Goodwin, Doyle, and Brown

Jason Goodwin's The Bellini Card is a satisfying story of political and historical intrigue, following the adventures of investigator Yashim and his cohort, Palewski. Despite its appropriate categorization as a thriller, the book is still, in some small part, Goodwin's contribution to the Orientalist discourse, set in the Mediterranean, and, in particular, Istanbul and Venice, supposed "hallmarks" of the East and West, respectively. However, regardless of Goodwin's intentions (whatever they may be), The Bellini Card is not without its flaws, which make it that much less influential to the aforementioned Orientalist discourse.

Goodwin's protagonist, Yashim, mimics another famous literary detective, Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's Sherlock Holmes, in many ways, as we discussed in class. He is, to some extent, a purely rational being, relying upon superior deductive and investigative skills. He does not outwardly display strong emotion. And, he also has a sidekick, Palewski (like Watson), who acts as a literary everyman for the reader to follow. Whereas Holmes's emotional (and perhaps sexual) outlets are drugs and music, Yashim's emotional outlet is his cooking. And yet, in relying upon such a distinctive trope, Goodwin, in some ways, fails to develop Yashim's character, such that our analysis begins to stop short past our identification of him as a classic 'detective' character. Goodwin does give Yashim distinctive traits, such as his being a eunuch, but these are ultimately superficial. We cannot fully realize Yashim as a character if Goodwin does not set him far enough apart from his literary equivalents.

Another area where The Bellini Card loses influence is its categorization as a thriller, similar in many respects to Dan Brown's Angels & Demons, The DaVinci Code, and The Lost Symbol. Although Goodwin's protagonist is far more appealing than the erudite-to-the-point-of-tedium Robert Langdon, he still lacks depth. And, if this were not bad enough, Goodwin's book relies upon the same atmosphere of historical intrigue that Brown's novels do. These types of books rely upon gaps in the historical record to create an air of conspiracy and convoluted intrigue that is not necessarily (and not usually) the historical truth. They are stimulating, yes, but they lose value once we realize that the author has sacrificed meaning in order to entertain.

Certainly we can study those aspects of The Bellini Card where Goodwin deviates from historical truth after the fact in order to realize some of Goodwin's British perspective in regard to certain historical events and the cultures presented therein, but the narrative itself does not give us adequate time to breath and reflect upon its portrayal of culture. We must, therefore, read such novels skeptically, aware that cultural discourse is not necessarily their main focus.

The Eunuch

In class today, we talked a bit about the misconceptions surrounding eunuchs. Perhaps the main misconception about eunuchs is that the practice of castration was solely of Islamic origin. Jason Goodwin, author of The Bellini Card, seems to fulfill the Orientalist perspective of Islam by creating the main protagonist of his novel, a Muslim native to Istanbul, a eunuch. 

            However, after realizing what exactly an eunuch was (I’d never actually heard the term before), I immediately thought back to a basic Music History class I took last year. During the Baroque era of music, roughly around 1600 to 1750, prepubescent boys were oftentimes castrated. Because the Roman Catholic Church forbid women from singing in the church choir during this time period, young boys and castrated men became the high-pitched soprano voices of the church and opera. Boys from poor families were usually transformed into castrati in the hopes that they would become famous singers and be able to help support their families.

            What I found most interesting about this comparison was the reasons behind castration in both cultures. While in the West, namely Italy, castration was performed on young boys so that they might provide musical service to the church (and thus their religion), most eunuchs in the Ottoman Empire were castrated for service to the sultan and the government ruling the empire. Thus, although many people relate the origination of the eunuch with Islam and the Middle Eastern culture, the Catholic Church popularly castrated boys centuries before Yashim’s lifetime in The Bellini Card. Additionally, many of the eunuchs who served in the Ottoman Empire were imported by slave traders from either Africa or the Balkans area of Europe—both Christian-dominated places. 

A Desire Rekindled

My favorite part of the Bellini Card was the profound desire to see Venice that was rekindled in me. From the moment i was reading the words, "Gorgeous it was, with its domes aflame in the morning light and a soft mist dispersing around..." it was a matter of desire. I could not picture a place i'd more desire to inhabit than an ancient, culturally rich city with all that water and unique architecture. Goodwin characterized the city in such a way as to make appear both foreign and familiar to the reader as well as the characters. Yashim and Palewski both experience disdain as well as admiration for the city, as it retains enough Ottoman influence as to subtly remind them of their home in Istanbul. Perhaps it takes a city like Venice, one with both eastern and western elements, to host a novel where a Polish man disguised as an American helps a Eunuch Moore retrieve an important Islamic artifact for the sake of the Muslim world's pride.

