This is the second of the three part book review I began a little less than a month ago. This time the H word in the alliterative title is Hüzün.
Istanbul : Turkish author Orhan Pamuk's excellent book, Istanbul is a double layered memoir. In one the author composes a loving tribute to the city of his birth - the historic Istanbul. The second is a critical look at his own life as an artist, a life long Istanbullu and a man.
The autobiographical portion of Pamuk's book has the feel of a biography - as if written by someone who has observed his own life as an outsider. We get a taste of this detached narrative in the opening page of the book where Pamuk writes:
"From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see: Somewhere in the streets of Istanbul, in a house resembling ours, there lived another Orhan so much like me that he could pass for my twin, even my double. I can't remember where I got this idea or how it came to me. It must have emerged from a web of rumors, misunderstandings, illusions, and fears. But in one of my earliest memories, it is clear how I've come to feel about my ghostly other... "
That feeling of otherliness about himself could have been the result of the disconcerting early childhood experiences of occasional displacements from his home and anxiety about the strained relationship between his parents, both of whom Pamuk loved. It was also bolstered by something that happenend when as a five year old, Pamuk went to live with some relatives during one of his parents' many separations. The relatives had a picture of an unknown boy in their home - a photo that came with a frame they had purchased during a holiday in Europe. Someone jokingly told the young Pamuk that it was he in the photo. The young stranger resembled Pamuk just enough that he came to half believe the teasing. He began to wonder about his parallel self not quite knowing if he would some day meet him on an unknown street corner or in a familiar room.
Orhan Pamuk is a celebrated Turkish author of many famous works and one notorious political controversy. He was born in an aristocratic family of Istanbul whose glory days were already fading when Pamuk was a child. He shared his home with several relatives - parents, uncles, aunts and a formidable grandmother who all lived in different apartments of a building owned by the family and where to this day, Pamuk continues to live as an adult. The Pamuk family was wealthy, westernized and lived in privileged isolation. The relationship between his beautiful mother and handsome and suave father was difficult - Pamuk hints at his father's infidelities and his mother's anger and sorrow. (The book is dedicated to his father) We learn of the author's childhood, adolescence, education, religion (or lack there of) and his first serious romance. We trace the trajectory of the author's career from the initial foray into painting, architecture and eventually settling down to the life of a writer. The memoir is knitted together through a series of events dredged from memory without much commentary - good, bad or ugly. We learn the story of Pamuk's life through his laconic telling and are left to make our own judgements. The author cautions us time and again - "these are the words of a fifty-year-old writer who is trying to shape the chaotic thoughts of a long-ago adolescent." But those chaotic and somewhat opaque thoughts pertain to the human relationships of the memoir. The other part, which is much more emphatic in its truthful recollection supported by numerous scholarly works of recorded history, black and white photographs and the author's own observations, deals with Pamuk's lifelong attachment and fascination with his beloved city of Istanbul.
The first thing that strikes the reader in Pamuk's writing about Istanbul is that it is a tragic city - seeped in history and melancholy. And it is not just ordinary melancholy he assures us, but an all pervading collective melancholy, a "black passion" that grips all Istanbullus - rich, poor, old and young. There is a special word in Turkish for this communal, constant, low level grief - its name is hüzün. Hüzün is defined by the Sufis of old as the sorrow caused by the separation of the human soul from God. It is a desirable emotion to possess - a pleasurable pain. It is the acknowledgement of what is precious that we may be missing in our existence and striving to find it. The lament or the hüzün that the author and his fellow citizens feel for Istanbul is caused by the realization of what the city once was at the epoch of its power, what it could have become -- but did not. During his endless walks in the city, with an ever present cigarette between his fingers, Pamuk takes us through its roads and alleys and across the glittering waters of the Bosphorous. From the prosperous westernized quarters of post WWI Istanbul of Kemal Pasha, to the derelict mosques, churches and synagogues of the Ottoman and Byzantine eras, we go up, down and across the intersecting geographic and historic grids of the city. Like Pamuk, Istanbul too seems to have a double - a forward looking, happy but gauche modern city perpetually under the shadow of the hüzün of an elegant and ancient city of unfulfilled promises.
Does a city have a soul of its own? An organic identity that is separate from the lives of its inhabitants? I too was born and raised in an ancient city whose streets bear the scars and triumphs of numerous people of numerous races, religions and nationalities. Delhi's history like Istanbul's, too is a palimpsest of many, many centuries of war and peace, prosperity and devastation, rise and fall of indigenous and invading powers. Ancient monuments, songs, poetry and history books chronicle that history. Delhi has seen horrendous bloodshed, invasions, political intrigues followed by repeated and vigorous renewals. It has served as the capital of successive emperors and conquerors including most recently, the Mughals, the British and now independent India. Except for the disappearance of the broad, shaded, leafy boulevards of the Delhi of my youth, I never experience a feeling of melancholy when I visit Old and New Delhi. The new shiny buildings, congested roads, grand and crumbling mansions, fading old colonial gardens or its still proud and imposing medieval and colonial fortresses, all blend into a vibrant whole which always gladdens my heart. Could that be due to my own usually sunny outlook or is Delhi really a bustling, optimistic city? I have never been to Istanbul and would love to some day. I am not entirely sure if the dark pall of hüzün indeed envelopes Istanbul or if it is the author's own personal melancholy he transposes on the city's character. But that melancholy too may be somewhat in doubt. The last chapter of "Istanbul" is entitled "To Be Unhappy Is to Hate Oneself and One's City". Pamuk repeatedly tells us how much he "loves" Istanbul, a city he has never left. Although Pamuk doesn't tell us if he hates himself, being fifty percent on the right side of a loving equation is not all bad. So, we can conclude that he too could not be totally unhappy.
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