A landscape in its beauty
Nazma Yeasmeen Haque is all praise for a tale around a city
A huge rolled-in canvas remains suspended for how long only time can tell. But once it starts rolling out, one is face to face with a wondrous panoramic view of a great city that used to be called Constantinople, after the name of the founder of the city, the Roman Emperor Constantine, who made it his new capital that also was known as new Rome. The city later came to be known as Istanbul. That constitutes not only the background but also the prime subject of the Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk, who creates an enchanting tale on it as a memoir, judged rather unconventionally as a travelogue. While reading Istanbul, one wonders if one is going through the expressions in words or witnessing a vastly laid out ornamental piece of painting done most intricately. Pamuk is a painter too, a field in which he excelled in his school days that turned out to be one of his greatest joys and also a kind of escapism when in doubt and also in trouble. He remembers his encounters with his mother, whom he recalls throughout the book and who discouraged him from taking up painting as a profession because of it obviously not being a life economically reassuring and also because an artist had much less social acceptability in terms of prestige. And how true this is, something Pamuk experiences. He rather has a rude awakening of it when his first love, with whom he was most intimate and on whom he has devoted a whole chapter, is sent away to attend school in Switzerland when her family becomes apprehensive of his fascination for and involvement in painting. At one stage earlier in his youth, he recalls, he thought if he ever married her, he would have to become a factory owner, not an artist. Harsh realities thus stared him in the face not only for the first time but also in quick succession. He observes the dwindling business of his father, dissipating wealth that his father and uncles inherited from his grandfather, disappearance of his father from the family on this or that pretext and many others. Although he was made aware of the escapades of his father, and although he shuddered at those, even then he ascribes a distinctive meaning to his father's being elsewhere with another woman that is something like his searching for his".. double, his twin ...." in another place and to be with him rather than with his lover. A strange psychology worked out by introspection thus is interpreted and shields not only his father but also himself, at least in his imagination. With this emotion nestled in his heart for his father despite all his slips, it is not hard to understand his dedication of Istanbul to his father, Gunduz Pamuk. As many as thirty-seven chapters, all of varying lengths, are replete with stories centering on almost every aspect of life that taken together constitute the broad spectrum that is Istanbul --- the author's city of love, joy and melancholy. In fact, the theme of melancholy or Huzun occupies a central position in this book that is perceptible in one's personal life, family settings, in collective feelings, in the history of Istanbul as one observes the fall of the Ottoman empire in its ruins of palaces, gardens and mansions, revealing the secrets of the city "beneath its grand history", that is, "its living poverty". Pamuk like his predecessors, the memoirist Hisar, the poet Yahya Kemal, novelist Tanpinar and the journalist-historian Resat Ekrem Kocu has a penchant for melancholy and, strangely enough, like theirs, he keeps it living to nourish his heart, mind and soul as if he draws succour from it, however painful that may be. Under certain circumstances, pain can become a powerful stimulus for creation and, conversely, it can ruin one completely, however creative one may be, depending on the sensitiveness of the mind working at it. Exactly this pathetic condition has been narated by Pamuk as he dwells on the writings, publications and their reachability to readers and on top of all these the personal lives of these four melancholic writers whom he holds in high esteem. The narrative breaks a reader's heart as well. His memories against this backdrop of this city of Istanbul thus comprise his space in living his life. He eulogizes melancholy by quoting Ahmet Rasim, a well-known jouranlist of Istanbul, who said, "The beauty of a landscape resides in its melancholy." In saying so, Ahmet Rasim, who subsequently turned out to be one of Istanbul's great writers, did not tow in those writers mentioned here who kept themselves engulfed with the spirit of melancholy for a "lost golden age". Rather he kept himself confined to the present with "his love of life, his wit, and the joy he took in his craft..." At this stage Pamuk makes us familiar with other city columnists who follow suit and bring rays of optimism in life. In the same vein, he presents us with a good stock of laughter by collating "some of the most amusing pieces of advice, warnings, pearls of wisdom, and invective" that he has culled from newspaper columnists' writings over the past 130 years. A great job that mitigates the felt melancholy of a reader as one empathizes with them. The beauty of this book lies in the fact that, however small, medium or big the chapters are, the substantiveness of the contents tinged with emotions has given it a most animated literary style. The appeal of this non-fiction compared to a story that is contrived as good quality fiction is overwhelming. The masterly touch of Pamuk's quill associated with a pair of sensitive eyes for fine details where a reader does not fail to see the wood for the trees, an amazing memory and frankness in recapitulating things and events drawn from the long-ago past, recent past and from immediate surroundings --- all fill in the mosaic patterns constructing Pamuk's exotic Istanbul. Thus one feels that his city, which is his life, is not only woven in words but also adorned by lines, strokes and colours. A kaleidoscopic view is in full glow. Notwithstanding the odds and woes, irregularity and absurdities that are observable within the scenario of Istanbul, it remains not only his true love but also a secret love that he nurtures in his heart of hearts. Relinquishing his desire to be a painter by profession, leaving his study of architecture, Pamuk ultimately decides to "capture the chemistry" of the Istanbullus on paper and says, "I don't want to be an artist. I am going to be a writer." It is a blessing for readers. Maureen Freely's translation from the Turkish is remarkable as one feels one is reading Istanbul in its original language.
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