The Hat

I enjoyed The Bellini Card, and it turned out to be the page turner I expected. I found the character of Palewski to be a very interesting contribution to intent of this novel. While Jason Goodwin accomplished avoiding Orientalism by making Yashim a near genius, he also developed a less superior character in the meantime. Palewski, or shall I say Signor Brett, is clearly devoted to Istanbul, and knows the importance of preserving a culture based on his previous experiences with Poland. One of the most powerful lines for Palewski is when he tells Yashim, "You must always try to forget what you have lost, and I must always remember" (p. 14). I feel this is foreshadowing his month-long move to Venice - he is on a quest to help Yashim and his new sultan remember what they once had, to help them preserve their culture.
The Hat is a very powerful symbol in the novel. While Palewski is a native of Poland, he is able to put on many "hats" in terms of culture, yet his favorite is tagged with a Constantinople marking. He was able to disguise himself as an American with the hat, but the tag on his disguise indicated that he was devoted to Istanbul, always labeled by the country. I thought it was interesting that the Hat was "three inches taller" (p. 22). This height, in my mind, signified his dominance over the Venetians in a global sense. Overall, the Goodwin describes the hat in a way that is superior to any he had worn in Istanbul. As the Venetians begin to question if Signore Brett is truly American, it is clear that the American "hat" Brett wore, revealed his true identity. When the perception of that hat shifted from American to possibly  one from Istanbul, the attitude towards Palewski began to negatively change. I'm stuck wondering if the hat was meant to represent the downfall of somebody who tries to mask their Eastern pride?

The Bellini Card

Greg Stewart

I found The Bellini Card by Jason Goodwin to be a riveting novel.  I had trouble putting it down once I started it.  I loved the style of his writing.  He set it up very much like a play and then referred to the action in the novel as a theater with the character Yashim.  I loved how the scenes were short yet contained vital information in almost every one.  I found it to very much reflect the style of film noir; with lots of love, murder, and tension between the characters.  I loved the dark themes mixed in with the historical and political ideas that were woven through.  I found it very interesting to see a Polish man working with a Moor in Venice to find something for the Sultan. It is not the most common group of characters I have ever read about. I found the mixtures to clash and click in just the right ways to create suspense throughout the novel which kept me hooked.

I think I enjoyed the relationship between Yashim and Palewski to be the most interesting.  I found their banter to be comical yet on point with the seriousness of the situation. I think the ideas that each embodied worked together very well to make the reader think about how all of these groups of people actually interacted in the time period.  If there was actually a Polish man posing as an American in Venice and how the Venetians would actually treat an American compared to a Moor, the actions would not have been as dramatic as they were in the novel.  This fact actually adds to the novel because it amplifies the effect of the author's style.  It feels like an American movie about espionage more than it feels like a novel about the relations between Istanbul and Venice.  Although I really loved the way that they painted the relationship between the two cities.  It was cool to see how most of the characters could trace back their heritage to a certain class from the past that determined their role in the time of the story.  I found the idea that Istanbul and Venice could be so similar yet so different to be one of the most eye-catching parts of the novel.  Both Palewski and Yashim mention how they felt very homesick at times and then later they say how they feel very much at home in Venice because it is so much like Istanbul.  I liked how they ended on that note too.  In one of the last chapters when Yashim and Palewski are talking about the differences and Yashim says that Venice would be better with muezzins, even though it is not the most important point in the novel, it shows how the people from Istanbul would like to see the world work, which is eveidently different from those who live and grew up in Venice.

After Tonight I Will Never Look At A Mirror The Same Way

After our class discussion about the concept of the mirror image, i felt there was more to be said about this symbol. I started thinking about what "the mirror image" was in actuality: Not what is being reflected, a static, lifeless image, a mere resemblance, not a replication, and a reverse image - a switching of left and right. Most often, the mirror image is taken as an exact image of what is being reflected. This is a mistake.

