The Black Book By Orhan Pamuk
Orhan Pamuk ↠ 5 Free read
A New Translation and Afterword by Maureen Freely
Galip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective novel–loving Ruya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her ex-husband or Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl's identity, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear the worst.
With its cascade of beguiling stories about Istanbul, The Black Book is a brilliantly unconventional mystery, and a provocative meditation on identity. For Turkish literary readers it is the cherished cult novel in which Orhan Pamuk found his original voice, but it has largely been neglected by English-language readers. Now, in Maureen Freely’s beautiful new translation, they, too, may encounter all its riches. The Black Book
اسطنبول بمعالمها وتاريخها وناسها, هي أرض الحكايات لأورهان باموك
فكرة الرواية جميلة.. البحث والوصول للمعرفة بمعاني وأبعاد مختلفة
يجد غالب رسالة من زوجته تخبره فيها بمغادرة البيت
يبدأ البحث عنها وعن أخوها جلال الكاتب الصحفي الشهير
الفصول متبادلة في الرواية بين ذكريات وتحركات غالب وبين مقالات جلال اليومية
رسم باموك بمهارة متاهة من القصص والحكايات لشخصيات وأحداث في اسطنبول قديما وحديثا
يدور فيها غالب أثناء البحث فيتعرف على نفسه ويكتشف خبايا الناس والمدينة
سرد مختلف وموضوعاته وتفاصيله غزيرة ومتنوعة 9781400078653 One of Pamuk’s first novels. First a sample of some of the wonderful writing from the very first page:
“Ruya was lying facedown on the bed, lost to the sweet warm darkness beneath the billowing folds of the blue-checked quilt. The first sounds of a winter morning seeped in from outside: the rumble of a passing car, the clatter of an old bus, the rattle of copper kettles that the salep maker shared with the pastry cook, the whistle of the parking attendant at the dolmus stop. A cold leaden light filtered through the dark blue curtains. Languid with sleep, Galip gazed at his wife’s head: Ruya’s chin was nestling in the down pillow. The wondrous sights playing in her mind gave her an unearthly glow that pulled him toward her even as it suffused him with fear. Memory, Celal had once written in a column, is a garden. Ruya’s gardens, Ruya’s gardens… Galip thought. Don’t think, don’t think, it will make you jealous! But as he gazed at his wife’s forehead, he still let himself think.”
The story: There’s not a lot of plot. Galip is a lawyer in Istanbul. His wife Ruya has disappeared leaving him a brief note. He hides her leaving from his family. Did she go back to her first husband whom she was married to for just a few years? Or could she have run off with his uncle, Celal, a nationally famous newspaper columnist? Celal too has disappeared. Very little of the book is about the actual search; instead it’s the mental process Galip goes through of trying to figure out where she is, often using mystical clues he finds in Celal’s old columns. While searching for his wife, her ex-, and the columnist, Galip starts assuming the columnist’s identity, writing his columns, wearing his clothes, living in his secret apartment (he has enemies from the ideas he has expressed), imitating his voice when he answers his phone calls. One persistent called threatens his life.
Instead of a lot of plot, we get essays about life in Turkey and Turkish culture from numerous columns written by Celal and from conversations such as when a group of reporters sit around the table and tell stories.
There ae many themes in the book but I think first it is a love story. Galip grew up with Ruya (they are cousins) and he has loved her since he was a child.
Another theme is identity and people trying to “be themselves.” There’s an extended story about a legendary Turkish prince who was so obsessed with trying to be himself that he would destroy books that had brought the ideas of others into his head. There is some talk about Doubles, “where people were at once themselves and their own imitations.”
Many people in the story want to be someone else. Galip want to be Celal. Celal wants to be Rumi, a famous Persian poet. Galip runs into an old girlfriend from school days and finds out she is still in love with him and fantasizes that she is Ruya. A brothel that Galip visits specializes in women who look, act and speak like American movies stars.
There are a lot of references to American films and movie stars from the era of Edgar G. Robinson, Clark Gable, Ava Gardner, Elizabeth Taylor. In Turkey’s wave of Westernization even mannikins had to look European, not Turkish. The columnist writes about how Western films even changed Turkish gestures.
Of course, all this about ‘be yourself” is related to Turkish identity, Turkey being a country that deliberately tried to Westernize starting in the late 1880’s through Mustafa Kemal Atatürk in the 1920’s.
Among the mystical clues Galip uses, another theme is about reading letters in peoples’ faces tied in with the ancient Hurufism sect. Kind of like astrology. And maps: Maps of the city and mystical codes inscribed by someone’s journey or by tracing an ant crawling over a map on a page. And faces you discern by superimposing maps over each other, such as maps of Istanbul, Cairo and Damascus. (And what are the odds of this: a novel I reviewed two weeks ago, The Tango Singer by Tomas Eloy Martinez, also talked about the main character looking for secret clues on a map of where a singer spontaneously performed in Buenos Aires.)
And it’s almost always snowing. Is that a theme? Perhaps Pamuk got the idea of writing his novel Snow after writing this book. It's also a love story to the city of Istanbul: it's beauty as well as its seediness.
I really enjoyed this book and the depth of thought on a wide variety of topics. Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in 2006. It’s a long book. The edition I read had a tiny font and hardly any margins and went for almost 500 pages; other editions in English are 700 or even 800 pages long, so it is an extensive read that can be a bit trying in places but generally I never felt it was getting repetitive or losing focus. I give it a 5 and I’m adding it to my favorites.
