The black book

by Orhan Pamuk

Other authorsMaureen Freely

Paper Book, 2006

Status

Available

Call number

894/.3533

Genres

General Fiction

All Topics

Fiction

Publication

New York : Vintage International/Vintage Books, 2006.

Description

Galip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective-novel-loving Rüya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her ex-husband, Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl's identity, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear the worst. With its cascade of beguiling stories about Istanbul, The Black Book is a brilliantly unconventional mystery, and a provocative meditation on identity. For Turkish literary readers it is the cherished cult novel in which Orhan Pamuk found his original voice, but it has largely been neglected by English-language readers. Now, in Maureen Freely's beautiful new translation, they, too, may encounter all its riches.--Publisher description.… (more)

User reviews

LibraryThing member eas311

Orhan Pamuk: you are complicated, but I love you so.

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LibraryThing member thenamesake

Preliminary Intro: Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel in 2006; and his novels have been translated into English (from the original Turkish) and are hugely popular. He is up there with Rushdie, Amis, Carey, Coetzee and Naipul.
Confession: I haven't actually read the whole book. I plodded through half the

book and got frustrated waiting for the event when the "Black Book" will finally make its entrance. There hasn't been a single reference to it till now.
It's not actually one story, but stories in stories; stories spilling out of stories, stories tripping over other stories, commingling with each other completing others, contradicting each other, and so on. Each story has its own life and is as much a character in the book as any other soul.
All of Pamuk's books have been placed in Istanbul, and this is no exception. I can't pinpoint the exact era being described; seems like the 1970's just as the television became a visual addiction replacing the radio.

Superficially, it's about the narrator Galip's adventures, as he tries to solve the mystery of the beautiful wife Ruya's disappearance. He suspects she has re-united with her ex-husband; the famous columnist and writer Celal, who himself has disappeared. Galip tries to track them down by putting himself in the place of Celal, trying to think and see like him; trying to derive new meanings inside mundane everything objects and places of Istanbul with which he has been familiar throughout his life.
Some chapters are nothing but Celal's columns from Milliyet, and thus the narrative switches abruptly from Galip to Celal. The chapter "When the Bosphorus Dries Up" is a classic and is a treat to read by itself.
Characters come and go, and in later chapters their very existence is demolished. So what is Pamuk trying to convey by the conversations between Galip and the mysterious Belkis; that we have multiple personalities hidden beneath our normal selves? Is it impossible to be only oneself? This is why I am damn confused by the book.
Each time I revisit a previous chapter, I glean a new meaning and things become more clearer. Sometimes I feel that I have actually read a later chapter. For example, the chapter "Riddles in Faces", which I suspect is another of Celal's columns is referenced in earlier chapters and Galip constantly tries to interpret insights related to his wife's disappearance on the faces of perfect strangers. Nice try.
Istanbul is as much a character as any others; and it is the only consistent one and is most beautifully described. Alteast the streets and places remain where they are in the whole book. Istanbul is just like Hyderabad, with its mix of Islamic heritage and modern secular heroes. Of course, the clash between East and West is central to Istanbul, it being the first place where power shifted periodically from one culture to another.

I definitely recommend the book, but only if you have the patience to read it three times over. Hopefully then you will comprehend its true meaning.

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LibraryThing member MeisterPfriem

My copy has Pamuk’s and Freely’s signature on the 2nd page and the year 2007, which must have been the year I listened to their conversation in Hay and also the year I read the book for the first time. But I have forgotten everything. Every sentence, every image evoked is as fresh now as if I

imagine it for the first time. But perhaps I have never read it, perhaps I browsed some pages, found that the book demands time and attention, more than I was able or willing to give then, so I had put it aside for some future time.

The reader is emerged in a Wunderkammer, is lost like Alice in enchanted gardens where nothing is quite what it seems, where objects and encounters present and past are, or may be, signs revealing secret meanings to those who learn to read them, where the protagonists strive to gain, or fear to loose, the sense of themselves. Pamuk says of his writing (in an interview given 2006 to ‘Le Monde des livres’): „Mon style d’écriture, mon mode de composition, requièrent un imense esprit d’enfance. Et la responsabilité de l’écriture se limite, au fond de moi, au jeu démoniaque et magique avec les règles du monde.“

I had some difficulties at first getting into this strange and fascinating book but half-way through it grabbed me and did not let me go. (III-18)

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LibraryThing member mrminjares