Interestingly enough, one can never naturally see one's self. Thus, we use reflections to dress ourselves and inspect pimples. We have no better tool with which to see ourselves, other than photography or film, which taint images in their own dastardly ways.

So, its weird that what occupied most of Hoja and the Venetian's time together was a quest for knowing themselves. Perhaps that is why Hoja always tries to get all the information, knowledge and experiences out of the Venetian. If we are to apply the "mirror image" idea to the protagonists, they are each other's static, similar and inverted double. They inspect each other with great scrutiny, but its uncertain if they ever see themselves. Like the mirror, they have no better tool with which to see themselves.

"To search within, to think so long and hard about our own selves, would only make us unhappy... for this reason they always wanted to be someone else." (pg. 155)

True, their attempts to focus on their selves, to reveal their flaws and their memories, led only to fury and pain. There was intense yearning from each to be in the others shoes  as well as a hatred of the other for they opposite strengths they possessed. In the Venetian it was his intelligence and intuition, in Hoja it was his freedom. Like anyone, they were marked by what they desired - what they could never have. It was what drove them so intensely to each other. These thoughts remind me of the scene in which they stand together before the mirror. Here, their physical similarities scared the Venetian. Hoja speaks of how they'll trade places long before it actually happens. It all feels inevitable and uncertain. Equal opposites. Not unlike our protagonists.

so many what ifs....

The ending of the novel left me saying "really Pamuk?" This ending was incredible because it left me thinking about the ambiguity left for the stranger (us) to figure out. After my initial reading, I figured that Hoja and the Venetian became to understand themselves by living as the other in order to understand the "other." While this is a theory easy to understand, I feel as though there are other possibilities Pamuk wanted us to explore.
What if Hoja and the Venetian were actually living in their original cultures, but found and ending to their question by acknowledging the other culture. Because their cultures appear to be completely opposites in the mirror, isn't it a possibility that the characters could not cross into the world reflecting in the mirror of their relationship?
What if the Hoja and the Venetian were one person? I was thinking that the Hoja/Venetian were internal conflicts of one man, or one race, one culture. The external battles the men have with one another could indeed represent the conflicts within a culture to define itself and other cultures.
Since this novel emphasized the religious differences of the men, I also questioned if the ambiguous Him at the end of the story was a spiritual power. I began to think some sort of God figure (either Hoja or the Venetian) led to the self-identification of the remaining man.
It was very difficult to construct this blog response, as I have so many unanswered questions about the deeper meaning of this novel!

Through the Looking-Glass, and What the Venetian Found There

In our class discussion today, we focused much upon the idea of the “mirror-image,” and to what extent we are meant to infer similarities or differences (even opposites) based upon the use of that concept. I believe our difficulty solving this, as evidenced by a plethora of opinions in class today, is a deliberate aspect of Pamuk’s novel. I believe that Pamuk’s use of the doppelganger motif and the (almost inevitable, given the trope’s history) switching of the “doppelgangers” is a deliberate device Pamuk uses to establish a sense of ambiguity about identity and, ultimately, moral disorientation.

Ambiguity about identity confuses the reader. Perhaps, beginning The White Castle, we are inclined to side with the Venetian because he is introduced before the Hoja is. At first, we are likely to say that the Venetian is the “good guy” and the Hoja is the “bad guy,” but ultimately, it is not so clear. The Venetian and the Hoja, throughout the novel, remain locked into what is essentially a staring contest, attempting to glean from the other information about themselves, to the extent that, no matter how antagonistic the relationship may initially appear (the Hoja, for example, physically abusing the Venetian after telling him to write down a list of sins he has committed), the relationship has clear ups-and-downs, these violent episodes are punctuated by what is, at times, almost a real friendship. It is as though the lines between the two characters are blurred. They are, to some extent, the same character, if we are to take a literal interpretation of the “mirror-image” concept.

Simultaneously, we must remain aware that both the Venetian and the Hoja have distinct personalities and, perhaps more prominently, distinct cultural identities.  No matter how blurred the lines between them are, they differ in many regards, such as their dissimilar reactions to the plague. Perhaps this ties into the idea of two contradictory ideas being held by a single person (it isn’t hard to synthesize the idea of fascination and revulsion existing concurrently), but that Pamuk chooses to write such differences at all into the Venetian and the Hoja means that, to some extent, these characters are deliberate opposites of one another—literally “reflections” in that they are superficially identical, but opposite in all other regards.

