111 offered to resolve the East-West tension by presenting hybrid artwork,
manuscript, and characters in his works. As he suggests to his readers in the quotations above that Turkey should not worry to embrace the two different souls.
This chapter focuses on Pamuk’s solution to the predicament of the oscillation between being enchanted to the West and being drawn to its own
tradition that Turkish society is undergoing, as it is presented in My Name is Red and The White Castle. In addition, the summary of Pamuk’s solutions to the
predicament of the oscillation, which are discussed in the three sub-chapters, will be presented in the theoretical observation. In this sub-chapter, I will clarify how
Said’s discourse on Orientalism and Bhabha’s discourse on Postcolonialism that are used to study Pamuk’s works have supported to uncover Pamuk’s solution to
the dichotomy of the oscillation of the Self and Other.
1. Impartiality
I want to be a bridge that doesn’t belong to any continent, doesn’t belong to any civilization.
—Orhan Pamuk
270
As a novelist, Pamuk does not choose nor judge one of the sides explicitly. As it is stated in the quotation above, Pamuk wants to be a bridge that does not
belong to any sides as well as connects both sides and mediates the predicament of the oscillation. He appreciates the process of an individual who is looking for
his identity without any claims, which can distract him from his identity formation
270
PBS NewsHour, “Orhan Pamuk: Bridging Two Worlds”.
112 process. At the same time, Pamuk refuses to settle into one position
271
and also insists that “it is not a big problem for Turkey to have two different cultures and
spirits”
272
for he claims that “slavishly imitating the West or slavishly imitating the old dead Ottoman culture is not the solution.”
273
Through his works, Pamuk criticises the modernists who want to simplify and purify the complex
cosmopolitanism by erasing all Turkey’s Ottoman tradition and banishing otherness. As a consequence of his refusal and critique to both sides in his
writings and novels
274
, Pamuk becomes the target of both secularists and religious conservatives
275
who claim “Turkey should have only one consistent soul”.
276
Moreover, his statement regarding the modernization project that “thirty thousand Kurds and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody but me
dares to talk about it” has set off a relentless campaign against Pamuk in the Turkish nationalist press.
277
In addition, after using the word “genocide” to describe the massacre
278
, Pamuk was brought to prison for three years for publicly denigrated Turkish identity and provoking public outcry in Turkey.
279
My Name is Red and The White Castle are books, which are constructed from a mixture of Eastern and Western methods, styles, habits, and histories.
280
In these two novels, Pamuk does not give any clear solution to the problem faced by
271
Iyer, “A View of the Bosporus”.
272
Pamuk, Other Colours, 369.
273
Pamuk, Other Colours, 370.
274
Pamuk’s critique towards the Westernist, the secularists, the nationalists, as well as the conservatives will be explained more in the next session, “Self-Questioning”.
275
Iyer, “A View of the Bosporus”.
276
Pamuk, Other Colours, 369.
277
Pamuk, Other Colours, 237, 356.
278
Barish Ali and Carilone Hagood, “Heteroglossic Sprees and Murderous Viewpoints in Orhan Pamuk’s My Name is Red”, Texas Studies in Literature and Language 54, 4 2012: 523.
279
Pamuk, Other Colours, 356; Özel, “Turkey Faces West”, 18.
280
Pamuk, Other Colours, 264.
113 the characters in dealing with the oscillation between the two traditions in both
novels. In his conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth, Pamuk even mentions that,
I don’t have a solution for these things, but ironically, my novels perhaps…are addressing the issue that we have all these general questions of identity,
belonging to a civilization, the fact that some people tell you that civilizations don’t come together, or there are likes of me through literature have addressed
these issues and to tell the reader that actually what matters are not civilizations but human lives.
281
Instead of giving any clear solutions to the oscillation in his oeuvre, Pamuk presents irony, tragedy, or even death that are experienced by the representatives
of both traditions in their lives. In the last chapter of his novel, Pamuk illustrates how Enishte’s book remains unfinished and incomplete.
From where Hasan scattered the completed pages on the ground, they were transferred to the Treasury; there, an efficient and fastidious librarian had
them bound together with other unrelated illustrations belonging to the workshop, and thus they were separated into several bound albums. MNR,
443 Through MNR, Pamuk wants to show that he predicament between the two
different painting styles is never clearly resolved for it is “difficult to harmonize these different techniques and worldviews”.
