Conversations with History - Orhan Pamuk - YouTube

Conversations with History - Orhan Pamuk - YouTube

Conversations with History - Orhan Pamuk

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68,544 views  Nov 11, 2009  Conversations with History

"Finding an Authentic Voice"

Orhan Pamuk

2006 Nobel Laureate in Literature

Conversations host Harry Kreisler welcomes Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk. On the occasion of publication in the United States of his new novel, "The Museum of Innocence," Pamuk reflects on his intellectual journey, including the influence of his parents, writers who shaped his world view, the "huzun" of Istanbul, writing, and recurring themes in his novels.

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Transcript

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welcome to a conversation with history I'm Harry Kreisler of the Institute of

International Studies our distinguished guest today is Orhan Pamuk who is the

206 Nobel laureate in literature he is the author of many novels including the

White Castle the black book the new life my name is red snow and his new book is

the Museum of innocence he is the author of several works of nonfiction Istanbul

memories of a city and other colors essays and a story and here is his new

How did your parents shape your thinking

book mr. Pumbaa to Berkeley it's a joy to be in

Berkeley looking back how do you think your parents shape your thinking about the world well my

father was an egalitarian and libertarian person while our mother was I would say more conservative just like

perhaps in Garcia Marquez novels where women were keeping been paying attention

to continue to talk to household well the father was a bit venturing and going

out and doing strange things I had a family like that and so my father gave

me did not carry on what tradition would teach you in Turkey that that you have

to be respectful to your elders that you have to respect religious and military

authorities that you have to obey the authority he was not a father like that but my mother was somehow like that so I

had the two sides of things and then also from my father I have learned that

that it's not the great saints or soldiers or partials or the Statesman

that are important but writers say say I am what he had seen in Paris when in

streets of Paris he had he wanted to be a poet himself so these were the things

that I that I've learned from their family from them from the mother that you have to be like others in fact she

named me Orhan because according to her Orhan was the second ottoman sultan who

not a very distinguished person who did not show off who didn't he was a modest one of the most modest Ottoman Sultans

my father was in lived in distinction art culture how they do these things in

Europe and that's how they talk about this thing and your mother was worried about you becoming an artist it seems

that she thought it was a practical animal mother's very of course because they think that you are not going to

make money which she was right I kept it at the beginning of course and then my father was more called understanding but

they were both worried that that man I decided to as I wrote in my not in in my

autobiographical Istanbul and I decided to quit studying architecture and quit

painting and it was I quit painting I wanted to be a painter between the age

of 7 and 22 but suddenly quit and began writing novels there and when I quit

studying architecture they were buried because they thought that I may end up a loser and

Influences on your writing

as a writer in Turkey you are and were

presented with some dilemmas about what would be the nature of your

art when you ultimately became a novelist and in reading some of your essays you were very much influenced by

the example of joy story FC I gather and the the insights that he derived in

coming to terms with his own nationality and what the West had to offer I think

this that in non-western world where there is of

course an anxiety about too much being too much influenced

by West's modernization especially in countries like Japan

Russia where modern or Ottoman Empire and Turkey where modernization comes

from the ruling elites not from economy or from civil society there

is a resistance to signs and symbols of 2s2 an modernization because it's also a

class struggle going on there is a strong attempt of modernization from

above in both Japan Russia and Turkey and there is a resistance to it

Dostoyevsky's attitude of love and hate of West is a

typical thing in Japan more or less the same thing the famous writer I admire

the tiny sake in his youth was a great admirer of anything that came from the

United States especially not from Europe he was he was also influenced by Baudelaire then in his Middle Ages and

after late in life he was also turned turned back to tradition we may say the

same thing about das tsk but these sentiments should not be understood as one day he is working for the party aid

the other day next day is working for the party be both sentiments are at the same heart at the or simultaneously

and struggling and making these great writers forming these great writers

identities in your book which I will show Istanbul memories and the city an

Turkish Melancholy

extraordinary book which is a saying you're at the story of your early years the story of your city and intertwine

with beautiful photographs you talk about for Turkish writers who were very

important to you and and tell us what you got from them because that won one sense is that for you they were as

important because they showed you what could be very important in your culture

even though you were surrounded by the ruins of that culture at the heart of my Istanbul book the idea is the concept of

melancholy or Turkish melancholy I which I Hyun and I make a distinction between

traditional Western melancholy which makes you more individual while I describe the Turkish

vision a Turkish melancholy as something communal suggesting that this is related

to the decline of the Ottoman Empire the overabundance of the ruins of the

architectural ruins of the Ottoman modernity and the fact that we were all living in 1950s 40s 60s at the edge of