Photos of Istanbul: top from cloudfront.net; middle from wendyperrin.com; bottom from gettyimages.com. Photo of the author from i.hurimg.com 9781400078653 The Black Book is a story of losing and searching… Searching and never finding…
The Black Book is a book of memory and oblivion…
I thought of the pit which used to be right next to the building, the bottomless pit that had inspired shivers of fear at night, not only in me but in all the pretty children, girls, and adults who lived on all the floors. It seethed with bats, poisonous snakes, rats, and scorpions like a well in a tale of fantasy. I had a feeling it was the very pit described in Şeyh Galip’s Beauty and Love and mentioned in Rumi’s Mathnawi. It so happened that sometimes when a pail was lowered into the pit, its rope was cut, and sometimes they said that there was a black ogre down there who was as big as a house.
The past is a bottomless pit – everything disappears there without a sound or trace… 9781400078653 The big issue from Orhan Pamuk 's , a Nobel Prize winning writer, novel is identity...who are we ? The setting Istanbul, Turkey, the largest city in the nation, straddling the bright blue waters of the narrow , and rather shallow , but still even today quite ...
crucial Bosphorus Strait, on both the continents of
Asia and Europe . This is the ultimate problem for its divided people, do we become westernized or remain with traditional, old customs ... They go see ancient Hollywood films, some 20 years old, at the movie theaters, ( no television then ) enamored by the stars, copy what is shown, clothes, manners, language, everything, the values from the past are no more . Galip Bey, mid -thirty, is an uninspired lawyer (not happy in the occupation), in his native, fast growing town, married to the beauty Ruya, a woman of the same age, he has known since childhood. Intelligent with a propensity for reading detective books, one after another, not interested in work, lately him too. His famous older cousin by more than twenty years Celal Bey, a newspaper writer with a column that all the city reads, in fact the whole nation and beyond the borders, he is the most read in the Middle East..No surprise that Galip is a big admirer of his relative's sophisticated writing, has many enemies, though, dabbles in dangerous politics , he is also Ruya's half-brother. Turmoil consumes the people's daily lives there, political violence and killings in the streets, many urge a military coup to cleanse the atmosphere, bring unity and calm back ... circa 1960. Mysteriously Ruya leaves him, later Celal cannot be found either, have they run off together? Then begins the long search by the husband to discover where they are hiding. A Heart of Darkness voyage on land , as he walks through ominously deserted streets , lights fade in sunless places, shadows fall on filthy , evil smelling slums... observing apartments that are ready to collapse, citizens struggling to survive the ever expanding, chaotic megalopolis , its rapidly changing environment, the poor begging and stealing, death lurks by, but nobody cares . Galip has a feeling, a strange disturbing belief... he is not alone , someone is following, an evil eye, yet the threat is dismissed ... must go on, what occurs good or bad will happen , the dispirited man has to know the truth. He continues the seemingly fruitless odyssey..A strange trip into Turkish history and the crisis in that magnificent country, what is its destiny? A book that both entertains and causes boredom to the reader, if a person wants to find the real Turkey, this is the book, but be patient, the story will delight and frustrate, the plot is not really important... the philosophy is. The author's love hate relationship with a city he was born in, is apparent. 9781400078653 YouTube kanalımda Kara Kitap'ı önerip postmodern romanı anlattım:
https://youtu.be/5NOJQ_1hmps
Uykulardasın şimdi bensiz uykularda
Hala İstanbul’dasın ama deniz yok dalgalarda YYK
Sayısızca kültür, padişah, caz festivali, mimari ve sanat akımı, beyaz yaka, Suriyeli, Suriyesiz, kitap teması, şarkı ilhamı, cami, kilise, Rönesans'a yakışır insani proporsiyon, sonradan yine kendisine tepki olarak getirdiği barok bir öfke, askeri darbe, manevi arbede, mahalle kavgası, kavgalardan çok daha ateşli çiftleşme, dert, mutluluk, işkence, orgazm, kasvet, ütopya görmüş ve hala içinde barındırdığı çoğu canlısına göre kendisinden başka şehirlerin tebdil-i kıyafetine bürünmeye çabalayan kolektif bir varoluş salatasından -yani Proust'un kayıp zamanın izinde kaybedip aradıklarını, Paulo Coelho'nun Simyacı'yı yazarken arakladığı Takkeci İbrahim Efendi'nin hikayesi gibi bir arayıştaki esrarın sonucunu insanın yine kendisinde bulacağını bize pitoresk bir imgeyle alıcıyı harekete geçirme işlevinde buldurmaya çalışan- bir hafıza bahçesinden bahsetmeye çalışıyorum size : İSTANBUL.
Hayatımın büyük bir kısmında İstanbul'un manevi basınç aurası altında gerek fiziksel gerekse de spiritüel mesafesinin çemberinde yaşadım. Türkiye'nin magması olan bu sıcaklığın verdiği, kendi merkezine çektiği bir İstanbulçekime, aynı Dünya'nın, çevresindeki Güneş, gezegen ve uydularının çekimine kayıtsız kalamadığı bir şekilde maruz kaldım. Oydu bizim hafıza bahçemizdeki en renkli ağacımız, oydu Pessoa'nın dediği, düşünmenin yıkmak anlamına gelip de insanın düşünmeden önce parçaları -yani semtleri- algılayıp sonradan metropolitan bir tümevarımla şehrin bütününü düşünebileceğimiz bir bellek. Çünkü Pessoa'ya göre de, düşünce süreci, düşünülen şeyi parçalara bölmekle olurdu.
