The Red-Haired Woman
Orhan Pamuk (transl. Ekin Oklap), 2017
Knopf Doubleday
272 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780451494429
Summary
A fable of fathers and sons and the desires that come between them.
On the outskirts of a town thirty miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain.
As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before — not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world.
But in the nearby town, where they buy provisions and take their evening break, the boy will find an irresistible diversion. The Red-Haired Woman, an alluring member of a travelling theatre company, catches his eye and seems as fascinated by him as he is by her.
The young man's wildest dream will be realized, but, when in his distraction a horrible accident befalls the well digger, the boy will flee, returning to Istanbul. Only years later will he discover whether he was in fact responsible for his master's death and who the redheaded enchantress was.
A beguiling mystery tale of family and romance, of east and west, tradition and modernity, by one of the great storytellers of our time. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—June 7, 1952
• Where—Istanbul, Turkey
• Education—Istanbul Technical University; graduated from the
Institute of Journalism, Uiversity of Istanbul
• Awards—Nobel Prize, 2006; Milliyet Press Novel Contest;
Orhan Kemal Novel Prize; Madarali Novel Prize; Prix de la
Decourverte Europeenne; Independent Award for Foreign
Fiction; IMPAC Dublin Award.
• Currently—teaches at Columbia University (New York City)
Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist. He is also the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches comparative literature and writing.
One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, his work has sold over seven million books in more than fifty languages, making him the country's best-selling writer. Pamuk is the recipient of numerous literary awards, including the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature—the first Nobel Prize to be awarded to a Turkish citizen.
Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in a wealthy yet declining bourgeois family; an experience he describes in passing in his novels, The Black Book and Cevdet Bey and His Sons, as well as more thoroughly in his personal memoir Istanbul. He was educated at Robert College secondary school in Istanbul and went on to study architecture at the Istanbul Technical University since it was related to his real dream career, painting. He left the architecture school after three years, however, to become a full-time writer, and graduated from the Institute of Journalism at the University of Istanbul in 1976. From ages 22 to 30, Pamuk lived with his mother, writing his first novel and attempting to find a publisher. He describes himeself as a "cultural" Muslim, who associates the historical and cultural identification with the religion.
Pamuk married Aylin Türegün, a historian, in 1982. From 1985 to 1988, while his wife was a graduate student at Columbia University, Pamuk assumed the position of visiting scholar there, using the time to conduct research and write his novel The Black Book in the university's Butler Library. This period also included a visiting fellowship at the University of Iowa.
Pamuk returned to Istanbul, a city to which he is strongly attached. He and his wife had a daughter named Rüya born in 1991, whose name means "dream" in Turkish. In 2001, he and Aylin were divorced.
In 2006, Pamuk returned to the US to take up a position as a visiting professor at Columbia. Pamuk is currently a Fellow with Columbia's Committee on Global Thought and holds an appointment in Columbia's Middle East and Asian Languages and Cultures Department and at its School of the Arts.
Orhan Pamuk started writing regularly in 1974. In 1983 he won the Turkish Orhan Kemal Novel Prize for Mr. Cevdet and His Sons. The book tells the story of three generations of a wealthy Istanbul family living in Nişantaşı, the district of Istanbul where Pamuk grew up.
More prizes came his way. His second novel, The Silent House, won both the 1984 Turkish Madarali Novel Prize and the 1991 Prix de la Decourverte Europeenne (for the book's French translation). His historical novel, The White Castle, published in Turkish in 1985, won the 1990 Independent Award for Foreign Fiction and extended his reputation abroad. The New York Times Book Review wrote, "A new star has risen in the east—Orhan Pamuk." He started experimenting with postmodern techniques in his novels, a change from the strict naturalism of his early works.
Popular success took a bit longer to come to Pamuk, but his 1990 novel, The Black Book, became one of the most controversial and popular readings in Turkish literature, due to its complexity and richness. Pamuk's fourth novel, New Life, caused a sensation in Turkey upon its 1995 publication and became the fastest-selling book in Turkish history. By this time, Pamuk had also become a high-profile figure in Turkey, due to his support for Kurdish political rights. In 1995, Pamuk was among a group of authors tried for writing essays that criticized Turkey's treatment of the Kurds.
Pamuk's international reputation continued to increase when he published My Name is Red in 2000. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles in a setting of 16th century Istanbul. That book won international literature's most lucrative prize, the IMPAC Dublin Award in 2003.
Pamuk's next novel was Snow in 2002, which takes place in the border city of Kars and explores the conflict between Islamism and Westernism in modern Turkey. The New York Times listed Snow as one of its Ten Best Books of 2004. In 2003, Pamuk published his memoirs, Istanbul: Memories and the City. The Museum of Innocence was first published in 2008.
Pamuk's books are characterized by a confusion or loss of identity brought on in part by the conflict between Western and Eastern values. They are often disturbing or unsettling, but include complex, intriguing plots and characters of great depth. His works are also redolent with discussion of and fascination with the creative arts, such as literature and painting. Pamuk's work often touches on the deep-rooted tensions between East and West and tradition and modernism/secularism.
