The Innocence of Objects

by Orhan Pamuk

The culmination of decades of omnivorous collecting, Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul uses his novel of lost love, The Museum of Innocence , as a departure point to explore the city of his youth. In The Innocence of Objects , Pamuk’s catalog of this remarkable museum, he writes about things that matter deeply to the psychology of the collector, the proper role of the museum, the photography of old Istanbul (illustrated with Pamuk’s superb collection of haunting photographs and movie stills), and of course the customs and traditions of his beloved city. The book’s imagery is equally evocative, ranging from the ephemera of everyday life to the superb photographs of Turkish photographer Ara Güler. Combining compelling art and writing, The Innocence of Objects is an original work of art and literature.

Praise for The Innocence of

"[A] most audacious and provocative take on the history of Turkish culture and politics by Turkey's best-known dissenter." — Publishers Weekly

“Orhan Pamuk’s The Innocence of Objects makes me want to stand up and shout! It is a triumph of intimacy over sterility, depth over superficiality, and humanity over inhumanity. It is also the most perfect intersection of art and literature that I have ever encountered.” — The Huffington Post

“I bought the Turkish edition of The Innocence of Objects , a richly illustrated book about the museum, and have been waiting for Abrams’ English translation. It’s just come out, and Pamuk’s text about the project is as illuminating as it promised to be.” – The Design Observer
“—Pamuk’s tour de force and mind-benderabout museums, art, artifice, and the place of fiction and the writer in theworld—is a nonfiction narrative unlike most you will encounter.” —
“[A] squarish volume, filled with gorgeous photographs of the museum’s interior. . . . The exhibition photos are accompanied by Pamuk’s lively, sometimes dazzling commentary, which ranges freely from personal anecdotes to meditations on aesthetics to whimsical ‘memories’ of his fictional protagonist. . . .” — The American Reader


“ The Innocence of Objects —Pamuk’s tour de force and mind-bender about museums, art, artifice, and the place of fiction and the writer in the world—is a nonfiction narrative unlike most you will encounter.” — Virginian Pilot

Genres: Art, Nonfiction, Turkish Literature, Turkish, History, Literature, Photography

272 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2012

About the author

Ferit Orhan Pamuk is a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic, and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature. One of Turkey's most prominent novelists, he has sold over 13 million books in 63 languages, making him the country's best-selling writer.
Pamuk's novels include Silent House, The White Castle, The Black Book, The New Life, My Name Is Red and Snow. He is the Robert Yik-Fong Tam Professor in the Humanities at Columbia University, where he teaches writing and comparative literature. He was elected to the American Philosophical Society in 2018.
Of partial Circassian descent and born in Istanbul, Pamuk is the first Turkish Nobel laureate. He is also the recipient of numerous other literary awards. My Name Is Red won the 2002 Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger, 2002 Premio Grinzane Cavour and 2003 International Dublin Literary Award.
The European Writers' Parliament came about as a result of a joint proposal by Pamuk and José Saramago. Pamuk's willingness to write books about contentious historical and political events put him at risk of censure in his homeland. In 2005, a lawyer sued him over a statement acknowledging the Armenian genocide in the Ottoman Empire. Pamuk said his intention had been to highlight issues of freedom of speech in Turkey. The court initially declined to hear the case, but in 2011 Pamuk was ordered to pay 6,000 liras in compensation for having insulted the plaintiffs' honor.

Reviews

[Lyn Elliott · Rating 5 out of 5]

Goodreads book description first: 'The culmination of decades of omnivorous collecting, Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence in Istanbul uses his novel of lost love, The Museum of Innocence, as a departure point to explore the city of his youth. In The Innocence of Objects, Pamuk’s catalogue of this remarkable museum, he writes about things that matter deeply to him: the psychology of the collector, the proper role of the museum, the photography of old Istanbul (illustrated with Pamuk’s superb collection of haunting photographs and movie stills), and of course the customs and traditions of his beloved city. The book’s imagery is equally evocative, ranging from the ephemera of everyday life to the superb photographs of Turkish photographer Ara Güler. Combining compelling art and writing, The Innocence of Objects is an original work of art and literature'.

Pamuk conceived of the The Museum of Innocence and his museum simultaneously.

He wanted, he says, ‘to collect and exhibit the “real objects” of a fictional story in a museum and to write a novel based on these objects. At the time, I did not know the shape the novel would take. But I had a feeling that focussing on objects (a radio, a wall clock, a lighter) and places (an apartment block, Taksim Square…) but also concepts (love, impatience, panic) would be the subject headings’.

For years before he began to write Museum of Innocence in 2002, he collected objects which might be included in its story – a tea cup, cigarette butts, old photographs and books, shoes, furniture and furnishings, clothes – just about anything you can think of. The objects continued to accumulate over the years it took to write the book. Eventually it was published in Turkish in 2008 and in English in 2009.

The museum needed to be in a house, because there the lives of individuals would be its subject, not the epic presentations of national museums. So he needed to find the house in which the novel would be set, and describes the neighbourhoods in old Istanbul through which he walked for three years before finding what he wanted.

As the museum and the novel were simultaneously conceived, so the search for objects, the search for a building for the museum and the search for the form of the novel were intertwined in real time.

They are also intertwined in this book, whose first chapters describe the background to the project, the searches and their outcomes – how the novel, for instance, evolved from an annotated catalogue to a novel in classic form that both traced the romance of its two principal characters and explored the entire culture of its period through objects. It’s no wonder it took him several years to write and even more years to open the museum.

Eventually he realised he wanted to write The Innocence of Objectsas an illustrated companion piece to the museum and to the novel - perhaps a catalogue but much more than that. Most of it shows the display cases of objects in the museum, their relationship to the story and emotions of the novel and the history of Istanbul. Sometimes we get snatches from his own family.

It’s a wonderful insight into Pamuk’s world and the complexity of his vision. Although it can be read as a catalogue for his museum, it stands alone as an intriguing work. If ever I were to get to Istanbul again, I would visit the museum, and I’d take a copy of The Innocence of Objects with me.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

This unique art book is a tour of an actual museum, in Istanbul, which Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk created as a repository of physical objects described the chapters in his 2009 novel The Museum of Innocence.

I adore house museums, There are great ones in St. Petersburg-- Blok's and Pushkin's, Dostoyevsky's, Akhmatova's, and in Moscow--Tolstoy's, --the Russians are very fond of the. I've been to George Sand's and Victor Hugo's in Paris. Also love little museums and cabinets of curiosities, such as Los Angeles' Museum of Jurassic Technology. Ditto assemblage art and art in boxes and shrines, such as the boxes of Joseph Cornell and Lucas Samaras.

What Pamuk has created here is an unbelievable labor of love, designed to bring to life each chapter of his novel via painstakingly assembled collections of objects which talk to each other and speak of a time and a place beyond the book, of his own life and the life of Turkey in the '50s through the '80s.

There's a resonant sadness about life that has passed by, the life of things abandoned. Even the neighborhood where the museum is located had been Greek--the Greeks forced to emigrate and leaving all their things behind. Ghosts, and more ghosts, the ghosts of things and people. Reading this, I began writing my own list of the 'things' that would be in my own museum if I'd kept them--though we don't have the storage facilities that the residents of Istanbul seemed to have--whole rooms of apartments, whole apartments, nothing but stored objects.

