point when she said that, well, there are some actors who you really can’t not like.
“Who doesn’t like Daniel Day- Lewis?”
“Some people don’t even know who he is!”
“Idiots, needless to say.”
Point.

While still on the topic of movies. I finally saw ‘Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’ yesterday. (Am sorry, but I really couldn’t resist typing out the whole title). Right, so I thought it was ok, but not as funny as it’s been made out to be. I think the Borat clips on youtube are funnier that the movie. Parts of it were hilarious and it could have been so much better. But it kept degenerating into the same old crass toilet humour and that was disappointing. Yes, you do laugh at the stupidity of the Americans – the Rodeo scene was hilarious and the scene with the college guys was, I am sorry to say, reminiscent and a somewhat apt representation of a lot of American undergrad frat boys I know. But in other cases, you just feel pity for the people who are caught up in the whole thing because they are obviously decent people and then whom is the joke on?
Oh well, still probably worth a watch. Just not that funny.

Kara Kitap

I started reading Pamuk’s The Black Book almost a month back. Well, I was reading the old translation. Mid way through it, my cousin, who was visiting, gifted me a copy of Maureen Freely’s new translation and so I started from scratch. The translation by Freely is excellent. The Black Book, unlike the stark prose of Snow, is lyrical and full of imagery. It reminded me of My Name is Red.

The book tells the story of Galip, an Istanbul lawyer whose wife Rüya has suddenly disappeared leaving only a nineteen letter goodbye note. Somewhere down the line Galip suspects she has run away with their cousin Celal, a famous newspaper columnist. The key to locating them he believes is understanding Celal and deciphering the clues that he dots his columns with. The blurb on the back cover of the book says, “Dazzling…turns the detective novel on its head.” Apt perhaps, because the book doesn’t follow the conventional detective style in the least. At one point Galip tells Rüya that the only detective novel he’d ever want to read would be the one in which even the author doesn’t know murderer’s identity. There would be no planted clues or red herrings. Needless to say, that is the book that Pamuk has written. The book follows two paths. The chapters alternate between Celal’s columns and Galip’s search, eventually converging.

Celal’s columns are what made Black Book special for me. They are so wonderfully written that each one of them reads as a beautiful short story. Fantastical stories about the Bosporus, ottoman sultans, and mystic Sufi sects, they are all here. One of the most beautiful is “A Story About People Who Can't Tell Stories.”

“When you look into the faces of these quiet creatures who don't know how to tell stories - who are mute, who can't make themselves heard, who fade into the woodwork, who only think of the perfect answer after the fact, after they're back at home, who can never think of a story that anyone else will find interesting -- is there not more depth and more meaning in them? You can see every letter of every untold story swimming on their faces, and all the signs of silence, dejection, and even defeat. You can even imagine your own face in those faces, cant you? How many we are, how much anguish we all carry, and how helpless most of us are in the face of the world! ”

At its heart The Black Book is a book about identity. About Galip whose search for Celal becomes a search for himself. And Celal’s columns which chronicle a city’s history, Istanbul’s identity. One of the stories in the book is about a nineteenth-century prince who tries to become himself by getting rid of people, books, furniture, anything that might influence him and make him less of himself. He envies the “stones in the desert for just being themselves,” until he dies in an empty room painted white. From a book rich in mystical Sufism, it’s a not so subtle hint at the politics of the Turkish Republic. I also found it amusing that both the protagonists of the story are named after Sufi saints. Their object of affection Rüya, a dream.

More than Istanbul, it’s The Black Book which is a true tribute to the city. Turkish movie stars, prostitutes, dolmuses, jetty rides on the Sea of Marmara, people sitting in cafes and eating helva -its almost like living in the Istanbul of the late ’70s. I am still undecided on whether The Black Book works as a “book”, rather than as a tribute to Istanbul or as an encyclopaedia on Sufism, but then that’s beside the point. It’s a glorious read.

P.S: Today’s New York Times travel section has a wonderful article on Istanbul. One of the Turkish exchange students in school refuses to believe that I have never been to Istanbul. “But you even know the streets!” Blame it on Pamuk. And also the fact that I read the Lonely Planet guide to the city cover to cover. I am still upset my trip didn’t work out. I want to visit so much! *wails*

Randomness

Yesterday in the gym. A girl running on the treadmill. Wearing a black see through vest with a bikini top acting as a bra. Thoughts in my head:
1. Wow, that has got to be uncomfortable.
2. Hasn’t she heard of good support?
3. Only someone with a 32A (probably 32AA) cup size could do that.
4. WTF??!!!

