The Museum of Innocence is a novel that engages on a multitude of levels
while allowing the reader to sort of freely shift from one conceptual
rendezvous to the next and perhaps even to ignore others without losing grasp
of core thematic elements that are in their crafting absolutely not didactic
and therefore more dependent upon the reflections and suppositions made by the
reader within the book itself. At first glance, the novel seems to be
explicative, exploring the turmoils of a country and its people in transition
by putting on display the juxtaposition of the old tradition and the new, hip,
westernization process that is seeping in at all levels of the society, and
then by describing specific conflicts and contradictions that arise out of this
desire towards modernization. The guiding hand behind this explorative process
is structure, style, and usage of words by the narrator and the manner in which
these jam images and concepts into the mind, and here it is that The
Museum of Innocence is somewhat, though
only in comparison with other magnificent aspects of itself, lacking. This is
not to say that stylistically Pamuk does not command an extreme eloquence and
vitality within his prose, but rather that his construction of the novel
creates very few expectations to be resolved in any way. With the exception of
the desire for a resolution between Kemal and Füsun there is not really another
major motivational force to guide the narrative to the end. His prose, though
vivid, is at times too verbose and illustrates the world within (Kemal) and
without (70’s Turkey) so richly yet at a narrative level so stagnantly for much
of the book that at times it is difficult to maintain interest. It is in the
day to noneventful day discriptons that the reader can become lost, especially
over the roughly 200 pages in which Kemal wallows in sorrow and laments his
situation.
This is, however, my only complaint
and perhaps it is necessary in order that the reader may acquire an
understanding for the predicament of Kemal, a character detached from the world
by his status, so saturated with internal conflict because of the tumult
between his responsiblities and his wishes, his own demeanor, and the inability
to consumate the desires which he cannot control. Initially, he is a happy
individual. He is engaged to Sibel, he is wealthy, and seems to be contented
with the meaning he has found for his life, but then enters Füsun, and
everything changes.When, after the engagement party, the affair with Füsun ends
Kemal is left with a conflict between desire, responsibility, and possibility
that plagues him throughout the rest of the novel. Is his domination of Füsun
and inability to acquiesce to her wishes to become a star, an overt attempt to
satisfy his greedy human nature or is it the result a man following his
emotions, and keeping the one he loves from being kissed by another? The
conflict within his own character, the inability to think rationally by
rejecting his emotions, the power he finds in a nonlinear conceptualization of
time, and the consolation and escapism endowed through the memories contained
within objects, all develope the character of a man in search of meaning, which
is a trait with which I believe we all can empathize. Kemal ultimately kills
Füsun one could say by forcing her into a state of hopelessness and dispair
that drives her to act, but then doesn’t she actually kill herself and attempt
to murder him in the process, and could it not have been that Kemal
misinterpreted signals that she had given him and misread the degree to which
she desired to become an actress? Is not life permeated with misperceptions and
incapability of people to truly understand one another?
For the extent to which the novel
forces one into reflection upon the intricacies and interrelationships of life
at its core while never, to my knowledge, being near as moralistic or didactic
as many works that attempt such greatness I found The Museum of Innocence to be a most fascinating foray into the sublime of
the romanticist manifest within the consciousness of one man, who’s
interactions and contemplations could be interpreted as representative of an
entire society or just the reader, or just love, or just some place in time. It
is evocative of thought and recollection and beautifully portrays the concept
of subjective stories lying behind all the objects we see and the infinity of
worlds availble to our fingertips were we to, like Kemal, committ ourselves a
little more to an engagement with our surroundings and the search for meaning.
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