The Red Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk

For a long time, I was intimidated to grab a copy of Orhan Pamuk’s novels with ‘myths’ constantly reminding me that “it is too difficult to understand”. At one point, this is what his latest novel The Red Haired Woman is telling: to believe in myths or not to believe in myths. Had I believed that ‘myth’, I wouldn’t be writing this review but here I am mesmerised by Pamuk’s major talent.

When Orhan Pamuk’s name is mentioned, a lot comes to mind: Turkey, Turkish Literature, the Nobel Prize, East and the West, history and politics. While his novels are considered to be a great synthesis of multiple themes, surely one of the most characteristic features of Pamuk’s novels is: words are not read and understood by the reader but rather felt in the most sincere way. The reader is immediately taken to where the novel takes place and to that exact historical period. The Red Haired Woman, translated by Ekin Oklap, is no difference. It is an exciting journey taken to the mysterious unknown with its multi-layered structure, originality and imagery in the context of individuality and authoritarianism. And at the end, you find yourself saying “what a great mastery”.

In three chapters, the novel revolves around the saying: “the old things you hear in old myths and folktales always end up happening in real life”. First chapter, I consider, is the ‘silence before the storm’. Pamuk puts the ‘father’ figure, which always had a very significant place in literature, at the very centre of his novel and deals with the psychological question of ‘fathers and sons’ at its best. We meet a teenage boy, Cem Çelik, who is the son of a leftist in 80s Turkey. His father is someone who leaves home either because he is in political trouble or because of his flings. When the slightest expectation for affection or care from his father figure is unreturned, Cem finds himself in a constant set of disappointment and dissatisfaction in life. After his father leaves home for good, Cem goes to the town of Öngören during a summer holiday to dig a well with Master Mahmut in whom Cem searches for his long lost father figure. Their quick, patriarchal bond accompanied by the mystic epics and ancient tales grows strong and becomes a reason both for Cem’s unknown fatherly love and an irritation caused by fear, for he had not fully experienced a more powerful figure than himself until then. While he is also beguiled by and obsessed with the fierce and mysterious red-haired woman from the ‘Theatre of Morality Tales”, Pamuk points out the struggle to form independence under the ‘authority’ of a father figure. Cem lies to his ‘master’ every time they go to town to catch a glimpse of the red-haired woman. Through the affection and discontent at the same time for his master, we are exposed into the world of a young boy with Oedipal instincts leading to a subconsciously mysterious ‘accident’ of an irrevocable kind. The well is used as a great symbol by Pamuk here: The deeper they dig, the closer they approach the depths of Cem’s subconscious. At the end of chapter one, this question certainly remains in the reader’s mind: is there an accident or a deliberate purpose?

In the second section which feels near to the reader rather than a distant memory, we get to see a grown up ‘individual’ free from any kind of authoritative father figure in his life. Yet, he grows a fond fascination with tales related to patricide: Oedipus the King by Sophocles and Shahnameh by Ferdowsi. He welcomes his wife, Ayşe, into his obsession too, eventhough he hides the constant self-doubt caused by his past that follows him like a curse. He keeps reading about those tales with conrasting emotions: disturbance and joy. While he is reading Ferdowsi, he describes the feeling as “at once unsettling and also a feeling I craved”.

Through out the second section, the novel made me think that in order to gain a proper insight into a subject you must not look into it from a single perspective. This is not only something that makes this novel original but also Pamuk himself. As one of the greatest Istanbul writers, Pamuk not only mentions Ottoman times but also Byzantium. This presents itself in various topics across the novel. While, the September 12 coup d’état that led to traumas survived until today have been handled gracefully, Pamuk also hints the current secular-against-conservative controversy of Turkey. During Cem’s trip to Iran, the question “Will Turkey become like Iran?”asked by the secular, western newspapers of the time reminded me very much about today’s Turkey’s questions that is going through a conservative rule. But at the same time, Pamuk also criticises the extra-individualised,wealthy, westernised, secular Turks who “forget to be themselves”.

Apart from Turkish political controversies, what made me enjoy the novel much more was the addition of an Eastern mysticism along with the already familiar subject of Oedipus. Like Pamuk himself said in an interview that I read, we only see western epics or tales in the library of even the most famous universities. It is understanble considering the current state of the east and west distinction of today. However, the addition of Ferdowsi’s characters Rostam and Sohrab from Shahnameh created a sense of oriental orientation, a slight hue of orange or brown, something that was less known: mystical. This, not at all creates a notion of East versus West nor can it be called the extaltation of the east. Rather, Pamuk tries to destroy the problematic contrast of east and west by showing two very significant narratives (one of them less known) should be appreciated equivalent. To me, this is nothing but an utmost unbiasedness and transparency of Pamuk. These mythical tragedies from the east and west are adapted to the psychological question of individualism and authoritarianism in the novel and this eventually makes it a 21st century tragedy delivering social and political criticism.

The plot’s unexpected turn with the change of narrative in the third chapter can again be considered a manifestation of opposition to onesidedness, singularity or say, individuality. After reading all the story through Cem, the reader finally meets the mysterious red-haired woman and sees the story from her eyes.

Entangling contrasting values and ideologies,through great imagery, symbolism and representations from the literature of ancient worlds, The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk is a profound pronouncement for the importance of balance: east and west, individualism and authoritarianism.