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My Name Is Red

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My Name Is Red

Written by: Orhan Pamuk, Erdag Goknar - translator
Narrated by: John Lee
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About this listen

 The Nobel Prize winner and one of today's most prominent contemporary Turkish writers delivers a novel that is a fiendishly devious mystery, a beguiling love story, a brilliant symposium on the power of art, and a “modern classic … rich and essential” (Los Angeles Times Book Review)—set amid the splendor and religious intrigue of sixteenth-century Istanbul.

The Sultan has commissioned a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land to create a great book celebrating the glories of his realm. Their task: to illuminate the work in the European style. But because figurative art can be deemed an affront to Islam, this commission is a dangerous proposition indeed. The ruling elite therefore mustn’t know the full scope or nature of the project, and panic erupts when one of the chosen miniaturists disappears. The only clue to the mystery—or crime?—lies in the half-finished illuminations themselves. Part fantasy and part philosophical puzzle, My Name is Red is a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of art, religion, love, sex and power.

Translated from the Turkish by Erda M Göknar Classics Genre Fiction Historical Literary Fiction Mystery Fiction Middle East Iran
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I have enjoyed Orhan’s writing previously, with The Museum of Innocence. I was motivated to read My Name is Red when it was highlighted in the HarvardX course, Modern Masters of World Literature (you can take this free MOOC course online via EdX) - they also discussed The Museum of Innocence, all very interesting!

The setting of My Name is Red, in Turkey, Persia and Venice, is not one I have deep knowledge of, so I appreciated Orhan’s Turkish life experience and research. The world of the minituralists, and the art they copied (almost) precisely in the books they illustrated was fascinating to me. There is a whodunnit in this book, and understanding the minituralists is the key to solving it. Great drama told with poetic language. I recommend it!

Great epic

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First thing first, I never really knew what an incredible journey is to draw a miniature painting. Being in love with Renaissance art in Flirence, Venice and Rome, I had no idea the world of miniature painting could be as complex and lovely.

Apart from this general comment, I found the plot quite interesting however, a bit too long at some parts.

Some characters left alone and never came back such as the dog.

The beginning and end were nicely done.

An Eastern Reader living in the West

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I liked it at first; I enjoyed the different perspectives of each chapter, and I really loved the narrator's subtleties, distinguishing between each voice. However! I found it extremely difficult to keep my mind from wandering while listening. This puzzled me, until I realized how frequently the author resorts to using incredibly long, repetitive descriptions of things. As one example, at one point a character suggests to another that a book will make a man immortal. The other man replies at enormous length with all the different ways a book might be destroyed. I mean, it goes on and on and on. And on. I only made it through about half this book and just gave up.

Zzzzzzzzzzz

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