Orhan Pamuk Analysis

Writing and reading literature is no more a dispassionate or politically unbiased action; and understanding is, preferably, a comprehensive activity to precariously analyse all enriching content rather than solely literary ones. The fabricated world of Orhan Pamuk is inevitably implicated in the ancient, cultural and socio-political background of his nation in affiliation to the West, and reading turns into an imperative act of contextualized comprehensive reading as he is one of the extensively-debated writers of ultramodern fiction. Pamuk creates the tapestry of his fiction by applying the difference of opinion of Islamic fundamentalism-western blasphemy, East-West, and tradition-oddity which delineate modern Turkey’s hardship and certainty
Present-day literary contents have become sites where the conflict for power and meaning prevail. The conflict between Islam and secularism in present-day Turkey forms the background for Pamuk’s writings. As a writer who addresses the overall audience Pamuk has entrenched himself as a considerable voice of authority representing this struggle. Pamuk brightly documents the hesitation of present-day Turkey as it is hovered between the old Ottoman Islamic cultural tradition and a twentieth century state driven Westernization. The Islam-secularism conflict is not an exclusive Turkish condition alone but has larger significance involving global, geopolitical consequence. Among these political concerns the author also brings in the question of art and explores it to the fullest by using personal symbols and
Passion is a motivation to art. The artist’s apprehension which is at the centre of action is transformed in bizarre ways, creates like possessed, overflows with vital energy exhilarating and assembling the metaphoric out of the familiar external landscape, arousing him as ever to unusual and distressing confrontations with his fellow beings. Ka, a poet who had been ‘desolate for some time now, abruptly finds him caught in the whirlwind of perpetual creativity, stimulating nineteen poems within a short span of three days. He is now in a closed world where he can feel protected and peaceful, at least for the time being, hoping for an immortal union with his new found love İpek. The artist knows that he will reside in paranoiac territory obstructing his impeccable but ephemeral moments with his sweetheart. But like the vagueness that is the core of his life he has no escape from this dilemma