Joseph Brodsky thought a great deal about objects and their sadness--the opposite and yet not really, of Pamuk who lived all his life in one city, and was able to collect all these tender, sad, resonant objects, Brodsky as a forced exile had to leave all his objects behind--and yet one senses engagement with the same issues. This book reminded me of a line from the Brodsky poem "Ex Voto"--...in an Auschwitz of sidewalk sales.' also of these from his poem "Nature Morte"--'shall I talk about days or nights?/Shall I talk about people? No, only things/ For people will surely die...'

This book has filled me with nostalgia and sadness and tenderness for a time and a life and a place I never knew and can never know--for even if I go to Istanbul now, it won't be the Istanbul of then, I can only know it though this art. Now, of course, must read the novel to which this museum is the companion.

[Svetlana · Rating 4 out of 5]

It’s a great companion book for The Museum of Innocence novel. Very good organized and great content, from the searching the building for the museum till renovation. Great quality photos of the exhibits for each chapter in the novel.
Only minus it’s a font (or maybe it’s just my edition). The font varies on the pages from very small to very large, and on some pages black font on the dark pages which is difficult to read.

[Özlem Güzelharcan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Masumiyet Müzesi'ni sevmemiş, ayrıntılar içinde boğulduğum için yarıda bırakmıştım. O kitabı ne kadar sevmediysem bu -inanılmaz bir titizlikle ve sanatsal ve entellektüel keyifle hazırlanan- kataloğu/kitabı da tam tersine, çok sevdim.

Masumiyet Müzesi'ni okumuş olsun ya da olmasın, Orhan Pamuk'u sevsin ya da sevmesin, her edebiyat/fotoğraf/tarih/sanatseverin bu çalışmaya evinde, kütüphanesinde yer açması gerektiğine inanıyorum.

[Biron Paşa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orhan Pamuk Masumiyet Müzesi'ni en başta bir katalog kitap olarak planladığını anlatıyor. Bu plana göre kitabın bölümleri eşyalardan oluşuyor ve hikâye bu sırayla ve düzenle ilerliyordu, fakat Pamuk romanını yazarken bunun hikâyesini anlatmak için çok da iyi bir yöntem olmadığı fark ediyor ve bu katalog kitap fikrinden vazgeçiyor. Ama müze romandan dört yıl sonra 2012'de açılınca, Pamuk da içinde kalan fikri gerçekleştirip bu katalog kitabı çıkarıyor.

Bu katalog kitap iki bölümden oluşuyor, ilk bölümde, yazarın müze fikrini nasıl bulduğu, bu fikri gerçekleştirmek için yıllarca yavaş yavaş hem kendini, hem de müzeyi nasıl hazırladığını okuyoruz. Müze açmaya karar verdiğinde ve bunu çevresindekilerle paylaştığında, onlara romancı olmak istediğini söylediğinde aldığına benzer tepkiler alıyor yazar, benim de çok iyi bildiğim “Kim senin romanlarını okusun, zaten Türkiye’de kaç kişi roman okuyor?” soruları yerine “Kim senin müzene gelsin, zaten Türkiye’de kaç kişi müze geziyor?” sorusu gelmiş. Bazen arkadaşlarından ya da akrabalarından, bazen girdiği dükkânlardan eşyaları yavaş yavaş topladıkça müze fikrine iyimserlikle inandığını yazıyor Pamuk, Şeylerin Masumiyeti’nde; “Anna Karenina’nın bir müzesi olsa ben koşa koşa giderdim,” diyor. Ama böyle bir müzenin nasıl olacağını birilerine açıklamaya çalışınca o iyimserliği ve özgüveni kendisinde bulamamış çoğu zaman. “Zaten tam olarak ben de bilmiyordum neden bu müzeyi yaptığımı,” diyor. Oysa bu kitabı okuyanlar seziyor neden yaptığını. Kitabın ikinci bölümü ise kitabın katalog kısmı, müzenin parçalarını gösteren fotoğrafların yanında, bazen Pamuk’un onları nerelerden bulduğunu, bazen "şeylerin" kendi ağzından kendi hikâyelerini, bazen de Kemal ya da müze ya da Pamuk için önemini anlatan metinler yer alıyor.

Pamuk'un Saf ve Düşünceli Romancı'da değindiği "roman merkezi" fikrine gelmek istiyorum; Pamuk'un romanlarında nasıl bir gizli merkez varsa, bu kitapta da bir gizli merkez var. Pamuk'un kitap boyunca ısrarla sorduğu sorunun, bu merkez olduğunu düşünüyorum: Pamuk bu müzeyi neden yaptı? Çeşitli cevaplar verdiği, ama aslında hiçbirini esas cevap olarak almadığı, cevabı da okurun romanı ya da katalog kitabı okuduğunda, müzeyi gezdiğinde alabileceğini imâ ettiği bu soru, aslında içinde iki önemli konu barındırıyor. 1- Yaratıcı yazarın ya da sanatçının çocuksuluğu ve çocukların iştahlı yaratıcılığı 2- Proust'un zamanı yavaşlatarak onu anlamaya çalışması, kayıp zamanın izine neden düşüldüğü, insanın ölümlülüğü.

Bu sanatçının çocuksuluğu meselesi, aydınlanmacı rasyonel akıl ile postmodern düşüncenin çelişkisiyle açıklanabilir belki. Bir bilim adamı gibi dünyaya faydalı olmak, entelektüel olmak, ülkesinin bitmez tükenmez sorunlarından konuşmak, iklim felaketlerinden bahsetmek gibi çabaların karşısına, kendi çocukluğunun, gençliğinin yok olmasına kederlenen, o yok oluşu en azından çocukluğunda biriktirdiği futbolcu kartlarını ya da o zamanlar annesinin kullandığı bir sürahiyi, babasının çantasında gördüğü kimlik ya da pasaportu koruma altına alan saf sanatçıyı koyuyor Pamuk, ama bunu bir iç rahatlığıyla değil, içten içe utanarak, çekinerek yapıyor.

Gönül rahatlığıyla yapamasa da müzeyi, yapmaktan vazgeçmiyor. Ve iddialı müze manifestosunda büyük ulusal müzelerin karşısında küçük, ucuz bireysel müzeleri koyuyor. Bu büyük müzelerin devleti ve toplumu yücelttiğini, küçük müzelerin ise bireyi ön plana çıkardığını söylüyor.

Masumiyet Müzesi yalnızca Kemal'in aşkını Füsun'un eşyaları üstünden değil, Pamuk'un içinde büyüdüğü dünyayı da saklıyor.

Şeylerin Masumiyeti'nin ruhunu paylaştığı bir diğer kitap ise Balkon: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/3...

[Jonathan Price · Rating 5 out of 5]

Orhan Pamuk has created a museum catalog based on his novel about a man who collects objects that his beloved has touched. The character wanted to build a museum for these objects, but died before he could complete his vision.

So now the novelist who wrote The Museum of Innocence has built the museum--and he has produced another book, the catalog for that museum, called The Innocence of Objects.

Inside the museum, Pamuk has built a box for almost every chapter in the novel, filling each boxes with objects mentioned in the text—and some things that were not even thought of in the novel. So the catalog shows us each box.

