Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Price Awarded Turkish Writer

I was always a book lover and had a passion to discover new authors. In 1984 when I was a young university student; Orhan Pamuk, who left architecture faculty at his graduation year to write a book, had completed his first book " The Silent House" and received an award. While I was wandering in a bookstore the book attracted my attention and I bought it.

I was going to fail from Economics Because of Orhan Pamuk ! :)

I began to read it and liked it so much that instead of studying for my Economy final, I read the book and passed with a very low grade. But it was worth reading Orhan Pamuk.

I became a fan, bought his second book" Mr. Cevdet and his sons "than" the white Castle" . He was getting popular, while his popularity increased, my adoration to him decreased.

A Decline in Popularity :

Although he was very popular, his way of speech especially his unpatriotic speeches, his ambitions made me and many of his first fans unhappy. After "The Black Book" I decided not to read his books. Even his winning the Nobel Prize in 2006 didn't make us like him again. He became the most successful (internationally) but most disliked author of Turkey.

Currently

As time passed we began to read his books again. I read "the museum of innocence", "snow" liked them very much and I am planning to read "My name is Red".

Orhan Pamuk is not a traditional Turkish writer; he is an unusual, unpredictable intellectual author. Most of Turkish well read authors write about community, political problems, village/city dilemma.Whereas Orhan Pamuk is interested in himself and his own personal Journey. Before him only Oguz Altay and Yusuf Atilgan wrote novels about personal journeys but if I could compere them with Western writers they are like a mixture of Proust and Bukovsky, their heroes are mostly all losers and outcasts where as Orhan Pamuk writes about the well educated, prosperous upper-middle class. His style is like Joyce, Calvino, Laurance. Also he is interested in the Ottoman period of Turks.

His first book, Sessiz Ev (Silent House) was awarded and his first tree books were very much liked. Critics and literature lovers adored him. Than he began to be liked by a wider range of people, he is the first author in Turkey who was publicly advertised (before him advertising literary books was considered as a vulgar behavior) his book The Black Book had a sale of 60 000 copies (for Turkey it is a high figure) in its first couple of years and Pamuk became a best seller author . The New Life and My Name is Red also sold well. But literary critics began to comment about his lack of Turkish knowledge. They said English translation of his books were better than original Turkish novels as the translators corrected grammar mistakes. His very, very long and complex sentences began to be criticized . Academic people think and say that due to public relations and advertising many people buy his books but a few reads them.

The Museum of Innocence

Orhan Pamuk wrote a book called "the Museum of Innocence," with his wish and approval a real museum is founded in this name in Istanbul. The book is about love. A rich, upper middle class man falls in desperate love to a poor less educated woman. In the museum the book is the main theme. the cloths and the objects of the novel characters are displayed in the museum.

Orhan Pamuk has a sensitivity for the museums. He is interested in forgotten museums like Bagatti Valsacchi in Milano Italy. This is a museum about Renaissance life in Italy. Orhan Pamuk says he loves this museum as it is a place where one thinks about the life after his own dead. Also he likes Musee Gustave Moreau in Paris. He thinks Moreau is a kitschy but great painter. He likes to visit the museum and think about the painter.