Yüzyüzeyken Konuşuruz, Sandal şarkısında, bu kitaptaki Galip'in tükenmek bilmeyen bir kısır döngüdeki zamanın süregelen kaybının izinde, İstanbul'daki dalgalara denizi yakıştırmanın telaşı içerisinde, uykularını, gerçeklik ile düş arasındaki Musil'in ruhun bulanık sendeleme denklemi gibi yalpalayarak renkli Rüyalar oteliyle taçlandırdığı bir İstanbul hayal etmişti. Aynı Orhan Pamuk'un gayesi gibi.
Şu anda bedenimin bulunduğu Batman, aklımın çarpık sokaklarının gezmeye çalıştığı, idam mahkumlarının son saniyelerinde çaresizce ve büyük bir arzuyla düşünmeye çabaladığı şehir algısını daha geniş bir algıyla beynimin önüne soyut çözünürlüklü bir görüntü olarak getirmeyi kendime askerlik idi edindiğim bir İstanbul ve çift haneli sayıyla sayabileceğim yıllardır ait olduğum ama bir türlü Maslow'un piramidinin en tepesindeki onu gerçekleştirme seviyesine erişemediğim bir İzmit düşüncesi ile Orhan Pamuk'un Galip, Celal ve Rüya üçgeni arasında spiritügeometrik bir bağıntı kurmak istedim.
Baş karakter Galip, doppelgänger etkisiyle bir Tourette sendromlusunun aniden çıldırmaya başlayıp, bağırıp çağırması gibi bir merakla keşfetmeye çalıştığı İstanbul'u, sevgilisini, amcasının kızını, kendisini -artık her ne derseniz- yine kendisinden fiziksel olarak çok uzakta bir Stockholm vatandaşının sendromu gibi kendisini rehine olarak aldığı İstanbul'da aşkı ve yine kendisini bulmak isteyen, Raskolnikov'un Napolyon, Hint Devrimi zamanında insanların Mao, Küba Devrimi zamanında insanların Castro olma idinde yanıp tutuşan gençlerinin akson ve dendrit uzaklıkları arasında mekik dokuttuğu esrarlı bir gerçeklik arayışında, imgelerini, Boğaz'ın sularının Anadolu ve Avrupa yakasındaki en güzel yalılara, en uç insan yapımı anılara, köprülerin eteklerinin altından geçen hidrojen ve oksijenlerin sadece hamdığı, piştiği, yandığı değil de, kelimelerin sevgi, nefret, hüzün, aşk, şaşkınlık, şehvet, öfke gibi duyguların sinestezik lunaparklarında İstanbul'un en esrarlı köşelerinde Kara Kitap'ın beklenen konserinde yerini alabilmek için bilet sırası kovaladığı, kimilerine göre bir Dünya klasiği niteliği taşıyan kimilerine göreyse Alaaddin'in Dükkanı'na gelip de Alaaddin'in elinde olmayan salt nesnel gerçekleri değiştirmesini bekleyen bir kalabalık ordusu önderliğinde kurgulamıştı. İşte böyle bir cümle gibiydi İstanbul.
Mimar Sinan, Yavuz Çetin, Bedri Rahmi Eyüboğlu, Gaye Su Akyol, Münir Özkul, Vedat Türkali, Fatih Sultan Mehmet, Ete Kurttekin, Flört, Atatürk, YYK, Vedat Milör, Nusret, Peyk, Ara Güler, Sabahattin Ali, Birsen Tezer, Orhan Veli Kanık, Sezen Aksu gibi sanatkarlarımız bu şehirdeki yürüyüşlerini aynı Galip'in İstanbul sokaklarında yüzlerin, tarihin, kitapların, semtlerin esrarını çözmek ister gibi gerçekleştirmişlerdi.
Kadıköy Yeldeğirmeni mahallesinin her sokağından uzakta denizin göründüğünü bilmek, Kuledibi'nde dolaşırken dümdüz bir sokakla karşılaşamayacağını tahmin edip de pitoresk ve bir o kadar da grotesk fotoğraflar yakalamayı şehvet edinen bir turistin varlığını Galip'e yakıştırmak, Kartal'dan Silivri'ye metrobüsle gidilemeyeceğinin bilincinde 500T hayalleri kuran bir İstanbulluyla, ecnebilerin Old Town diyerek turistik rant edindiği bir evrensel gezgin terminolojisiyle tefsirini 400 küsür sayfaya sığdırmak Orhan Pamuk'un harcı olmuş ise, sirkülasyon koridorları Boğaz'ın suları, giriş kapıları stratejik ve jeopolitik önemin diktatörlüğünde sabitleştirilmiş coğrafya dersi kitaplarındaki hudut bakımından komşuları, oturma odası, salonu Beşiktaş, Kuzguncuk, Sarıyer, Üsküdar, Eminönü, Kadıköy, mutfağı Karaköy, Beyoğlu, bir türlü sevilemeyen ev sahipleri Bağcılar, Esenler, Başakşehir, figürü Ruslara sıcak denizlere inme mastürbasyonunu mumyalatan, temeli eşsiz bir tarih, duvarları Darwin'in hiç de kıskanmayacağı bir şekilde, zamanla tarih kavramından Medusa'nın gözlerinin içinde kendilerine sorulduğunda büyüyünce taş olmak isteyen bakışların kıskanacağı bir brütlükte rant betonuna evrilen, milyarlarca yıl geçtikten sonra belki de en şanssız ev sahiplerini üzerinde ağırlamak zorunda bırakılan bir edebi-tarihi-mimari hafriyat kamyonunu, beynimizin nizamiye kapılarından dışarıda bir yerde düşünmemiz pek tabii ki de olanaksız olurdu sayın Pamuk, sen de haklısın.