Some of these objects--or objects like them--were crucial to misunderstandings in the love story—the locus of immense suffering, like the earrings on which the drama pivots toward tragedy. Other things just happen along, as part of the modern novel’s apparatus (we must be able to imagine the ashtray in which the heroine stubs out her cigarette).

Of course, we understand that these objects did not really belong to the lovers, Fusun and Kemal, because the lovers never really existed. But here are objects, hanging in front of us. And they are documented in the catalog.

We are being encouraged to imagine that these objects really are the things that these characters touched, felt, stared at, pocketed. In that way, the objects become talismans, memory stones, good luck charms. Under their spell, we re-imagine the characters and re-experience the emotions we felt as we read about their suffering.

A moment later, we return to reality, recognizing that these artifacts are just junk collected by the curator, this novelist named Pamuk.

So in the museum and in the catalog, we float back and forth between a hypnotic reverie, a fantasy that we enjoy populating with these things, and moments when we come back to the ground, and recognize where we are, and what we are really looking at—the odds and ends of old Istanbul.

In the catalog, Pamuk muses on the way he found the objects, how he assembled them, what they meant to his character, and what they now mean to him. In a mirror image of his novel’s title, he calls the catalog The Innocence of Objects.

What does he mean by innocence?

The lack of experience, first of all.

In the novel, the lovers have a mad affair for a month and a half, then split for a year. She marries, and he suffers. Then he returns, and they stay together but apart, gazing at each other over a kitchen table, but hardly touching, for eight more years.

At the end of the novel, they have one night of passion, but the heroine, who has been dreaming of having a white wedding, decides that she has lost that hope, and instead of laughing, drives their car into a tree, killing herself, and wounding Kemal, her beloved. He recovers and hires a novelist to describe the museum he wants to build in memory of Fusun, the Museum of Innocence.

In Pamuk’s mind, objects, too, can become innocent, losing touch with their past, getting taken out of their original homes, deprived of their owner’s memories.

In a way, what Pamuk has done in his museum is to give these objects a new story, a new context, an almost accidental history. And yet they remain mysterious, as if they each had a soul resistant to the tarnish of experience.

Instead of art history as catalog, then, we get an odd mix of fiction, reminiscence, and social observation. Pamuk talks as the novelist, the collector, the museum director, the curator, shifting quickly from one role to another. He drops one veil only to pick up another.

Instead of getting academic essays purporting to pin down the facts, we get a series of reflections that deliberately raise a nested hierarchy of tangled questions like:
• Why did the author feel compelled to create the museum?
• How did he assemble the objects into the exhibits?
• How closely do the exhibits follow the novel?
• How did he feel as he was assembling these exhibits?
• What kind of logic did he follow as he put together these boxes so reminiscent of Joseph Cornell’s work?
• How well does this catalog represent the exhibits?
• Will the catalog clarify the relationship between the action in the novel, and the objects in the museum? Or will it magnify the weirdness?
• Why did he do all this?
• Who is this man, who puts himself at the center of the fiction, the fact, the imaginary, and the objectively real?

Imagining the museum

In the catalog, Pamuk describes how he came to write the novel, build the museum—and then create this catalog. Here's his workspace.

He had a double vision from the beginning:

I wanted to collect and exhibit the “real” objects of a fictional story in a museum and to write a novel based on these objects.

What I had in mind was a sort of encyclopedic dictionary in which not only objects (a radio, a wall clock, a lighter) and places (an apartment block, Taksim Square, Pelur Restaurant) but also concepts (love, impatience, panic) would be the subject headings.

Just as I would treat and represent and illustrate concepts such as “impatience” and “Jealousy” many years later in my museum, I often thought of illustrating, explaining, and treating these concepts in this dictionary. The painter inside me, whom I had killed off at twenty-three, was—a mere fifteen years alter—attempting to resurface from the depths of my soul onto the table, to nestle onto the page.

His assemblages begin to seem like a magic carpet woven of other people's memorabilia.

But that structure wrestled with the drama.

He first imagined that the novel would be an ordered series of entries.

I first thought that I might be able to put together a novel in the form of a museum catalogue with long and richly detailed note.

Just as in an annotated museum catalogue, I would describe an object to a reader as if I were presenting it to a museum visitor, and then move on to describe the memories that this object evoked in my protagonist.

But a novel cannot survive that structure.

I quickly realized that writing my novel as an annotated catalogue would not allow me to adequately explore or express the full import of Kemal and Fusun’s romance and the entire culture of the period through objects.

I now wanted to write the story of Fusun and Kemal in the form of a classic novel.

As the novel grew, he collected objects.

Pamuk emphasizes the strangeness of his obsession.

I didn’t quite know what I was going to do with my growing collection. I was quite insistently, perhaps even obsessively, constructing a fantasy of a museum and novel, but its strangeness, its oddity, and the difficulty of realizing it scared me.

A man possessed, he looked for a space for the museum.

During those years, he visited many small museums in Europe—personal collections, the homes of famous people, the palaces of minor aristocrats, long gone.

I thought that I too could do things my way and set up an odd little museum in an out-of-the-way Istanbul neighborhood.

He picked out a neighborhood of antique shops, and bought a house.

In a way, the house was part of my collection—its biggest, most expensive, and most visible piece.

But even then he could not explain logically what he was doing.

Friends asked politely, “What is it about this museum that’s so important?” I didn’t yet have the full answer to that question. It was almost as if some strange demon—a djinn from One Thousand and One Nights—had possessed me and was compelling me to set up a museum.

Once the novel came out, he started making the displays.

In the catalog, he tells us how he had fake food made up, an imitation commercial created to mime one in the book, cigarettes touched up with lipstick and cherry ice cream, photographs crudely photoshopped to show a girl in a red dress in a black and white photo. In effect, he was admitting the fakery, while asking us to imagine that she is Fusun, the heroine.

Assembling the exhibits

Now he had piles of objects rescued from junk shops, from his own family’s apartments, from collectors. And he had a basic concept for the exhibition: one box per chapter.

But how should he arrange the objects inside each box?

Describing the reasoning behind the arrangements

As a curator, Pamuk admits the doubts, uncertainties, and confusion he felt as he tried to organize the exhibits.

What kind of compositional logic should I use to place the objects in the box? What shape should each box take? I had already collected some objects before and during the writing of the novel, such as Fusun’s yellow shoes and the cowbell.

Should I put the objects in the box according to the order in which they appear in the book or should I make a different tableau out of them?

No, I couldn’t just display the objects in order, like books on a shelf. The boxes had to have a special structure and an aura; they each had to have a particular soul.

Imagining the boxes one by one as objects beautiful in their own right has added a touch of lyricism to the museum.

Admitting the joys of curating

As a curator, Pamuk tells us what he did, exposing the curatorial process, but he also tells us how he felt.

I asked myself over and over again why I had such a deeply pleasant time while I was composing this box (and its sister, box 47, “My Father’s Death”) with objects that illustrate the life, belongings, and death of Fusun’s father.

Was it the opportunity to play around, years later, with familiar objects that were used for completely different purposes?

Putting these things together in a box, measuring every centimeter, and making the slightest change in search of a particular harmony made me feel as if I were building a world.

To evoke emotions try juxtaposing objects in ways we don’t expect

Pamuk's catalog offers us ideas for exhibition design.

