My Name is Red

A Nobel prize winning novel, My Name is Red is set in Istanbul. A story of miniaturists in the sixteenth century, it is a tale of love, violence, art, religion and life. Hidden between the descriptions of complex relationships and even more complex circumstances, are little pearls of life philosophy. The story begins with the murder of a miniaturist and the first chapter is written in the voice of a corpse. Pamuk uses the voice of various characters in the book, and sometimes even Satan, a painting of a tree, and even the colour Red. This variation in narrative brings freshness of perspective and is engaging. The narrators also talk to the readers, making them a part of the book as well.

No doubt a literary masterpiece, the book can be a challenging read if you are an impatient reader like I am. If you survive the first half of it, the second half is fast paced. Having said that, I wouldn’t hesitate to say that I thought of leaving it mid way at least a dozen times. But I wanted to know who killed Elegant Effendi and who would the female protagonist, Shekure, end up with. I am quite tempted to tell you so, a search on google had not given me any results. This is what kept me from giving up. Perhaps, this would keep you also going. 

This was also a commonly decided book by Kirti and I as part of our Brunch Book Challenge. I had long given up on reading novels that had won any literary prizes because I never had the patience for them. But I took this one up as a challenge and a challenge it was. Thankfully, I have completely forgotten who recommended it to me. So the person is saved. I am once again skeptical if I am meant to read award winning books!