Thoughts on Reading Istanbul

Istanbul: Memories and the City by Orhan Pamuk.

I am really impressed by this book. It has layer on layer. It is a memoir, but it also seems clear that Orhan Pamuk is a novelist, and that he is deliberately creating a persona for the purposes of this book rather than simply writing a memoir. Still, there is a layer of the book that is simply the story of a boy growing to early manhood. There is a level which is the story of a family fortunate enough to have wealth, and unfortunate enough to be losing that wealth; a family in a secularizing Islamic country. It is a sad and troubled nuclear family, that is part of a larger extended family, Through the boy's and man's eyes we can perceive the changing roles of women in that social milieu. Through his experiences, we can perceive that the family is surrounded by a diverse society -- poor, nouveau riche and pashas and beys; rural immigrant and long established urban; Greek and Turk (while we know that there were also Christians and Jews, and once were Armenians).

Istanbul is the star of the book, and we see it through many illustrations, and through the eyes of the protagonist. But we also see the book through the protagonists readings of foreign visitors and local writers of the past two hundred years.

Orhan Pamuk is aware that his perception of his city is affected how others have portrayed it in words and in pictures, as he is aware that his memories of his life are affected by the stories he has been told about that life by others. He focuses on hüzün -- the special melancholia of Istanbul -- while making us aware that he like others uses the emotion for artistic purposes. If anything, the book is about the complexity of perception; that we see "reality" as if through a dance of the veils, a glimpse here, another there, perhaps of the real flesh and blood, perhaps of an artful contrivance.

I want to focus however on hüzün. Orhan Pamuk portrays it as a mood, special to Istanbul. Brain research is beginning to show us that the brain's function is related to the emotions we are feeling, and that different portions are active for positive and negative feelings. Research on the mind shows us also that individuals tend to return to a level of happiness/sadness again and again, which is the normal level for that person, but that over time people can learn to adjust that level.

I see no reason not to accept that there is a brain condition that people of a certain class and time in Istanbul returned to again and again, that is specific to Istanbul -- a mood for the city. Indeed, I have often found examples in which people in a country characterize one city as having different moods than another -- New York versus Washington versus New Orleans versus San Francisco; Cartagena versus Bogota; Rio versus Sao Paulo. I think it is likely that the weather and climate influence people in a city, and that Geneva's socked-in winters or Stockholm's short winter and long summer days affect moods year after year in their own specific ways. Istanbul depicts people whose mood is affected by their surroundings -- a city in decay -- and by their historical reality of loss of empire (and wealth) and Westernization. Indeed, at least in the past, urban areas were populated by genetically similar people, and there may have been genetic reasons why they felt similarly.

It interests me to think that culture may influence such repeatable moods. I think it is clear that the French are different from the English, Chinese from Indians, Southerners from Northerners in both Europe and the United States. It does seem strange, but perhaps quite possible, that the culture one grows up in leaves a lasting impression not only on the way your mind works, but on the patterns of electrical activity that show up again and again in the brain.

So what. Perhaps this is just a musing after the ice storm that disrupted lives here for the last couple of days. Perhaps it is merely a suggestion that to avoid melancholy, if you chose to do so, you should move to a city with a good climate and a vibrant economy (by all means avoid being poor). Perhaps it is a suggestion that one finds a culture which makes you feel good, and try to adapt to that culture.

I would return to Orhan Pamuk's success as a writer in this book. He conveys to the reader a perception of hüzün, a feeling. This is truly tacit knowledge -- if you don't know it already, you ain't never going to know! Yet through example, image, prose and selection of materials he creates an impression of hüzün, albeit as if through a shifting set of veils.