The Museum of Innocence is based on the assumption that objects used for different purposes and that evoke disparate memories can, when placed side by side, bring forth unusual emotions and thoughts.

Serendipity is part of the curatorial process.

Pamuk began to imagine that his objects began to communicate with each other when placed together, yielding unexpected pleasures.

I came to see that the objects that I’d been collecting for so many years and that were portrayed in the book could take on new meanings when displayed in the museum. As they gradually found their places in the museum, the objects began to talk among themselves, singing a different tune and moving beyond what was described in the novel.

The objects were suddenly communicating with one another in this new arrangement, just like the object stored in the dusty rooms in my grandmother’s house did. While making the museum, we frequently came face-to-face with the serendipitous nature of beauty.

Offer contradictory perspectives, to spark imagining

In the boxes, some objects are suspended in air, while others get tucked into cubby holes, some are plastered on the background, while others press up against the glass. Each object gets treated differently in this world.

What is near is far, what is old is new

In the background we see a photo of old Istanbul…but intruding from the right, a cigarette box threatens to crush a building, and on the left, a glass teacup is half the size of a lamp post.

These distortions of scale tend to make the physical objects pop out, as we focus on them, and then fade from view as we lose ourselves in the diorama. Pamuk enjoys this kind of push-me pull-you effect.

What is dirty is now put on a pedestal

In box after box, we see unwashed plates, a peeling sink, used tickets, a dusty bottle—objects that have not been cleaned up.

But each object is elevated, some literally put on a pedestal, and spotlighted from in front, or lit up from the back.

Some boxes become stages.

In another box, the red curtain pulls back to reveal a painting, and in front of it, a three-dimensional china dog, looking at us, as if just disturbed. We have depth and flatness, fakery and an unembarassed admission of the artifice.

What is real is not real

In many boxes, Pamuk displays photos of real people.

Because the novel describes the lovers and their friends in detail, and because the museum is dedicated to the lovers, we tend to imagine the people in these photographs as the characters.

But at the same time, we know these people staring out of old newspapers, group photos, and snapshots really existed, led their own lives, had real loves. We are suspended between the real and the imagined, tilting now one way, now the other. Pamuk clearly likes this suspension of disbelief, this dreamlike state.
Creating the catalog

Having written the novel, and set up the museum, Pamuk created a catalog that is part artbook, part memoir, part reflection on the city he loves so much. It’s puzzling to see the novel next to the catalog, with their chiming titles, The Museum of Innocence, and the Innocence of Objects.

Which is which?

Throughout the catalog, Pamuk deliberately keeps raising this question: What is the relationship between the novel and the museum…and the catalog?

For Pamuk, the interplay between these three versions of his tale is more important than a clear distinction, because it triggers more imagination.

He suggests, then refuses a strict one-to-one correspondence between chapter and box, between the museum in the novel and physical museum, between the museum and its catalog, between Pamuk the person, the collector, the curator, and Pamuk the supposed ghost writer of the novel.

He invokes the spirits. He distinguishes the museum from the novel in this way:

It has it own spirit, existing independently of the novel.

There is, of course, a strong bond that holds the novel and the museum together: both are products of my imagination, dreamed up word by word, object by object, and picture by picture over a long period of time. This is perhaps also why the novel and the museum each tell a story. The objects exhibited in the museum are described in the novel. Still, words are one thing, objects another.

The images that words generate in our minds are one thing: the memory of an old objet used once upon a time is another. But imagination and memory have a strong affinity, and this is the basis of the affinity between the novel and the museum.

Because the museum is not an illustration of the novel, and because the novel does not explain the museum, we need the catalog that he dreamt of years ago. He teases us to think that perhaps the catalog will explain all. It does not.

But it pretends to.

Pamuk devotes one catalog chapter to each box, which corresponds to one chapter in the novel.

But the boxes for some chapters were not ready in time for publication, so they are shown with a red stage curtain, not ready to be shown.

He even issues this challenge:

Spot the differences between the objects described in chapter 22 of the novel and those in this box!

Of course, the exhibition box springs free of the novel…and that is part of the pleasure that Pamuk began to feel as he assembled his museum.

…The more I worked on the museum and realized that I could use the objects to bring out themes beyond those of the novel, the freer I felt.

On the other hand, I also wanted there to be an exact concordance between the museum and the novel.

From watching visitors to the museum who had also read the book, I realized that readers remembered no more than six pages of descriptive detail in the six-hundred-page novel.

Readers who looked at the displays were likelier to remember the emotions they’d felt while reading the novel rather than the objects in it.

So if there is a concord between a visit to the museum and a reading of the novel, it is the opportunity to re-experience emotions. The objects simply nudge the imagination to recollect those emotions in the tranquility of the museum.

And, there is some kind of concord between the writing of the novel and the curatorial process:

Writing a novel sometimes involves remembering objects and images from bygone days and putting them together to create something new; setting up this museum evoked similar emotions in me.

Our aim is not to find an exact image of the past. We want to say something about the substance and structure of our present lives through the objects of the past.

In this view, any exhibition is a fiction. It is an attempt to get at the truth of our lives today, by taking objects from the past out of context, putting them together in ways that their culture would never recognize, to encourage our visitors to imagine, to remember, to experience strange emotions.

But what then is the catalog?

For Pamuk, it is an opportunity to reflect on his own experience, and to question his own motives.
He examines his own motives as a collector

Pamuk admits he is the collector of most of these objects, and tries to say why.

He laments the way that the Westernized middle classes ignored and casually destroyed Istanbul’s past, throwing away photographs, calligraphic manuscripts, objects that told stories of the Ottoman culture.

Pamuk himself went looking in antique shops for what survived.

The only survivors of this massacre were those lucky objects that were useful or pretty enough to find a place in the daily lives of Istanbul’s fluid, constantly evolving population—ashtrays, jugs, nutcrackers coffee grinders, and carousel clocks, for example. This destruction left behind an eerie emptiness, similar to the void created in the wake of the burning of the city’s wooden mansions in the 1950s.

For Pamuk, the photos, ticket stubs, menus evoke a Istanbul now lost.
In the long introduction to the catalog, and in rambles touched off by an object, Pamuk sorts through his memories of that city:
• The people who move into a neighborhood, changing it, then move on
• Itinerant tailors
• The packs of dogs who used to guard old neighborhoods in Istanbul
• The ships going through the Bosporus
• The films and open-air cinemas of his youth

These objects evoke odd emotions.

If at any point in the novel or in any part of the museum there are traces of nostalgia or notes from a requiem for a way of living in Istanbul that has all but disappeared now, then they are mostly found in this section.

He puts himself at the center.

He dreamt up the novel, the museum, the catalog.

His imagination keeps the objects dancing in tune.

He believes in juxtaposition, putting together objects that do not ordinarily belong together, to spark “strange emotions.”

He likes paradoxes that tease us into imagining one story, and then another, like The Thousand and One Nights.

More at http://museumzero.blogspot.com/2013/0...