I believe that this, in combination with Pamuk’s use of frame narrative (as I discussed in my previous blog entry) combine to purposely confuse the reader. Whereas in Shadows of the Pomegranate Tree, the reader could walk away with a distinct impression of what Ali was trying to accomplish (“The Christian oppression of Muslim Spain is an example of an Orientalist divide leading to grim conflict”), it is very difficult to walk away from The White Castle with any clear sense of what Pamuk is trying to say in regard to the Orientalist divide. Certainly, he is trying to show us that it is far more complicated than a simple dichotomy between the East and the West, but beyond that, it is hard to say. By confusing identity, and by alienating the reader from the narrative through the use of the frame narrative, Pamuk makes us think twice about siding with either the Venetian or the Hoja; we think critically about the positions of both “sides” (if such sides actually exist) and yet cannot come up with a definitive answer.  

I Am Who I Am... Or Aren't I?

One major theme, and I believe the most important theme, of The White Castle is the fluidity of identity.  By the end of the novel, the reader is unsure which voice belongs to the Venetian and which to Hoja, and perhaps it does not even matter who is who.  Their identities merge into one.  The separation between east and west is a construct in the same way that the rigid boundaries of identity are a construct.  After several years in each others' company, the Venetian and Hoja mimic each others' vocal patterns, behavioral tics and even thoughts (as the Sultan points out repeatedly).  After sharing so much of themselves, and of their dreams and their most intimate memories, Hoja and the Venetian are finally so inseparable that they literally trade lives.  There can be no better proof that, as the Sultan put it, "people are the same everywhere."

The Narrator and Hoja

August Heinrich

English 241

Blog Post #5

The Narrator and Hoja

            The relationship between the narrator and Hoja fluctuates between phases of attachment and hatred. From the moment Hoja requested the narrator’s service as a slave from the pasha, it seemed he felt a hint of sympathy, genius, or both in the narrator’s character. The striking physical resemblance between the two characters may also have contributed to Hoja’s interest in the narrator’s service. Later in the novel, it appears as though the two form a bond and even converge on the same thoughts simultaneously. Despite rescuing the narrator from execution, Hoja was not a compassionate master.

On multiple occasions Hoja berates and insults the narrator when he refused to say what Hoja wanted to hear, or when Hoja became more vehement than usual. On nights when he was particularly quarrelsome, these verbal assaults became physical, and Hoja would resort to beating him. More often than not, these attacks were the outcome of writing exercises he forced upon the narrator that didn’t produce the results Hoja preferred; more often than not because the narrator was at a loss for producing work that would please Hoja. It’s Hoja’s ambiguity and the mysteriousness of his ways that makes him so detached from social interaction, at least between he and the narrator.

Despite Hoja’s faults, the narrator becomes attached to him on numerous occasions, oftentimes when they set out to complete a project for the sultan. Before the narrator had delighted in Hoja’s frustration and anger towards himself and his work, but as time progresses he begins to see Hoja’s failings as his own. Near the end of chapter 8, Hoja begins to refer to their projects as “our” plans and “our” future, and this encouraged the narrator to drive toward success with Hoja.

As visits with the sultan became more frequent, it was as if both characters

embodied one another. The sultan began to point to uncharacteristic actions and idiosyncrasies of one character opposed to the other. Late in the novel, they essentially exchange roles. The narrator begins visiting the sultan frequently while Hoja remained isolated working on the weapon.

            Despite the lingering tension, both characters seem to have a mutual respect for one another that is never fully revealed or understood. They could work together as colleagues and argue like siblings, and at times, they could almost become one in the same.

The Frame Narrative in The White Castle

One thing that struck me as very interesting in The White Castle was Orhan Pamuk's use of the frame narrative. The reader, after reading the first part of the story in which a historian finds the manuscript of The White Castle, might think that they were reading the real story of how the story was discovered. However, the name of the historian, Faruk Darvinoglu, is not the name of the author. In fact, this is the name of a fictional character of Pamuk's from another story entirely. Thus, we have a triple-layered story. There is the story of the Italian prisoner/slave, the story of the historian finding the manuscript of The White Castle, and the "real" world inhabited by Orhan Pamuk and the readers. What is the effect of the frame narrative, and what does it have to do with Orientalism?

