The Black Book - Part 2, where nothing gets clearer

The Black Book - Part 2
(Post on Part 1 here)

This book was hard work, people. I kept wondering why I struggled so much. But it really is hard to know whether the narrator's voice is Galip, Celâl, or someone else entirely. Plus, what is real, and what is imaginary? Plus are the cultural references -particularly the literary ones - accurate, and would they be familiar to Turkish readers? So much of the novel is an exploration of identity, of authenticity and masks and doubles. Therefore the confusion is intention, I think.

I felt much better when I got to the afterword by translator Maureen Freely, where she discusses the challenges of rendering Turkish prose in English. She paraphrases poet Murat Nemet-Nejat, who called Turkish "a language that can evoke a thought unfolding" and asks "How to do the same in English without the thought vanishing into thin air?" How, indeed.

But anyway, after slogging through so much of the novel, I found it picked up speed at the end. Galip is still searching for his wife, Rüya, and Celâl. Somehow, while pursuing "clues," he assumes Celâl's identity, and finds himself fending off a very impassioned reader. His actions don't make sense, but then, when do anyone's? And as the chapters with "Celâl's" columns continue, we end up seeing deeper into Galip and Rüya's marriage.

A few things, indicative of the broader themes:

• Celâl refers to Turkey as "a country where everything was a copy of something else" - to the point that a group unknowingly replicates the murder from a Dostoyevsky novel.
• Pamuk/Celâl opens a chapter with Coleridge: " 'Aye!' (quoth the delighted reader). 'This is sense, this is genius! This I understand and admire! I have thought the ver same a hundred times myself!' In other words, this man has reminded me of my own cleverness, and therefore I admire him."
• A prince spends 6 years just reading, the happiest time of his life. Except because his thoughts and dreams were the authors', not his own, he was never really himself.

I've loved Pamuk since My Name is Red, but haven't read nearly enough. Apparently, this is where it all started. Per Freely, "The Black Book is the cauldron from which [his later works, like Red] come."

Too many people: My experience at the 2010 Festival of Books

I had been telling everyone that there were about 30,000 too many people at the LA Times Festival of Books this past Saturday. (It turns out there were about 130,000 attendees total over the weekend, so my numbers sound about right.) Honestly, I was so cranky about being there that I almost just left. I'm not sure what happened to the fun, awesome festivals I remember from my first years back in Los Angeles.

And then I think I figured it out. I snagged a panel ticket - just to something, anything really - and ended up at "Memoir: All the Single Ladies." (Ahem, that is me near the left edge of the picture, bent over something.) This totally made the festival worthwhile for me. The panels are the reason to go. They don't need to be favorite authors, and they certainly shouldn't be the political panels - those are chaos. My hour listening to these four women was perfect. And I also just happen to fit right into their demographic. But I liked that they were funny and self-deprecating and thoughtful, etc.

I also loved this line from Julie Klausner: "I hate when women do things that are good for their career and shitty to other women." Yay for solidarity.

Someday, if I survive this semester, I will get to read for fun again, and I will pick up these books....

Fugue state in Istanbul

The Black Book - Orhan Pamuk (Vintage International, 2006)
(originally published in Turkey in 1990)

Part One
I might be using the word "fugue" wrong, but whatevs. One thing I've noticed is that for all I love Orhan Pamuk, I really haven't read all that much by him. I am slowly trying to remedy this shortfall.

So far this novel reminds me of nothing so much as Rivka Galchen's Atmospheric Disturbances, which I read last summer. In both, a wife has "disappeared," and in both the husband's search takes on fantastical qualities and I find myself utterly unable to determine what, if anything, is real. Instead of trying to puzzle it out, I am instead just letting Pamuk's prose wash over me. It's too difficult to be an entirely passive reading experience, but it's less active than one might expect.

There are moments when I found myself making connections to his other work. For example, how much did Galip's opinion of detective novels come into play when he later wrote My Name is Red:

the only detective book he'd ever want to read would be the one in which not even the author knew the murderer's identity. Instead of decorating the story with clues and red herrings, the author would be forced to come to grips with his characters and his subject, and his characters would have a chance to become people in a book instead of just figments of their author's imagination.

And then I found that I utterly understand what Pamuk meant when in this putative column by Celâl:

But as I watched this person from the outside, as if in a dream, I was, in fact, not at all surprised to see that this person was none other than myself. What surprised me was the strength, the implausible tenderness, of my affection for him. I could see at once how fragile and pitiful he was [...]. Only I knew this person was not as he seemed, and I longed to take this unfortunate creature - this mere mortal, this temperamental child - under my wing, be his father or prehaps his god.

Lastly, for now, how can you argue this: "It was stories that kept them going."

Regularly scheduled reading interrupted for Ramses

A River in the Sky - Elizabeth Peters (William Morrow, 2010)

One of my favorite things about my volunteer job is that I often see brand new books the day before they are officially released. And since I don't particularly follow such things, it's often particularly exciting. Such was the case last week, when a cart appeared with 9 or 10 copies of a brand new Elizabeth Peters book. And sure enough, it was an Amelia Peabody one. (Yay!)

I had previously mentioned that I thought the series was probably through. I couldn't figure out how she could move forward. And it turns out she moved forward by going backward. To 1910. To young Ramses. And I can't resist young Ramses.

So I had to drop everything (sorry Orhan Pamuk!) and read this before doing anything else. I'll spare you the plot and all. It's during the lead-up to World War I, and the Emersons aren't allowed to go to Egypt. So somehow they end up in Palestine instead, where Ramses is already working and allowing trouble to find him. It's short, and genial. And again has me ready to one day go back to the beginning.

Mysteries, books, and television

Heat Wave - Richard Castle (Hyperion, 2009)

All Together Dead - Charlaine Harris (Ace Books, 2007)

This is how I spent my spring break.

One's a book from a series that created one of my favorite television shows (returning in June!) and the other was inspired from another show in my regular rotation. I'll start with Castle.

Okay, so Richard Castle (Nathan Fillion) is a successful mystery author who somehow manages to get permission to shadow a NYC homicide detective, who is a beautiful, tough yet vulnerable, blah blah blah, romantic tension. Anyway, the show is funny. Heat Wave is the first in his new Nikki Heat series, based on Det. Kate Beckett. Since it's such a great plot point on the show, I was highly amused when I saw (via Twitter, natch) that they actually published the "real" Heat Wave. (It's worth noting that the physical version, at 198 pages, is significantly slimmer than the tome that appears on the show.)

Since certain family members were dying to read it, and I was amused, I picked it up from the library. (The staffer at circulation was also excited, and actually yelped when she saw the pic of "Richard Castle" on the back cover.)

Oh, but the story itself. It's cute. It's not great, but it's cute, and I was entertained, particularly by all the extra-plot flourishes, like the blurbs and the dedication. Definitely for fans of the show only, but those folks will be amused.

.... And back to Sookie Stackhouse, heroine of this blog, so it seems. This, the 7th, might be my favorite installment of the series so far. It pushes along the grand narrative, and I've come to just put up with many of the quirks which I initially found annoying. And since it's been so long since True Blood was on the air, I'm finding it easier not to compare the two. I've almost been able to separate them into totally separate entities (like Gossip Girl, although I haven't actually read the books to compare).

This one actually had a quote that I enjoyed enough to note down. Sookie's a telepath, which has mostly been a problem until she started meeting supernatural beings, but she can't read vampires. So when she's in a room just with them, she realizes she has no idea what everyone else is thinking, and that this is what most of us deal with every day. She marvels, "How did regular people stand the suspense of day-to-day living?" How, indeed.