[Sine · Rating 5 out of 5]

müzeyi gezme imkanı olmayanlar için müzenin basılı hali gibi olmuş. ben hatıraların masumiyeti'ni okurken bahsettiği kutuları -müzeyi dün gezmiş olmama rağmen- daha iyi hatırlayabilmek için bakmak amaçlı yanıma aldım bu kitabı, ama bir süre sonra okuduğum kitabı unutup buna daldığımı fark edince okuduklarıma ekledim. ve hatıraların masumiyeti'nin ortasında kutular üzerinden anlatım bittiği için bu da ondan daha erken bitti. müzeden ufak tefek farklılıklar var elbette, atladığım birkaç detayı da gördüm, müzede çok ufak olduğu için inceleyemediğim eşyaları, kartpostalları da inceleme şansım oldu. en güzeli, müzeden alıp götürmek istediğim birkaç kartpostalın büyük halleriyle kitapta basıldığını görmek oldu aslında. taratıp renkli çıktı ile yakınımda tutmak isteyecek kadar sevdim. müzeyi gezenlere ayrı, gezme imkanı olmayanlara ayrı tavsiye ediyorum. ara ara canınız sıkılınca kitaplıktan çıkarıp şöyle bir karıştırmak için de ideal formata sahip ayrıca.

[Beyza · Rating 5 out of 5]

Yazarın bundan başka Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık, Kırmızı Saçlı Kadın, Yeni Hayat ve Masumiyet Müzesi kitaplarını okudum . Dikkat ettiğim nokta tüm bu kitaplarda baş karakterler hep obsesif, takıntıları olan insanlar. Orhan Pamuk Masumiyet Müzesini nasıl oluşturduğunu anlatıyor bu kitapta. Aynı obsesyonu onda da gördüm. Tabi bu takıntı iyi ki varmış çünkü harika bir kitap ve müzeyi doğurmuş. Müzeye gidemedim henüz ama kitaptaki fotoğraflar bile muhteşem! 🖤

[Özgür Tekin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Bir kaç gündür Schubert dinleyip bir müze kataloğu okuyorum. Entellikte tavan yaptığımın resmidir :) Orhan Pamuk hakkında bir çok şey söyleyebilirsiniz ama Sezar'ın hakkını da vermeli hançerden önce ya da sonra. Geçenlerde bir meslektaşımın roman yazmakla ilgili şöyle dediğini duydum: "Roman yazmak zor iş değildir; mesela Masumiyet Müzesi gibi bir romanı yazabilirsiniz; önemli olan bir klasik yazmaktır, onu yazmak zordur." (Sessizce ortamdan uzaklaştım tabii ki yüzümde b**ch please ifadesiyle.) Pamuk'un yaptığı bir edebiyatçı tarafından bu topraklarda yapılmadı. Gerçekle hayali iç içe geçirip önünüze atıyor ve soru işaretlerinize gülüyor. Orhan Pamuk'un külliyatını okudum ve büyük bir zevk ve merakla tekrar okumaya hazırım.

[lita · Rating 5 out of 5]

I moved this review to my blog

===
A wedding gift from Irwan. Thanks a lot! :)

[مروان البلوشي · Rating 4 out of 5]

كان حظي طيباً بإقتناء هذا الكتاب في زيارتي الأخيرة لإسطمبول من مكتبة روبنسون كروزو الشهيرة ذات الأرضية الخشبية العتيقة والإحساس الحميم الذي يعرفه عشاق الكتب والمكتبات لدى دخولهم مكتبة قديمة وضيقة وذات تاريخ متراكم.
كعادته، يقوم الشيخ أورهان باموك بإعادة تشكيل عالمه حول فعل التذكر والذاكرة نفسها. ذاكرة الحقائق FACTUAL MEMORY والذاكرة النفسية Psychological Memory اللتان هما مادة عمل الكاتب ومخزونه (علماء النفس ينصحون بمسح الذاكرة النفسية والإبقاء على ذاكرة الحقائق). لذا فهو يذكرني بكاتبين كبيرين أحدهما فرنسي والأر مصري وأعني هنا : مارسيل بروست وجمال الغيطاني.

وهذا الكتاب هو الدليل التوضيحي الذي وضعه باموك لمن قرأ روايته الأخيرة "متحف البراءة" التي تقوم حبكتها على جمع البطل العاشق (كمال) لأكبر عدد ممكن من الأمور المتعلقة بحبيبته (فيوسون) من خواتمها إلى أعقاب السيجارة التي رمتها بعد الإنتهاء من التدخين. كما أن أورهان باموك قام بإفتتاح متحف في منطقة بيه اوغلو يحمل ذات إسم الرواية (متحف البراءة) وتحتشد فيه متعلقات باموك نفسه.
لا شك أن هذا الكتاب المصور والذي ترافقه نصوص لطيفة هو شاهد على عشق باموك للربط بين أصغر تفاصيل حياتنا اليومية بأعقد مسائل الأدب والروح والتاريخ بشكل شجني ومؤثر حيناً ومرح وغرائبي في حين آخر. ورغم بعض الفوضى في إختيار المواضيع وترتيبها إلا أن هذه الفوضى اللذيذة هي إنعكاس طبيعي لشخصية إسطمبول نفسها بكل طبقات التاريخ والعشق والتصوف والحروب والدراما الإنسانية التي مرت بها هذه المدينة. أتوقع أنها ستكون قراءة لطيفة لمن يحب قلم باموك وإسطمبول وكل كتابة مشحونة بالحنين للماضي والذكريات.

[Ozcan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Masumiyet Müzesi kitabının bir bakıma el kitabı. İlk 45-50 sayfa fikrin ortaya çıkışı, yazım aşamaları, müze evin hazırlanışı vb konuları içeren yazılardan oluşuyor. Sonraki sayfalarda Masumiyet Müzesi kitabının bölüm başlıkları altında müzede bu bölümlerle ilgili sergilenenlerin resimleri, açıklamaları yer alıyor.

Benim gibi, kitap yazım süreçlerini hep merak eden ve/veya müzeyi gezememişler için iyi bir kaynak. Kitabın hemen bitiminde her şey sicak sıcakken okudum. Sağlıcakla. Kitapla
.
.
..

[Irwan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Two men, Kemal and Orhan, conspires to turn Time into Space. That is the way Kemal describes his idea of a museum. A personal museum which he and Orhan believes to be better in capturing the ordinary, everyday stories of individuals which are richer, more humane and much more joyful. As opposed to the large national museums which construct the historical narratives of a society, community, team, nation, state, tribe, company or species.

These two men, the first is the fictional character created by the second, capture a love and life story with objects. Weaving the objects to reach a compositional harmony to tell a story. While doing so one inevitably also captures the context: the city, the people, the era in which the story is situated. It delights me to see the a story of an individual (and fictional!) can capture a city and an era. I envy how he can portray Istanbul, his beloved city, with this work. I wish I could the same with mine. Imagination! It is the glue to all these.

Orhan has created the story by interweaving words and sentences in Museum of Innocence. The he married this word-based realm with tangible objects and creates something else. Turning novels into movies is not something new. Movies are two dimensional representations that "move" determinately in (limited) time. To some extend it limits the freedom of imagination due to its inherent contraints: limited time and many choices has been made for you beforehand (what the actors look like, for example). But turning a novel into a museum seems more liberating. It is a three dimensional representation that can appreciated in your own time. You can roam in it at your own pace. Revelation of objects' shape and color apparently do not spoil a story as much as casting the characters. I love this original idea!

