My name is red by Orhan Pamuk

 

Everyone wants to tell one’s own story to put forward one’s own view point towards the world or the life at large. In My name is red, Orhan Pamuk has not only depicted, in a very artistic and lively manner, the various anecdotes of living characters namely  Shakura, Black, Olive, Master Osman, Butterfly, Stroke and others but also of  a tree, a dog, a coin and even colour red. 

The literary style of Pamuk is unique and overwhelming to my meager literary knowledge. Pamuk has peculiarly and artistically changed the narrator during the entire course of the novel. I have read various memoirs, but an array of memoirs portrayed by Pamuk in one account deserve appreciation, which he backed by winning IMPAC award.

Pamuk has elegantly presented the life of artist such as miniaturists, calligraphers, painters prevailing in the Ottoman Empire. The conviction of the artists of that era towards their mastery was very predominant and the belief that the artist who was rendered blind by practicing his master in the faint light oil lamp is a true devotee to his mastery. Master Osman in order to prove his commitment towards his mastery pierced his eyes with a spike used by another Master for the same.

Moreover, Pamuk has lucidly presented the dilemma of Shakura, mother of two children, whose husband was missing for five years. Her state of mind caught in a tug of war to choose between her adolescence lover Black or her brother in law Hassan, who knocks her door at nights, was beautifully present by Pamuk.

Even thought My name is red is presented as a murder mystery churned with a love story, but in my opinion it is a beautiful literary account of artistry of Ottoman era.