Istanbul as Palimpsest: The Black Book as a Postmodernist Representation of Turkish History and Culture

Orhan Pamuk’s novel, The Black Book is a postmodern chronicle of Turkey in which the author uses the structure of a detective novel to delineate the themes of identity, culture and hybridity. The paper aims to depict how Pamuk foregrounds that identities are never determinate but are forever eluding by presenting a love triangle which disappears underneath a mystical quest for one’s true self. Galip’s assuming the persona of his alter-ego, Celal; Prince Osman’s pursuit of true knowledge through reading diverse books and ultimately rejecting them; and Bedii Usta’s disillusion with the State for disapproving the mannequins, all represent the interlacing of cultures and interdependence of identities in contemporary Turkey. Moreover, in the novel, the rich Ottoman tradition and Islamic literature are also revisited in a postmodern light so as to present the allegorical and political connotations inherent in them. The paper also examines how the novel portrays the forced westernization and erasure of history and memories through the use of film ekphrasis to highlight how the Turkish citizens were lured by the Western cinema and indoctrinated about the superiority of the West so as to generate in them a sense of anxiety about their identities.

The Black Book is a detective novel set in Istanbul before the military coup of 1980 happened. Although the novel revolves around three characters-Galip, Celal and Ruya, the city of Istanbul emerges as a central character. Galip, a lawyer in his early thirties comes home one evening to find that his wife, Ruya (her name means "dream" in Turkish), who also happens to be his first cousin, has left him without any explanation. He makes a frantic search through the apartment but is unable to find any clue and, therefore, decides to look for her.
He telephones her friends and acquaintances in vain and speculates that she has gone back to her ex-husband, tracks him down but is disappointed to find that she is not with him. On finding that Celal, Ruya's half-brother and the famous newspaper columnist, is also missing, and termed his art sinful when he started his career. After the westernization of the nation he became hopeful that his mannequins shall be displayed in the clothing stores but they were rejected as they were modelled on Turks and not Europeans which the countrymen were aspiring to be. A shopkeeper explained to Bedii Usta: "... Turks no longer wanted to be Turks, they wanted to be something else. This was why they'd gone along with the "dress revolution", shaved their beards, reformed their language and their alphabet" (The Black Book 61). He was told by other storekeeper that it is not the dress that allures the customer but the "dream of becoming "the other" who'd worn that dress" (The Black Book 61).
However, this did not stop Bedi Usta to pursue his dream and he persevered secretly in his art explaining that he will preserve in his dummies the gestures which he believes is the essence of Turks and unlike other things like history and culture, gestures cannot be changed. After some time he observed some changes in the gestures of people who were losing their novelty gradually and imitating western films. He laments: "They were discarding their old ways, faster than the eye could see; they'd embraced a whole set of gestures-each and every thing they did was an imitation" (The Black Book 63). At first he captured these new and fake gestures in his art but then he became upset with the "hybrids" the Turks were turning into and retired to his atelier claiming to have understood the essence of the mystery. On seeing the mannequins, Celal identifies with them and discerns what that essence was. Celal compares them with the "deities mourning their lost innocence ... longing but failing to be someone else" who had in past known some essence but forgotten it. "It was this lost memory that pained us, reduced us to ruins, though still we struggled to be ourselves", writes Pamuk Furthermore, while Galip is staying at Celal's place he gets a phone call from a man who mistaking him for Celal tells him that he admires his writings and desires to meet him.
The man claims that he is in possession of some secrets of national importance which he wishes to reveal to Celal and insists for his address. The man confesses that he has so long believed Celal to be a messiah and spent a great deal of his life reading and re-reading his columns trusting them to contain some great secrets. But he no longer admires Celal as he is able to see through his betrayal and is furious at him for misleading his readers for years. And the real reason for his wish to arrange a meet with Celal is to get answers from him as he is convinced that all his writings alluding to the essence and redemption had been an illusion.
Fittingly, Pamuk speaks of the influence enjoyed by Turkish columnists whom he labels "Professors of Everything" and says that they were as famous as "the most powerful politicians" and enjoyed the "reader's trust and affection" (Other Colours 293). identity which he has often discussed in other works and consequently critics have often used the bridge metaphor while analysing his work. It is neither achievable to regain the lost Ottoman past completely as shown in the fatal endeavour of the Prince, nor is it probable to embrace the west entirely as revealed by the melancholic citizens. Pamuk, therefore, endorses an in-between position in which the Turks will benefit from both Eastern and Western cultures.

Conclusion
The Black Book interweaves the Eastern and Western literary traditions to present Ottoman history and cultural identity in a postmodern narrative that defies monolithic accounts in favour of plurality. The book is representative of the author's disregard of cultural and historical violence done by both the nationalistic as well as external agencies and explicates how a vibrant Turkish culture can survive by striking a balance between various influences. Talking about the ill-conceived westernization process, Pamuk observes that the ruling elite failed to construct "a national culture" having "its own symbols and rituals". He laments that the local Istanbul culture, having Eastern and Western elements in combination which would have resulted into the creation of new and original culture rather than an imitation, was not formed: "They did not strive to create an Istanbul culture that would be an organic combination of East and West ..." (Other Colours 369). He hopes that future generations will be able to form a new culture for their nation since copying the west blindly or going back to the non-extant Ottoman culture is not a solution.