As always, I am drawn to Pamuk's authorship, and now craftsmanship, not only based on the outcome of his work. But also by how much the work shows his pleasure in making it. That is what any life vocations - be it composing music or writing a computer software - should be about, if you want to be happy in life. Like any of us, he is also haunted by doubts, especially when doing something that has the risk to seem awfully pointless like collecting 4213 cigarette stubs. During the years of the making of the museum, 'what is the meaning of all this' question lingers. Until the end he still did not find the rational answer. Like Kemal proclamation of happiness by the end of his life story, Pamuk decides that the best answer is an explanation like one from the Arabian Nights: some spirit possessed him and almost forced him to make this museum, Aladdin was scared of the genie that came out of the lamp, but what he was doing was making him happy. He considers himself lucky. An enviable conclusion!

[Cem · Rating 5 out of 5]

kitabı almadan önce "müze hakkında" diye biliyordum. fazlası aklıma gelmezdi. aldıktan sonra da. ilk kısım bitip de bölümler üstünden dönmeye başlayınca kitap, o zaman anlaşıldı. müzenin yapılış süreci ve yıllarca akılda nasıl yoğrulduğundan öte, masumiyet müzesi'ni tamamlayıcı, ve hatta "genişletici" mahiyette bir kitap; bölümler arasında yer yer görünen 1 ya da 2 sayfalık metinler ve kutuların alt kısmında yer alan kemal'den (kimisi romandan alıntı) cümlelerle başlı başına bir orhan pamuk kitabı; ve tabii ki, istemsizce de olsa yine bir "istanbul kitabı". o ikinci sırada bahsettiğim özelliğiyle, çok katmanlı yapıyla bazı enis batur kitaplarına benziyor. keşke bu tip daha çok kitap olsa dilimizde.

hatıraların masumiyeti'ni bunun ardından okuyacağım. onunla (ve o belgeselle) birlikte daha ne kadar boyut katılıyor işin içine bilmiyorum ama, zaten gözümde çok büyük iş olan masumiyet müzesi "projesi", bu kitapla daha bir büyüdü, taçlanmış oldu -- ki bunları, müzeye henüz gitmeden söylüyorum.

[Betty · Rating 5 out of 5]

The glossy art book told how the Museum of Innocence (Turkish: Masumiyet Muzesi) in Çukurcuma, Istanbul, was remodeled from an 1897 house post-1894 earthquake to a house inhabited by the fictitious Keskin family between 1974-84 in the novel by the same name and same author. Inside the Keskin house, in Istanbul, and during traveling, Kemal the novel protagonist (closely identified with Orhan Pamuk) collected over twenty years artifacts and memorabilia intimately connected with the female character Füsun. Regarding the collecting phase, Pamuk explains where the forgotten, left-behind odds-and-ends came from. In so doing, he emphasizes the connection between people and objects once owned by them and why they abandoned things--people such as christianized Greeks and Armenians, Turkish middle-class families, and westernizing high society. Pamuk not only looks to the city dwellers but also to the culture in film, theatre, restaurants, family life, entrepreneurship, and modern conveniences they enjoyed. At a higher level, there are the innocent objects, the catalysts that revive memory and create new contextual associations in the display boxes. The overall effect evokes the compassion to connect humanity with the soul-filled objects and pictures that parallel the novel chapter-by-chapter. Especially, the museum is the remembrance Kemal made for Füsun.

[Jeff · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love it when fact and fiction blur. Orhan Pamuk wrote a novel called "The Museum of innocence," in which the main character creates a museum (to say more would entail spoilers). Having written about this place, Pamuk decided to build it. So this is a fictional museum documenting a person who never existed, except as a character in a novel by Pamuk. The photos illustrate this place beautifully, and Pamuk's essays on how the museum was constructed are fascinating. Moreover, having this book at hand, to track images referred to in the novel, is probably the best way to read it. it certainly enriched my experience. Moreover, there is a "ticket" to the museum in the novel. if you take a copy of the novel to the museum (which really exists in istanbul) you get in for free.

[Sorin Hadârcă · Rating 3 out of 5]

Muzeul inocenței - muzeul, și Muzeul inocenței - romanul, au fost concepute concomitent. Una e să dedici un muzeu amintirilor, alta e să-l dedici amintirilor imaginare - prin mijlocirea lui ficțiunea invadează spațiul realului și-l face... mai real. Plăcut să vizitezi în felul ăsta Muzeul Inocenței pentru a treia oară: 1. carte, 2. muzeu, 3. catalog. Din cele trei cartea și muzeul sunt experiențele recomandate. Catalogul e ca ceașca pentru cafea - util, dar neesențial.

[Olivia · Rating 1 out of 5]

I have wanted to read Orhan Pamuk for a long time, and I think this was the wrong place to begin. This book serves as an explanation of sorts for his journey of creating a museum of objects that correlates to one of his books, and it follows a trajectory that did not really hold my interest. So, it's going back to the library.

I do think this probably would be very fascinating for a diehard Pamuk reader.

[Lauren Albert · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love real museums. I love imaginary museums. So how much more would I love real imaginary museums? This is an odd book (in the good sense). But though Pamuk states that you needn't have read the Museum of Innocence novel to appreciate this, I somehow felt it would have added much to the experience.

[sena. (lorelai’s version) · Rating 5 out of 5]

masumiyet müzesi bir kitaptan çok daha fazlası ve orhan pamuk sadece bir yazar değil, sanatçı.🤍

[JCyborg Aperture · Rating 3 out of 5]

Part 1: Great
Part 2: meh, only snippets from his other books
His works are printed over the centre of the page which really takes away from the experience.

[Hasan Acül · Rating 5 out of 5]

*Masumiyet Müzesi benim en çok sevdiğim Orhan Pamuk romanı oldu. Kemal ve Füsun’un hüzünlü aşk öyküsü ile ilgili ne anlatsam eksik kalır.
*Masumiyet Müzesi’ni okurken, (müze kataloğu olan) Şeylerin Masumiyeti kitabı ile birlikte okudum. Böylece bahsedilen eşyalar, fotoğraflar, mekanlar, yiyecekler, kişiler ve diğer ayrıntıları görsel olarak da takip edebildim. (Pandemi şartları nedeniyle müze kapalı olduğu için ziyaret edemedim. Açılır açılmaz gideceğim.)
*Masumiyet Müzesi ve Şeylerin Masumiyeti kitaplarını tamamladıktan sonra, “Hatıraların Masumiyeti” (The Innocence of Memories) belgeselini seyrettim ve bu belgesele ait kitabı okudum.
*Orhan Pamuk bir kitap yazmanın çok ötesine geçmiş, ciddi bir edebi proje yaratmış: Kitap, müze ve belgesel. Onu ve bu edebi projeyi ortaya koyan ekibi tebrik ediyorum. Büyük bir emek. İyi ki bu ülkenin Orhan Pamuk’u var ve iyi ki bu muhteşem yazarı kendi dilinden okuyorum.

[Omar Taufik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book after finishing the author's novel " The Museum of Innocence " and I believe I made the right decision in this regards having this book strongly related to the novel and to the museum itself. All three, museum, this book, the novel, are all related and reflect the life stories of the author Orhan Pamuk and his beautiful city Istanbul along with the deep mutual melancholy and love between the author and city.
The book is mainly a catalogue of the museum where as I said, reading the novel first will give this book a real meaning, and being a lover of Istanbul would increase this meaning with great depth.
Before the author starts the catalogue, he provides us with several chapters that highlight the story behind this book, novel and museum with an interesting amount of details regarding Istanbul which would remind the reader of the author's magnificent book " Istanbul "
So for those who read the novel , the book " Istanbul " , who plan to visit the museum, who love Orhan Pamuk works and his beloved Istanbul .. this book would be a good addition along with it's interesting pictures and details.