Europe but attend 10 times less rich and with an idea that Turkey will not reach

the modernity and economical affluence that Europe and Western civilization

civilization have this lend us a sort and sort of a feeling that we can

associate what the new Japanese has a certain ethics of fail nobility

of failure I also this

whole feeling and that that we usually I ascribe Ottoman

ruins ethically I also is a sort of a derivative of Turkish

Sufism but all related economically to the poverty of and poverty and sense of

loss of the country this melancholy I associated with for writers

these writers were not social realists nor concern nor conservatives in their

reactionary right-wing sense but they had one food in the past Ottoman past

they enjoyed it and one food and realized that the glorious will say the

best fruits of European literature is in an imminent inevitable and attractive and they were in the event involved and

refined their own voices to a certain

melancholy I have learned from them that the

the contradiction between say Islam or

tradition and Europe or modernity is not a contradiction you can have these things in your heart or in your mind and

in fact the them that difference between them the

electricity between these two sources may inspire you may invoke make make

made well make you different so is it is it fair to say and I think this

is what I got out of Istanbul that this melancholy the setting of ruins to which

you could always retreat in a walk but in the end you would go back to the

study as you became a writer and with words convey

what you had sensed in the city but also shape a world that was your own so it

seems that the setting what a writer does but on the other hand having gone

through your father's library at some time or another as you write about library I mean yeah that is she was

reading French and English and was buying books from stumbles international book shops and and also he was in 50s

and 60s many many times went through Paris and had all the Galle my books so

forth and so on also um that library prepared also the way he treated

books the authenticity of the writer that the writers writers are that in a writer's

life is much more interesting than a businessman or a rich or a religious

person or whatever a professor is life this I have learned from my father

father and then I have a natural inclination to be solitary and be

creative first I wanted to be a painter then switch to writing in

Noble Essay

your noble essay you use the story of

your father suitcase his writings which he gave you in a suitcase toward the end

of his life and and there's a sentence I want to read I already mentioned the two

essential feelings that rose up in me as I closed my father suitcase and put it

away you're going through his writings the sense of being marooned in the provinces and the fear that I locked

authenticity so so these were two central problems which you addressed in the way this was

also of course related to the fact that Turkey was we felt that in 50s and 60s

was essentially a provincial place although we were geographically on

Europe and Istanbul why because I am like majority of humanity actually we

felt out of history history was being made in London Paris in New York and in

fact this is the common sentiment I share with 90% of humanity I think that

humanity does not have a sense of we are making history we are provincials we are

imitating the center these feelings are heavily common in non-western world then

you have to calm down these resentments angers you feel with respect

to tradition you're different underline your difference but and and one part of your spirit knows that this is not

actually what you want modern the attractions of modernity westernization

are always had always double edged double side and these are issues I address on almost all of my novels that

I'd say that I love these subjects perhaps because also Turkey is culturally made up of these problems the

drama now between traditional societies and modernity is more or less is being

played in Turkish spirit for quite a long time USA

Charterhouse of Parma

in your book of essays you're writing on the Charterhouse of Parma by Stan though

and you say the source of my happiness lay not in the events themselves that

are described in the book but in the spiritual and emotional responses they provoked so you're talking about

yourself too aren't you that that's what you're trying to do in your writing reading

novels teachers those of us saying in 1950s 60s 70s that

in fact the that life is not a life is not something

given and decided by fate but you make

choices in life one is free that it's not the community but your own heart you

have to listen art of the novel or novels says stand out not wrote them is

based on individuals choices in an end

dramatization of these choices when you read a novel and

if you come from a traditional society one part of you you begin to begin to learn the joys of living outside of the

community that's what I learned from novels and that's what that's the sentiment I defer there let's

Museum of Innocence

talk now about your new novel the Museum of innocence and let me show it

to our audience again talk about the concept that is

behind this novel the idea of a Museum of innocence

wait yeah please go ahead Museum of innocence is a love novel in the popular

sense that that a character tells his love story that spans some thirty years

that takes place in Istanbul and an upper-class high society man kemmal

falls in love with his twice removed cousin so forth and so on and the story goes we're not going to sell it but one