I believe that Pamuk's use of the frame narrative is a means of holding the reader in a kind of suspension between the "real" world and the world of the main narrative. We are forced, by dint of knowing that we are reading a work of fiction, to detach ourselves from our cultural biases and preconceptions, and to attempt to approach the story from a completely new perspective. On the other hand, we are aware that the narrative is existing within another universe entirely, and that, in passing through the writing of the historian, Faruk, to us, as the readers, its meaning has very likely changed. We cannot look at the narrative of The White Castle in a completely objective manner, because it has already passed through the perspective of another reader before it has been placed before us, so to speak. We understand that whatever biases the main character of the story has are not necessarily his own, and so, as we follow him off the ship and into the enslavement of the enigmatic Hoja, we realise that what we are seeing is not necessarily the objective "truth." The narrator has biases. Faruk has biases. We, as an (ideally) unbiased, third party, must look down upon these layers, peel them back, and say, "Why is this here? What made him say that?"

The narrative, dealing with the conflict between Catholics and Muslims, does not let us easily pick a "side" to support. This, too, goes hand in hand with the narrator's problem of identity. Just as he has an identity crisis when faced with the Hoja, so too are we not quite sure where we fit in in terms of The White Castle. Our place is in that strange suspension between the narrative and our real-world interpretation of the narrative's events. Our foreknowledge that what we are reading exists in a state of suspension, itself, in another literary "world" makes us, as readers, wary of too carelessly taking sides. This ensures that the reader steps back and really analyzes just what it is that they are reading. They can look at both sides of the conflict more easily. This also allows Orhan Pamuk to let his protagonist "live" the events of the story freely. Pamuk does not necessarily have to make his protagonist unbiased; the fact that we, the reader, are in a state of suspension between the real world and the world of the narrative ensures that we are unbiased, and that we can thus approach The White Castle from a more critical perspective.

How do they sleep at night?

     After a practically breezy couple chapters, Orhan Pamuk brings the discomfort in chapter five when the nameless narrator, through the promise of self-discovery, prompts Hoja to write out the negative aspects of himself. True to form, Hoja insists that he is "not a coward" and that "because most people were imperfect and negative that everything was wrong in the world." When our hero insists that Hoja is defiantly worse than him, regardless if he is or isn't a coward, then the real abuse starts. Forcing the narrator to write out his faults, and then rewarding these abstractions with physical abuse, Hoja reveals a deep rooted hatred for the faults of all others, and a complete lack of recognition of his own.
     This got me to thinking about the warped morality and invisible guilt of the slave keeper. I was reminded of a quote by Victor Vazquez (aka: KOOL A.D.), one half of the now-defunct rap group Das Racist, that reads "classic western philosophy is slave owners trying to learn how to sleep at night." Hojo is an intellectual with a ravenous appetite for all the knowlege he can get his hands on. Not satisfied with his own education, he metaphorically bleeds dry the narrator's stock of knowledge, and consumes within a week the entire written word of the kingdom's last official astronomer.  Throughout the story, Hojo's status as a slave holder isn't contested once, But i believe that when the major issue of the book turns to the strong similarities, visual and intellectual, between the two men, it is the Narrator's insistence that Hojo is a worse man that reminds us of our hero's status as a captive person. Hojo is woefully stumped by the conundrum "why i am what i am?" because he is incapable of seeing himself. He has no trouble seeing horrors all around him in the behaviors of others, yet if he were capable of self-inspection he might find his tyranny over the narrator unsettling. Although not "about" slavery, Pamuk's The White Castle does a good job of illustrating an age old question about those who hold others as property: How do they sleep at night?

 

Who Am I? Identity and Its Relationship to Heritage

Who Am I? Identity and Its Relationship to Heritage

In Orhan Pamuk’s novel The White Castle, the Hoja repeatedly asks the Venetian narrator “Why am I what I am?” (58). Obsessed with the idea of learning ‘who’ he is, the Hoja and his Venetian look-alike slave sit at a table and begin to write long personal narratives exploring their own identities. While the unnamed slave navigates the idea of identity by immediately turning to his past and writing about his childhood and relationship with his siblings, the Hoja seems able to define his existence only through the absence of others; the enslaved narrator turns to others such as his siblings to form and establish his identity, but the Hoja uses the existence of the ‘other,’ the Westerner, to establish what he is not. As the narrator states in the novel, the Hoja questions who he is by writing “nothing but reasons why ‘they’ [Westerners] were so inferior and stupid” (64). Thus, while the Westernized Venetian narrator utilizes his heritage to define his identity—ironic since the idea of tradition and heritage is normally associated with the stereotypical Easterner—the Turkish Hoja is able to define himself only in contrast with the typical Westerner—he is what the Westerner is not.