Other news. Is it possible to be in love with someone you have never met and don’t know because of the way they write? Pamuk in the Guardian:
“For what is a novel but a story that fills its sails with these winds, that answers and builds upon inspirations that blow in from unknown quarters and seizes upon all the daydreams we’ve invented for our diversion, bringing them together into a meaningful whole? Above all, a novel is a basket that carries inside it a dreamworld we wish to keep forever alive, and forever ready. Novels are held together by the little pieces of daydreams that help us, from the moment we enter them, forget the tedious world we long to escape.”

OMG...Pamuk Won!!

Orhan Pamuk Won!! He won!!!
Wow…I am actually thrilled. Pamuk has been on the top of my list of favourite authors since I read Snow some two years back. He is a fabulous writer and the Prize is completely deserved.
When the Economics Prize was announced a couple of days back I remember thinking that the Literature Prize would be announced in a couple of days and “I hope Pamuk wins it.” (Apparently, the committee was in a deadlock over him and Pinter last year.)

I have raved constantly about Pamuk to all and sundry and on this blog numerous times. (His official site is linked on my sidebar, do have a look). Since I always gift my friend’s books, for the last one year they have all received a Pamuk from me, without fail. There is a beauty, sadness and sense of poetry to his writing that is simply mesmerising.

The only Pamuk book (available in translation) that I have yet to read is The Black Book which is staring at me, lying on my desk as I write this. I have been planning to get down to reading it for ages, but coursework and midterms have made me postpone picking it up. Pamuk is not to be read in a distracted state of mind. He demands and deserves complete attention.

Not surprisingly the prize has received mixed reactions in Turkey. I find it strange that I have yet to meet a Turkish student (and I do know many) who has anything nice to say about Pamuk. Most of them haven’t read his books but are put off by his statements on the Armenian genocide. I find that terribly sad and really hope that I have had a biased sample.

In an interview of his I read a while back, Pamuk said that he had his next ten books all laid out in his mind. Well, Mr. Pamuk, please do write them fast. I for one can’t wait to read them.

Reading, reading, reading...

Two recent realisations.
1. Over the last couple of weeks I have turned into an insomniac.
2. Reading can sometimes lead to bad accidents.

I have been reading like a maniac recently. This explains my insomnia. Since work started i have been trying to catch up on my (fiction) reading as school doesnt always afford that luxury. So no non fiction books for me for the time being. I have had enough of Habermas, Kant, Russel, Smith, Hayek, Freud and the likes for now....and in any case I shall have to return to them come August (arghh!).

The last two weeks in particular have seen me in some kind of frenzied craze to devour as many books as I can (i cant explain this sudden urge to read, read, read as fast as i can and then move on to the next book to, well, read some more). As a result I havent had more than, lets see, 5 hours of sleep any day all this month. I read while walking to the metro, on the train and then walking to office. (I also think i now look like a zombie *can imagine Cranberries in my head going 'Zombie, zombie, zombie'...yikes*)
Which leads to point number 2. Reading and walking is not a good combination. I was so engrossed in my book while walking home day before, I walked straight into a lamp post. *Ouch*. The bump on my head still pains. *Ouch* again. Oh well, i still read on.

Anyway, have finished 5 books since last monday....

My Name is Red , Orhan Pamuk: its wonderful!...but I am biased as Ii am in love with Orhan Pamuk. By the by, I also heard Pamuks "Freedom to Write" lecture at the PEN World Voices festival, which made me like him even more. He spoke about shame and pride, how he has become more political and i especially loved this - "I am the kind of novelist who makes it his business to identify with all of his characters, especially the bad ones." Made me remember Blue from Snow....arghhh, where is his Nobel already?

Never Let Me Go , Kazuo Ishiguro: I liked it, though not as much as his other books. It is sad and moving and haunting and Hailsham is a perfect Ishiguro creation - known yet otherworldly. But there was something missing...the book raised so many questions which i felt changed nothing and were eventually discarded...the characters just went down the road that had been planned since the beginning...

Brideshead Revisited, Evelyn Waugh: because it is fabulous and deserves to be re-read a million times.