Neyse ki, Galip gibi Hey Douglas da doğmuştu. El mi yaman, Beyoğlu mu yaman demişti. Boşuna değildi Light in Babylon'un çığırmaları, camilerden gelen dinsel sesle, evlerden yükselen -insel kelimesinin önüne c ya da t harfi koymamın kararsızlığında insanın ağzından çıkan titreşimlerin karşılaştırılması. Boşuna değildi Mimaride hiçbir detay boşuna değildir, çocuklar. diyen hocamı hatırladığım bir yaz gününde İstanbul'un sosyolojik mimari altyapısını bu tarihi zaman denen kavramı ezel mertebesine ulaşabilme isteğinde elinde oynatabilen bir detayla anlatma becerisine sahip olan ve İTÜ mimarlığı 3. sınıfta yarım bırakan Orhan Pamuk'un bunca çabası. 9781400078653
Read many years ago, this is one of the top three books by Pamuk which I love the most. The other two being My Name Is Red and Snow - obvious choices.
No one makes old and modern Turkey come alive on page like Pamuk.
A re-read is on the horizon. 9781400078653 this is a rare example of a reread for me. I don't reread books very often, not because I don't want to, blahblahblah....
My experience of reading this one was a good example of a certain kind of reader's disease. The kind where even though you are trying to focus your attention on the story, the language, etc your eyes start to water and you kind of glaze over in your mind, turning pages and sort of dimly registering the story. It's not reading,per se, but it's not skimming either. It's not bullshitting your way through the book- it's more that when you read a lot your brain (or at least mine) kind of gets blurry when the story or the language doesn't exactly burst out at you.
I think it also makes a difference when the writer's particular style doesn't mesh well with your own individual brain chemistry. His way of seeing is somewhat at odds with yours. It's not a philosophical difference so much as its about...instincts of perception, if you will. The pacing of the story, the level of and type of detail, the way he describes a room or how much of it, the length and construction of sentences....all that kind of stuff. I don't think it's pretentious or posuer-ish to continue reading even if the writer's style means you're going to miss most of what's happening. Sometimes you can uncover a jewel even in the midst of confusion or mistakes. And besides, some people just *have* to finish a book once they start it. I'm one of them.
Also, consider the fact that many of the places where the modern reader reads are not particularly conducive to the intimate, erotic, spiritual practice of reading a book. Consider, just for starters, the din of airports, buses, commuter rails, subways, bars, restaurants, living rooms with the tv on, so on and so forth. There is usually a trickle of white noise coming in from at least one direction- there has got to be some of the magic drained out of the experience. I would venture that long, prolonged investments in concentration could be harder to come by now than ever. More comprehension gets shaved off while, ironically, the abundance and availability of material is richer than ever. And then there's the next hundred and seventy nine pages to go...
So...I kind of shortchanged the book a little bit.
I think it's excusable to sort of pass something like this off, as long as you did make a decent effort. Hell, not everything can be easy to understand, right? This is leisure reading, after all. I was not told there would be any math on this exam. I will not put my pencil down.
Anyway, apropos of nothing, I picked this up again recently and it's a whole new experience. The scales have fallen from my eyes. There are still some stumbling blocks here and there- Pamuk is a writer for whom I have great respect, and I absolutely loved The New Life- but all in all the tale is beginning to fill in for me and I'm really participating in it in a way I hadn't before. It's funny, since so much of this very provocative, philosophically savvy, eerily clean novel has to do with preoccupations of identity. I deliberately phrased it like this because there's very strong self-reflexive aspect to the proceedings. The main character is trying to relocate his vanished wife through the medium of the collected newspaper columns of his cousin, her former husband, who has also vanished, who has written a great deal about the identity of Turkey in the (post) modern world, not to mention his own consciousness and psychic disorientation, and so obviously there's a deeply meta-narrative project in place. You can imagine how sticky and obfuscating this kind of thing gets when, for whatever reason, the co-ordinates of your consciousness aren't really aligned with the text. it's a delicate balancing act anyway, moreso when the author is stepping into some very seductive, Borgesian metaphysical landscapes.
Now I that, about three years later, I can dip back into it with pleasure and profit I am pleased to say that The Black Book, at maybe about 65% done at least, is a very, very worthwhile tome. It has the narrative of a noir: meditative, crisp, somewhat chilly and slightly spare. It has the political significance of Pamuk's status as a player on the Turkish literary scene (if you're actually reading this you should really acquaint yourself with his works and days) and especially when you consider the story's being set in 1980, the significance of this is explained rather neatly in Maureen Freeley's translator's afterward- a little too neatly, if you ask me. And, philosophically, it is very beautifully investigated, well prosed, and that's difficult to do well. Philosophy is an incredible thing. Sometimes its relationship to literature can be a bit awkward and bumbling. Sometimes it adds a moral and existential resonance to a story which is intriguing and enticing on its own merits. Pamuk handles this beautifully-
There's quite a few quotable gems here. Many of them go on at length, necessarily. Here are a few of the shorter ones:
He felt happy, on the verge of a revelation- the secret of life, the meaning of the world, shimmering just beyond his grasp- but when he tried to put this secret into words, all he could see was the face of the woman who was sitting in the corner watching him.
He surveyed the dome, the columns, the great stone structures above his head, longing to be moved but feeling stuck. There was the vaguest of premonitions...but this great edifice was as impenetrable as stone itself. It did not welcome a man in, nor did it transport him to a better place. But if nothing signified nothing, than anything could signify anything. For a moment he thought he saw the flash of blue light, and then he heard the flutter of what sounded like the wings of a pigeon, but then he returned to his old stagnant silence, waiting for the illumination that never came.
For what is reading but the animating of a writer's words on the silent film strip in our minds?