282
The painting itself, both the illumination painting and Venetian painting, is abandoned and the illuminators
paint neither like Easterners nor Westerners. The miniaturists...gradually accept the situation with humble grief and resignation. MNR, 442-443
In addition, the miniaturists who are overly bound whether to the Eastern or Western style of painting experiences irony, tragedy, and death in their life.
The murderer in MNR has two victims, Elegant Effendi, who first opens the story as a corpse, and Enishte Effendi, the man in charge of the Sultan’s secret book.
281
PBS NewsHour, “Orhan Pamuk: Bridging Two Worlds”.
282
Pamuk, Other Colours, 316.
114 Erdağ Göknar, the translator of My Name is Red, explains in “My Name is Read”
that Olive, the murderer in MNR, both desires and eschews style. He kills Elegant Effendi, a gilder who is also the follower of the great preacher Nusret Hoja of
Erzurum, for being overly bound to Eastern tradition and because Elegant claims Olives’ aesthetic as blasphemous.
283
The murderer is also afraid if the group of Islamic fundamentalist hears that the miniaturists paint pictures, which are
forbidden by their faith MNR, 424, nothing will remain of them or the book-arts workshop MNR, 23.
Similarly, the representative of Eastern tradition, Master Osman, the head of the Ottoman miniaturist, blinds himself using the needle that Master Bihzad
had used to blind himself MNR, 348, which is as an act to fight for the Italian painting style.
I looked at the needle for a long time. I tried to imagine how Bihzad could’ve done it. I’d heard that one doesn’t go blind immediately. …I sat
down again and gazed at my own eyes. How beautifully the flame of the candle danced in my pupils—which had witnessed my hand paint for sixty
years. …Without hesitation…I bravely, calmly and firmly pressed the needle into the pupil of my right eye. … I pushed the needle into my eye to
the depth of a quarter the length of a finger, then removed it. …Smiling, I did the same to my other eye. MNR, 349
As has been explained in Chapter III, Bhabha’s mimicry is one of the most effective strategies of colonial power and knowledge. However, Pamuk presents
Bhabha’s mimicry in a different way by portraying Master Osman who appropriates Master Bihzad in his self-blinding in order to fight against the
“invasion” and domination of Western painting. Additionally, he decides to blind
283
Erdağ Göknar, “My Name is Read: Authoring Translation, Translating Authority”, Translation Review 68 2004: 54.
115 himself because of his disappointment towards his miniaturists who leave the old
tradition and imitate the Frankish style and the Sultan who forces him to duplicate the Sultan’s self-portrait. Two years after blinding himself, Master Osman died
and Stork replaces his position as the Head Illuminator. MNR, 443 In addition, Olive murders Enishte Effendi for Enishte being too slavish to
Western innovation. Enishte’s visit to Venice has made him enchanted by the Venetian painting and it drives him to influence the sovereign to be painted in this
manner by Sebastiano. “He felt a slavish awe toward the pictures of the Frankish masters he’d
seen during his travels, and he’d fallen completely for the artistry that he regaled us about for days on end.”
“Your Enishte was murdered because he was afraid,” I said. “Just like you, he’s begun to claim that illustration, which he was doing himself, wasn’t
contrary to the religion or the sacred book.” MNR, 424 His motivation for killing Enishte Effendi is a combination of self-doubt and the
revelation that the aesthetic past will not persist in any meaningful way, but will be lost to history due to a host of political and social forces–one style gradually
replacing another.
284
This is in line with Enishte’s statement on the day Olive kills him that the paintings made by the miniaturists will be easily forgotten and
replaced by the new method of painting. “One day, everyone will paint as the Frankish masters do. When
“painting” is mentioned, the world will think of their work” MNR, 186 “...In the end, our methods will die out, the colours will fade. No one will
care about our books and our paintings. …Indifference, time, and disaster will destroy our art. …Mice will nibble these pages away; …a thousand
varieties of insect will gnaw our manuscripts out of existence. Bindings will fall apart and pages will drop out. …Not only our own art, but every
single work made in this world over the years will vanish in fires, be
284
Göknar, “My Name is Read”, 54.
