My Name Is Red

Weaving together art, history, religion, and a dozen other weighty concepts, My Name is Red is a byzantine and thought-provoking novel. The year is 1591, and from the Tapkapi Palace in Istanbul, Sultan Murat III rules over the vast (and perhaps decaying) Ottoman Empire. It is a cold winter, snow falling around the slender minarets, the city seeming to turn in on itself for warmth. Around the world, new lands are being discovered, and the barbarous Franks grow ever more impetuous.

But this is of little concern to the miniaturist employed by the Sultan to illuminate books. Following the traditions of the Persian masters, they draw the world, hoping to capture the eternal and ineffable. Yet their lives are disrupted by the murder of one of their own, Elegant Effendi. Now, Kara, known as Black, a miniaturist who has returned from a long sojourn in Safavid Persia, must find the culprit before he and all other miniaturists have confessions tortured out from them.

My Name is Red is a fine example of a postmodern novel. No two subsequent chapters are told from the same viewpoint, though there are recurring narrators such as Black and his love, Shekure. The first chapter is even narrated by Elegant Effendi's corpse at the bottom of a well. Other chapters are related by inanimate objects, like a drawing of a tree or a gold coin. My Name is Red won the Dublin Literary Award for its author, Orhan Pamuk. Though not the easiest novel, the persistent reader will be rewarded with a fascinating and sometimes disturbing glimpse into Ottoman culture, values, and society.

Tropes used in My Name Is Red include:

• Anonymous Killer Narrator: Featured in a few of the chapters.
• Art Evolution: Ottoman miniaturism is being gradually influenced by the more individualistic European (and to a lesser extent, Chinese) styles. This is quite disturbing to the miniaturists, whose art is deeply tied with Islam and Turkish identity. At the same time, much of the art style was already borrowed from Persia.
• Author Avatar: Shekure has two sons, named Orhan and Shevket. The author of the novel is, of course, Orhan Pamuk, and he has an older brother named Shevket. Not only that, but Shekure was the name of Orhan Pamuk's mother. Shekure is one of the most important characters, but Orhan and Shevket don't get much attention.
• Bigger Is Better in Bed: Black, although sometimes it's also used as a Gag Penis
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: And how. Inanimate narrators, for example drawings, are quite aware of (and often comment on) their nature as drawings and further more as drawings that are narrating chapters in a book. Even the human characters are keenly aware that they have an audience.
• Cold-Blooded Torture: It is routine for suspects and criminals to be tortured. Though none of the characters wish to undergo torture, they have no moral problem with it.
• Deliberate Values Dissonance: Oh so very much.
• Disability Superpower: A very interesting example. Miniaturists often go blind due to the long hours and the exacting nature of their work. Many of them end up welcoming blindness. A blind miniaturist draws from memory, which is vibrant and eternal. The milieu of cultural pessimism shows that things can only get worse for the world, more depraved and corrupt. The idealized memory is believed to be closer to how God sees the world.
• Disappeared Dad: Shekure's husband never returned from a campaign against the Safavids. He is most likely dead, though this is never confirmed.
• Distressed Damsel: A bit of this appears in Shekure's story, as she will be required to marry her husband's brother if she cannot find a husband.
• Dogged Nice Guy: Black sees himself as this for Shekure.
• During the War: Much talk is made of the violent wars between Ottoman Turkey and Safavid Persia. Black is a veteran of this conflict, and Shekure's first husband probably died in it.
• Eye Scream: In one of the novel's most powerful scenes, Master Osman puts out his own eyes in order to embrace blindness and paint only from his idealized memory, and not from the decaying world around him.
• Failure Is the Only Option: More or less how the characters see the world. Pessimism is so ingrained into the culture that history is portrayed as the course of inevitable decay. To some extent, the novel shows this as being a self-fulfilling prophecy, as the once-barbaric European states grow in power, and the Ottoman Empire becomes ever more sclerotic.
• Happiness in Slavery: Perhaps more in submission than in slavery, but the idea is discussed several times, ranging from human submission to God, a subject's submission to a king, and an apprentice's submission to a master.
• Love Will Lead You Back: Probably one of Black's motivations for returning from Persia.
• Marry for Love: Averted, at least for Shekure. Society expects her to be married. Her motivations for eventually marrying Black seem motivated as much by pragmatism as by romance, and she does not always appear to love Black.
• Posthumous Narration: Elegant Effendi, who narrates the first chapter after his dead body has been dropped down a well, and later Enishte Effendi who narrates his own funeral
• Old Master: Some non-combat examples here, like Master Osman, the conservative head of the miniaturists' workshop. There are also references to real miniaturists, like Bizahd of Herat.
• Serious Business: Miniaturism.
• Shown Their Work: Pamuk knows his stuff, and isn't shy about showing it off.
• Story Within a Story: There are several, though the most important is that of Hüsrev and Shirin, an age-old Persian tale of doomed lovers.
• The Emperor: Sultan Murat III is held in deep reverence, with characters reluctant to even look upon his visage.
• The Fundamentalist: Nusrest Hoja, a conservative imam railing against coffee shops and other luxuries. His shadow hangs over every event in the book, but he never actually appears.
• The Matchmaker: Esther, a Jewish woman, carries love letters between paramours.
• Treasure Room: Sultan Murat III's private collection, which contains a staggering profusion of art and treasure from around the world. It's also dusty and neglected by its owner, who leaves a solitary dwarf to watch over it. When Black and Master Osman are allowed access to search for clues, it's a really big deal for them, especially Master Osman who cares more about seeing the treasures than in finding the murderer.