Review: My Name is Red

With ‘My Name is Red’ Orhan Pamuk weaves a tale that becomes a metaphor for the clash of east and west. Pamuk delves in to the metaphysical realm to tell his tale. The story, a mystery is narrated by several of the cast of characters including a drawn tree and a street dog gives a snapshot in time in the lives of miniature painters in 15th Century Turkey, whose artistic style and way of life is threatened when the Sultan commissions a book in the style of increasingly popularity of ‘Frankish’ venetian masters. An inventive, innovative style of story telling grips the reader from the first page. Pamuk is a master, utterly adept at bringing the scenery around him to life- Culture, language, food even tastes, aromas and moods of the time are made tangible and vivid under his artistic wordmanship and characteristic attention to details. Homosexuality is an acceptable avocation, coffee is considered a devil’s brew, west with all its trappings is admired, feared, loathed. It depicts the stage of flux in the life of a civilization thousands of years old. Words flow like poetry without any of the tediousness as Pamuk delves deep in to the characters to give a 360 degree, panoramic view of their emotional journey, historical baggage and circumstantial upheaval. The narrative addresses the significance and necessity of religion and perpetuity of tradition at the time. It lights the fundamental differences of civilizations, the western need for distinctiveness and eastern predisposition for blending in and following footsteps. Individualism vs. collectivism. It’s an epic saga that traces what are possibly the beginnings of half a millennium worth of a dubious relationship.

Where's the romance?

A friend recently pointed out that James Bond books are nothing but Mills and Boons for men. I thought it was an accurate statement in principle, both are escapist genre fiction with different target audience. Then why is that Women’s escapist fiction has always received a short shrift, considered as an object of condescension by literature snobs and an act of open hostility towards hardcore feminists while Ian Fleming or even Louis l’ Amor regarded as classics? I read everything from classifieds and Chacha Chowdhary to Tolstoy and Stiglitz. Yet, I have always felt an urge to justify my reading of MB’s and qualify with explanations that I do read more serious books. Even the readers regard it as a guilty pleasure to be sandwiched between more’ intellectually stimulating’ books when handing them over for billing. Or browsing the used book shops and nodding at fellow aficionados with a silent understanding that addicts have. Some have gone to the lengths of covering the books with newspaper dust jackets before reading or never reading them in public. I confess, there is nothing I like better than snuggling with a Nora Roberts after a long day, I must have read hundreds if not thousands of these books, a labour of over 15 years. Dealing more in quantity than quality romance fiction is a publishing staple, generating billions in revenues in English language alone, it is truly a phenomena.

Many allege that romance fiction is anti-feminist and feeds in to female stereotypes. I concede that it is so, till an extent. However, Fleming, L’ Amor or sometime even Ludlum’s characters are blatantly chauvinistic and are yet invoked as legends, then why can’t Nora Roberts or Danielle Steele heroines just be? Escapist fiction by nature vicariously projects a person’s fantasies on paper, while men want to be stoic, brave, cool, macho, invincible and live with love ‘em-leave ‘em as their life’s motto. Women want to be beautiful, romanced and end up happily ever after a veritable extension of the fairy tales every mother told their daughter. I don’t want to debate of whether this ‘need’ is genetic, hormonal or a result of socio-cultural conditioning. or whether this entire issue is another extension of men vs. women.

But I just wondered when it became anti feminist to be feminine.