Orhan Pamuk’s novel The Museum of Innocence (MOI), deciphers the complex Turkish
identity of individual and society which is dwelling between the modernity and values
of Eastern and Western culture. In the novel, Pamuk has brought several narrative layers that depict the postcolonial changes in Istanbul throughout the 1970s to 2000s (Allmer,163). It reflects upon identity issues, turbulent Turkish history, and the influence of European culture (Pang, 2). The study aims to examine the possible meanings of the three major perspectives: heterotopia, Kemal’s infidelity, and the materialistic culture reflected in the novel. Pamuk’s novel ends up forming a curated museum which is a heterotopic place juxtaposing the real and imaginary world. The novel also raises concerns about the portrayal of gender issues (Khamitova, 16). The protagonist, Kemal belongs to a wealthy family from the elite group of the Istanbul community. Kemal narrates about his obsessive and lost love, and how it changed the course of his life along with a detailed description of Istanbul’s life (Yuncu et al. 241). The novel models the narrator using storytelling, his memories, and the use of objects for the description of personal and collective memory (Khamitova, 17). The novel consists of Kemal’s intense monologues and the frantic act of collecting objects (Pang, 3). This novel is a unique work with which Pamuk created a literary and architectural space to coherent rationale for the theme. The literary space in the novel could integrate the theory of Lefebvre’s special triad (Yuncu et al. 244). Thus, the museum acts as a fine exemplar of the explicit architectural correlation with the novel setting (Yuncu et al. 250).

Heteropia

Michel Foucault’s concept of heterotopia can be used as a tool to understand the
heterotopic quality of Pamuk’s novel and to understand how these spaces create
challenges or resistance in the novel (Ansin, 1). It helps in identifying the features of the selected spaces within the novel. The love story of Kemal and Füsun occurs in the ambient milieu of Istanbul where the traditional values and Westernization oscillate towards the end of the 20th century (Ansin, 1). The novel involves the subjective experience of passionate love and obsession of Kemal the transformative power of the spaces over him with time. With the progress of recollecting his memory, the narrator is making the reader visualize a museum with curated things that reverberate with the backdrop of the story. The tragic death of Füsun devastates Kemal and he tries to find solace in the things he collected over the years (Merwa, 18). The museum is curated with the various belongings of Füsun which act as Kemal’s most personal spaces where he takes shelter. Thus, the Museum of Innocence acts as a space of hope for Kemal, and this literary expression of Foucault’s heterotopia makes the time constant in the museum (Shamla, 28). This space can be witnessed for Kemal’s love story and a reference for Istanbul’s political, cultural, and social events during the time (Sönmez, 1018). Pamuk’s attempt to narrate Kemal’s love story caused the genesis of a novel for the Turkish literary world but contributed to a museum for the global audience. Since the story of
the novel and the museum are the same, Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence acts as a
heterotopic world.

Kemal’s infidelity

The novel ends with Kemal telling the writer Orhan, ‘Let everyone know, I lived a very happy life’ (MOI, 532). This statement makes the reader raise a question to Kemal, ‘Did Füsun ever have a happy life?’ Kemal is engaged to Sibel before meeting Füsun and they represent educated, Western-influenced wealthy people belonging to bourgeois Istanbul. Füsun represents a financially backward girl who lives in a populated dark alleyway which is the less modernized side of Istanbul. On the peripheral layer, MOI talks about Kemal’s memory, passion, love, emotional attachment, and obsession towards Füsun (Dakhil and Zhang, 132). The novel begins with Kemal’s detailing of his sexual encounter with Füsun, which keeps on repeating over the time frame. Kemal’s passion is ruled by his libido and gets stirred by Füsun’s physical attractiveness (Dimitria, 68) and sex outside marriage is still a stigma in the society. Kemal commits emotional and sexual infidelity with Füsun (Rahayu and Khoiri, 1), and with the progress of the novel Kemal ends his relationship with Sibel and seeks Füsun’s reconciliation. MOI is the best example where Pamuk diligently talks about the issues of feminist existentialism such as patriarchy, freedom, objectification, suppression, equal rights, sexual harassment, prostitution, and suicide (Dakhil and Zhang, 132). Füsun expects Kemal to be part of her life but she gets irrevocable pain when he decides to live with Sibel maintaining his social status. Their relationship was more on personal interests and more precisely on Kemal’s sexual satisfaction (Rahayu and Khoiri, 2; Dimitria, 72) which instilled anguish and emotional misery in Füsun. The theory of love
is a concept developed by the existential psychologist Rollo May and Pamuk uses this
love in this novel. Kemal’s love can be defined as the most influential factor in his
infidelity (Rahayu and Khoiri, 5). This novel also urges the reader to instigate the reader to interpret the text concerning the theory of feminism and how the supremacy of a male-dominated society relegated women to mere objects (Dakhil and Zhang, 135).
Pamuk has portrayed Füsun as an example of the victimization of Turkish women in
that era. Through the novel, Füsun undergoes sexual objectification and the sexiest
oppression from the men in her life. In the name of helping Füsun with mathematics,
Kemal had masked her ulterior motives of using her for his sexual fantasies (Dakhil and Zhang, 137). This leaves no room for the care, love, sincerity, and emotional security deserved by Füsun. There exists mutual objectification between Füsun and Feridun. Kemal’s sexual oppression causes him to keep Füsun away from all film opportunities. Feridun took away her opportunity to become a star and this caused pain, frustration, and resentment in Füsun (Dakhil and Zhang, 139). Füsun faced extreme suppression from the patriarchal society in the form of helplessness, vulnerability, unemployment, depression and which caused her suspected death from suicide. The issues faced by Füsun are common to both feminism and existentialism (Dakhil and Zhang, 140). Pamuk intentionally throws questions at the readers to think about the equality and rights of women in Turkish society (MOI, 410).

