My Name Is Red
by Orhan Pamuk
Knopf

Orhan Pamuk is finally getting the kind of exposure he deserves. Already a living legend in his native Turkey, until September he was underappreciated in the United States, despite living in New York City for three years and having all his works translated into English.

But two months ago, Pamuk published the English translation of "My Name Is Red," an allegorical exploration of the Islamic-Western cultural divide. It was given a large print run by its US publisher, Knopf, and has since received rave reviews. At the same time, in the wake of Sept. 11, Pamuk has become one of the go-to guys for thoughts on fundamentalist Islam. If you're tired of CNN, "My Name Is Red" is a refreshing, timely alternative.

That said, Pamuk's work is dark and complex, and "My Name Is Red" demands a reader's complete attention. Pamuk provides neither exposition nor crib-note passages for readers unfamiliar with Ottoman history (though there is a brief timeline at the back). His characters deliver intense monologues on the arcanities of illumination and Koranic interpretation. At the same time, though, Pamuk rewards careful readers with elegant explorations into such vagaries of Ottoman daily life as coffeehouse culture, storytelling techniques and the status of ethnic minorities.

The story follows the travails of Black Effendi, a civil servant who, upon returning to Istanbul after 12 years in the provinces, finds himself in the middle of a murder investigation involving two of the city's master illuminators. Black soon learns that they were working on a secret book for the sultan that was to use European painting methods — perspective and portraiture, both of which were banned as sacrilege. At the same time, Black is eager to win the hand of his childhood crush, Shekure, whose father disapproved of Black and, inconveniently for Black, happens to be one of the deceased. Black is an immediate suspect; his task, then, is to find the murderer, clear his name and win the girl.

Which sounds simple enough, except that for Pamuk the plot is only a tiny element of the book's overall thrust. The story is broken up into 59 short chapters, told from a multitude of perspectives, running through all of the major characters to one of the victims' corpses, a sketch of a horse, the color black and death itself. And while Black is the central character, he is by far not the most interesting or even sympathetic; it is to Pamuk's credit that most of the characters are weak or untrustworthy, forcing the reader to engage with the story, rather than have it spoon-fed.

But Pamuk's target is less a good murder mystery, or even deconstructing a good murder mystery — rather, it is Islam's conception of itself vis-à-vis the West as seen through a murder mystery. Read as an allegory, "My Name Is Red" is a damning critique of the violence that fundamentalist Islam is willing to visit on itself to keep Western influence at bay. But Pamuk, like many other progressive Muslim intellectuals, believes such an attitude will destroy Islam from within, as it is predicated on an inferiority complex and a deep phobia of self-criticism and change. Like the illuminators in "My Name Is Red," Pamuk wants Islamic society to borrow from the West selectively, remaining confident that through the strength of its core values it will weather the onslaught of Western ideas.

"My Name Is Red" is not an easy book, and readers wary of dense passages on Ottoman aesthetic theory and the like are here forewarned. But those looking for a beautifully crafted, rewarding book that will change the way they look at Islam and the West would do well to give it a whirl.

— Clay Risen (clay@flakmag.com)