But who is the Hoja? When the narrator is introduced to this character, he is simply referred to with the title ‘Hoja,’ meaning “master” (23). Ironically, the Hoja’s title seems to evolve as the relationship between the Hoja and the narrator changes. Because the Hoja and the narrator are introduced as somewhat equals and tasked with creating a firework display for a wedding ceremony together, I first interpreted the title ‘master’ to mean a master of intellectual or academic means, such as a master of science, math, or other discipline. Thus the term ‘master’ seems to reflect a respect garnered by academic or intellectual accomplishment. However, once the Venetian narrator is given to the Hoja as a slave, the term ‘master’ takes on a whole new meaning. As the narrator is reduced from intellectual equal to teacher and finally to slave, the Hoja begins to exert his dominance over the slave-narrator and transforms himself into a master of the household. Ordering the narrator to sit alongside him for extended periods of time and write, the Hoja even turns violent at one point, hitting the narrator and hurting him “very badly” (67).

While the relationship between the Hoja and the narrator evolves through the progression of the novel’s plot, the question remains: who is the Hoja? Refusing to be called by his birth name “because he didn’t like being named after his grandfather” (24), the Hoja seems to reject the stereotypical view of Easterners defining themselves through tradition and heritage. Rejecting even the name given to him by his parents in honor of his grandfather, the Hoja seems to disconnect his past and heritage with his present sense of identity. As we continue to read The White Castle, I forward to learning more about the relationship between identity and heritage, the Hoja and the narrator, and the true identity of the self-proclaimed ‘master,’ the Hoja.

European View of the East

Greg Stewart

The first half of The White Castle by Orhan Pamuk the Venetian expresses his view of the Turkish culture through the eyes of a European.  It is clear throughout the first half of the novel that the European view is one of ignorance.  It is ironic to see Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish author, talk about Turkish people as if they are ignorant because you would expect him to try and portray his people in the best manner possible.  I find his portrayal of the leaders within the Turkish culture: the pashas, viziers, and the Sultan as almost insulting to the culture.  But I suppose that he does this on purpose to show how the Europeans viewed the Turks.

I also found the theme of fate to be one that was very interesting.  The Venetian clearly is confused about his fate but the book starts off by stating that the events that go down are meant to happen and that there is no way to fight it.  I liked that he kept the idea of fate throughout the entire novel.  The narrator is constantly trying to figure out if his life is actually his fate.  He comes to terms with the fact that his life has changed forever and he slowly starts to realize that it was his fate to become a slave and eventually work with Hoja on the fireworks project and his eventual realizations as he goes through his series of tumultuous encounters with Hoja.

The Center as Represented in The White Castle

When reading The White Castle, it's hard not to pick up on the unreliability of the narrative even without reading the preface.  The narrator's sentences are short and clipped, he is always remarking on how his memory has eluded him, he adheres to all the stereotypes of Turkey, he is condescending, and the passage of time seems to be a vague blur that lapses randomly into decades upon decades of servitude.  It is not necessarily problematic that this narrative paints the Ottoman empire in a bad light.  This could just as well be the result of one person's idiosyncratic experience of an empire that was otherwise accepting of non-Muslims.  The main problem is that he casts all Muslims in a very negative light indirectly.  Without being too heavy-handed, the narrator is able to slip a lot of harsh subtext between the lines.  Even when he praises the sultan for his level headedness and scientific ambition, the narrator shows what the decadence of this new royal influence has had on both his own body and mind.  He has grown fat and has neglected his own ambitions in order to partake in what he wants us to believe is the corruption that is central to the government and Islamic precepts.

