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subsistence in the Divine Beloved or the Self.
115
Theref ore “the existence is the
light, and thus when light makes its full appearance, all things disappear”
116
2. Raki and The State of Drunkenness
Pamuk’s oeuvres speak and present raki, Turkey’s traditional wine in an intimate way that readers will be familiar with raki as it keeps recurring almost in
all his novels from one page to another. Pamuk employs this particular Turkish liquor to depict certain emotional state of his characters. He loves to dramatize his
characters state of feeling by telling his readers how much raki his characters have drunk before they lost in a deep thought. The state of drunkenness in Pamuk’s
characters starts from a glass of raki after another glass; the characters want to forget their worries and elate their spirit. They start drinking with the company of
others and eventually they end up all alone by themselves and isolated on their own predicament. Raki
in Pamuk’s novels is the best company of the lover who longs to re-unite with his beloved. Apparently, love and wine are inseparable for
the lover. They are both intoxicating their state of mind. Although the drinking of wine is strictly forbidden in the Islamic tradition,
it appears in many poems of Sufi mystics. The appearance of wine in the Sufi poems is the poets’ way to communicate their message about the intoxication of
the divine love. In the context of Pamuk’s tales, raki is a familiar ingredient that is
never absent in his work. Just like Attar, Rumi, and Hafiz, the Sufi poets par excellence
in their own period of time, Pamuk’s metaphor of wine reveals the
115
Eric Geoffrey, Introduction to Sufism the Inner Path of Islam Indiana: World Wisdom 2010, 15.
116
Laleh Bakhtiar, Sufi: Expression of the Mystic Quest New York: Thames Hudson 1976, 90.
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intoxication of the lovers in their path to achieve union with their beloved. In Pamuk’s earlier novel, The Silent House
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, Dr. Darvinoğlu the son of Darwin is
presented as a man with deep attachment to his works and discovers refuge in raki when the rest of the world seems to conspire refusing his
‘beloved’ research on science and technology. The state of drunkenness he encounters enveloped him
into a different world where he no longer understands or cares about the world around him. In his state of unconsciousness he is aware that something is missing
from his life that waits for fulfillment. His consciousness is buried inside and all he thinks about only his
‘beloved’ work, his encyclopedia. In the three novels in under study, the presentation of raki
in Pamuk’s Snow and The Museum of Innocence is thicker compared to his earlier works The Black
Book. The similar thing of the presentation of raki in the three novels is the way the characters have raki in companionship that leads to isolation. Ka who is
bewildered between his Western upbringing and his Eastern origin takes refuge in
117
The Silent House recounts the story of Dr. Darvinoğlu, a doctor who is working on an
encyclopedia of science that will cover all Western sciences, natural sciences, and the science of the West and the Renaissance.
He believes that his encyclopedia will enlighten his people’s life toward modernity or Western world. The soul of his encyclopedia is sciences that discard all
things logic cannot prove, including the existence of God. His works is terrifying for his society who has strong Islamic religious background. Being too stern to his society’s ignorance of science
as well as their religious life, Dr. Darvinoğlu starts to abuse his patients’ inability to understand the sciences he tries to teach them, and force them to leave God. He forces his female patient to take
off her headscarf otherwise he will not cure her ailment. This circumstances lead to the ruin of his financial issue as people cease to visit him as they are terrified to have contact with an atheist.
His atheism also worsens his relationship with his devoted religious wife, Fatma who suffers for her husband’s Godless life. He finds consolation on his hard times from his maid, a woman who
possesses “particular beauty of their people“as he says. This simple woman gives him two boys that makes Fatma angrier even more and take consolation by torturing the maid and her boys. The
chaos in his financial and personal life disturbs his works on his encyclopedia. Raki then, is his refuge to clear off his mind from his trouble. He becomes very intimate with raki as he needs to
forget all the problem in his life that distract his focus. Being intoxicated with his raki, he is able to pull himself from the external world and only remember his encyclopedia. See Orhan Pamuk, The
Silent House, trans. Victoria Holbrook New York: Vintage International, 1990.
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raki whenever he starts to feel terribly frustrated by the choice of being an atheist and by the presence of God that starts to fill the empty spaces in his heart. Prior to
his meeting with Sheikh Saadettin Efendi, Ka drinks three glasses of raki to overcome his anxiety. As the raki takes over his consciousness, Ka finds no
obstacles to share whatever on his mind with Sheikh Saadetin Efendi. He confesses that he comes to Kars to find happ
iness and to believe in God: “I came here to find happiness
” Snow, 95. In his longing to acknowledge God’s presence in his heart, Ka feels that the Westerner inside him refuses. As a Western
intelligentsia , Ka’s view on God in the East and West is different. He is perplexed
with the yearning inside him that longs to acknowledge God. His confusion grows more miserable as the God in the West does not provide him with happiness he
can embrace at Kars. On the other hand, God in the East that showers him with happiness and the muse to write his poems is not the educated God as the one he
finds in the West: I felt guilty about having refused all my life to believe in the same
God as the uneducated – the aunties with their heads wrapped in
scarves, the uncles with the prayer beads in their hands. There’s a lot
of pride involved in my refusal to believe in God. But now I want to believe in that God who is making this beautiful snow falls from the
sky Snow, 97.