116 destroyed by worms or be lost out of neglect MNR, 187: …yours and the
rest, all of it will vanish...” MNR, 188 The quotation above emphasize that the loss of the Islamic painting “was simply
because Western ways of seeing and painting were more attractive.”
285
In the future, “the Eastern world will lose”
286
for every painter will paint in Western style and leave the illumination painting. However, they cannot avoid this because
the Western ruling elite wants to modernize Turkey by replacing the 250-year- Persian painting. As I have explained in Chapter III, Enishte Effendi and Sultan
Murad III insist that the Frankish style must be applied immediately because it is a symbol of modernism. Additionally, in the future, this modernization is also
supported by Turkey’s first president who mentions that “a nation devoid of art and artists cannot have a full existence”.
287
Olive, the murderer, also experiences a tragedy and death in his life. He is blinded by his colleagues and murdered by Hasan. When the murderer, Velijan
Effendi Olive, is on his way to the Galleon Harbour, trying to flee to India, he is attacked by Hasan, who accuses him as one of Black’s men who raided his house
at night to abduct Shekure. MNR, 435 “Hasan, encountering Olive, had drawn his red sword and cut off Olive’s head in a single stroke.” MNR, 439
...In one smooth motion, without losing speed, the sword cut first through my hand and then clears through my neck, looping off my head.
I knew I’d been beheaded and…blood spraying from the neck like a fountain.
...My neck ached and all is still. This is what they call death. MNR, 436
285
Pamuk, Other Colours, 270.
286
Kantar, “The Stylistic Dialogue”, 131.
287
Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the Founder of the Republic of Turkey.
117 Olive murder’s series shows the binary opposition between the East and the West.
I argue that Olive’s head represents the West because Western painting stresses on the perspective and a realist depiction on the object. While Olive’s separate body
represents the East and Islamic illumination painting since in this painting method, painting is from memory the artists had, that they remember Allah.
MNR, 84 Göknar, additionally, mentions that the action when Olive is beheaded illustrates “the separation of body and mind, of tenor and vehicle, of content and
form, even of East and West”.
288
In the end of his life, Olive still describes the scene that he sees from the ground level. In this moment of observation, he
realizes seeing has become a variety of memory. MNR, 436 In Venetian painting, seeing read: perspective is very important because an object is depicted
realistically. While in Persian painting, “a miniaturist’s “eyes” are at the tip of his pen and acting before he can think; his hand is acting of his own accord”
289
. Furthermore, Pamuk’s impartiality can be seen more in, My Name is Red
which contains the leitmotif of a failed or “missing” book or manuscript whether failed or incomplete manuscript and in the White Castle, which discusses the
translated or rewritten book.
290
In My Name is Red, Olive, as the miniaturist who represents Western tradition, will do anything to bring the Ottoman art to
modernity. Sultan’s commissioned book, moreover, cannot be finished for Olive murders Elegant Effendi, the gilder. He kills Elegant because he is afraid that
Elegant can put the book in danger by spreading rumours to the followers of Nusret Huja that this book contains blasphemy. Besides, he also steals the
288
Göknar, “My Name is Read”, 55.
289
Pamuk, İstanbul, 150.
290
Göknar, “Ottoman Theme”, 37.
118 unfinished book from Enishte Effendi after hitting Enishte’s head using a bronze
Mongol inkpot in order to keep the sustainability of the Islamic painting tradition that is contested by the realist style of painting.
I could hear my murderer roaming around the room, opening the cabinet, rifling through my papers and searching intently for the last picture. When
he came up empty-handed, I heard him pry open my paint set and kick the chests, boxes, inkpots, and folding worktable.
Then…I sensed that my murderer had exited the room. He’d probably found the last painting. MNR, 191
After finding the last painting, Olive tries to complete the manuscript by presenting his self-portrait. However, in the end, he fails to make his own portrait
no matter how hard he tries. “Imitating the Frankish masters, as Olive explains, needs certain expertise and the proficiency of the Franks will take centuries to
attain. Besides, if the miniaturists still attempt to attain a style and European character, they will still fail.” MNR, 431
In the centre of this world, where Our Sultan should’ve been, was my own portrait, which I briefly observed with pride. I was somewhat unsatisfied
with it because after labouring in vain for days, looking into a mirror and erasing and reworking, I was unable to achieve a good resemblance.