Finally, I would like to share some of the quotes I managed to note down while reading this book :

When we are relieved of the burden of sharing our dreams with others and convincing others of their worth, artistic and literary creativity sublimes into a state of euphoria.

The Innocence of Objects, p.22

Many years later, whenever I thought of my short lived experience with calligraphy, I was filled with a sense of guilt, regret, and a strange anger. I'd missed my chance to learn the secrets of calligraphy and to be one of the last links to this dying but still great tradition. But the guilt and anger I felt did not arise from this alone. I was aware, from the stories that my brother in law and the calligraphers told, that it wasn't just calligraphy panels that were being sold to junk dealers by the kilo for the price of rough paper to be pulped and used to make shopping bags; the remnants of an entire sophisticated Ottoman tradition were being gradually destroyed.

The Innocence of Objects, p.46

All small museums evoked similar sentiments: of how at one point in the past, some people had lived in a given street, neighborhood, or city; and of how they had then departed, leaving behind old newspapers, masses of paper and objects, pictures, photographs, and furniture.

The Innocence of Objects, p.51

The more I looked at the objects on my desk next to my notebook - rusty keys, candy boxes, pliers, and lighters - the more I felt as if they were communicating with one another. Their ending up in this place after being uprooted from the places they used to belong to and separated from the people whose lives they were once part of - their loneliness, in a word - aroused in me the Shamanic belief that objects too have spirits.

The Innocence of Objects, p.52


The measure of a museum's success should not be it's ability to represent a state, a nation or company, or a particular history. It should be it's capacity to reveal the humanity of individuals.

The aim of present and future museums must not be to represent the state, but to recreate the world of single human beings - the same human beings who have labored under ruthless oppression for hundreds of years.

The Innocence of Objects, p.56

When we see a lens turned towards us, we flash the photographer a happy smile - a happiness that is magnified by our membership in a crowd, workplace, family, or community that fills us with pride and confidence. Generated by the assurance that we will be remembered, this happiness come from belonging to a group, here and now: a grounded, realistic attitude.

The Innocence of Objects, p.67

But are beauty and memory truly separate things ? Don't we consider things beautiful only because we are somewhat familiar with them and because they resemble our memories ?

The Innocence of Objects, p.86


Sometimes we experience the present as if we are remembering the past. And sometimes we live it with the knowledge that one day in the future we will recall today, and so our sense of history at that moment is similar to what we feel in museums.

The Innocence of Objects, p.89


The greatest happiness is when the eye discovers beauty where neither the mind conceived or nor the hand intended any.

The Innocence of Objects, p.103

[Ayshim · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ama tıpkı müze olmasa da romanın kendi başına ayakta durup anlaşılabilmesi gibi; müze de roman olmadan kendi başına bakılıp hissedilebilecek bir yer. Müze, romanın bir resimlenmesi olmadığı gibi roman da müzenin bir açıklaması değildir.

Başkalarını, kurduğumuz hayallere ortak etme ve inandırma yükü olmadığı zamanlarda, sanatsal ve edebi yaratıcılık coşkulu bir mutluluk halini alır.

“Güzellik, aklın kendiliğinden bildiği şeyi, gözün dünyada yeniden keşfetmesidir.”
Velican, Nakkaş

Geceleri herkes uyurken şehrin büründüğü tuhaf sessizliğe kulak kesilmeyi, sanki dünyanın ta dibinden geliyormuş duygusu veren o derin uğultuyu uzun uzun dinlemeyi severim.

Arabalar boş şehirde yalnızca ulaşım için değil, kaloriferle ısıtılmış, Batı müziği ile evimize benzetilmiş tekerlekli bir odanın penceresinden hüzünlü ve yoksul sokakları, bayram yerlerinde salıncakla sallanan çocukları ve şehir surlarını seyretmek ve boş arsaların verdiği yalnızlık duygularını hissetmek için de kullanılırdı.

Roman yazmak, geçmişimizde kalmış eski eşyaları ve görüntüleri yıllar sonra hatırlayıp onlarla yeni bir şey yapmak ise, bu müzeyi yapmak da aynı duyguları verdi bana.

Aklın hayal, elin niyet etmediği güzelliği daha sonra gözün fark etmesi en büyük mutluluk.

Eğer modern olmak, insanın bir şekilde daha önceden hiç tanımadığı insanlar arasında kendini rahat hissetmesi, onlarla hayali ya da gerçek ortak bir amacı huzurla paylaşabilmesi ise, İstanbulluların en modern oldukları yer, taksi ve dolmuşların içidir.

Boğazdan geçen bir gemiyi ilk defa nerede, nasıl gördüğümüzü unutursak –ki bu çok olur- onunla ilk karşılaşmamız şaşırtıcı bir hatıra niteliği edinir.

Taşrada olmak ve beklemek aynı duyguyu verir. Zaman’ın dışında olduğumuzu hissederiz. Bizim tarafta hiçbir şey değişmez; her şey aynıdır ve gölgeler içindedir. Öteki tarafta ise, bizim uzaktan seyrettiğimiz bir hareket, geçen beyaz bir gemi vardır.

“Ben hem bir saatim hem de şey. Saat olduğumu hatırlarken, şey olduğumu unutmayın. Şey olduğumu fark ettiğinizde Zaman’ın ruhunu hatırlayın. Ruhum hem bir eşyanın ruhu hem de bir saatin. Karanlıkta ışıldar ve aydınlıkta kendi içine kapanınca ben de kendi içime dönerim.”

Eşyalara duyduğumuz ilginin hayatın büyük tesellilerinden biri olduğunu Kemal arada bir açıkça söylerdi.

Yataktan kalkar, panjurları parmaklarımın ucuyla itip açar ve içeriye patlar gibi dolan manzaranın güzelliğine hayret ederdim.

Aristo, Fizik’inde “şimdi” dediği tek tek anlar ile Zaman arasında ayırım yapar. Tek tek anlar, tıpkı Aristo’nun atomları gibi bölünmez, parçalanmaz şeylerdir. Zaman ise, bu bölünmez anları birleştiren çizgidir.


Yaşadığım hayat, Zaman’ı, yani Aristo’nun şimdi dediği anları birleştiren çizgiyi hatırlamanın çoğumuz için pek acı verici olduğunu bana öğretmişti.

“Karaya oturmuş bir gemi, bir beceriksizlik ve utanç yığını.”

Kemal’e göre bir müzede yaşanabilecek en büyük mutluluktu bu: Zaman’ın Mekan’a dönüştüğünü görmek!