Just like Dr. Selahattin Da rvinoğlu who discovers state of peace under the
influences of raki, a feeling of tranquility embraces Ka’s soul after he treats
himself with glasses of raki. As he feels the serenity in his heart, his poems will arrive and Ka will write them without any difficulties. Ka senses that an invisible
voice is rising up inside him and he will fully give himself to that voice so that he can write the poem whispered by the voice. When he doubts about the beauty of
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his poems as his mind still foggy with drink, he finds that “his poems is flawless”
Snow, 99. In The Museum of Innocence, raki speaks similar voice as in Snow. Raki
provides an intimate feeling for Kemal in his journey to satisfy his yearning for union with Füsun, his beloved. Raki for Kemal, becomes his ritual in the thousand
diners he shares with Füsun. Kemal ’s intimacy with raki starts when he is badly
smitten by his love for Füsun. Raki, for Kemal is his morphine to forget the pain caused by the fact that Füsun is now a wife for another guy. By having his raki,
Kemal is able to strengthen his dream that one day he will win Füsun back and will live a life full of happiness with her. This so called Turkish wine elates his
spirits and gives him a new sight of love that promises forgetfulness from his worries of his love stories.
In one of the dinners he has with Fusun, his raki loosens his passion and lessens the pain caused by his obsessive feeling toward pursuing Füsun back into
his life. Soothed by his raki, Kemal cannot help to reconcile with himself that even being close to the beloved is more than enough to taste profound happiness.
Kemal is delighted by “The pleasure of sitting beside Füsun” MoI, 267, and the sensation of unintentional
physical contact with her: “My arms would brush against the velvet skin of her arms…I would almost faint from happiness” MoI,
267. He is calmed with his simple formula that “Happiness means being close to
the one you love, that’s all” MoI, 256. Kemal defines his attachment to Füsun as something
that “is not just physically but spiritually” MoI, 269. The raki Kemal
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has after reaching home from his visits to Füsun is his ritual before he goes to bed and praying that God will grant him a normal life MoI, 317.
The metaphor of wine is applied to represent two similar traits of being in love and being intoxicated. Both of them are: intoxicated means for the ordinary
person, the loss of awareness of one’s immediate environment, for the mystic it means the goals of love is loss awareness of all but God.
118
Thus mystical intoxication is not from the wine of the grape but rather from the pre- eternal wine
of love.
119
The preceding elaboration about each character and their attachment to raki brings the three characters in the three novels show that they have certain intimacy
with raki. T hey are intoxicated by the ‘wine of love’ that offers them to taste both
the bitterness and the joy of love at the same time. However, the state of their predicaments leads them to transformation rather than destruction. Their
transformation towards perfection will be achieved following their awareness that they are missing something in their life. The missing thing waits for fulfillment
and it will lead them to achieve the ultimate end of their longing- union with their Beloved.
Here, Pamuk’s raki is a means to transform his characters towards a complete or wholeness of the self after their predicament to strive for happiness.
Pamuk also shows that his characters have their raki in companion with other people as the identity construction is not possible without contact with external
118
Annemarie Schimmel, As Through a Veil: Mystical Poetry in Islam New York: Columbia University Press, 1982, 9.
119
Ibid. 78.
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world. However, the point of achievement in their identity journey will be different from one another even though they start their quest together at similar
point of time as each individual has different capacity to develop. In this case, Pamuk concept of raki reveals the concept of Hafiz
’s wine,
120
the Nightingale of Persia, whose ghazals almost inseparable from the metaphor of wine and also
tavern. Hafiz’s wine and tavern refer to a meeting of the minds between others who
have experienced the Divine. The tavern could also be a physical meeting place away from religious buildings where spiritual seekers could freely share their
experiences with one another. The wine that Hafiz keeps referring to is the metaphor symbolizes
that the ‘knowing’ can come only through gnosis because one cannot become drunk on Divine love unless he actually drinks it. Gnosis, like
“riding a bicycle, is experiential.” Ones needs to get on their bike and ride it to fully understand the balance needed to ride a bike. A comprehensive explanation
on the issues will be useless until ones experience riding their own bike. In the same way, knowing the Divine cannot solely take place through intellectual quest
and it is only p ossible to ‘meet’ the Divine by first hand experience. The wine in
Hafiz’s diwan symbolizes love. Hafiz pictures the whole world as a tavern
120
Shamsuddin Mohammad, a fourteenth century Persian poet, was known as Hafiz, a name that means ‘one who can recite the entire Quran’. He was one of the world greatest mystic poets whom
Goethe refers as his twins. In fact Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan 1819 is written upon Hafiz’ Divan 1814. Hafiz is also famous as the grandmaster of symbolism. He applied symbolism in his
poems as a teaching tool and a way to keep his true meaning secret from the prying eyes of the religious fundamentalist. Like many other Sufi mystical poets Rumi, Attar, Hakim Sanai, Hafiz
likens the absolute beauty of the Divine to a rose and he speaks of himself as a nightingale that is hopelessly in love with the rose. See Masoomeh Kalatehseifary, Joseph vs. Hammer Purgstall’s
German Translation of Hafez’s Divan
and Goethe’s West-östlicher Divan. Unpublished Master Thesis, Ontario: University of Waterloo, 2009.
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fragrant with the wine of merciful being and every person takes that wine which is in accord with his own evolution.
121
In Hafiz’s concept, everyone receives certain wine based on their capability therefore a wine of one person is not a wine for another. The state of drunkenness
as a result of wine drinking symbolizes the lovers’ journey toward union with the Divine. It is said the more the lovers drink from the wine of love the closer they
draw to the Beloved.
122
In similar string, raki in Pamuk’s three novels in question
also reveals the journey to the Beloved that becomes nearer as the characters have more raki. Ka will be able to receive his muse and his longing for union with God
are intensified when he drinks his raki. In Kemal’s case, the more raki he drinks
with Füsun’s father the longer he will stay in Füsun’s house and enjoy the time he spends near his Beloved.
3. Mirror as the Symbol of Unity