part of the story is that for this or that reason our character collects the

things that they they were lovers he and his beloved

share and also the idea of the museum slowly

undeveloped and unfold and developed and there are so many novels and museums

have so many things in common that first museum

novels have also archival qualities preserving strength

that museums have are gestures the way we talk our language what we see what we

relate all these are transit things that change from language to what we see the

chemistry of the cities our daily lives the way we behave with how we comic with

advertisements objects brands things and history they

are all preserved in the normals novels are based on daily life observations as

almost cathedrals made from small daily life observation units and they preserve

them and it's along with the language the way we are manner of speaking

disorder and I find lots of parallels between novels and museums this is one

subject and the other subject is that my character in the novel pays a lot of

attention to his beloved and puts together things that remind him of her

and in the end he begins to make a museum that's also referring to the

title of the book Museum of innocence and and and this in

the love affair you are through this this extraordinary detail of the the

evolution of the affair are really telling us something about the human

condition about the pain that love or suffer and so these these mementos from

the relationship are you say I believe somewhere in the book are like real

museums which often create take objects collect them to help us remember the

pain but also forget the pain yes Museum of innocence is a love

novel or a novel of love whatever we call it but it does not put love on a

pedestal it does not like most love stories say oh what a sweet thing law is

I'm not saying that my aim is not to do that my name is like say Montaigne or

like a detached observer pay attention to what happens

to us when we fall in love sp this is the novel is written from a male's point

of view what happens to a men if he falls in now what is love pain what is

equating what is suffering what is how hoping what is waiting for the telephone

to ring so forth and so on all aspects of long I without trying to sweeten it

without sugar icing it try to explore analyze of course with humor and see

true and with that energy represent a form represent a culture a minyan and and and

in fact make a whole panorama of Stumm who culture between 1975 and at

the end of 20th century my character in the book also it's just like an

anthropologist collecting objects from a lion cultures is collecting things of his beloved and

then telling his story to the attentive leaders through these objects I also

compare a lover's attention a lovers attention

to his beloved this I compared to a writer's attention to detail we here we

watch the narrative voice and and it has writerly qualities the lovers patient

lovers refines observation

observations have in fact come something common with writers attempt to embrace

the little details and with the true with the little details the whole world at one point in the novel you say that

The Lovers Attention

he our hero was becoming like the woman

he loved that there was he he was coming to understand her through his

identification with her of course I am in loves in in love pain I think that is

at both an anger resentment and fury that the beloved does not understand us

and in fact an ultra attention and identification with the beloved that in

fact following every little single single gesture of her because we perhaps

like soldiers or maneuvering to get her back or maneuvering to win her heart as

we do this we more and more pay attention like a novelist all her all the gestures all the movement silences

and this it lends us both a certain wisdom and

maturity but also an understanding that this person is human as we are so we

begin to identify with our beloved of course well this is one part of the

lover the other part of the library is that there is anger resentment for not

being understood for not getting for and also unrequited love is about

identification with the below it and feeling angry to her that Museum of

innocence is perhaps about this there are two institutions or two to two

Middle Class

groups that come under criticism in the way you portray them one is the the

middle class which at an engagement party as a hero interacts

with his friends in the circle you see

the middle class of Turkey as during this period is overly imitative of over

drawn to the attractions of the West buying appliances just to have them

which break which they can't fix talk a little about that because your criticism is right very compelling him I am

observing all these details you may call them criticism but I'm not passing the moral judgment on them this is how life

is this is how life is in non-western world that I don't think is different in

Western world so this is how human beings behave as I get older I don't pass I don't criticize even passenger

model judgment on human-beings I try to understand the whole system yes as you

have said the upper classes office high society of Istanbul in 1950s 60s and I

would think that all non-western worlds ruling elite is imitative of the Western

civilization because that legitimizes their power they derive the signs and

symbols of their power from the Western civilization this is such a strong trend

that for me pinning it down is more important than passing passing cultural

and ethical judgment my point is I my point is that this is how it is I'd

rather not make all upper classes or shallow or this or that I'm not interested in that I want to see how it

is now the other institution that you spend a lot of time on is the movie

Movie Industry

industry yes and yeah first when

I married in 1982 my first book was published but I was not much making

money and I wrote for Turkish movie industry at film scripts which was not even shot then some ten years later I

wrote a script which was shot and I had a sense of what it was and of course being a Turkish boy and watching in

summer garden cinemas all these melodramas also later in television had

taught me what I taught me the fact that medieval Islamic

romances and we may include also of course medieval with all romances Islamic all Christian has something very

