| Abstract [eng] |
The Issue of (Non)Identity in Orhan Pamuk's Novel "A Strangeness in My Mind" The study analyses Turkish Nobel Prize laureates‘s Orhan Pamuk’s novel A Strangeness In My Mind (2014). While associated to Turkish postmodern tradition, literary works of Pamuk are often analyzed through the view which is based on “representation” of reality. The interpretations of Pamuk‘s phenomenon usually begins with his origins and merits. His texts are often critically examined in terms of depiction of reality, tradition and modernity, state and religion, East and West intersections as the main topics of the analysis. This study dissosiates the usual approach to the writer's work, and focus on the problem of the textual and the character's identities. The elements found in the book refer to different fields of culture, cultural memories (Western vs. Turkish), different forms of narrative (scholarly historical work vs. novel or novel representing family life history vs. novel) and different models of representation in relation to experiential reality (historicity and documentary vs pure fiction). The elements captured in the outer part of the novel offer the reader to move to the two opposite directions at the same time. They establish and question boundaries and definiteness, all contributing to the self-identification that takes place through the other, representing that other inaccurately and distortedly. External elements (cover of the book, name clarification on the front page, family tree) record the assignment of an unusual signified to one or another signifier, forcing one to remember the former identity of the latter and to realize the emerging of a new one. The epigraphs in the begining of the novel (Wordsworth‘s, Rousseau‘s and Salik‘s) create an intertextual connection with two real texts by Western authors and a fictional text written by a Turkish author referring to other Pamuk‘s novel The Black Book. This connection establishes a “conflicting” relationship with the genres to which it refers. The inaccuracies in the citations in the epigraphs of the inner part of the novel and the play with the notation of names become a sign that instead of dialogue with Western plots, the novel creates a connection with the “stories” of their authors. The analysis of the novel revealed that the reference to the revival of a foreign cultural memory by various references to Western texts is refuted in a way in which these references are used in the text itself. By activating a foreign cultural memory, the novel denies the need for that activation and, through its relationship with references to the texts in its own (Turkish) memory field, shows the basis of the Turkish Mevlut's identity – his connection with his culture. |
