The Museum of Innocence

While traveling I try to keep as many of my experiences as "in line" with my location as possible, and part of that fun is trying to pair my reading selections with where I am. Last year when we visited here I read a great book about a Turkish family just after the fall of the Ottoman Empire, called "A Portrait of a Turkish Family". While we were in Rome, I was reading "The Pope's Ceiling", about the painting of the Sistine Chapel, and "The Genius in the Design", about Bernini and Borromini, two dueling architects during the Renaissance in Italy. I recommend them all. The last few weeks here in Istanbul, I have been reading a book called "The Museum of Innocence". The book is set between the 1970's and 1990's in Istanbul, and the museum itself is here also.

My interest was piqued when Ozayr and his students visited the Museum of Innocence. I had heard about this place last year, and I knew there was a lot of fuss over it after it's opening, and that Orhan Pamuk (probably Turkey's most famous author, Nobel Prize winner) was involved somehow. I asked Ozayr if the students had enjoyed the trip and he mentioned something about "reading the book first". He went on to explain that the museum is the collected items of a fictional character in one of Pamuk's books. Well, this intrigued me even more, and I picked up a copy of the book "The Museum of Innocence" from the english bookstore on Istiklal Caddesi.

The narrator in the book is Kemal, and the book follows a duration of time in which he is in love with a woman named Fusun. Over the course of their knowing one another, he begins (playfully, harmlessly at first, then more obssessively) to collect objects that remind him of her. Sometimes those items held undeniable significance, other times they were objects she merely touched, or from her childhood home. Through the ups and downs of his life and their relationship, these objects - as he plainly relates in the text of the novel, sometimes referring to the object as if he were showing it to you, off the page - offer a certain degree of comfort and nostalgia, not just in the realm of this (fictional) relationship, but for the time itself: 1970's Istanbul. It's politics and societal dynamics are the ever-present backdrop of Pamuk's novel. The streets of Istanbul are constantly referred to by name and neighbourhood. Istanbul is like a character all of its own - a thrill for me, of course, as I was walking those very same streets every day.

Throughout the novel the narrator refers to the actual objects, and you start to understand that by the end of the book, Kemal has created a "museum" of sorts - keeping all his acquired pieces in Fusun's childhood home. Kemal considers himself a "collector", with as much validity as any other, since he believes every collector is attempting to fill an emotional void or salve a painful wound.

In the final chapters Kemal (the fictional character) decides to open it to the public. Kemal decides to record his life story, to be the accompanying text, to give explanation to the items on display for all those who visit. Hence we have the genesis of the novel. He includes a ticket to the museum in the book itself. The Museum of Innocence stands Cukurcuma Caddesi, just where Fusun's parents lived in the book.

From what I understand, Orhan Pamuk wrote this book over a number of years, and the idea of a physical museum to house these objects was always in mind. Sometimes he would write something and have to search for the object he referenced. Other times he would find an irresistible object at a flea market or something, and write a storyline to include it. You can read a Q&A with Orhan Pamuk on the Museum of Innocence website.

Now if the book had been horrible, or if the museum had been horrible, I would have immediately dismissed it all as quite gimicky - but it worked very well. The book was great (though long, 725 pages) and the museum itself was enchanting. It is reminiscent of the small, private museums you see sometimes like the Florence Nightingale Museum or the Sigmund Freud Museum. There were people there who had not read the book, and I'm sure there are plenty of people who have read the book without visiting the museum. I think you could do both, or either.

For me, seeing the objects, recognizing them, and reflecting upon the book was a delight. I brought my book along and got my admittance to the museum (see the stamp in my book below) and finished the last couple of chapters inside, so I still had that "glow" that you get after finishing a book where you want to bask in it for a little longer. This was the ultimate in basking in a book's world for a little longer. All together it was one of the most rewarding reading experiences I've had.