A “STRANGENESS IN MY MIND” BY ORHAN PAMUK – HOW THE NOVEL IS MADE Cover Image

„СТРАННОСТ НА УМА“ НА ОРХАН ПАМУК – КАК Е НАПРАВЕН РОМАНЪТ (ТЕЗИСИ)
A “STRANGENESS IN MY MIND” BY ORHAN PAMUK – HOW THE NOVEL IS MADE

Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature, Turkish Literature, Philology, Theory of Literature
Published by: ЮГОЗАПАДЕН УНИВЕРСИТЕТ »НЕОФИТ РИЛСКИ«
Keywords: novel; plot; story; character; Orhan Pamuk; Islam; narration

Summary/Abstract: The article explores the diversity of narrative techniques in Orhan Pamuk’s novel A Strangeness in My Mind. The main idea is that the drama of a private life is told against the background of the drama of the life of Istanbul. To do this, the novel parallels the biographical ‘I’ of the main character and the historical ‘He’ of the City. This comparison provokes the idea of the novel’s close relation to the history of Istanbul and Turkey over the last fifty years. Orhan Pamuk does not spare the reader any of the specific, purely "Turkish problems" with the Kurds and Greeks, as well as the radical and conservative moods and public discontent from the 1950s to the 1980s. The narrative line is developed slowly and minutely, owing to the author's intention to authenticate real events through the perspective of fictional characters and vice versa – to romanticize cultural and purely civilizational processes in the last half century of the development of this part of the border between Europe and Asia. This is the only way to explain the presence of the problem of women's emancipation and the lack of that misunderstood "patriotism" which often prevents the depiction of purely national processes in life. This refutes the widespread opinion that A Strangeness in My Mind is a postmodern novel.

  • Issue Year: 18/2020
  • Issue No: 1
  • Page Range: 143-147
  • Page Count: 5
  • Language: Bulgarian