Pamuk-Kemal collector’s model

According to Pamuk, the novel and the museum are two representations of the same
story (Pamuk, 2008). Kemal has collected most of Füsun’s objects such as earrings,
yellow shoes, a tricycle, ashtrays, cigarette butts, quince grater, etc. over the years between 1975 and 1983 to indemnify her for not being in his life. Pamuk makes the narrator feel proud of his obsessive collection as an expression of his love rather than letting him feel culpability. His love for Füsun is cataloged with several notional objects curated in the museum. These belongings of Füsun are detailed in the bourgeois Istanbul grounds (Allmer, 166). Finally, Kemal makes an exhaustive catalogue of Füsun’s possessions and this in reality leads Pamuk’s novel to be shaped into an architectural project, a museum. Pamuk opened the architectural discourse of The Museum of Innocence at Çukurcuma, Istanbul in 2010. Thus, bringing life to his creative illusion of Kemal’s love. This also reveals Pamuk’s inquisitive approach in carefully considering the novel’s factual reality narrated by Kemal and bringing the encyclopedic quality of the novel into the museum. Beyond the obsession of Kemal over Füsun, this depicts Pamuk’s interest in collecting objects and Pamuk’s model collector shows similitude with the German philosopher Walter Benjamin’s approach to collecting objects (Allmer, 167). Both Pamuk and Benjamin resonate various emotions with respective objects and aid in proving Pamuk’s artistry through the museum. Similar to Füsun’s house, Merhamet apartment symbolizes the collector’s nature of Kemal’s mother and acts as a milieu of materialism. Pamuk’s curated museum practices the Picture Theory of William Mitchell in expressing the images in words (ekphrasis) (Allmer, 169). In MOI, Pamuk explains the theory by providing verbal representation for his images through writing the novel, the reader develops their visual images while reading the novel and curated museum from the textual novel for the reader. The similarity of visual signs in the museum and their contextual elucidation in the museum is termed as anchorage by Barthes in his Rhetoric of the Image (Barthes, 1977 and Ogut, 4). The artifacts act as agency of objects with Kemal’s self-contained memories. These artifacts not only bring in the materialistic culture but also introduce Lyotard’s concepts of ‘Figure and Discourse’ (Ogut, 10). This museum is a representation of Kemal’s nostalgia, his yearning for his past: his childhood memories of his community and country (Yuncu etal. 242)

End notes.

On the first read, the novel seems to talk about the love, passion, resentment, memory, and obsession of Kemal for his lover. But between the textual discourse, Pamuk has written the finest novel which evokes the reader to think about various issues prevalent in the male-dominated society and how it impacts the Turkish women The characters and the events speak for the sensitive socio-political issues and critically question its prevalence. Panuk gives the novelized realism a heterotopic architectural facet. Sexual objectification and suppression are major issues explained through Füsun’s feminist
existential crisis. Pamuk questions the female subordination to the patriarchal authority endemic in Turkish society. Pamuk has explored the possibility of curating Kemal’s love and obsession for Füsun and her materials. With Kemal and Füsun, Pamuk created a literary space as well as an architectural space for his readers. These artifacts remain untouched by the ever-growing modernization occurring in Istanbul and continue to tell their stories to every visitor. The building of the museum diminishes the boundaries between literature and architecture thereby novel getting spatialized and the space gets textualized.

Elaine

Sub-Editor