In 2006 Pumak was awarded te the Nobel Prize for Literature. His acceptance speech, given in Turkish, viewed the relations between Eastern and Western Civilizations:
What literature needs most to tell and investigate today are humanity's basic fears: the fear of being left outside, and the fear of counting for nothing, and the feelings of worthlessness that come with such fears; the collective humiliations, vulnerabilities, slights, grievances, sensitivities, and imagined insults, and the nationalist boasts and inflations that are their next of kin....
Whenever I am confronted by such sentiments, and by the irrational, overstated language in which they are usually expressed, I know they touch on a darkness inside me. We have often witnessed peoples, societies and nations outside the Western world—and I can identify with them easily— succumbing to fears that sometimes lead them to commit stupidities, all because of their fears of humiliation and their sensitivities.
I also know that in the West—a world with which I can identify with the same ease—nations and peoples taking an excessive pride in their wealth, and in their having brought us the Renaissance, the Enlightenment, and Modernism, have, from time to time, succumbed to a self-satisfaction that is almost as stupid.
—Orhan Pamuk, Nobel Lecture (translation by Maureen Freely)
(Autho bio adapted from Wikipedia.)
Book Reviews
[B]y the end of the book, the contemplation of fatherly themes feels heavy-handed and…melodramatic…. Pamuk’s power continues to lie not with the theatrical but with the quiet and the slow.
Publishers Weekly
(Starred review.) Reality and myth intertwine to create a twist that will send readers back to page one with hurried excitement.… [T] this novel will both appease fans…and delight first-time readers. —Joshua Finnell, Los Alamos National Lab., NM
Library Journal
(Starred review.) Pamuk masterfully contrasts East with West, tradition with modernity, the power of fables with the inevitability of realism…As usual, Pamuk handles weighty material deftly, and the result is both puzzling and beautiful.
Booklist
[A] brooding novel … [with] Pamuk's customary wealth of atmospheric detail…. It's also ham-fistedly obvious and relentlessly overdetermined.… A disappointment, though no book by this skillful and ambitious writer is without interest.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. At the start of the story, we are told that Cem’s father has disappeared, but that it is not the first time he has disappeared and he "didn’t always disappear for the same reason" (5). What are the reasons for his disappearances and how does his absence affect young Cem? Does Cem ever come to terms with his father’s disappearance?
2. The Red-Haired Woman is said to be a novel in the tradition of the conte philosophique, or philosophical tale. How does the novel fit in with this genre and what are some of the philosophical and social ideas and arguments the novel puts forth?
3. Evaluate Cem’s relationship with Master Mahmut. Would you characterize it as a father-son relationship? Why or why not? How does it differ from Cem’s relationship with his own father?
4. A motif of storytelling runs through the novel. Which of the characters are storytellers, and what kinds of stories do they share? Do their stories have anything in common? What seems to be the role or purpose of storytelling?
5. When Cem shares his version of the story of Oedipus with Master Mahmut, Mahmut replies, "Nobody can escape their fate" (46). Do you agree with him? Why or why not? Does the story ultimately support or overturn the notion of fate? How much do the characters seem to be driven by forces beyond their control and how much seems to be the result of their own actions and free will?
6. When does Cem believe he is "most completely [him]self" (63)? How does he believe a father’s presence affects this? Do you agree with him?
7. The Red-Haired Woman tells Cem that he should simply find a new father. "We all have many fathers in this country" (86). What does she mean? Who or what are some of the other father figures to which she refers?
8. Why does Cem ultimately abandon the dig and return home? How does his decision affect him in the years ahead? What does Cem decide is "the best thing to do" (117)? Do you agree with him?
9. Through detailed descriptions of the landscape, the author provides a snapshot of a rapidly changing world. Does the book ultimately offer a statement about progress and modernization versus tradition? Is the modernization of Turkish culture as represented in the book primarily positive? What has changed? What, if anything, seems to remain the same despite modernization?
10. In chapter 28, Cem notices the major difference between the story of Oedipus from the West and the story of Rostam and Sohrab from the East. What is this difference and why might it be notable?
11. After visiting with Mrs. Fikriye the librarian, Cem realizes a new commonality between Oedipus and Sohrab. What is it and how does it affect Cem’s understanding of the events of his own past? What do both stories say about loyalty?
12. Why does Ayşe call in a panic when she realizes that Cem has attended the Sohrab meeting even though he said he would not? What happens to Cem, and who is responsible? Does the book seem to suggest whether this outcome could have been avoided? If so, how?
13. When Gülcihan ends up at the same table as another woman with red hair who challenges the authenticity of her appearance, how does she respond? What does she see as the main difference between her and the other woman? How does this new knowledge contribute to the book’s more expansive dialogues about identity, desire, choice, and fate?
14. Evaluate the corresponding themes of innocence and guilt. Where do these themes surface in the book? Is it easy to determine which of the characters in the book are innocent and which are guilty? Why or why not? Does the book ever answer the question of how one’s innocence or guilt is determined? Why does Cem come to the conclusion that Oedipus and Rostam may be considered innocent, for instance? Through its exploration of these two overlapping themes, what view of morality does the author ultimately offer?
15. Gülcihan wishes to talk to Ayşe to tell her "as women, we were not responsible for what happened, for it had all been dictated by myth and history" (246). What does she mean by this? Do you agree with her? Why or why not? Are the Red-Haired Woman and Ayşe truly innocent, or are they somehow complicit or even responsible for what has happened?
(Questions issued by publisher.)