I
Orhan Pamuk’s novel The White Castle has provoked mixed responses ranging
from extreme revulsion to excessive adulation. Some have debunked it as extremely
boring, dull, flat, and an infelicitous drudgery, while others have praised it sky-high,
comparing its author with Calvino, Borges, Eco, and Marquez. Detraction and deification
of this kind help only to obscure the pith and core of the novel’s humanistic import.
In spite of such criticism, Pamuk’s literary greatness remains unquestionable—the
Nobel Literature Award of 2006 proves it. The ground swell of such reaction symptomizes,
if anything, an a priori assumption, caused not so much by his writings, but by
his being a Turk caught in the cross-fire of a political battle of wits between
Europe and Turkey.
Pamuk’s statement to a Swiss periodical about the Armenian genocide of 1915 (when
a million Armenians were killed in Turkey) and the more recent Kurdish genocide
in his country (in which thirty-thousand Kurds were massacred), for which Turkey
has not officially regretted, stirred vehement protests both from Turkey’s religious
conservative camp and the secular establishment. Pamuk had to face a criminal trial
in 2005 under the controversial Article 301 for belittling his country and "insulting
Turkishness."
page
1
of 11
Though the case was eventually dropped by the Turkish government to show that they
respected the individual’s freedom of speech in a secular democracy, it nonetheless
made him a controversial figure. Europe watched these developments in Turkey with
bemused interest. In fact, the events that took place in Germany and France between
Pamuk’s prosecution and his receiving the Noble Prize lend interesting insight into
the uneasy political equation between Europe and Turkey. Shortly after Pamuk’s trial
in 2005, he was awarded the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade. About a month
later, in November, he was awarded the Prix Médicis étranger in France for his explicitly
political novel, Snow. Then in September 2006, France honored him again with the
Prix Méditerranée étranger. At this juncture, the Swedish Academy’s Nobel announcement
in Stockholm in favor of Pamuk made Europe ecstatic. European leaders praised him
in profusion.
French President Jacques Chirac called his views on society "intelligent, strong,
and liberal." Olli Rehn, the European Union Enlargement Commissioner, hailed the
decision as "good news" for all those "who want to speak, search, and learn the
truth." He went on to add that artists "need freedom of expression as desperately
as life needs water and air. Orhan knows more than others how precious and fragile
such freedom is" (Pourgouris).
This seems a very carefully worded and heavily loaded statement with serious political
implications. Rehn’s addressing Pamuk by his first name, Orhan, suggests the sense
of comfort that the Europeans feel with what Pamuk represents. And the strategic
positioning of the two words "precious" and "fragile" in the sentence make a devious
hint at the very foundation of the precarious Turkish democracy.
page
2
of 11
One begins to suspect that secularism and freedom are perhaps at the mercy of Islamic
Law. If one stretches the implication a little further from the Turkish point of
view, it could mean that Pamuk is hand in glove with the Europeans and is only giving
lip service to his country—a suspicion reinforced by what Professor Horace Engdahl,
the permanent secretary of the Swedish Academy, has observed in the context of Pamuk’s
novel The White Castle: "he has stolen the novel, we can say, from us Westerners
and transformed it into some thing else"(Pourgouris).
Whatever may have been the real intention behind these statements, Pamuk became
a suspect in the eyes of the Turkish people, and they thought that the Europeans
were using their own man against them. It touched the Turkish susceptibilities to
the quick. It all happened at a time when Turkey was aspiring to join the European
Union. This naturally gave rise to a tremendous nationalist backlash. Pamuk’s own
countrymen saw him as a Westerner writing in Turkish. Turkish critics maintained
that Pamuk was given the Nobel Prize not for his novels but for his politics. The
leader of the Ultra-Nationalist Lawyers Kemal Kerincsiz said, "as a Turkish citizen
I am ashamed . . . I don’t believe this prize was given for his books or for his
literary identity. It was given because he belittled our national values for his
recognition of the [Armenian] genocide" (Traynor).
