Exactly one year after receiving the Nobel Prize for Literature, Turkish author Orhan Pamuk gave a lecture in Rollins Chapel Thursday about the melancholic and self-reflective portrayal of Istanbul that made him famous.
Pamuk, the author of six acclaimed novels and the recipient of multiple international awards and honors, visited Dartmouth just after visiting Columbia, where he is spending the term teaching. Pamuk was invited to lead one of a series of lectures entitled "Global Issues," which honor former College President John Sloan Dickey's belief that an understanding of international issues is an essential component of any liberal arts education.
In his lecture, Pamuk discussed his novels, which center on his experiences in Turkey.
"It's not the landscape but the feelings it conveys to our spirit," Pamuk said about his descriptions of his hometown of Istanbul. "[There] is a certain melancholy feeling coming out of the beautiful Istanbul scenery."
Pamuk said that aspects of his novels portray an Istanbul torn constantly between a Western globalizing future and the sadness of a forgotten past of the greatness that was the Ottoman Empire.
"[A] heart of melancholy lies in loss ... then we want to continue our lives. Then we are torn between," Pamuk said.
While Pamuk's works are known for their somber tone, Pamuk himself was humorous and lighthearted.
"I am happy with the loose screws in my mind," Pamuk said. "They have served me well."
Pamuk also discussed the connecting theme of melancholy, present in all of his novels, and proceeded to tell the audience what he believed the translation of the Turkish word for melancholy truly meant.
"[The Turkish word for melancholy] is a nobility of failure ... to accept and embrace that failure," Pamuk said. "Melancholy lends us wisdom and distinction."
Pamuk continued to address how listing the scenery of Istanbul can express this melancholy.
"[It is of] never seeing women alone in a street after sunset ... of the city coming to a halt to salute the memory of Ataturk at 9:15... of the wheel of the golden horn looking toward the golden bridge, of crowds of men smoking cigarette smoke after a soccer match that inevitably was a failure."
Using such lists and descriptions of the city to reflexively convey his emotions is one of the main aspects of his writing, Pamuk said.
"A novel is a combination of drama and lists," Pamuk said after he abruptly ended his 15-minute recitation of scenes.
Concluding his lecture by mocking journalists who he said ask stupid questions, Pamuk noted what his favorite question is.
"My favorite question is why do I write," Pamuk said. "I write because I can only partake in real life by changing it. ... I write because I am afraid of being forgotten."
"I write because I wish to escape from the foreboding that there is a place I must go but never manage to get there," he said, concluding: "I write to be happy."