The Palace of Dreams, Ismail Kadare: is quite brilliant. What would happen if our dreams were analysed by the state, as they are at the Tabir Sarrail, the Ministry of Dreams, the centre of power of the Ottoman Empire...its a scary vision. Absurdist, hallucinatory, completely macabre.
Was reading Kadares interview in the NewYorker and was most thrilled to read this one line at the bottom of the page - Kadare’s responses were translated, from the Albanian, by Elidor Mehilli. Made me squeel like mad because i know Elidor...i was talking to him just last month...what a kick...
(i think its the same Elidor Mehilli i know. Hes Albanian, studies European history at Princeton....what are the odds, eh?....ok! I am not going to kill it by analysis, this is my two degrees of seperation from a Booker winner....*make a note to cross check*)

The Unbearable Lightness of Being, Milan Kundera: i finally read it! and its wonderful!!! I am trying to analyse whether i prefer lightness or weight (i think i am more of a weight person)...which one is better?
don't we need both?(isn't that the answer to ALL philosophical questions??) but really, what can you say about a book that makes you stop and think about how you live your life??
its wonderful.....enough said.....
(on a side note this book has added to my fascination for Bowler hats, it started with the Thomas Crown Affair which i have watched repeatedly just to see that one scene with all those Bowler hats - I cant help it, I'm weird).

Am currently reading The Buddha of Suburbia (its bitterly funny)....am also trying to get my hands on Eastward to Tartary .... books make life such bliss :0)

Colour me kirmizi...

Crimson. Red. Kirmizi. Benim Adim Kirmizi. My Name is Red. I just finished reading it and am still trying to gather my thoughts. The book is beautiful, poetic and i loved it dearly.

The book starts with the murder of Elegant Effendi, a master miniaturist and gains momentum with a second, of Enishte, who had been secretly commissioned by the Ottoman Sultan to produce a book by the four best miniaturists of the land (Elegant, Olive, Stork and Butterfly) to celebrate the 1000th year of the Hegira.
Secret for the simple reason that the illustrations are to be done in the Frankish style, with the use of perspectival, representational art not in keeping with Islamic thought. Miniatures were acceptable because they were illustrations, secondary to the text and the images made were generic. The use of potraiture and perspectives also brought about the threat of idealizing people and pictures and depicting things as we see them not as per their importance in God's eyes. The book is shrouded in such secrecy in fact, that even the artists are never allowed to see any painting in whole, simply working on their individual parts.

Red's 59 chapters are narrated by different characters who take the story forward in the form of a murder mystery, a love story (between Black, Enishtes nephew, who is investigating the crimes and the beautiful Shekure, Enishtes daughter) and as a discussion on the meaning and nature of art. It is as such a treatise that the book truly flows. About half of the books chapters do not directly contribute to the story, discussing instead the various miniaturist themes from Husrev and Shirin to Leyla and Mejnun, the different styles of miniature art in Persia, India and China, the differences between Islamic and Frankish styles, as well as the importance of style, time and blindness.
Views are expressed not only by the artists in the book but by the illustrations themselves - acted out by the story teller in the coffee house . A tree (I don't want to be a tree, I want to be its meaning), death (I'm just an illustration. Be that as it may, I read terror in your eyes) and even the color red (Yes, those who cannot see would deny it, but the truth is I can be found everywhere).

Though I found the translation by Edrag Gonkar beautiful and lyrical the book doesnt always make for easy reading. In trying to keep the murderers identity a secret Pamuk tells us very little that differentiates the three remaining miniaturists from each other. I found Black and his marriage to Shekure (and often the triangle with her brother-in-law) often incomprehensible and frustrating. Yet I found Shekure herself beguiling, intriguing and elusive, her motives always just out of grasp.

Though My Name is Red is set in the late 16th century, I think it is very topical,(probably not as much as Snow, which is openly political). Loss of identity and conflicts between the east and the west are common themes in Pamuks work and i think few people have done as fine a job as him in depicting them and that there are few as well equiped as him to do so. To quote Pamuk himself:

"I have spent my life in Istanbul, on the European shore, in the houses looking towards the Asian shore. Living by the water with a view of the opposite shore ceaselessly reminded me of my place in the world. Then one day a bridge connecting the two shores of the Bosporus was built. When I went up on the bridge and surveyed the landscape, I realized it was still better and still more lovely to see the two shores at once. I felt that a bridge between two shores was the best thing to be. Speaking to each shore without completely belonging to either; this unveiled the finest scenery of all."

My Name is Red is proof of that.

Quoting Marcel Proust.........

I read a most beautiful and moving paragraph recently, a quote from Marcel Proust from the (mis)translation of Y.K. Karaosmanoğlu. To quoute:

"To imagine that a person who intrigues us has access to a way of life unknown and all the more attractive for its mystery, to believe that we will begin to live only through the love of that person - what else is this but the birth of great passion?"

how apt then, that I should find these to be the introductory words to Orhan Pamuks White Castle....how very apt.....