It is a pity that Pamuk, whom Turkey should be proud of, was received with so much
derision and hostility at home. No author in recent times has been so patently misunderstood
by his countrymen as Pamuk. His love for secular democratic values and his attempt
to bridge the gap between the East and West artistically were misconstrued as anti-Turkish.
Such imputation, however, seems unjustified, for he has always maintained that tradition
does not mean stasis—it is forward looking. In his view, tradition and liberalism
are not contrary values. His main contention is that "upholding one’s history and
tradition is not incompatible in a modern secular state that seeks to join the European
Union."
page
3
of 11
II
Pamuk writes about the Ottoman Turkey and Islam. Though he is not a practicing Muslim,
he is deeply rooted in his native city, Istanbul. Being born and brought up in a
city that spans Europe and Asia, he is torn between loyalties to his Asian roots
and his European upbringing. Pamuk, therefore, represents the typical Turkish paradox—of
European ambition and its Ottoman culture, its scientific aspiration and its religious
conservatism, its democratic establishment and its Islamic law, its old morality
and its new economy. The East-West polarity, which is predominant in the Turkish
consciousness, is deftly delineated in his major novels such as The White Castle,
Snow, and My Name is Red.
Beneath the facile surface of the novels, however, one can detect deeper ontological
postulations: Why should a European captive be subjected to life-long slavery as
in the case of the unnamed European scholar in The White Castle? Why aren’t people
who are slightly different or imitate Europeans tolerated in Turkey as is displayed
in Snow? And why should Effendi, the master miniaturist, be put to death for designing
the books for his sovereign after European fashion as in My Name is Red? Do cultures
and man-made boundaries make men different? Are not human beings basically the same
everywhere?
page
4
of 11
Pamuk seems to be addressing these questions in The White Castle, and artistically
registering his reaction to the omnipresent question of the identity of man. Working
on this theme, he constantly explores a language that corresponds to the texture
of life in Istanbul. He writes, "I wanted to make you feel the terror of living
in this city. . . . I wanted to convey the idea of hopelessness, the idea of despair."
It is imperative for every artist to find for oneself an idiom, a set of symbols
and a universal correspondent that represents the hopes and aspirations, fears and
phobias of the people he or she is writing for. Pamuk has admirably handled the
language and brought into focus the typical existential burden that every Turk has
groaned under. This fact is corroborated by the Nobel Foundation’s announcement:
"Orhan Pamuk, who in the quest for the melancholic souls of his native city has
discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures" (Pourgouris).
III
Never was the East-West encounter so masterfully portrayed as in The White Castle.
Couched in elegant prose, the novel intricately plays on this theme with rare delicacy
and subtlety. On the surface it appears to be a historical novel, but history remains
obstinately at the backdrop, revealing only specters of the savagery and brutality
of the Ottoman Turkish society. On a close reading one will find the tone of the
novel is one of an importunate entreaty to treat man as man, Easterner or Westerner,
which perhaps is also its thematic focus. Set in the 17th century Ottoman empire,
the novel purports to tell the story of a young Venetian scholar (the unnamed narrator)
who, while sailing from Venice to Naples, was taken prisoner by Turkish pirates
and put in a slave camp in Istanbul.
page
5
of 11
The Venetian scholar refused to be treated as an ordinary slave. He used his European
ingenuity and claimed knowledge of medicine and astronomy, and asserted that his
services could be better used as a doctor than a slave. He treated some injured
Turks using his commonsense: "after I had treated a few Turks, using my commonsense
rather than knowledge of anatomy, and their wounds had healed by themselves; every
one believed I was a doctor" (Pamuk, The White Castle, 8). Though he still lived
in the slave prison, the misconception that he was a doctor gave him a little preferential
treatment. He treated the prisoners and collected fees, and spent a large part of
those fees on bribing the guards, who smuggled him outside and brought him food.
With the rest of the money, he took lessons in Turkish.
