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I started by remarking on the fact that his novels--Snow, My
Name is Red, Black Book, Museum of Innocence--are each very different. I asked
if this is intentional, if he believes that it is important for a writer to do
something new each time. Pamuk responded
that yes, he believes this to be extremely important for a writer's growth, and
also it enriches the reader's experience. Otherwise the reader's experience
becomes formulaic--and this is what we see in commercial fiction. Pamuk doesn't
want his readers to "know" ahead of time how to read his books. He wants them
to "discover" it anew each time.
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In his Norton lectures, delivered at Harvard some time back, Pamuk spoke of the novel having a "secret center" that the readers must search for via clues in the narrative. When I asked him to explain, he said that a good book deepens and changes as it goes along and becomes, in some way, about something more than what we thought it to be at first. For example, Moby Dick might seem to be a social novel about whale hunters; but after a while, a reader realizes that it is more--it is a psychological novel about a particular, deeply obsessed character. Still later, he realizes that it is a cosmic novel--about humanity and our relationship with Nature and perhaps God.
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I asked him about the part
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Pamuk had many other valuable things to say, of interest to not only writers but readers as well. Let me know if you would like another entry on this subject.
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