Yalnızca kendisi olabilmek için bütün eşyalarını atan ve bomboş bir kasırda tek başına rüyalarıyla yaşayan şehzadenin hikayesini bir keresinde yazmıştım. Sonunda Şehzade eşyalar olmadan ne dünyanın ne de kendi hayatının bir anlamı olduğunu geç de olsa kederle anlamış. Demek ki, kalbimiz kırılmadan şeylerin sırrını anlamamıza imkan yoktur. Ve alçakgönüllülükle öğrenmemiz gereken en büyük sır da budur.
Celal Salik, Defterlerden

[Levent Mollamustafaoglu · Rating 3 out of 5]

Orhan Pamuk'un favori yazarlarımdan biri olduğunu bir çok arkadaşım biliyor artık. Hakkında çok çeşitli tartışmalar çıkan Pamuk beni yalnızca yazarlık yanıyla ilgilendiriyor doğal olarak. Benim yoğunlaştığım, zamanımı harcadığım ve genelde zevk aldığım şey onun kitapları. Bu değerlendirmeyi bütün kitapları için yapabildiğimi ise söyleyemem. Cevdet Bey ve Oğulları'ndan başlayarak bütün yazarlık serüvenini izledim ama Kara Kitap'tan sonra bir duraklama oldu ilgimde, doğrusu Yeni Hayat hiç hitap etmemişti bana.

Benim Adım Kırmızı, Beyaz Kale'deki tarihi atmosfere yakın bir atmosfer yaratarak biraz umutlandırdıysa da beni, Kar yine bir hayal kırıklığıydı. Arada İstanbul ile ilgili anı kitabı paylaştığımız ortak dönemin ilginç anektodlarıyla beni az da olsa tatmin etmişti. 2006'da aldığı Nobel Ödülü yine bir sürü tartışma yaratmıştı ülkede. Kimi bu ödülü almasını onun hainliğinin bir kanıtı olduğunu, zaten "Batı'nın başka türlü bir Türk yazarına ödül vermeyeceğini" bilgiç bilgiç iddia ediyor, kimi ödüle seviniyor ama "Yaşar Kemal daha çok hak etmişti" muhabbetine giriyordu.


2008 yılında Masumiyet Müzesi çıktığında ne bekleyeceğimi bilmiyordum doğrusu. Arka kapak yazısı kitabın 1970'lerde geçtiğini, zengin Kemal'in uzaktan akrabası olan yoksul ve güzel Füsun'a duyduğu, hastalıklı olarak da nitelendirilebilecek aşkı anlattığı ipuçlarını veriyordu.

Benim için kitabın en ilginç yönü, hayatımın önemli bir evresi olan, kişiliğimin şekillendiği 70'lerin yaşamına ilişkin binlerce ayrıntı içermesi. Bir anlamda daha sonra Pamuk'un kitapla aynı adı taşıyan müzesinin gördüğü işlevi kitaptaki nesneler ve ayrıntılar güçlendiriyor. Füsun'a olan saplantısal tutkusunun peşindeki Kemal, onun temas ettiği ya da onunla olan ilişkisinin en önemli ve en önemsiz anlarına tanıklık eden nesneleri toplayarak bir türlü kavuşamadığı sevgilisine en azından bu tür bir bağlantı kurmayı yeğliyor. 70'lerin modernleşmeye çalışan ama bir yönüyle de son derece muhafazakar toplumunun dayattığı önyargılar ve açık ya da gizli kuralların baskısıyla bir araya gelemeyen iki insanın neredeyse on yıla yaklaşan serüveni Kemal'in ağzından anlatılıyor. Romanın sonlarına doğru anlatımı yazar ele alıyor ve konuyu bağlıyor.

Ben kitabı sevdim. Arka planda anlatılan 70'lerin film piyasası ilginç bilgiler veriyordu. Ama belki en iyisi nesnelerle onların sahibi arasındaki neredeyse tılsımlı ilişkinin ele alındığı ve anıları belirlediği bölümlerdi.

2012'de çıkan Şeylerin Masumiyeti, Masumiyet Müzesi'ni (kitabı değil, müzeyi) anlatıyor ama bu arada kitabın yazılışı ve içeriği ile ilgili ipuçları da veriyor. Bu anlamda tamamlayıcı bir özelliği var. Ama romanı okumayan birinin bu kitaptan ne zevk alabileceği çok açık değil. Müzeyi görmeyen birinin edinmediği bu deneyime en yakın olan belki de bu kitabı okumak. Yeni Hayat ve Kar ile bendeki ilgi katsayısını oldukça düşüren Pamuk, Masumiyet Müzesi'nden sonra yeni kitaplarıyla ilgili olumlu bir beklenti içine girmemi sağladı. Kafamda Bir Tuhaflık'ı en kısa zamanda alıp okumak gerek şimdi...

[Luke · Rating 3 out of 5]

Orhan Pamuk's The Innocence of Objects demands that you view a collection of boxes not only for the elusive mystic of the objects they contain but also for the world they introduce. This world rejects linearity of experience. Instead, it embraces a less traditional form of storytelling, picking fragments of experience to translate into the tangible an essence of a first date, quirky relatives only mentioned in name, a birth, a first car. But mistake not the tangible of these curated boxes for an easy-to-grasp storyline of developed characters. What The Innocence of Objects lacks is a rounded essence that ingrains in readers a recollection. Based on a novel of the same name, The Innocence of Objects leaves readers afloat in, even if wonderful, imagery without a firm base, a sense of happening. Still, The Innocence of Objects, with its fantastic world of storytelling objects, is worth a study.

[False · Rating 5 out of 5]

A companion piece to the novel "The Innocence of Objects." Pamuk has created a museum in Istanbul called by the same name as his novel, and he has created boxes and dioramas of memories of himself and others growing up in Turkey. It's a fascinating project.

"I once wrote about a crown price who threw away all of his belongings so that he could be his true self, and retired to an abandoned hunting lodge to live alone with his dreams. The prince eventually came to the painful realization that without objects, the world and his life were both meaningless. It seems that there is no way we can discover the secret of objects without heartbreak. And we must humbly submit to the truth of this ultimate secret." ~~From the notebooks of Celal Salik.

[Loscrittorucolo · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bel libro molto atipico. Il museo dell'innocenza è un romanzo (splendido) di Orhan Pamuk, il quale ha poi (o meglio concomitantemente, almeno nel concetto) realizzato un museo vero con oggetti appartenuti "davvero" a Fusun, la protagonista femminile del romanzo. In pratica è un museo vero nato da una storia inventata. Il libro è fotografico e narrativo insieme, e va letto ovviamente dopo aver letto il romanzo (e solo, altrettanto ovviamente, se questo è piaciuto molto).
E' in qualche modo bellissimo che un romanzo, storia inventata per definizione, partorisca un luogo vero e tangibile - e immortale - come un museo.

[crimson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Yalnızca kendisi olabilmek için bütün eşyalarını atan ve bomboş bir kasırda tek başına rüyalarıyla yaşayan şehzadenin hikayesini bir keresinde yazmıştım.Sonunda şehzade eşyalar olmadan ne dünyanın ne de kendi hayatının bir anlamı olduğunu geç de olsa kederle anlamış.Demek ki, kalbimiz kırılmadan şeylerin sırrını anlamamıza imkan yoktur.Ve alçakgönüllülükle öğrenmemiz gereken en büyük sır da budur. Celal Salik.

[Peter Sprengelmeyer · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is really a companion piece to "The Museum of Innocence" I liked the visuals here, and the blurred line between the fiction and reality. It is kind of like an Andy Kaufman performance where one is questioning what is contrived and what is actually there. I would suggest that it is an interesting support for the novel, but I do not think that I would have followed (or liked) this without the novel.