The Black Book (1990 novel)
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- This article is about an Orhan Pamuk novel. For other uses of the term see Black book.
| Author | Orhan Pamuk |
|---|---|
| Original title | Kara Kitap |
| Country | Turkey |
| Language | Turkish |
| Publisher | |
| Released | 1990 |
| Released in English | 1994 |
The Black Book (Kara Kitap in Turkish) is a novel by Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. It was published in Turkish in 1990 and in English in 1994. It was retranslated by Maureen Freely in 2006.
[edit] Plot
The protagonist, an Istanbul lawyer named Galip, finds one day that his wife Rüya (the name means "dream" in Turkish) has mysteriously left him with very little explanation. He wanders around the city looking for his clues to her whereabouts. He suspects that his wife has taken up with her half-brother, a columnist for Milliyet named Jelal, and it happens that he is also missing. The story of Galip's search is interspersed with reprints of Jelal's columns, which are lengthy, highly literate meditations on the city and its history. Galip thinks that by living as Jelal he can figure out how Jelal thinks and locate both him and his wife, so he takes up residence in Jelal's apartment, wearing his clothes and eventually writing his column.
Galip starts getting mysterious phone calls from one of Jelal's obsessed fans, who displays an astonishing familiarity with the columnist's writings. After Galip's columns under Jelal's name start to take the form of impassioned pleas to Rüya, a woman from Jelal's past misinterprets the articles and calls Galip, thinking they are actually Jelal's attempts to win her back. It turns out that Jelal and the woman had had an affair, and the fan who is calling Galip is the woman's jealous husband. In an eerie twist, it turns out that the husband has been following Galip around Istanbul in an attempt to find Jelal through him, accounting for Galip's frequent apprehension that he is being watched. Galip finally agrees to meet both of them at a public location, a store called Aladdin's that figures in much of the narrative. Soon after, Jelal is shot to death in the street. Rüya is found also shot in Aladdin's store. The identity of the killer is never discovered for certain.
The novel ends with the postmodern twist of the author revealing his presence in the narrative. The story is more concerned with exploring the nature of story-telling as a means of constructing identify than with a straight-forward plot. As such, it is full of stories within the main story, relating to both Turkey's Ottoman past and contemporary Istanbul.
| Novels: The White Castle | The Black Book | The New Life | My Name is Red | Snow |
| Screenplay: The Secret Face |
| Non-Fiction: Istanbul: Memories and the City |
