READIN

🦋 Reading selves

The Crown Prince's idea that the books you read define the content of your soul -- that you are the narrative voices from the books you've read -- is interesting to consider in light of religion: if the only book you have read is your faith's holy scripture, you are completely defined by the faith. This is a pretty obvious reading I think but Pamuk did not really make it explicit (yet). I didn't really notice this last night but all the books the prince talks about ridding himself of are western; I expect he is not forgetting the Islamic texts and probably not the non-Islamic Turkish and Persian writings that make up the Oriental portion of his personality. (Update: Went back to check my memory; this is incorrect.)

(...Also, of course, very much worth bearing in mind that while Pamuk was writing this book, he was moving from an "ultra-Occidentalist" mindset to a more nuanced view of Turkish culture, and reading classical Persian texts for the first time.)

posted afternoon of Monday, April 21st, 2008
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