This intricately woven tale is divided both literally and figuratively into two parts; each part has an identical number of pages, and each represents one side of the personality of the protagonist Galip, a civil lawyer living in Istanbul. He is a wanderer in the first half of the book. His wife

leaves him so he searches for her and as he searches, he explores the people and history of his city. At the same time, he explores his own identity and begins to lose it. Interspersed between this narrative is the text of newspaper columns written by his cousin Celal, a famous writer in Istanbul who also is nowhere to be found. Galip grows to suspect his wife is with Celal. He can't find her and when Celal becomes the only other relative missing, Galip seeks Celal out. In the second half of the book, Galip sneaks into Celal's apartment and is determined to enter into Celal's mind to understand where he had disappeared to. He wears Celal's clothes and reads all of his columns until eventually, he assumes Celal's identity, thus fully abandoning his own. He learns that Celal can read faces, and Galip teaches this to himself, ultimately giving him the knowledge of what his own face contains.

The book ealds with identity and duality. It demonstrates the potential for two identities to be lived at once. Certainly the scene when Galip fuses his identity with Celal is one of the most intense; this also occurs in The White Castle, another book by Orhan Pamuk. My favorite passage occurs when Galip, acting as Celal, answers the phone and falls victim to a tremendous rant by a man who claims to also have read al of Celal's columns, but who is determined to kill Celal. One could imagine the caller as Galip, speaking to Galip, who has assumed the identity of Celal. The intricate layering and weaving of narrative is on display in this novel, one of Pamuk's best.

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LibraryThing member tmbcoughlin

I needed to finish this book to understand what it really was about. The book is about telling stories. The premise is a man who's wife leaves him and his search for her. On his search he meets many people and many stories are told. The book is beautifully written but requires concentration to

follow. I would not classify this as an easy read.

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LibraryThing member zuckermana

Fascinating look into modern-day Turkish culture. But much more than that, a quirky novel filled with quirky characters. Everything in this book is interesting: the plot, the settings, the characters, the themes, the structure--everything.

LibraryThing member normaleistiko

Exquisite writing, and translation. 2006 Nobel prize in literature awarded to this writer. Wonderful observation of meaning of life, the inner side..

LibraryThing member gbill

A disappointing book and very difficult to slog through. Pamuk's later books (which I have not read) must be far better for him to have won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

What I liked in the beginning - rich detail in descriptions and painting pictures in these details - quickly became overwrought

with meaningless detail on polictical intrigues, a meandering "plot" that never really went anywhere, and absurd passages, such as the seemingly endless and bizarre repetition of "letters in faces". It was frustrating to have Pamuk never "get on with it"; the action here is often limited to things like dusting off yearbooks, aimless wandering, and getting bewildering clues and implied meanings in random objects. Frankly, Pamuk seems pretentious in hinting at all these deeper meaning and in trying to contain stories with stories. Believe me I don't need it all tidied up into a neat Hollywood-type bundle, but to never have it come together at all just ends up tedious in a long book.

What I liked: the love Galip had for Ruya was expressed quite poetically in Ch. 31 (unfortunately this occurs on p. 367, long after the "God let this book end" point), and the insight into Turkey losing it's culture to the West ("The result? As you can see for yourself, we're still crawling, still cowering in the shameful shadow of Europe") culminating in the story of the Crown Prince (Ch. 35), and some of Celal's columns ("When the Bosphorus Dries Up", "Alaaddin's Shop"). The description of Rumi's relationship with Shams of Tabriz was also interesting.

If only there had been a better plot built around the concept of Turkey searching for its national identity and 200-300 pages had been edited out of this thing!

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LibraryThing member Griff

Identity is what pervades this book. Perhaps it is more appropriate to say the difficulty in defining identity pervades this book. Galip suddenly finds his wife has gone missing. In his attempt to uncover where she is and why she has disappeared, the reader is provided story after story of the

struggle to maintain, define, recapture, and reshape identity, whether personal, national, cultural or political. Through the writings and storytelling of Celal, who has also gone missing, and eventually Galip, one learns much about Istanbul and Turkey. This book requires concentration: it is not a light read. In the end, we have not waited for Godot - Galip's wife and Celal are found. The journey, however, provides the impact, not the outcome.

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LibraryThing member madhuri_agrawal

This is one of the books that force you to take them slowly, or savor them - it almost appears as a collection of many books, dwelling on many different thoughts which rake the brain.
Like most of Pamuk's books, it is based in Istanbul. The protagonist's wife has left him, and in the process of

trying to uncover her whereabouts, he stumbles upon a lot of facets of his city and his own mind.
I will strongly recommend the book to those who read "Zen and the art.." and liked it. And do read it slowly and chew over the ideas.

