Thanks to the miracle of breastfeeding I have been able to complete yet another book. Orhan Pamuk’s “My Name is Red” is the first book I’ve finished that has won a Nobel Prize. It is the second Noble prize winning book that I’ve attempted. I tried reading “Na Drini ?uprija” (The Bridge on the Drina) a while ago but never got past the third chapter. I was much younger then and I might try reading it again, but I will leave it be for now.

I am glad to have read “My Name is Red” in Croatian for several reasons
1) My sister gave me a copy
2) It is translation from Turkish anyway
3) A number of Turkish words (particularly words from the time of the Ottoman Empire) exist in Bosnian and are used in this translation. It gave the translation an authentic feel that I think English version would not have had the benefit of
4) It had a neat little dictionary of Turkish words at the back so the authenticity did not obscure the text
5) It is a good excuse to keep my Croatian from getting rusty
6) It was cool to compare translations with my friend who had an English copy

Overall the novel really drew me in. There are a number of layers to the story and I’ve only concentrated on the surface. There is a lot of history as well as art history, mythology, theology and other symbolism that I just had to acknowledge to be there without being able to really get into it.

Fortunately for me, Pamuk went into great detail to explain the art history concepts so by the end of the novel I felt that I knew much more on the subject. It made quite a difference in understanding the driving points in the plot. Even though large sections of the book are there to illuminate the reader’s knowledge of art, the plot moves at a fast pace. Every time I would get exhausted form reading the background information, the story would suddenly shift to one of the more exciting sub threads thus delighting the reader.

I was discussing this novel with Chris and he suggested I read Eco’s “The Name of the Rose” since it has a similar plot.