The idea of centrality is an interesting way to approach this text.  The Western narrator values reason, progress, his faith, and his identity.  Traditionally, the West's literalized conception of the center revolves around the naval.  It not only stands for the center of the human body but symbolizes the importance of the individual human.  In The White Castle the concept of the naval is subverted and is turned into something malicious and terrible.  For instance, during the plague Hoja grows a bump near his belly button.  For the narrator, this bump becomes the center of attention when focusing on Hoja since it could very well be a symptom of the plague.  He fears the bump not only because of what it might connote about Hoja's health but what it means about his own individuality.  He interprets the bump as the center of Islamic culture- a thing that represents the death of humanity, not its birth, something that stands in direct opposition to the West's "healthy", "natural" center.  Sensing his anxiety, Hoja antagonizes the narrator by stealing the narrator's identity and showing what it would be like to wear this off-center center on a Westerner.  This scares the narrator because he cannot bare the thought of becoming the corruption embodied within the perceived disease of the bump.

The fact that Hoja is supposed to look exactly like the narrator is too perfect for the stolen identity narrative.  As if the master-slave motif weren't enough to make the reader shrink in terror, he adds this added layer to emphasize the depravity of the empire.  Of course, not everything is awful.  The narrator does qualify some of his damning accusations of the Muslims with periods of excitement and pleasure that he had not experienced in Venice.  Also, many of his grievances are understandable (he is a slave after all).  Nevertheless, the narrative seems to be aimed toward an end other than just recounting the story for progeny's sake.  Whatever the reasoning for his subtle condescension, it would be a mistake to take the story too seriously whether the audience is non-Muslim or Muslim.

-Corey Scibilia

Orientalism in the White Castle

           After discussing the preface of The White Castle in class today, I recognized the relevance of Said’s theory of Orientalism throughout Orphan Pamuk’s novel. Pamuk takes on a broad topic as he looks to illustrate the meeting of the ideologies of the East and West, in particular, the meeting of knowledge from both areas of the world. Said’s theory is quite explicit throughout the novel and in a manner opposite of what readers would expect; the Muslim Turks look to the Western world and the Venetian as the ‘other.’ The ideas of Orientalism depicted by Pamuk’s Turkish characters force readers to recognize the way in which the Western world categorizes and stereotypes Easterners in a similar manner, even when reading fictional novels. I found that Pamuk made the interactions between the Venetian and Hoja, the most relevant instances of Orientalism, as a Turk and an Italian struggle to understand one another.

            When Hoja is given complete control over the Venetian he is hopeful and believes he will learn many new things of the Western world. Hoja clearly sees the Venetian as a person different than him, he is fascinated with the other and the concepts of Orientalism which Pamuk makes clear as he refers to all Westerners as 'they' (54). Hoja fails to ever truly ask the Venetian about the Western world to learn the truth, instead, he desires to continually accept his beliefs towards these strange people. The concept of Orientalism exhibited throughout White Castle is an  opposite perspective as Hoja values Western thought and believes that the West is much more knowledgeable than the East, a concept that many Westerners believe to be true. Pamuk makes this idea ironic though, since Hoja comes from the Ottoman Empire during the 17^th century, which would be filled with some of the world’s best scholars. Instead of recognizing that the East and West are more similar than different, Hoja would rather believe in the idealized Western world.

              Pamuk also looks to reveal to readers the truth of Orientalism in a later scene between the Venetian and Hoja, in which the Venetian exaggerates about the Western world. Hoja asks the Venetian to explain why he is who he is and the Venetian jokingly insists that Westerners confront this question by looking in the mirror often (60). Hoja is quick to accept this answer but mocks it, offending the Venetian (61). This instance reveals to readers how Orientalism works; Westerners often believe anything they hear and could believe to be true about the 'other' whether or not it seems plausible or realistic. Pamuk just highlights this concept in a much more obvious way as an Easterner believes inflated stories about the West.

             Hoja's feelings about the differences between the East and West is made to be quite ironic by Pamuk since he creates two characters that are more similar than different, despite their origins in the East and West. Pamuk's two characters look exactly like one another and they both speak the same language, Turkish. The Venetian even recognizes that his knowledge is equal to that of Hoja's; when working together Hoja comes up with new and progressive theories while the Venetian just reminds Hoja of things he has already learned. Yet, despite this clear balanced sense of knowledge Hoja still believes that Western knowledge is much more developed and thorough than that of the East and desires to learn all that the Venetian knows (33). In Hoja’s mind the Venetian and his Western knowledge had to be much more advanced than his own, yet Pamuk sets up an image of two men who are exactly the same both in appearance and in mind to illustrate the biased prejudices Orientalism has created within society. Overall, the first half of White Castle forces readers to directly confront Said’s theories and how they read and understand the ‘other’ and it leaves readers wondering what boundaries and expectations will be crossed as the two men learn more about who they are.