MNR, 429 As one of the best Islamic miniaturists who wants to preserve the old painting
tradition, Olive’s failure in imitating the Italian Renaissance style can be one of his ways to fight against the domination of this painting style. His self-portrait,
which does not has a good resemblance to the Frankish painting, is in the same vein with Bhabha’s “almost the same but not quite” that the colonized tries to
resist the colonizer by imitating their culture but not totally and precisely, which aims to mock them for later the finished book will be presented to the Venetian
Dodge.
119 This is also similar to the “Caliban paradigm”—an anti-colonial project
through inappropriate appropriation that challenges the cultural and linguistic stability of the colonizer
291
—that the colonized learns how to curse in the master’s tongue.
292
On the contrary, Olive’s appropriation of the realist painting also shows that he is also overly bound to Western tradition even though he fails to depict it
at last. Pamuk also mentions that Olive is an illuminator who feels himself caught between the two worlds. He loves and despises the West in equal measure, a man
who cannot quite see himself as a Westerner but is dazzled by the brilliance of Western civilization.
293
Pamuk’s description on how Olive feels inauthentic, when he imitates the Western style of painting in his self-portrait in the secret book, mirrors Turkey’s
condition. Pamuk also mentions that the miniaturists’ problem is similar to the Turks who were vexed by the contradiction they felt between these two
injunctions—to be Western and yet, at the same time, to be authentic.
294
In addition, Olive warns his dear miniaturist friends that if they yield to the Frankish
painting they might resemble themselves but they will not be themselves. On the other hand, if the painters of the old tradition are still faithful to old masters they
will lose their place as a palace miniaturist. If Master Osman truly goes blind, or passes away, and we paint the way
we feel like painting, embracing our faults and individuality under the influence of the Franks so we might possess a style, we might resemble
291
Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 147-148. The term, “Caliban Paradigm”, is taken from Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which character named Caliban, the dispossessed aboriginal
inhabitant of the island, who mentions the benefit of studying the colonial language is that he knows how to curse.
292
Gandhi, Postcolonial Theory, 148.
293
Orhan Pamuk, Other Colours, 230.
294
Pamuk, İstanbul, 112.
120 ourselves, but we won’t be ourselves. No, even if we were to agree to paint
like the old masters, reasoning that only in this way could we be ourselves, Our Sultan, who’s turned His back even on Master Osman, will find others
to replace us. No one will look at us anymore, we shall only incur pity. MNR, 420
From Olive’s statement above, Pamuk, once again, wants to remind us that “slavishly imitating the West or slavishly imitating the old dead Ottoman culture
is not the solution”
295
. Pamuk also asks his readers to live in both cultures and to produce a new culture from the combination of those cultures.
296
However, the radical and abrupt modernization that are forced by the elites can cause the
ambivalence of identity for an individual lives between two identities that alienated them to their identity.
In The White Castle, both Hoja and his Italian slave also experience a tragedy because their grand plan on the war machine fails to break down the
Poles’ Doppio Castle. Hoja’s effort to conquer the West using his war machine that is made using the imitation of Western technology has a disappointing result.
The other countries also come to help the Poles from the Ottoman’s attack. After the sun had set and we learned not only that Huseyn Pasha the Blond
had failed, but that Austrians, Hungarians, and Kazaks had joined the Poles at the siege of Doppio, we finally saw the castle itself. ...I knew now
that our soldiers would never be able to reach the white towers of the castle. I knew only too well that when we joined the siege in the morning
our weapon would founder in the swamp leaving the men inside and around it to die. TWC, 143
Both Hoja and the Italian slave know that in the end their war machine will not be able to defeat the castle. However, the Ottoman’s modernization movement in
science and technology that are “imported” from the West is an irony. The East
295
Pamuk, Other Colours, 370.
296
Pamuk, Other Colours, 369-370.
