[BRIEF] Orhan Pamuk, the Writer

Art is not politics. It might deal with political issues, as they are part of life, and art deals with life; but art - or literature, in this case - is life, not politics. The natural-born writer (of literature), the one who has to write, whether or not anyone will ever read upon his works, for whom writing is his way of existing, is almost naturally attuned to this, with a sensitivity to the complexities of existence that would make it unbearable for him to limit his mind to the narrow furrows of politics. But I am sure that there are many amputee writers as well - self-amputated, sadly - who cut off their writing bones, or wings, to fit some ideology, imposed or impressed on them, in school or in society. But the true writer needs to talk, and to talk about everything, as it is. But more on this some other time.

Source: www.orhanpamuk.net

Right now, an interview with Orhan Pamuk on The Diane Rehm Show. Orhan Pamuk is a true writer, there is not much he can do about it. Some of this tension between the intricacy of existence (which is the life and blood of the writer's work) and the amputated versions of it, characteristic (today) of the "news media" and, certainly, of politics, becomes apparent at various times in this interview, although it does not reach a clashing point  (which I would have expected). Take, for example, Pamuk's mention of his depiction of extremists in some of his early novels, and then the necessary addition from the moderator, "...but fundamentalists in the Middle East..."; two different approaches, two different understandings. One simply talks about a society, as it is, messy - with everyday people, hungry, unshaven, chain-smoking; confused every morning about what they have to do and why they do it; all sorts of deformities in their minds, in their ideas; just like the limps and diseases in their bodies, which they carry daily, so it is in their minds; and yet they are the people, they are you and me. This is the material of the writer - reality, human reality, the all-too-human reality. On the other hand you have whichever ideology or approximation of it, as reflected in the public sphere, in politics, by the media; reality simplified, curated, pickled and packaged; fragments of news that become strong ideas with no correspondence to the everydayness of human life.

However, the interview discussion is good, pleasant, and Pamuk is full of solicitude and sincerely glad to communicate, and Diane Rehm and her show are, as usual, one of the the more valuable things on the radio today (in the U.S.).

Here is the interview - listen:
Orhan Pamuk on the Diane Rehm Show

Something else. When I read it, Orhan Pamuk's Snow strongly reminded me of Milan Kundera's The Unbearable Lightness of Being. It is interesting, both main characters - and, I dare say, both authors - exhibit the same weakness of being that is characteristic to the postmodern condition; indecision as the late-modern way of living out the (inherently) contemplative nature of the intellectual; indecision and philosophical (-anthropological)  rootlessness.

View from Cihangir (Pamuk's neighborhood)

Another wonderful trait (and a very relatable one, for me) of Orhan Pamuk is his interest in the everyday life  of other societies, but especially his "other" society, namely the past. Thus he established The Museum of Innocence, which is a true physical building, a true museum, yet also a companion piece to his eponymous book, which presents everyday life in the period 1950-2000 (corresponding to Orhan's life-span). It is a museum of everyday life, the way it was; in a way, the museum of our childhood - the porcelain bibelots (knickknacks), the radio dad listened to, the yearly brought out Christmas ornaments, the wrappers and brands, the cars... "Read all about it!" - here.

He also wrote Istanbul: Memories and the City, an "evocation" of a lived place, one that he has lived in and through (and his attraction to cities is also very germane to me). And another novel, My Name Is Red, about life and art in the Ottoman Empire of (very) old - an issue that still continues to interest him, as he says in the interview: how was life, real life, then?

Oh, and, of course, one has to - just has to! -  mention that he won the Noble Prize for literature a few years ago... no, that is truly not that important. But I invite you to listen to the interview, you will enjoy it.