His fame as a doctor reached the ears of the Pasha, who one day sent for him. The
Pasha had a breathing problem which no doctor could cure, and, in the words of the
narrator, "hearing of me, he had wanted to put me to test"(Pamuk 10). Seeing the
symptoms of the Pasha’s ailment—the shortness of breath and cough—the narrator prepared
a simple mint-flavored sweet syrup with whatever he could lay his hands on in the
Pasha’s kitchen, and administered the potion to him, hoping that the gentle, cool
north wind would cure him.
A month later he was again called for by the Pasha in the middle of the night. He
went with trepidation, but was relieved to see that the Pasha was "up on his feet
and in good spirits" (Pamuk 10). The Pasha said that he was cured of his illness
and said that "I was good doctor" (Pamuk 10). When the Pasha wanted him to ask a
favor in return, he only begged him to free him from the prison and explained, ".
. . I was being worn out pointlessly with heavy labour when I could be more useful
if I were occupied with Astronomy and medicine" (Pamuk 11).
page
6
of 11
A week later, an officer came and freed him of the shackles and warned him not to
try to escape. Three days later the officer came again and gave him new clothes.
He was still to go to work like the other slaves, but they treated him with a little
respect. By now he was earning good money as a doctor, but the prospects of his
freedom from prison seemed remote, and the waiting was interminable.
Seasons passed, and during the following autumn he was once again summoned to the
Pasha’s mansion. There he was shocked to see a person who was his mirror-image—his
double: "the resemblance between myself and the man who entered the room was incredible!
It was me there . . . for the first instant this was what I thought" (Pamuk 11).
This man, whom the Pasha called Hoja (master), was given custody of the Venetian
scholar. The Pasha ordered them both to make a unique fireworks display for the
wedding he had planned.
From here on the novel takes a post-modernist twist, playing intricately on the
doppelganger theme. Hoja, the master, wanted his European slave to instruct him
in Western science and technology, medicine, and pyrotechnics. But his curiosity
was not satiated at that; he wanted to know more from him. He even contemplated
whether, given knowledge of each other’s most intimate secrets, they could exchange
their identities.
page
7
of 11
Over the years their relationship changed—the master and the slave alternating domination
of each other. The author takes full advantage of the look-alike characters and
deftly plays them against each other. The master-slave duo became fairly popular
as scientists in Istanbul, which drew the attention of the sultan. One day the young
sovereign summoned them to his palace and ordered them to develop a war-machine
to aid him in his war against the Poles. The two developed a cumbersome engine,
which hindered more than it helped the sultan’s army, crushing the soldiers who
were employed to run it. At the most critical juncture, when the sultan’s army was
about to launch an assault, the weapon foundered in a swamp under its own weight
and became ineffective:
I knew only too well that when we joined the siege in the morning Our weapon would
founder in the swamp leaving the men inside and around it to die, that as a result
there would be voices demanding my head to silence the rumour of a curse, the fear,
and the grumbling of soldiers, and I knew Hoja realized as much (Pamuk 128-29).
The weapon’s failure and the gossip about its bringing bad luck sent a chill down
Hoja’s spine. He remembered painfully that the former imperial astrologer was put
to death under similar circumstances. Hoja panicked, though he maintained an outward
veneer of cool composure. He had decided to escape to Italy, but guarded the secret
very closely. The Venetian slave, being his alter ego, however, could guess what
was passing in Hoja’s mind: "At the time he explained nothing to me, he was rushing
like someone about to leave on a journey. He said there was a thick fog outside.
I understood" (Pamuk 129). He even seemed to feel intuitively what Hoja would need
to camouflage his identity in Italy without rousing suspicion:
page
8
of 11
We exchanged clothes without haste and without speaking. I gave him my ring and
the medallion I managed to keep from him all these years. Inside it there was picture
of my grand mother’s mother and a lock of my fiancée’s hair that had gone white;
I believed he liked it, he put it around his neck. Then he left the tent and was
gone. I watched him slowly disappear in the silent fog (Pamuk 130).
Taking advantage of the thick fog, he escaped to Italy, where he successfully acted
as a proxy for the Venetian, about whose childhood, relatives, and other intimate
details he knew. Later the Venetian received reports confirming that Hoja was doing
well in Italy. He was lecturing, writing books, and living a life of peace and prosperity.
