Product Description

At once a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, and a brilliant symposium on the power of art, My Name Is Red is a transporting tale set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul, from one of the most prominent contemporary Turkish writers.

The Sultan has commissioned a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land to create a great book celebrating the glories of his realm. Their task: to illuminate the work in the European style. But because figurative art can be deemed an affront to Islam, this commission is a dangerous proposition indeed. The ruling elite therefore mustn’t know the full scope or nature of the project, and panic erupts when one of the chosen miniaturists disappears. The only clue to the mystery–or crime? –lies in the half-finished illuminations themselves. Part fantasy and part philosophical puzzle, My Name is Red is a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of art, religion, love, sex and power.

Translated from the Turkish by Erda M Göknar

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #22771 in Books
• Published on: 2002-08-27
• Released on: 2002-08-27
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 432 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Acclaimed Turkish novelist Pamuk offers this fascinating murder mystery set against the backdrop of 16th-century Istanbul. The story surrounds a sultan who commissions a book to celebrate his life and times, as well as a set of talented artists hired to recreate the work in the European style. But when one of the artists disappears, the answer to his whereabouts seems to lie in the images themselves. British narrator John Lee reads with a classical tone, drawing on his theatrical experience to create a rousing, epic, but personal reading sure to appeal to a wide range of listeners. Lee reads with such inherent skill that his words seem to be coming straight from memory, recreating Pamuk's ancient world in colorful clarity. A Knopf hardcover (Reviews, Aug. 6).
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Library Journal
In 16th-century Istanbul, master miniaturist and illuminator of books Enishte Effendi is commissioned to illustrate a book celebrating the sultan. Soon he lies dead at the bottom of a well, and how he got there is the crux of this novel. A number of narrators give testimony to what they know about the circumstances surrounding the murder. The stories accumulate and become more detailed as the novel progresses, giving the reader not only a nontraditional murder mystery but insight into the mores and customs of the time. In addition, this is both an examination of the way figurative art is viewed within Islam and a love story that demonstrates the tricky mechanics of marriage laws. Award-winning Turkish author Pamuk (The White Castle) creatively casts the novel with colorful characters (including such entities as a tree and a gold coin) and provides a palpable sense of atmosphere of the Ottoman Empire that history and literary fans will appreciate. Recommended. Marc Kloszewski, Indiana Free Lib., PA
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist
A dead man, a dog, a murderer, a coin, two lovers, and a tree take turns narrating this tale, which is Pamuk's follow-up to the well-reviewed but little read The New Life (1997). Set in sixteenth-century Istanbul, the novel is equal parts mystery, love story, and a philosophical discussion on the nature of art and artistic vision. Two men have been killed: Elegant, a miniaturist engaged (with others) on a book project glorifying the life of the sultan, and Enishte, the man who hired the artists to do the book. During a trip to Venice, Enishte became particularly entranced with the new Italian painting, particularly its use of perspective and figurative art. He urged his employees to adapt the new art form in their illustrations of the grand book they are producing. Black, Enishte's nephew, wants to win the hand of Enishte's daughter, Shekure, which he can only do by solving the murders. This intellectual mystery will appeal to fans of Eco, Pears, and Perez-Reverte. Nancy Pearl
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Customer Reviews

Perspective, density, the ability to see.
Early in the novel, a miniaturist named Olive says "Through our colors, paints, art and love, we remember that Allah had commanded us to "See"!". I found myself thinking about that line repeatedly later throughout this wonderful book.

First, be warned, this is not a quick read by any means. There is no omniscient narrative voice to smooth the path for the reader. Instead, the reader is presented with multiple voices and perspectives-- some from the characters themselves, some from the illustrations in the books, one memorable passage is even told from the point of view of ink itself.

And while there is a story and the story is important (the commissioning of the religiously dubious book by the Sultan, the subsequent murderer of Elegant Effendi, Black's efforts to find the killer, save the book and win the hand of his cousin Shekure), it is not as though the story were the book and it only orders the flow of the multiple perspectives rather than really making the reading of the book easier.

Pamuk has been much cited in the press lately, not only for his views as a novelist, but also for his views on what he calls the "absurd" conflict between east and west. Through using the medium of the narrow world of the miniaturists in the 16th century, Pamuk gently addresses the issue of heresy and pollution by stressing the continual influence of other cultures on the classical miniature form and by making clear through debates on individuality, blindness, and style where many of the differences between east and west are located. And also, of course, the similarities are revealed in the same manner.

I found _My Name Is Red_ to be by turns funny, thought-provoking and moving. I was never bored even though it took me perhaps three times as long to read as another book of similar length.

Some tips to the reader: read and even re-read the chronology at the back. Also, the publisher's web site for the book has some images of the paintings referred to by the characters. I found it useful to refer to them after I had finished the novel.

"To God belongs the East and West"
Seldom do we find in literature a work with so many well-elaborated facets. This is the case with "My Name is Red," a novel which not only has a murder plot and a love story, but is also richly adorned with history, art, politics, while addressing deep philosophical/religious issues.

The novel has an architectural strucure made up of 59 chapters, each one representng the perspective of every character involved in the plot, besides inanimate objects (a corpse, a coin, the color red, death), figurative characters such as a dog, a horse, and Satan. The result is a cubistic outlook in which each piece has its own autonomy and at the same time remains dependent upon each other. Although "Black" is the main figure, none of the characters is fully developed; they serve as means to painstakingly and repeatedly address the central issues of the novel: the political allegories and the philosophy of art.

The plot evolves around the story of an art book requested by the Sultan (back in the 16th century) in order to glorify the life and deeds of the monarch. The miniaturists (Butterfly, Stork, Elegant, and Olive) commissioned to perform the paintings have to struggle between adherence to conservative techniques of a two-dimensional painting versus the introduction of the new western approach to art, using perspective (three-dimensional) and portraiture. This clash eventually brings a disruption of the old stability and results in the murder of two miniaturists.

The author is a progressive Muslim intellect who opposes the conflict between East and West (East and West being relative terms and as the Koran rightly states "To God belongs the East and West), and holds to the principle that "all good art comes from mixing things from different roots and cultures." Two cultures should not generate conflict but rather an amalgamation in which the values of each one are preserved and respected.

"My Name is Red" is an outstanding novel, exquisitely crafted, with intense monologues and dense passages, demanding close attention and persistency from the reader. A most gratifying experience which undoubtedly places Ohran Pamuk as one of the most gifted contemporary writers.

Islam as art; art as philosophy
There are plenty of books and TV shows on Islam, but they tend to be repetitive and factual, giving us the important dates and information over and over again. My Name Is Red takes up where all the non-fiction leaves off, bringing us into the very soul of Islamic thought as it is realized and articulated by a group of 16th century miniaturist painters who have been asked to construct an illustrated book not in traditional islamic style but in Venetian single-point perspective. Orhan Pamuk not only captures the world of 16th century Istanbul, but also is able to open an entire philosophy of art to Western readers. I was amazed by what I learned in the book, but was even more taken by Pamuk's skill as a novelist and stylist. Using a strange mix of first person vignettes that actually advance the story from one character to the next, Pamuk constructs a postmodern parable of his own yearnings. As if that weren't enough, Pamuk also kept me on the edge of my seat. (Did I mention My Name Is Red is also a murder mystery?) This book acted as my antidote for post 9-11 TV, bringing me face to face not only with Islam but, more importantly, with a brilliant and profound Muslim artist.