GK Chesterton

A good article by Jay Parini about Chesterton in... The Chronicle of Higher Education. This mainstream attention to GKC might be due to the publication of a new major biography, by Ian Ker, followed by featured articles in the Times Literary Supplement and, I suppose, other outlets of the literary world. This is all good news. Chesterton is a delight to read, especially when he is at his best, which I would consider to be in Heretics and in  Orthodoxy (both are available online, for free - if you follow these links). But it would be mightily unfair to reduce the mighty Chesterton to only these two gems, and not mention his brilliant book on Thomas Aquinas, about which the eminent Tomist scholar Etienne Gilson said decades later,

I consider it as being without possible comparison the best book ever written on St. Thomas. Nothing short of genius can account for such an achievement. Everybody will no doubt admit that it is a "clever" book, but the few readers who have spent twenty or thirty years in studying St. Thomas Aquinas, and who, perhaps, have themselves published two or three volumes on the subject, cannot fail to perceive that the so-called "wit" of Chesterton has put their scholarship to shame. [source]

A typical anecdote about GKC is that he never actually read the Summa from cover to cover, but only browsed through it; but that was enough, because he understood it, in the deeper meaning of the word; he understood it, because his mind worked like Aquinas' - it understood the whole of existence, and how all things fit within it.

And let us not ignore the superb detective stories featuring Father Brown - stories that are both entertaining and philosophical (a common-sense philosophy, accessible to any and all, by virtue of existing).  Or my favorite novel from him, The Flying Inn; or the famous and avant-la-lettre surrealist The Man Who Was Thursday.

Returning to the Chronicle piece, what is interesting about it is that it reveals, inadvertently, some of the academic biases of the moment; the author has to couch his praises in terms that we could consider, with a bit of effort and exaggeration, Marxist or postmodernist. Thus, he needs to underline that GKS stood up for the poor - against the rich, certainly; that he "questioned facts and reality" - how Postmodern! This, in order to assuage the readers' possible, automaton-like reactions to the perceived "conservatism" of Chesterton.

It is sad, sad indeed, that readers and writers can not think outside these ideological boxes dominating our times - and certainly the world of letters, and the academia. Terms that have little meaning, of course, and that fail to account for reality. Terms that are bound by space and time - the understanding of these terms in America is not the same as their meaning in Europe, let alone Africa or Asia; these terms are all part of a tiny little stretch of time in history, namely the post- industrial revolution age, and would make little sense outside of it (was Aristotle a conservative? a liberal? but how about Augustine? ... how silly).

The good news is that Chesterton is not reducible to these puny terms (of derision, I would say). Not even politically per se. As Parini mentions, even politically Chesterton stood for something else that the two twin embodiments of modern materialism, namely socialism and capitalism. He is, after all, one of the "founding fathers" of Distributism, which is a view of society and economy that is rooted in the recognition of the dignity and freedom of the individual, and of the intrinsic value of community and of localism. But by now I am starting (???) to sound dry and empty, so I will leave it at that, about politics.        

What is more important is that Chesterton is not the author of, but the expression of, something greater - a view of the universe and of the human being inhabiting it that is comprehensive, common-sense and, briefly put, true. A view that is realistic and idealistic at the same time - but a healthy idealism, the realistic idealism of fairy tales, not that of dreams and nightmares (as exemplified in Marxism, Fascism, and all the other ideologies). Fairy tales teach us essential truths about the human condition  (there is much death and suffering in them; the hero fights evil, in fairy tales), are optimistic, and, most of all, are filled with wonder - just like existence! Existence is filled with wonder, and this child-like (and not childish!) wonder is the deep root of Chesterton's optimistic, yet at the same time thoroughly realistic, view of human existence.

A joy to read, an even greater joy to discover GK Chesterton.

...

Finally, here is a good list of GKC works available on the web (yes, gratis).

Why the TLS?

Why the Times Literary Supplement?

I "discovered" the TLS following a friend's recommendation, at a time when I did not have any specific literary/ cultural magazines that I would regularly read; the closest to something that fit my expectations was Der Zeit's literary supplement - Zeit Literatur. Right now, the TLS is the only such magazine to which I subscribe: why?

Its texts are not characterized by ideological deformations, which is a problem ubicuitous among American magazines, making them virtually unreadable. Instead, its texts cover culture - or Culture. "They," or "the texts," because the authors vary with each issue, and there is thus no overburdening, overwhelming "it" of a program or message, blaring from inside the magazine's covers. Compare this with the line struck by the very ideological and most programmatic (and thus, useless, for my interests and purposes) New York Review of Books.