The White Castle First Half

The novel goes by fast while reading, however it is among the most confusing novels I have ever read.

To work down the tiers of the structure of the novel, the novel was originally written by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Victoria Holbrook and copy-righted in 1990. Orhan Pamuk is a relatively young author for the amount of international esteem he has gathered, including his winning of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

The next element the common reader inspects and sometimes skips is the preface. The preface, as defined by dictionary.com, is “a preliminary statement in a book by the book’s author or editor, setting forth its purpose and scope, expressing acknowledgment of assistance from others, etc”.  Given this common context, it is reasonable to assume that the preface may have been written by the author, editor or translator. Additional support for this assumption lays in the opening sentence of the preface “I found this manuscript in 1982 in that forgotten ‘archive’ attached to the governor’s office in Gebze that I used to rummage through for a week each summer, at the bottom of a dusty chest stuffed to overflowing with imperial decrees, title deeds, court registers and tax rolls” (9). However, no editor is listed in the credits. In fact, aside from acting as the ‘signature’ at the end of the preface, the name Faruk Darvinglu appears no other place in the novel.

The preface is written in Darvinglu’s first person, yet it appears to be written also from the point of view of the novel’s overall editor, publisher or author, as evidenced by the closing thought “So I decided…to publish the story which I returned to read over and over again” (11). Given the evidence of the preface, therefore, it becomes clear that the novel and preface both contain inconsistencies.

At first I gave thought to the possibility Darvinglu being a pen-name, and so I looked up his name on the internet and discovered nothing. Then I came to consider the possibility of the writer of the preface of the novel being the fictional author of the bulk of the novel; the unnamed narrator’s person. The conclusion I have reached thus far is that the narrator of the preface is a fictional character and thus a part of the novel overall, the narrator and voice of the preface a character of Pamuk’s creation. 

If this is truly the case, as perhaps reading the remainder of the novel will reveal, then the novel is such as a novel within a novel, voice within a voice is concerned. If this is the case, the seemingly orientalist characteristics of the Muslim and Turkish characters of the novel could be, perhaps, a social commentary from Pamuk of how the narrator/translator Darvinglu would see the tale in ‘modern’ ideals.

Perhaps this explanation would also reveal the reasons for the seemingly crazy antics of the core novel’s narrator and main characters. I look for this explanation because thus far the message of the novel, the overall theme is a mystery to me. Themes exist, no doubt, however personally I fail to see the connection and relevance to the actions of the characters. For example, what is holding the narrator in his slavery for so long? He is not chained, abused, or locked up. His ‘master’ pays him no mind for long periods of time while he is off on his ramblings. What is the significance of his ‘master’ looking like his double?  Could his master possibly be himself? 

I hope the remainder of the novel reveals these secretes to me. 

History Tends to Repeat Itself

Zakiyyah Abdus-Salaam

The White Castle: Part One

February 12, 2013

Unfortunately, since the beginning of society, slavery has been a reoccurring theme in the evolution of high-functioning societies. The first half of The While Castle, has many similarities to slave narratives that I have read by various authors, about their perception of slavery in the West from the fifteenth to nineteenth centuries. Africans, such as Olaudah Equiano, author of The Interesting Narrative of the Life of Olaudah Equiano, were captured from their homelands just as abruptly as the narrator was seized from the ship he was traveling on to Naples. The captured civilians were treated brutally and inhumanely in both instances; and if they were "lucky" to make it to shore, they would be turned into slaves for the "royalty " of the land.

Another similarity to early American slavery that I stumbled upon in the first half of this novel was the idea that converting to the religion of your ruler could eventually lead one to freedom. The pasha stated numerous times that the narrator could become a free man if he converted to Islam (29). Many en-captured slaves would think trading religion for their freedom sounds like a decent deal, but to prideful individuals such as the Venetian narrator in The White Castle and many African slaves, with Islamic rather than Catholic views, expressed that their religious views meant more to them than an "easy" way to freedom.

I am looking forward to continuing Pamuk's novel and uncovering more similarities between slavery in different cultures.