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!