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LibraryThing member EpicTale

I found this book to be tedious, obscure, and difficult to stay interested in. I gave up after reading 200 pages, because the story was so slow to develop.

I don't mean to suggest the book was a waste. The story's premise is intriguing, and I enjoyed the bounce-back-and-forth storytelling between

the protagonist and the gossip columnist. I really liked a couple of sections: the story's initial set up, the columnist's story of searching for a kiss, and the brothel of movie star wannabes who lived inside of their characters' personas and famous lines.

Even so, I couldn't stay engaged. Beyond the nuggets lay a whole lot of obscure writing and thought about historical Turkish characters and events. I'm don't fancy myself a charlatan, but I just didn't appreciate or enjoy those parts.

Far more enjoyable and engaging for me was Pamuk's "Museum of Innocence".

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LibraryThing member Smiler69

I couldn’t finish it. It was a difficult read and the story so convoluted that it made me feel that I wasn’t intelligent enough to understand. Not quite my cup of tea.

LibraryThing member rayski

Galip comes home from work to find that his wife Ruya left him without a note. He then finds that his famous writer cousin is missing too. He searches Istanbul for the couple, ends up taking over his cousin’s personality and learns about himself along the way.

LibraryThing member lecteurr

amazing story of searching and obsession

LibraryThing member chive

I have dearly loved all the other Orhan Pamuk books I have read and really looked forward to reading this one. I found it just very, very odd. I think I'm maybe missing the part of my brain that makes this story coherent but I spent the whole time I was reading it very very confused. Maybe reading

it in bed was the problem, maybe I should have read it when I was fully engaged.

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LibraryThing member Miguelnunonave

Admittedly very well written and full of ambiance. But it's incredibly dense and boring. Had to drop after 100 pages.

LibraryThing member untraveller

I've enjoyed others of Pamuk's books, but this was almost 500 pages of very tedious writing....

LibraryThing member LisaMorr

This book took me over a month to read, which contributes to the rating I finally gave it - 2.5 stars. It started with promise - Galip, a lawyer living in Istanbul, comes home one day to find that his wife has left him. She leaves him a 19-word note (we never find out what the note said). Galip

thinks maybe she has gone back to her first husband, or maybe to his cousin, a very popular columnist who is his wife's half brother. He looks for clues all over Istanbul, and in the writings of his cousin, to try to find where his wife has gone.

The good things about the book are that I learned a lot about Istanbul and about the culture and history of Turkey. I found the structure of the book to be interesting - every other chapter was an essay written by his cousin the columnist.

It was a bit surreal - the things Galip does to ostensibly find clues to where his wife has gone are just crazy. Also, the writing was at times a bear to get through - it was a very dense book! I think I understood this a bit more when I read the translator's afterword - the Turkish language doesn't have the verb to be, there are many more tenses than in English, the passive voice seems to be preferred - all of this combines together to make for very long sentences.

I kept wondering if I would learn where Galip's wife was by the end of the novel and why she left him; I did understand what finally happened to her, and I think I understand the answer to the mystery (although it is ambiguous...), but I can't say that getting through this book was worth it!

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LibraryThing member technodiabla

I just completed The Black Book. I love Pamuk's writing though it is obvious this was an earlier work as his story was not tight and there were long passages that were tedious and repetitive. You can see the change in Snow, which has a similar style but it much cleaner. The Black Book dealt

primarily with themes of identity (of the characters and of Turkey and its people) using the context of a mystery and a writer as main character (sound familiar?). It was a challenging read and very slow at the beginning but picked up in Part 2. I would recommend this book, but only to the patient reader who is willing to give himself up to the mystical and the mysterious without expecting a nice Hollywood ending. 3.5 stars

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LibraryThing member ckavich

I was determined to finish it, but didn't. It just never seemed to get going.

LibraryThing member theageofsilt

"...stories about kingdoms that had failed to be themselves and so vanished into nothingness, about whole races that had imitated others so assiduously they'd cease to exist, about distant lands where people had forgotten who they were and had, as a consequence, been forgotten by all others too."

--Orhan Pamuk, "The Black Book"

The struggle to become one's self, for a culture to maintain its identity, the mysterious disappearance of a beloved wife, Istanbul itself, an invitation to explore the literature of the Near East, and much more in one fascinating novel. It's like ten books in one!

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