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Фото автораNikolai Rudenko

«Nights of Plague» , Orhan Pamuk




It was my first acquaintance with Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. And I think it went quite well, though not perfectly. However, there is a desire to read something more of his work.


From disadvantages: The pace of the work is very slow. Personally for me it was a bit hard to listen to it, I was reading and listening to two more books in parallel, which I usually try not to do. Perhaps Plague Nights came to me at the wrong time in my life, and the dissonance between its pace and my tossing around 10 things at once. I will try to read Orhan Pamuk's next book in a more balanced period of life.

Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in a large family similar to those which he describes in his novels Cevdet Bey and His Sons and The Black Book, in the wealthy westernised district of Nisantasi. As he writes in his autobiographical book Istanbul, from his childhood until the age of 22 he devoted himself largely to painting and dreamed of becoming an artist. After graduating from the secular American Robert College in Istanbul, he studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University for three years, but abandoned the course when he gave up his ambition to become an architect and artist. He went on to graduate in journalism from Istanbul University, but never worked as a journalist. At the age of 23 Pamuk decided to become a novelist, and giving up everything else retreated into his flat and began to write.

There are a lot of details that have no particular influence on the plot. However, they create a special atmosphere of an oriental teahouse, where, reclining on cushions, the story is told leisurely, under a hookah and Turkish coffee with sweets. Here, if you get used to it, you even start to get some pleasure. Personally, I managed to do it a couple of times in the evenings, when, exhausted for the day, I wanted to disconnect from all the problems.


Now about the advantages. I will not rant much about how thoroughly and vitally created the image of the never-existed island of Minger and the main characters - Pakize-sultan, her husband and others. Much has already been written about it, there is no point in repeating. The same applies to the plague with quarantine measures - the topic was discussed, probably, everyone, because the novel was released in a surprisingly timely manner - in the midst of the pandemic coronavirus. I will only note that it was interesting to read even now, when few people remember the pandemic, and even then in our country more with nostalgia than with horror.


Though Minger Island is fictional, but the problems of interaction between Muslims and Christians, as well as the rising national liberation movements in the Ottoman Empire the author described quite real.


"The main enemy of the Ottoman state, of course, was the nationalism of Christian peoples - Greeks, Serbs, Bulgarians, Armenians. However, the nationalism of Muslims who were not Turks - Arab, Kurdish, Albanian - was also emerging before the eyes of the officials of the disintegrating empire."


I was struck by the fact that the writer mentions in passing the coming genocide of Christians in the Ottoman Empire (in this book, the action takes place in 1901, 14 years before the Ottomans attempted to radically "solve the Christian question"). This is a very painful topic for Turkey. The government of the country categorically refuses to recognize this black page of its history, and the citizens who openly advocate it are persecuted and judged. It takes great courage to continue to live and create in Turkey and still write about such uncomfortable topics.


On the example of a fictional island, Orhan Pamuk searches for possibilities of interaction and peaceful coexistence of representatives of different religions. However, most politicians in his book, as well as in life, are clearly not inclined to this way of solving problems. It is much easier for them to expel undesirable people, and this is not the worst, as real historical events show.


In general, political figures and their particular mindset take up a lot of space in the book. It is not very pleasant, but quite useful, I think, to observe what issues occupy their thoughts, and on what factors they make decisions based on. To please their superiors or to rename streets in a new, post-revolutionary way is much more important to them than to save people. In general, they live according to the principle: "We say one thing, mean another, do another, and are very surprised by the consequences. Orhan Pamuk does not make politicians into monsters. Outside of their position they can be good people, love, solve ordinary problems and suffer the same tragedies as all the inhabitants of the island.


It's hard to call a novel in which both the place and the main characters are fictionalized historical. Although there are many interconnections with the history of the real Ottoman Empire of the early 20th century in the book. Similar events could well have taken place, for example, on the island of Cyprus. In general, I would probably characterize "Plague Nights" as a parable or a myth. And I rate it as a work of fiction, not a historical work


As for recommendations, it is difficult for me to say anything. Eastern literature has a special flavor. As it seems to me, despite all the differences in themes, speech and pace, the books by the Indian Amitav Ghosh and the Turk Orhan Pamuk have some elusive similarities. But there is no guarantee that connoisseurs of the former will like the latter and vice versa. I think that lovers of complex topics "to think about" should definitely get acquainted with the author, at least to understand whether you like him or not.

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