common where with the melodramatic Bollywood or Turkish Bollywood or

Hollywood relationship and melodrama the

melodramas in my part of the world are based on traditional

romances and love in this book and in those

melodramas are based on you know based

on the fact that the sexual taboos refreshin the fact that men and women

cannot come together and negotiate their love talk about their love cannot there

are not social places for men and women to meet to develop and they negotiate

understand each of the so forth and so on this is one part of the frame in

which my lover's behave well and and this sort of I

would say love in repressed society mmm it gives lots of energy in the and in

developing refinement in communication my lover's are communicating through

glances looks silences by raising eyebrows double

double me with language or sometimes even silences gestures and paying lots

of attention to each other with the with silence also they are testing each other

where there is called seriousness very old-fashioned their their endurance and

they are in fact not enjoying life partly right like just like Jane Austen

novels but preparing for marriage in this novel represents Istanbul life in

1970s but I think strongly think that life is not changed in lost non-western

world love is a preparation for marriage and testing the authenticity endurance

they can the character of the beloved or the would-be husband or mates wife or

husband fan me and the novel is plays around with all these rituals

expressions this culture or the culture even somehow refined and melodramatic

culture melodramatic especially in movies and its representation of it in movies but also write

my novel tries to look at this whole attitude and culture of love not

condemning anyone not passing ethical judgments neither two characters nor to

the situation's but trying to see all panoramas in that Museum of innocence has a fresco like

quality it true that energy of that love it tries to represent the culture of

Istanbul between 1975 till end of 20th century and and there are really two

Two Worlds

relationships here because our hero is engaged and then but most of the book is

about this unrequited love affair that he has or the these two relationships

really capture these two worlds right or is that I don't want to dramatize that

the words are different I am I

want to dramatize that the fact that at the heart of the perhaps and it's a tell

it this whispering at the heart of the story lies the virginity taboo the taboo

of virginity which we can tell this much about my brave characters break this

cold venturing but then they suffer the consequences this is and through this I

go into all the I try to go through the all the details of culture

tongue-in-cheek I tell to my readers this is a turkey story but I know that

this is more or less near 80% of humanity live love like this how long

did it take you to write this it took me a lot a lot of time and some of this time was politics troubled but it was

such a joy to write this novel which is full of humor with a heartfelt

attention to detail and full of observation from my upper class middle

class life in Istanbul that it was so sweet to write it that even in the bad worst political times I that Katmai kept

me going if I wrote one or two pages from this novel in the morning I felt so happy that anything I could take and I

Planning

gather you you essentially because there are many chapters in the book you essentially come up with a number of

chapters and then work on them maybe the later chapter before you write an earlier yes I am I'm compared to other

writers because I've read autobiographies biographies and I'll talk to my writers friends that I think

I am relatively high relatively planned more compared to other writers of course

you can't plan a novel from A to Z so many details come when you write but I am a planner and and then when I'm stuck

I skip one chapter go to a chapter in fact sometimes I give myself a price of

oh I want to write this chapter I've been waiting for this chapter to come now I skip to that chapter first write

that because it's a joy to write that chapter I don't feel much what the American culture calls more writer's

block because I think sometimes naively that I plan and when I'm stuck I just continue with another chapter and some

is it as if it's a some sugar that I want to eat and make myself happy writing of this book was a joy to me

perhaps most of it is based on what I have seen from inside from middle class

upper middle class life in Istanbul that Co so-called high society and and in

lower middle classes also included film industry clubs restaurants ventures

Bosphorus with its many mansions the others on Bosphorus Istanbul residential

apartment upper-class apartment buildings the culture the all culture this city is

chemistry its pulse its how it this is this Museum of innocence is full of

heartfelt details that I want to register this is the museum quality of

the novels that you will live something a sentiment and observation and smell you want to preserve them and then there

is an natural inclination put them in a novel talk about the levels of

Creativity

creativity obviously there's the creativity of the idea of the book but then what about the many creativity's

where the character you decide for the character to do something and it just comes to you out of the blue well yeah

that is creativity but that it should be limited there are inspirational say

more moons when you write a novel just like a poem is if a poem is coming from out of the blue from God wherever it

comes and there right there is also lots of and discipline reading the text

through readers point of view and novel is a combination of inspiration and

architecture while sometimes a poet a good poetry a little short story can be

like something like an epiphany that you're inspired it's there you don't know how where it is while there is

always a logical architectural planning composition almost like orchestral music

in writing and forming novels that is also what I like well it sounds like

Visual Writing

architecture in painting which were my background your background prepared you

in a way is I'm also a visual writing that some novelists are dramatical writers based on very small on verbal

play and the bends and twists of the story that I like I also care about tens of twists of the story but I tell my