"Culture," because reading it is an act in intellectual enrichment: it is like visiting a library (or giant modern bookstore), perambulating through its sections, indulging in a bit of philosophy, a bit of geography - and how about the history of pearls? Delightful. If your interests and needs are Renaissance-like (and why do we use the word Renaissance to express this most natural curiosity of a thinking human being? perhaps because our times make human beings narrower than that, narrowing them down in the race for subsistence, or success) - if you have that curiosity, then this will fit your tastes.

The language it employs is another delight. The overwhelming majority of its authors write in a beautiful, literary English. From a purely literary perspective, therefore, reading it will be very pleasant. Its literary qualities set it apart from the lack of qualities of the simplified, bare-bones language used in most North-American magazines. I think that for the latter we can speak of a case of contamination with the academic style; most American academics have perfected a simple, clear, direct mode of expression - the research paper style. Mind you, I do think that this simple and clear style is a great gain, especially when employed in the social or exact sciences; in fact, I am quite convinced that the American sphere has produced the best political science and history books, and also the best investigative journalism (when it is at its best). These are genres which greatly profit, and can only profit, from such a style. Just read Robert Caro's Lyndon Johnson trilogy - I have still to encounter a more remarkable work of political science (and history, and journalism). But most of the writing in the transatlantic magazines of culture & current events is simply drab and boring. Reading the TLS is, more often than not, a dessert on the daily table.

These are three reasons; I am sure you can find more.

PS: I warmly suggest getting and reading the print version; you would enjoy walking through a library or a bookstore more than browsing through Amazon's titles and its cover snapshots. But you can also find the link to TLS's website on the top-left of this page.

Modern ways to empty life: more on civilization and its discontents

Speaking of civilization - which, if you ask me, is not a product of man, but a part of him, as no man exists as a lonely atom, but only within relationships of I-Thou and I-It, of which he is an integral part; which explains why isolation is used as punishment or torture, or is a symptom of mental illness - speaking of civilization, then, looking back I feel a certain barrenness to this past 20th century. Yes, just look back, with the eyes of your mind, towards the past couple of centuries, and the twentieth will seem barren, or more barren than the 19th, which seems more barren than the 18th... An illustration of this barrenness I perceive is the work of Le Corbusier about which there is this interesting article (less interesting the last two paragraphs).

I grew up in a neighborhood in Central Europe populated, well actually made of, square apartment buildings of reinforced concrete; yet my general sentiment about that neighborhood of my childhood is never one of barrenness. The buildings, the place, were very much alive - teeming, in fact, at times, with kids running around, playing soccer on the street, people spending time in front of them, walking around in pursuit of their business (the main means of transportation being the feet); in that sense, a much, much warmer place than the American suburb I inhabit now, where people walking on the street is a rare sight. Suburbs are machines to live in, while malls are machines to shop in, while downtown districts are machines to work in (look at their appearance), while restaurants are machines to eat in. It is interesting that - and I am not saying things that have never been uttered before - a society essentially shaped by the pursuit of money and the spending of that money one earned (which is one sort of capitalism; there are others, perhaps), is just as barren as one shaped by other phenomena of modernity, as were the totalitarian ideologies.

They have little in common. What they do have in common is the preeminence given to one aspect of human existence (the mechanisms of the economy, the significance of class etc.) over all others; furthermore, it is the violent imposition of that one factor over everything else, which drains and desiccates society of its essence: its very humaneness.

A few years ago we agreed with an American friend that life in Europe is somehow more "humane" - and, in that specific context, the discussion was about eating and drinking - as a way, I think, to point to something broader. But the judgment expressed then is incomplete, and less than truthful, for anyone who has been to Chicago, New York, San Francisco, or even Toronto. Generalizations that start with "Europe is..." or "America is..." are mostly wrong. Their mistake is similar to that committed by the demons of modernity mentioned above: they neglect (and oppress, and brutally simplify, and thus stifle) reality: the floral unpredictableness and multifariousness of human life.

The highest expression of which we can call civilization.