121 fails to emulate as well as conquer the West by appropriating their sophisticated
technology. Modernity, that is believed can free people from illogical interpretation of dreams and stars, has bring melancholy to Hoja. He has to go to
Venice and leave his identity as an Easterner after his war machine that is built to emulate the West failed.
At the same time, due to their failure in the battlefield, the Italian slave cannot return to his country. He has to stay in İstanbul and replace Hoja’s position
while Hoja goes to Venice and replaces his place in order to escape from the wrath of the Sultan.
...He was rushing about like someone about to leave on a journey. Till the break of day I talked with him about what I’d left behind in my country.
TWC, 144 We exchange clothes without haste and without speaking. ...Then he left
the tent and was gone. I watched him slowly disappear in the silent fog. It was getting light. TWC, 145
The Italian slave also feels separated from his very self, Hoja, when he is not by his side. He wants to be Hoja’s side because he feels that he is Hoja and he cannot
be separated from his true identity. He highlights it by saying that, “I should be by his side, I was Hoja’s very self I had become separated
from my real self and was seeing myself from the outside, just as in the nightmares I often had. I only wanted...to rejoin him as soon as I could.”
TWC, 98 Moreover, it not only the separation of the Self and the Other that can bring
melancholy but their deepest longing to be someone else can also present hüzün. “To search within to think so long and hard about our own selves, would only
make us unhappy. ...For this reason heroes could never tolerate being themselves, for this reason they always wanted to be someone else.” TWC, 154-155 The
122 separation of Hoja and his Italian slave is a new start, a way to overcome hüzün
that they feel concerning to the painful memories of the failure of their grand plan. Through his two novels, Pamuk wants to show that modernity is not the
best solution to overcome the tension of the oscillation between the East and the West. Essentially, modernity does not always bring happiness nor peaceful and
Turkey’s nationalization shows how it goes. Goenawan Mohamad, he also mentions that modernity truly offers the freedom but it also brings melancholy
297
just like the forced modernization conducted by Turkey’s Western elites that leads to a self-colonialism and leaves hüzün. In order to create a modern era, the elites
tend to force the people to forget and erase their different norms, traditions, and religions. In addition, the construction of a secular Republic, which separates the
state from religion, is a way to release Turkey from its long forgotten Ottoman tradition and backwardness.
However, not only criticising those two sides through his opposed characters—Master Osman and Enishte Effendi MNR as well as Hoja and his
Italian slave TWC—Pamuk also shows how happy the Turks will be if they have those “two spirits, belong to two different cultures, and having two souls.”
298
In this same vein, he notes in Other Colours that:
I’m pleased that the Westernization process took place. I’m just criticizing the limited way in which the ruling elite had conceived of Westernization. ...They did
not strive to create an İstanbul culture that would be an organic combination of East and West; they just put Western and Eastern together. …They had to invent
a strong local culture, which would be a combination—not an imitation—of the Eastern past and the Western present.
299
297
Goenawan Mohamad, Catatan Pinggir 6 Jakarta: Pusat Data dan Analisa Tempo, 2006 134.
298
Pamuk, Other Colours, 369.
299
Pamuk, Other Colours, 369-370.
123 I argue that what Pamuk tries to present in his works is that he wants to “bridge”
the East and the West like the Bosphorus Bridge, which connects the Eastern and the Western side of İstanbul without taking any sides. This statement is in
accordance with Pamuk’s conversation with Elizabeth Farnsworth in PBS NewsHour, where he declares that,
I want to be a bridge in the sense that a bridge doesn’t belong to any continent, doesn’t belong to any civilization, and a bridge has the unique opportunity to see
both civilizations and be outside of it. That’s a good, wonderful privilege.
300
Pamuk considers the bridge, which spans the Bosphorous and unites the European and Asian sides of İstanbul, a metaphor for himself because it belongs nowhere,
but has a foot on two continents.
301
Erdağ Göknar in “Orhan Pamuk and the ‘Ottoman’ Theme”, supports the statement above by saying that “Pamuk himself,
he tries to juxtapose, synthesize, or transcend both”,
302
the East and the West through his oeuvre. By becoming “the Bosphorous Bridge”, Pamuk shows his
impartiality both the East and the West.
2. Self-Questioning