Orhan Pamuk is a modern Turkish writer, widely known not only in Turkey, but also far beyond its borders. He is a Nobel Prize winner in literature. Received the award in 2006. His novel "White Fortress" has been translated into several languages and has been widely recognized throughout the world.
About the writer
Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul. His parents were well-known engineers in the city and wanted his son to continue the family tradition and become a civil engineer. At the insistence of the Orhan family, after graduating from college, he entered a technical institute in Istanbul, but after three years of successful training, he left him, deciding to become a professional writer, having entered the faculty of journalism for this purpose. After graduating, he lived in New York for several years, then returned to Istanbul.
Orhan Pamuk is a professor at Columbia University, where he lectures on the history of world literature and writing.
The beginning of the creative path
The first major novel of the writer was called Jevdet Bay and His Sons, telling the story of several generations of a family that lives in Istanbul.
The main topics that the writer works on and tries to reveal in his books are the confrontation between the West and the East, as well as religious conflicts between Muslims and Christians. The writer considers it necessary to talk about it, since it is part of the history of not only the country, but also the world as a whole. However, the book "White Fortress" brought him international fame.
About the book
"White Fortress" is a major contribution to the study of the theme "master - slave", which for centuries remains the most discussed in the pages of literature. The theme remains relevant in our time of free will. Starting the “White Fortress” in Turkish, Orhan Pamuk knew exactly how to attract an international audience to his book. The history of Turkey in the period of the sultanate always causes increased public interest, unlike modern Turkey. Therefore, the action takes place in the Middle Ages. Thanks to the right direction, "White Fortress" was the first work of a Turkish writer, translated into English. The English version of the book became available to foreign readers in late 1990. At the same time, the writer moved to New York and worked at Columbia University, teaching Turkish.
Summary
The historical novel "White Fortress" by Orhan Pamuk was released in 1985 and immediately took a worthy place among the masterpieces of literature. The book takes place in the 17th century and tells an interesting story about a young Italian Christian, a resident of Venice, who, by the will of fate, was taken into slavery and began to serve in the house of a Turk. He had a reputation as a strange person who was obsessed with researching higher matters and knowing the universe. It so happened that the Venetian and the Turks were like two drops of water similar to each other. For a long time they lived together and became very dependent on each other. The owner of the Venetian tried to solve a mysterious story in his life. This is a summary of the White Fortress. It is found in many literary magazines of the world.
The main riddle of the book
One of the main characters of the White Fortress is a Turk named Haji. A man is amazing and frightening at the same time, combining many human qualities, sometimes not harmonizing at all. Very often, Haji is not confident, but does not show it to others. He is dreamy and very vulnerable. Any word, inadvertently spoken or accidentally dropped, always takes its own account and is very worried about this, building inexplicable theories. Most often, the result of such thoughts are sad thoughts, apathy, unwillingness to live and enjoy the world around.
But sometimes, on the contrary, Haji considers himself the crown of creation, a man who managed to unravel several secrets of the universe, and from this he considers the rest of the people stupid. People who live peacefully, honestly work and earn their bread by hard work, who do not seek to learn anything new.
The author endowed the hero with such a quality as fear, but more often than not this fear is directed towards its own personality. Apathy gives way to Haji pride in himself.
Having the service of a European Christian, the hero sometimes had conversations with him in which he ridiculed European culture, but at the same time, contradicting himself, timidly asked his slave how life in Europe was structured and what the life of an ordinary European citizen consisted of.
All the qualities of the protagonist constantly interact with each other, change, affect each other. There are scenes in the book when Istanbul was plagued by plague. Haji was afraid. But after the plague left the city, in the most cheerful frame of mind, he convinced his slave that in fact he was not afraid of anything, but simply tested it for strength. This expresses the strangeness of the Turk, which the inhabitants of the city sometimes take as madness.
Turkish readers reviews
Reviews of the book in the native land of the author of the Turkish land are rather mixed. This is due to the fact that Pamuk openly raises topics that the Turkish government, in his opinion, is silent. The case concerns Turkish Armenians who have been persecuted by the Turks in the past. The government filed a lawsuit against the writer, but in connection with Turkey's accession to the European Union, the case was closed.
For the most part, Turkish citizens, compatriots of the writer, liked the book. They saw in it not only a fictional story. Readers were really excited about the interaction of cultures and religions, because the modern world is filled with war and harshness.
Opinion of European readers
In Europe, the book "White Fortress" caused a flurry of emotions. Most readers were amazed at the theme of the book, which in this form, simple and at the same time confusing, no one had imagined before Pamuk. European readers paid particular attention to the time at which the events described took place. The period of the Muslim Middle Ages and the sultanate always attracted the reader, and in the book the writer most simply and accurately combined, according to the majority, two such incompatible concepts as Islam and Christianity.
One of the leading European newspapers, the French Figaro, on its pages devoted to the cultural section, called The White Fortress a unique work that could plunge a person into the abyss of thought. Moreover, the publication claims, one can reflect not only on the theme of religion and culture, but also on the impact of a person’s social life on his perception of the world.
Reviews in Russia
Russia has always been the most reading country in the world. And as soon as Orkhan Pamuk's White Fortress book appeared on sale, it was sold out within a week.
Readers divided into two distinctive camps. Some, upon reading the book, saw in it the problems of the interaction of two opposing cultures, the mutual fears of the West and the East. The book has only 190 pages. Despite the small volume, the author, according to Russian readers, was able to fully fit and uncover the topic of interest to him. The novel turned out exactly as his writer intended, fully embodying the vision of the heroes, accurately conveying their character and everyday life of the XVII century.
The second half of the readers were dissatisfied with the book. Many who had heard about the book of the Turkish writer hastened to read it and were left in unpleasant perplexity. Firstly, the novel seemed to them boring and boring. Many readers in their reviews of the book say that such a topic as the confrontation or the interaction of two neighboring, but completely different cultures and religions cannot be fully disclosed in almost two hundred pages. This is sacrilege, some say.
There are readers who have not accepted the style of the author. Despite the fact that the book is written according to the classical literary canons, it kills the interest in reading with its short, jerky sentences. This creates an almost zero impression, say book lovers.