There's some phenomenal set pieces, too. Paumk's Istanbul is there in its 'there-ness' but it still has a universal quality, albeit a somewhat dour, crystalline, noir-ish ambience...
It got three stars for a muddled, uncomprehending first read which was decidedly my fault and now it's getting four stars for coming off the bench and working nicely... 9781400078653 Biraz konuşalım.
Orhan Pamuk serüvenim yedi yıl önce, doğduğum evin balkonunda ailemin kütüphanesinden çekip aldığım Yeni Hayat ile başladı. Eski bordo kapaklı bir kitaptı, ilk cümlesini bizzat yaşayacağımı düşünmemiştim hiç, yaşadım.
Daha derinlere inmeden belirtmek istiyorum ki, bu platformu ve buradaki insanları seviyorum. Yorumlara, inceleme yazılarına önem veriyorum. Buranın edebiyat ile dolu olmasını istiyorum. Yazarları kendi hayatlarından, edebi kişilikleri dışında yaptıkları yorumlardan ayrı tutmanın zor olduğunu da biliyorum. Ne kadar zor olsa da -ki şu durumumda zor görünmüyor bana- yapacağım bunu. Yazarın edebi kişiliği, kitapları ve Kara Kitap dışında bir şey ise okumak istedikleriniz; bunu, bu satırlarda bulamayacaksınız.
Pamuk’un Kara Kitap yolculuğu 1985 sonbaharında başlıyor. Masumiyet Müzesi’ni gezenlerin inceleme fırsatı buldukları üzere (ah lütfen İstanbul’daysanız gidin, gidin, gidin!); yazar kitaplarını el yazısı ile defterlere yazmayı tercih ediyor. Sonrasında zor okunan bu yazı dizgiye gidiyor ve sayfalanıyor. Pamuk, kitaplarını yazarken bu defterleri genellikle Ay/Yıl olarak sınıflandırıyor ve kendi deyimiyle ‘düşünceleri ilerleyemediği, tıkandığı’ zamanlarda çizimler de yapıyor. Bu çizimlere Kara Kitap’ın Sırları adlı kitap ile ulaşabilirsiniz.
Kara Kitap 1990 şubatında tamamlanıyor.
Columbia Üniversitesi’nde üzerine dersler verilen, büyük yankı uyandıran, olumlu-olumsuz birçok eleştiriye konu olmuş, Nobel jürisini en çok etkileyen O. Pamuk eseri olan Kara Kitap nedir, ne yapar, ne düşündürür?
Roman, bir aile tasviri ile başlar. Pamuk’un kendi açıklamalarından da takip edilebileceği üzere en büyük ilham kaynağı, içinde büyüdüğü kalabalık ailesidir. Zira Melih Amca karakterini kendi dayısından esinlenerek yazmıştır. Kara Kitap’a sadece bir aşk romanı demek yanlış olur. Kara Kitap sadece Galip-Rüya-Celal karakterlerini ya da Rüya’nın terk edişi üzerine Galip’in arayışını, Celal’in köşe yazılarını konu almaz. Kara Kitap, İstanbul’u anlatır, bir kahraman olarak hikayeye davet eder şehri. Bunun için ‘James Joyce’un Dublin’e yaptığını; Orhan Pamuk da İstanbul için yapmıştır’ derler.
‘Nişantaşı dolmuşuna yürürken dünyanın hiçbir belleğe sığmayacak geniş olduğunu düşündü, bir saat sonra Nişantaşı’nda apartmana doğru yürürken de, insanın anlamı rastlantılardan çıkardığını..’
Sonlara yaklaştıkça dikkatimi çeken noktalardan biri, romanın ilk bölümlerinin hikayenin tamamı için anahtar niteliğinde olduğuydu. ‘Boğaz’ın Suları Çekildiği Zaman’, ‘Alaaddin’in Dükkanı’ bölümleri ilk elli sayfa içinde yer alıyor. Siz daha ‘nolduk şimdi Orhan Pamuk okuyorum değil mi, hani Nobel falan??’ derken aslında önemli köşe yazıları başlamış oluyor.
Bu bölümler üzerine Rüya ‘on dokuz’ kelimelik terk mektubunu bırakır, Galip’in arayışı Celal’in köşe yazıları, İstanbul sokakları, telefondaki sesler ile başlar. Bu arayışın sadece Rüya için olmadığını kısa sürede anlarsınız. Tahsin Yücel, Kara Kitap’ı eleştiren yazısında ‘Galip’in karısını aradığı, hatta özlediği söylenirse de çoğu kez kadıncağızla hiç mi hiç ilgisi bulunmayan şeylerle uğraştığını’ söyler.
Galip’in arayışı Rüya ile kısıtlanamaz, ‘kendini aramak’ ise asla son bulmaz. Bunu belki de şöyle ifade etmiştir kahraman : ‘Soğuk kış gecelerinde, ‘Sonunda ayakta kalabildim!’ derken kendime, içimin boşalmış olduğunu da bilirdim.’
Galip’in kendi kimlik arayışı, her insanın bir başkası olma çabasının olduğu, ‘bir başkası olduktan sonra, bir daha bir başkası, bir daha bir daha başkası ola ola, ilk kimliğimizin mutluluğuna dönebileceğimizi sanmanın boş bir iyimserlik’ olduğu sona kadar takip eder sizi ve düşüncelerinizi.
İstanbul’u özletir -eğer bir süredir uzaktaysanız-.
