🦋 April 29, 1994
I picked up Other Colors again and started reading from the beginning, which turns out to be a very good order in which to read this collection. I am not quite getting the narrative sequencing Pamuk alludes to in the preface, but still I like it. The third essay, "Notes on April 29, 1994", which the author notes was written as part of a project in which "Le Nouvel Observateur asked hundreds of authors to describe their activities on April 29 in whatever corner of the world they happened to be that day."* (sort of like Jarmusch' Night on Earth?) -- this piece is utterly fabulous -- at every sentence my mind is running ahead with new worlds of possibility. Here is an incomplete sampling of the stuff I was thinking about while reading these few pages: TELEPHONE: His first sentence is "I disconnected the phone and ... a moment arrived when I imagined that someone was trying to reach me at that very moment to speak to me about ... a matter of huge consequence, but could not get through." Yeah, totally -- I would immediately start worrying about that. And I wonder, by "disconnect the phone" does he mean actually yank the cord? turn off the ringer? Weren't answering machines available in Istanbul in the '90's? -- And I don't actually know if they were but I assume. LETTERS, LOGOS, AND BRANDS: the mention of Islamist Refah Party at the end of the previous paragraph leads very nicely into the conversation about a proposed boycott of their supporters, mingling with an allusion to consumerism in Turkey. The teaser about "a simple calculation" makes me wonder. STREETS AND AVENUES: The statement at the beginning of this paragraph that Turkey has been plunged into an economic crisis within the past few months anchors the essay in time again. The disjointed scenes of people on the streets make me start imagining the city more clearly -- particularly striking is "men ... clutching sandwiches or cigarettes or plastic bags stuffed with money as they watched the rise of the dollar on the electronic notice board." The "madman who had recently arrived in the neighborhood" is awesome, and seems like he might be more anchored than anybody else on the street. "We had a few laughs." JOKES, LAUGHTER, AND HAPPINESS: The drinking protests seem very nice to me (remind me a little bit, in a different context, of "Drinking Liberally"), I like Pamuk's humorous approach to the conflict between Turkish intellectuals and Islamic Refah Party (which we see again in Snow): but I don't really know anything in particular about this conflict except via Pamuk. Here is the first mention of Rüya that includes her age. I guess she is about 18 now, wonder what sort of an adulthood she is embarking upon. ISTANBUL'S NOISE: More of the city. And now I am flashing on Almodovar's Madrid in Volver, which Ellen and I watched yesterday (and loved!), and thinking Oh my god, Almodovar could make such great movies with Pamuk's material. I don't know anything about the movie industry in Turkey, I wonder how much of a one there is. It doesn't look from IMDB like Pamuk has done any screenplays or had any of his books adapted; I would very much like this to happen but only if the right person were to do it. TELEVISION: Again, Almodovar -- he could so totally capture this sentence: After supper, I could tell from the synthetic colors flashing in their windows that quite a few people kept changing channels just as I did: a bleached-blond chanteuse singing old Turkish songs, a child eating chocolate, a woman prime minister saying everything was going to turn out fine, a football match on an emerald field, a Turkish pop group, journalists arguing about the Kurdish question, American police cars, a child reading the Koran, a helicopter exploding into flames in midair, a gentleman walking onto the stage and doffing his hat as the audience applauds, the same woman prime minister, a housewife telling an inquiring microphone a thing or two as she hangs up her laundry, an audience applauding the woman who has given the right answer in a general knowledge quiz... And movie or no, the pacing of the text in that sentence is just perfect. There is no possible way to improve on it. NIGHT: The noise of the city and the appearance of its streets -- very different now. FEAR, PARANOIA, AND DREAMS: Again with the disconnecting the phone. The dread he describes here is pretty easy for me to identify with. TOTAL: Such a sweet, and optimistic, ending for this essay. So terse. I find it hard to believe I have only been reading for about 3 pages.
*Some of the essays have a note at the top describing their origin and date of creation. I wish more of them did.
posted afternoon of Sunday, September 23rd, 2007
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