In defense of Orhan Pamuk- once again. Ms. Berlinski's hostility against Orhan Pamuk
CLAIRE BERLINSKI's Pamuk: prophet or poseur? is an unfortunate piece. I wouldn't think about it but as it made into Turkish press and was immediately incorporated into the arguments of Pamuk haters, and as it generated some comments in a previous post, I take it my duty to launch the counter-attack as a die-hard Pamuk fan. I know very well that Mr. Pamuk does not need me at all but as a fan I have to perform my duty anyway:)
First of all, let me make sure that Orhan Pamuk has never been liked and accepted by many of the gatekeepers of Turkish literature. He has been "popular" -but in the sense of being known- but he has been rarely appreciated by the lay public of readers. In the small world of Ms. Berlinski's Cihangir, this may not be apparent but this is a fact to all of us breathing outside the Cihangir gates. Cihangir has become a safe haven for happy expats and mostly pseudo and would be intellectuals after a wave of gentrification that ended up driving ordinary lower class people away.
Now in this small safe haven, Cihangir, I don't expect Ms. Berlinski to have any empathy with a person's feelings whose society continually despises his subjectivity. Mr. Pamuk is a really lucky person. He had at least a social capital to back him up when he was financially needy. [By the way, I wouldn't call him a person from Istanbul's haute bourgeoisie and imply his class as 'parvenu'. Ms. Berlinski needs to know more about the development and history of social classes in Turkey. There is at least something more aristocratic about him dating back to Ottoman times. ] Many others who invest their lives substantively for intellectual reasons do not have the same privileges in Turkey. However, this cannot lead one to blame Mr. Pamuk for having privileges? Therefore, although, quotes from Orhan Pamuk maybe funny and naive, to publish them means a sign of victory against a society that despises intellectual work....
So his very sad mood lies in a lifelong struggle of being an intellectual. This is not something political per se. I don't personally take or prefer such a sad, melancholic mood but I respect his standing. He could take the easy way of being a partisan and a ready made audience and could live a happy life but Mr. Pamuk distanced himself from a political position. This particularly makes some crazy in the leftist side of the political spectrum...
I believe in this vein, his explicitly most political moment, that his remarks in the Swedish weekly, is a mess. He basically messed up. He could not convey his message strategically as he was not aware of the language of everyday life politics. But what Ms. Berlinski says here makes me crazy:
Then, in 2005, Pamuk remarked to a Swiss weekly newsmagazine that "thirty thousand Kurds, and a million Armenians were killed in these lands and nobody dares to talk about it." By "these lands" he meant Turkey. By "nobody," it is not quite clear what he meant; as far as I can tell - and I live in Turkey myself - nobody here will stop talking about it. But the sentiment in Turkey, generally speaking, is that the Armenians had it coming, and quite a few more Kurds want killing.
Ms. Berlinski, you are fooled, you are fooled! It is not like that in Turkey. It is only in your small circle of people around. He is probably rhetorical there but you certainly don't know what many people in Turkey really think and please don't talk like an expert just because you live in Turkey.
Similarly, the east and west metaphor. Well, yeah I never liked it and i never found it useful but again Orhan Pamuk continues an eternal contemplation of Turkey's modernization adventure and that metaphor is one of the tools for articulation. He cannot be blamed and asked stop using it just because you are bored with it and your knowing-all friends already use it.
I am quite surprised with the bitter and hostile manner of the author. I don't see much emotional tones in reviews like this in general and she is not even ashamed of using an easy tool of attack such as picking fragments of texts to despise the creator. I mean the Humbert case. Well, if you could first think of child molesting here, then check back with an expert first dear:)
And finally check out this:
Facing death threats at home, Pamuk sensibly decamped for New York. But his prosecution, combined with his status as ambassador at large for the westernized Islamic world, functioned like camembert in a mousetrap to the Nobel committee, which in 2006 awarded him the Nobel Prize for literature. Pamuk is a talented writer, but no one in his right mind believes this was an award based on literary merit. [emphasis mine]
Well, isn't this funny? and reminds you something? Isn't this the very nationalist argument here around. I am very skeptical of Ms Berlinski thick knowledge of Turkish society, but i am quite sure she is duped into some nationalist rhetoric here. Well, we have these "white Turkish" nationalists who occupy good positions and spread the venom. It seems that they are affective even in some non-Turkish brains...
In the mean time, Ms. Berlinski says "[his] detractors find him faddish and incomprehensible." I always mean to say this: To criticise Orhan Pamuk for being incomprehensible- which I hear a lot from literary critics in Turkey- is a real stupid manner of argumentation. Well, it is stupid that these guys declare themselves not to have enough capacity to understand. As I can understand, I expect that his texts are understandable:)
Check out these older posts:
A brief -recent- history of Erkan thru Orhan Pamuk's novels...
Erkan needs to write a few words on Orhan Pamuk