Dünya Edebiyatlarına başka bir pencereden bakmanızı sağlar (bkz. 140sf), hikayelerinizi düşündürür, ‘aşktan çok yalnızlığın, hikayenin kendisinden çok hikaye anlatmanın üzerinde durduğunuzu’ hissettirir, berberin iki sorusunun cevaplarını ararsınız en sonunda : ‘Kendiniz olmakta güçlük çekiyor musunuz?’, ‘İnsanın yalnızca kendisi olabilmesinin bir yolu var mıdır?’
Bazı kitaplar bende ‘eve dönmüşlük’ hissi yaratıyor, tıpkı bazı insanların yaptığı gibi, unutmak istedikleri için hafızalarında sayfaları birbirine karışan kitaplar gibi. Fakat ‘bir süre sonra aramak bulmaktan daha önemli bir iş olup çıkıyor’.
Kara Kitap yazılırken, üç eserden fazlaca etkilendiğini belirtmiş Pamuk : Mantıku’t-Tayr, Mesnevi ve Hüsn ü Aşk. Bu yönüyle Doğu ve Batı arasında köprüler kuruyor yine. Fakat şu sözü de kazımak lazım zihinlere : ‘Bir elde öztürkçe sözlük, diğer elde gramer kitabı, benim kitaplarım, hele Kara Kitap, hiç anlaşılamaz!’
Update’lerimden birinde o gece hiç uyumadığımı, sadece Kara Kitap ile ilgilendiğimi yazmıştım. Okumalarımda beni en çok içine alan kısımlar da o gece okuduğum bölümlerdi. ‘Günahlarının vicdan azabından uyku uyuyamayan bir hayalet…’ gibi.
Kitabı belli aralıklarla kapatıp düşündüğümde, kalkıp aynaya baktım. ‘Tuhaf olan şey, yüzümdeki harfleri okuduktan sonra artık büsbütün kendim olacağıma iyimserlikle inanabilmem.’
‘Aynaya Girdi Hikaye’ bölümü, anlatılması zor. Omzumdan hostesin uzattığı peçete ile fark ettim gözyaşlarımı. Fakat aldırmadım, izin verdim onlara.
Kısa hayatlarımızda kaç şans yakalıyoruz ki böyle bütün geceyi Galip gibi bir karakter ile geçirecek, birlikte okuyacak, birlikte ağlayacak, ertesi sabah da yine onunla uyanıp kitapları konuşacak…
Sonlarda artık Şehzade’nin hikayesini de öğrenmiş oluyorsunuz. Aklınızda uzun ve derin bir sessizlik oluyor. Tekrar, tekrar, tekrar okuyorsunuz son cümleyi : ‘Hiçbir şey hayat kadar şaşırtıcı olamaz. Yazı hariç. Yazı hariç. Evet, tabii, tek teselli yazı hariç.’
Bu yorum Kara Kitap���ı elime almam için beni cesaretlendiren sevgili Biron Paşa ve -benim gibi- bütün hastalıklı zihinlere ithafen yazılmıştır.
9781400078653 Dile kolay, tam sekiz ayda bitirmişim Kara Kitap'ı. Anormal olabilir, ama normal de olabilir. Normal bir kitap da değil bu zaten.
Evet, bazı kitapları aylarla ölçülen sürelerde okuyorum bazen; fakat hakikaten, o kitaplar zihnimde apayrı bir yer ediniyor kendilerine. (Çoğu kişi için de geçerli bir durum bu bence.) Ve bu kitap da o kitapların kategorisine girince, içimde, içinden çıkılamayacak bir durum oluştu. İçinde tamamen kaybolup Galip'in, Celâl'in, Rüya'nın ve İstanbul'un karlı sokaklarının içinde ben de yitip gittim.
İlk sayfasına, Galip bir Rüya görüyor, içinde Celâl de var diye bir not düşmüşüm, sanırım yaklaşık beş ay önce falan, henüz 100. sayfa civarındayken: Bakış açınızı bir derece bile değiştirseniz bambaşka bir renk, his ve algı göreceğiniz bu kitaba dair söylenebilecek binlerce doğru cümleden yalnızca biri, bu bence. Zaten Galip'in Rüya'sının -ve tüm diğer bilindik ve sıradan rüyaların- aynı zamanda bir ayna olduğunu da düşününce, Celâl'in tüm çalışmaları, çatışmaları ve kendisiyle atışmaları büyük anlam kazanıyor:
Hiçbirimiz kendimiz olamayız. Herkesin seni bir başkası olarak görebileceğinden hiç kuşkun yok mu senin? Kendin olduğundan o kadar emin misin sen? Eminsen, kendin olduğuna emin olduğun o kişinin kim olduğundan emin misin?
Ve bütün mutsuzlar ve yalnızlar için geçerli olan şey de onca köşe yazısı, kitap, polisiye roman, anekdot, efsane vesair içinde, yine kendini gösteriyor:
[...]bir başkası olmak için yanıp tutuşan bütün mutsuzlar için hikâye anlatmak, kendi sıkıcı gövdeleri ve ruhlarından kurtulabilmeleri için keşfedilen bir hileydi.
Fakat mesela, aynı hikâyenin içinde ikinci bir başrol, ikinci anlamlar ya da insanların yüzündeki harfler ile kelimelerin içindeki kişilikler ortaya çıkınca, iş değişiyor. Herkes kendi hayatında yapayalnız bir başkahramana bürünmüşken, olası ikincil kişilikler -ya da tamamen gerçek ikincil hayatlar- her şeyi mahvediyor.
Beyoğlu'nda bir muhallebiciye oturmuştum; sırf kalabalık içersinde olmak için; ama cumartesi akşamının o sonsuzluk saatini doldurmaya çalışan benim gibi biriyle göz göze gelirim diye kimseye de bakmıyordum: Benim gibi olanlar, birbirlerini hemen tanır ve küçümserler çünkü.
