The Black Book (1990)

The Black Book was not an easy novel for me to get through. I always felt lost while reading The Black Book, though by the end I started to think maybe that was the point. I’m sure I could read The Black Book five more times before even beginning to scratch its dense, dark surface.

The Black Book tackles some pretty hefty themes: identity, memory and forgetting, history, and meaning. Mirrors, doubles, and copies are everywhere. It’s tough to tease the thread of one theme out of the tangle of the story; they stick together, melting into one another, forming a murky, amorphous mass. As Galip knocks against them, the structure and style of The Black Book ensures that the reader is right there beside him. I spent most of the book stuck in the same fog of confusion through which Galip was desperately fighting for clarity.

The Black Book was one of the harder books I’ve taken on recently. I cannot say I loved it; it’s more that I feel I’ve accomplished something by finishing it.

My full thoughts are posted on Erin Reads. ( )

I couldn’t finish it. It was a difficult read and the story so convoluted that it made me feel that I wasn’t intelligent enough to understand. Not quite my cup of tea. ( )

amazing story of searching and obsession ( )

I just completed The Black Book. I love Pamuk's writing though it is obvious this was an earlier work as his story was not tight and there were long passages that were tedious and repetitive. You can see the change in Snow, which has a similar style but it much cleaner. The Black Book dealt primarily with themes of identity (of the characters and of Turkey and its people) using the context of a mystery and a writer as main character (sound familiar?). It was a challenging read and very slow at the beginning but picked up in Part 2. I would recommend this book, but only to the patient reader who is willing to give himself up to the mystical and the mysterious without expecting a nice Hollywood ending. 3.5 stars ( )

Preliminary Intro: Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel in 2006; and his novels have been translated into English (from the original Turkish) and are hugely popular. He is up there with Rushdie, Amis, Carey, Coetzee and Naipul.
Confession: I haven't actually read the whole book. I plodded through half the book and got frustrated waiting for the event when the "Black Book" will finally make its entrance. There hasn't been a single reference to it till now.
It's not actually one story, but stories in stories; stories spilling out of stories, stories tripping over other stories, commingling with each other completing others, contradicting each other, and so on. Each story has its own life and is as much a character in the book as any other soul.
All of Pamuk's books have been placed in Istanbul, and this is no exception. I can't pinpoint the exact era being described; seems like the 1970's just as the television became a visual addiction replacing the radio.

Superficially, it's about the narrator Galip's adventures, as he tries to solve the mystery of the beautiful wife Ruya's disappearance. He suspects she has re-united with her ex-husband; the famous columnist and writer Celal, who himself has disappeared. Galip tries to track them down by putting himself in the place of Celal, trying to think and see like him; trying to derive new meanings inside mundane everything objects and places of Istanbul with which he has been familiar throughout his life.
Some chapters are nothing but Celal's columns from Milliyet, and thus the narrative switches abruptly from Galip to Celal. The chapter "When the Bosphorus Dries Up" is a classic and is a treat to read by itself.
Characters come and go, and in later chapters their very existence is demolished. So what is Pamuk trying to convey by the conversations between Galip and the mysterious Belkis; that we have multiple personalities hidden beneath our normal selves? Is it impossible to be only oneself? This is why I am damn confused by the book.
Each time I revisit a previous chapter, I glean a new meaning and things become more clearer. Sometimes I feel that I have actually read a later chapter. For example, the chapter "Riddles in Faces", which I suspect is another of Celal's columns is referenced in earlier chapters and Galip constantly tries to interpret insights related to his wife's disappearance on the faces of perfect strangers. Nice try.
Istanbul is as much a character as any others; and it is the only consistent one and is most beautifully described. Alteast the streets and places remain where they are in the whole book. Istanbul is just like Hyderabad, with its mix of Islamic heritage and modern secular heroes. Of course, the clash between East and West is central to Istanbul, it being the first place where power shifted periodically from one culture to another.

I definitely recommend the book, but only if you have the patience to read it three times over. Hopefully then you will comprehend its true meaning.