stories through verbal visual detail always drawing pictures in reader's

imagination that I think I owe that naturally I'm inclined I wanted to be a

painter somehow frustrated or failed in it and suddenly switch to

writing in my novels I feel that I'm always drawing pictures through words

let's talk a little about politics

Politics

politics in this novel or politics in the sense that this novel is slightly

or suggesting the repression of woman and that the more you know and in this

frame men love a girl a woman the more they destroy

or suppress them what they want to possess them they're afraid of the freedom of the

beloved here because she may be successful in love in life and venture

on her own way decide about her there is in this culture and a desire to process

the woman and put it in I put it in I put her in a house and then and a novel

is also about that owning a woman controlling a woman and afraid of the

most men in my part of the world are afraid of successful woman and I don't think this is only a non-western thing

and this is I think an a universal thing let's talk about another aspect of politics

Turkeys relation to the West

namely Turkey's relation to the West that that's really not in here except in

the end there there is a krip to Europe and is that attitude of toward

the west this fat fish almost imitation the sense of powerlessness in the face

of Western Civ is that attitude changing in Turkey is changing bug in some twenty

years ago I would have in my youth I would have underlined that imitation

part of it like my evil wrought mimic men but today I see the

inevitability of it and I take pride in not paying too much attention to

imitative part of non-western countries ruling elites but well but try to see

through the inevitability of being a mimic man in the end Turkey was not was

never a colony of the West and imitation or or we may put in different word

aspiration to be westernized was not a damn nning thing as it's an post-colonial Society Turkey's

westernization is a self-imposed thing and and to call it imitation is more

dramatical where is full of more self-hatred why I see it and what is a

more historical or historically inevitable thing and how important do

How important is Turkey to the world

you think for the world is it that turkey yet admission

to the rpe because it was very important for our world but then it should not be

the defendant geopolitically it's geopolitically

important and that an Islamic country successfully unites with Europe and it

is also good for Europe for develop developing just like the United States a more multicultural image of itself I

believe in a Europe that is not based on Christianity and history but in a Galit

a fraternity freedom and this these

are the arguments defending for turkeys entry to European Union but they're also

geopolitical arguments it should be based turkeys in entrance to Europe

should be based on also ethical judgments to that we should able to say

that we have a turkey has ground in Europe geographically part of Europe

Turkish two football teams are playing in European Soccer Cup for 50 years and

I used to follow them now if you take a draw a line and say that your Islam

Turkey is out then it is against our understanding of egalitarianism I think

it's not ethically true but then of course politics is not made with ethics

ethics is always used in politics rather than I am strong motivation in politics

your writings appeal to many different audiences and I'm curious as what

Impact of universalism

do you you hope that the impact on a Turkish audience on a world audience and

that the USA do you it is your belief in universalism to

have the same reaction or you expect different reaction one writes a novel with so many motivations you still

consider your leadership you consider what you want to tell you have

you believe in a story also writing a novel is not only passage they're passing a message but also exploring a

subject yourself in it in it though changing you want to identify with a

person that's also an motivation so there is not one single motivation

forming and novel I write I'm a slow writer I write a novel in five years and

in those even in those five years I change investing and venturing and choosing a subject is also aesthetically

choosing a sort of an imaginary world in which you want to live of course in this

whole motivations there is who are the readers of the offices to book who are and when I began writing I was 35 years

ago I was a typical national writer addressing the small Turkish leadership of course while on the other hand as we

have talked about him now my father was saying you have to write for the world literature is world literature don't

people shall die my father was in that sense very humanistic and lived in that literature

should be addressed all humanity more or less now my my books are translated to

55 languages that I also now honestly I should say that I also think of the

international readership but do I change my voice do i sugar eyes myself Duane

right detail just to be interesting to the other countries who had reproduces

again about Turkey expectations i ethically control my ask these questions

to myself and control myself and try to keep my authenticity what i would love

to write not only for the Turkish leader one can also sugar eyes yourself for the

Turkish leader as well once there is a leader there is always in the writers

heart to romanticize to address to be loved by the reader whether the Turkish

or international but there is also our ethical size that says don't do it tell

the truth or tell what your heart wants to tell that's more important what then

what the reader wants to read one final question what what advice

Advice to students

would you give to students who aspire to be a novelist what

should they learn from your career especially after they read the

book Istanbul I would give them the advice that don't pay attention for the

old authors advice just to follow your own humors on

that note mr. book and I want to thank you very much and I think if people who

watch the show will want to go out and buy the book after listening to you talk let me show it again and I want to thank

you very much it was a great honor to have you on our program thank you very much and thank you very much for joining

us for this conversation with history [Music]