Her ne ise. Uzatmadan, saçma sapan lafları ve gereksiz çıkarımları bir kenara koyarsam, Türkçede yazılmış en muhteşem şeylerden birini -fazlasıyla geç de olsa- okumuş olmaktan büyük mutluluk duyuyorum.
İnsanın edebiyat algısını değiştiren kitaplardan, Kara Kitap. 9781400078653 CRITIQUE:
An Album, a Gallery, a Museum, an Encylopaedia, or the Book of Life?
For much of Orhan Pamuk's novel, he writes about the neighbourhood and community in which one of his protagonists, Galip, lives.
Galip's grandfather built a multi-storey (multi-story?) apartment building called the City-of-Hearts Apartments.
Initially, the apartments were all occupied by his extended family. Only later were they colonised by small clothing manufacturers, insurance offices, and gynaecologists who did abortions on the sly. The family shopped not far away at Alaadin's shop in Nisantasi. The family owned two concerns at the time: the White Pharmacy in Karakoy and a candy shop in Sirkeci that later became a patisserie and then a restaurant.
The family is a collective, much like the broader community in which they live.
Pamuk paints a picture of this collective community, which represents Istanbul (and modern Turkey (1)) itself. Each of the objects and places occupies a position in the novel's fictional album, gallery, or museum. Their descriptions, in turn, are assembled in the novel, almost like entries in an encyclopaedia, so while the novel isn't particularly big or maximalist, it is encyclopaedic:
The world was a brand new encyclopaedia, waiting to be read from start to finish... (128)
The more he saw, the more he realised that everything he ever dreamed about 'our city' was actually real; this fact alone told him that the world was a book. Entranced by the book of life, he spent ever longer hours wandering around its streets, delighting in the new faces, new signs, and new stories he found before him with every turn of the page... (165)
The Golden Horn at sunset [Source: https://idsb.tmgrup.com.tr/2019/02/06...]
Lists of Phenomenal Observations
In a way, an encyclopaedia is a list of observations about phenomena or things that have been arranged in alphabetical order. Each entry is a synopsis or sketch of the phenomenon or thing's essence or being. (2)
The Black Book is just such an encyclopaedia with respect to the city and inhabitants of Istanbul, as experienced by the two narrators, although it's not set out in alphabetical order.
Here are some of the lists of people, places and things in The Black Book that stood out for me. They capture the diversity of life in Istanbul:
The Apartment
For a long time he listened to the apartment's long-forgotten inner workings: the rattling of the radiators, the silence of the walls, the crackling of the parquet floor, the hissing faucets and waterpipes, the ticking of an unknown clock, and a strange moan wafting in from the air shaft.
...all these tables, curtains, lamps, ashtrays, chairs, and even that pair of scissors on the radiator had been drained of the meaning and goodwill that had once bound them together.
Alaadin's Shop
In the distance was Alaadin's shop amid the toys, magazines, balls, yo-yos, coloured bottles, and tanks glimmered a light that was just the same shade as Rüya's complexion, and he could just see it reflected on the white pavement outside.
After a lifetime telling stories, I wanted to sit back and listen to Alaadin tell me tales about the cologne bottles, revenue stamps, illustrated matchboxes, nylon stockings, postcards, artists' drawings, sexology annuals, hairpins, and prayer books that I had seen in his shop once upon a time, only to have my memories of them vanish without a trace.
The Street Vendor
At his feet, spread out on a large cloth on an empty stretch of pavement, was a selection of objects that soon had Galip transfixed: two elbow-shaped pipes, assorted records, a pair of black shoes, a broken pair of pliers, a lamp base, a black phone, two bedsprings, a mother-of-pearl cigarette holder, a broken wall clock, a stack of White Russian banknotes, a brass faucet, a figurine of a Roman huntress - the goddess Diana? - an empty picture frame, an old radio, a pair of doorknobs, a sugar bowl.
...the things he then pulled out of the box did not surprise him either: a melon hat, assorted sultan's turbans, caftans, canes, boots, stained silk shirts, fake beards in various colours and sizes, wigs, pocket watches, glassless glasses, caps, fezzes, silk cummerbunds, daggers, Janissary medals, wristbands, and any number of odds and ends from Erol Bey, owner of the famous Beyoglu shop that supplied costumes and equipment for all domestically produced historic films.
Sounds of the Night
As you wait, you listen to the familiar sounds of night: a car passing through the neighbourhood, swishing through the puddles at the side of the street and over the cobblestones you know so well; a street door closing, somewhere nearby; the hum of the old refrigerator; dogs barking in the distance; a foghorn wafting in from the sea; the sudden clatter of the pudding shop's metal shutters.
Signs and Whispers
...whispering about pyramids, minarets, Cyclopes, mysterious compasses, Freemason's symbols, pictures of lizards, Selcuk domes, and White Russian banknotes with special marks on them...
Memories and Mysteries
...Beyoglu bandits, poets who lose their memories, magicians, songstresses with double identities, and lovers whose hearts never mend...
Seeking out shady deals, strange mysteries, phantoms, people who've been dead for a hundred and twenty years, combing through mosques with broken minarets, ruins, condemned houses, abandoned dervish lodges, consorting with swindlers and heroin dealers, decking yourselves out in gruesome disguises, masks, these glasses...
Arcades and Neighbourhoods
...together we explored handsome stone office buildings, old shops, glass-covered arcades, and filthy theatres and wandered all over the Covered Bazaar; we crossed bridges, venturing into dark streets and neighbourhoods no one in Istanbul has ever heard of and other neighbourhoods so poor they have no pavements, stepping through the dust, the mud, the filth.