It was now the Venetian’s turn to pretend as the Hoja in Istanbul, and to convince
the sultan and the gossip-mongers that he was the real Hoja.
For the next seven years he kept the secret close to his chest before he realized
that it did not really matter who he was. At times he suspected that the sultan
had discovered his secret, especially when he asked searching questions about his
identity. But by now he was experienced enough to handle such questions without
betraying the slightest sign of nervousness, and he answered them with a philosophical
evasion: ". . . of what importance is it who a man is? The important thing is what
we have done or will do"(Pamuk 134). In all those years he had amassed a lot of
wealth as the imperial astrologer. He had been happily married and fathered four
children. But being in the profession of astrology, he had gained an insight into
the future and foresaw trouble. He therefore gave up his position in the court and
moved to Gebeze, another Turkish town away from Istanbul, to live peacefully and
pursue his favorite pastime: reading books and writing stories.
page
9
of 11
IV
The White Castle is an assertion of the oneness of humanity that triumphs over racial,
cultural, and ideological diversities. The fact that the characters in the novel
exchange their identities so successfully compels us to pause and ponder over the
question: Are not human beings basically the same everywhere? Pamuk thinks as much
and dismisses the ideological humbug that divides human beings as stupidity. He
observes, "What I am trying to do here is to make a game of it and to show that
it does not matter whether you are an Easterner or a Westerner. The worst way of
reading or misreading the book would be to take very seriously the ideologies, false
consciousness, the stupidities that one has about these notions. The problem of
East and West has been a huge weight for Turkish intellectuals" (Pamuk pg#). This
authorial concern gets artistically expressed through the sultan’s questioning:
. . . the sovereign would ask thoughtfully: must one be a sultan to understand that
men, in the four corners and seven climes of the world, all resembled one another?
. . . Was it not the best proof that men everywhere were identical with one another
that they could take each other’s place? (Pamuk 136)
The message of this Kafkaesque parable is loud and clear: at one point the indomitable
human spirit renders all territorial boundaries infructuous and transcends to a
height that politics and ideologies cannot possibly scale—a theme that finds a delicate
poetic expression in Frost’s poem "Mending Wall," too. Frost begins the poem with
the punch line: "Some thing there is that does not love a wall," and adds ". . .
Before I built a wall I would ask to know / What was I was walling in or walling
out, / And to whom I was like to give offense . . ." and chuckles at our and his
neighbour’s foolishness who "will not go behind" our "father’s saying . . . ‘Good
fences make good neighbours.’" Pamuk, too, seems to be making a veiled sarcasm at
man’s rigid ideological orientation and fixity of ideas that render him frigid and
inhuman.
page
10
of 11
The remarks of the seventeenth-century Ottoman sultan seem to have a contemporary
relevance. In his speech made to the new membership of NATO in June 2004 in Istanbul,
President George Bush, quoting Pamuk, insightfully expressed similar sentiment.
He said that the finest view of the city was not from its European or Asian shores
but from "the bridge that unites them." He further added that "the important thing
is not the clash of parties, civilizations, and cultures, East or West." No, what
is important is to recognize that "other peoples, in other continents and civilizations"
are "exactly like you." (Hitchens) Unfortunately, polarization of cultures and countries
in terms of East and West has been the "addiction of our time. Connecting everything
with everything else" would perhaps be humanity’s best bet for the future (Pamuk
4). Pamuk may well be implying a complete rethinking on the issue.
Works Cited
Europe Feature. Profile: Turkey’s Leading Novelist, Orhan Pamuk. Turkish author
Orhan Pamuk, EPA/ARNE/DEDERT. Dec. 16, 2005.
Hitchens, Christopher. "Mind the Gap". The Atlantic Monthly. Dec 14, 2004.
Pamuk, Orhan. The White Castle. Manchester: Faber and Faber, 1991.
Pourgouris, Marinos. "The Addiction of Our Time: Orhan Pamuk and the Nobel Prize."
Associations.
Traynor, Ian. The Guardian. Oct.13, 2006.
page
11
of 11