The Turkish Flaneur
...he walked back the same way, passing trucks, orange sellers, horse carts, old refrigerators, moving vans, rubbish dumps, and the graffiti-covered walls of the university...
...he walked past old wooden houses squeezed in between ramshackle apartment houses with rusting balconies, long-nosed fifties trucks, tires that now served as children's toys, bent electricity posts, pavements that had been torn up and abandoned, cats crawling through rubbish bins, old women in head scarves smoking cigarettes at their windows, travelling yogurt sellers, sewage diggers, and quilt makers.
Courtyards and Playgrounds
The din of the market, the beeping horns, the shouts and cries coming from the playground of a distant school, the knocking of hammers, the hum of engines, the screeches of sparrows and crows in the courtyard trees, the passing minibuses, the growling motorcycles, the opening and shutting of nearby windows and doors, the rattling of office buildings, houses, trees, and parks, and the ships moving through the sea, entire neighbourhoods, the entire city.
Associations and Names
So many associations: midnight blue, darkness, beatings, identity cards, the woes of being a citizen, rusting waterpipes, black shoes, starless nights, scowling faces, metaphysical inertia, misfortune, being a Turk, leaking faucets, and, of course, death.
Tell them we know the names of the queers, priests, bankers, and whores who organised the international conspiracy that sent us reeling into poverty...
Telling Stories
That night at the nightclub, I looked around the table at all those whores, waiters, photographers, and cuckolded husbands telling stories, and I wanted to shout out, Oh, you wretched and defeated creatures! You little, lost, forgotten souls! Do not fear. No one is ever himself, no one! Not even the kings, sultans, celebrities, film stars, and happy creatures with whom you long to change places! So walk away from them. Set yourselves free! It's only when they're gone that you'll discover the story they pretend is secret. Kill them all off? Invent your own secrets, solve your own mysteries on your own!
Apartment buildings on cobbled street in Istanbul [Copyright: Orhan Pamuk]
Self and Other
Pamuk's observations reveal much about Turkish culture and Turkish identity.
However, many other aspects of the novel focus specifically on the Turkish self, especially to the extent that it models itself on foreign or Western cultural influences.
Like Buenos Aires in Manuel Puig's Betrayed by Rita Hayworth, Turkish society was increasingly influenced by Western culture, particularly the values and mannerisms communicated by the Hollywood film industry, Cadillacs and detective fiction during and after the great westernising wave:
The way we Turks laughed, wiped our noses, walked, looked askance, washed our hands, opened bottles - over time, [we] began to lose our innocence...
Their stock of little everyday gestures was 'life's great treasure,' but slowly and inexorably, as if in obedience to a secret and invisible master, they were changing, disappearing, and a whole new set of gestures was taking their place...It's because of those damn films...
...They were discarding their old ways - each and every thing they did was an imitation...the way they opened windows, kicked doors, held tea glasses, and put on their coats; these anonymous learned gestures, these new nods, winks, polite coughs, angry fits, and fistfights, the way we rolled our eyes now, the extraordinary things we did with our eyebrows, these new affectations might make us seem tougher or more elegant but they were also robbing us of our rough-hewn childishness.
To the extent that Turks consumed these cultural products, they would assume new, untold identities. Secretly deprived of their true identity, they would become empty mannequins.
Galip's wife, Rüya, is an obsessive fan of American detective novels, has lost her Turkish identity, has paid no heed to our history and the traditions that bind us to our past, and has abandoned Galip, leaving only a nineteen word farewell letter.
Parted from Rüya, Galip searches for her and his lost identity on the streets and in the apartments of Istanbul.
That's Cinnamon, That's Hollywood
Loss of identity is facilitated by the tendency to believe that our real identity is incomplete, and that we must supplement it with something or somebody else, we must remake ourselves in somebody else's image, we must become a lookalike:
I don't look enough like the person I want to resemble. Or, I do look something like that person, but I need to try harder...
This type of identity is completed by imitation, rather than enhanced self-consciousness or self-awareness. We want to imitate and become somebody else, somebody other than ourselves.
Paint It Black
Invariably, in modern times, this other person is Western European or American. The West saw the red door of Turkey and wanted to paint it black (no colors anymore). The East was turned into the slave of the West. Turkey had to enter the garden of its memory, and restore its identity:
[It is the story of] an old and unhappy Istanbullu who falls in love with a hero in a Western novel, eventually convincing himself that he is that hero, and his author too... (177)
...You become someone else when you read a story... (275)
...What did it mean to read a text if it did not mean entering into the garden of its author's memory? (321)
If you want to turn your world upside down, all you have to do is somehow convince yourself you might be someone else. (327)
To live in an oppressed, defeated country is to be someone else. (390)
In contrast, authenticity is being true to yourself, being true to the person you really are, and refusing to become someone else:
I must be myself.
Once upon a time, there lived in our city a Prince who discovered that the most important question in life was whether to be, or not to be, oneself. (416)
Like the Prince, I tell stories to become myself. (417)
FOOTNOTES:
(1) In December, 2021, Turkiye's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan issued a communique, tweaking the country's internationally recognised name from Turkey to Turkiye.
(2) Turkish doesn't have a verb to be in the same way that English does. Instead, Turkish uses suffixes to convey states of being. These suffixes can be used with nouns (I am a teacher, Sila is a student) or adjectives (I am sick, Sila is here).
Source: https://turkishteatime.com/turkish-gr...
Galata Tower [Source: A.Savin (WikiCommons) - Own work, FAL, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index...]
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