The Museum of Innocence is Turkish author Ohran
Pammuk's first novel after winning the Nobel prize for
Literature in 2006.
The story which takes place in the 1970's in Istanbul
is of Kemal's pathetic, pathological obsession with
a beautiful, younger woman, Fusun. It's a story that
has been told many times ( e.g. Nabokov's Lolita),
but it becomes a new story in Pamuk's hands,
partially because of Pamuk's style of story-telling as
well as the local color of Istanbul and the Bosophurus.
Kemal, a thirty year-old whose family is of wealthy,
upper-class society, is engaged to Sibel, a young
lady of like circumstances. Before his official
engagement party, Kemal quite by accident meets
Fusun, a beautiful eighteen year-old store clerk he
had known as a child. Smitten, he begins his
journey of erotic obsession. Soon Kemal becomes
a pathetic fool and develops another obsession--
collecting , actually pilfering, items that have been
associated with Fusun. His collection of earrings,
wine glasses, hair barrettes, and even cigarette
butts become the basis of his peculiar museum.
His justification of this odd behavior is that he is
"the anthropologist of his own experience."
The reason this apparently simple story requires
over 500 pages is that Kemal's quest involves
discussion of political unrest, the conflict between
tradition and westernization, and the developing
Turkish film industry.
Since both Sibel and Fusun lost their virginity to
Kemal, it is also an issue. Virginity was the
prized possession of Turkish women living in a
conflicted time--a time of change from the
tradition of the past to a more westernized
society. Pamuk writes:"virginity was still
regarded as a treasure that young girls should
protect until the day they married."
Although he takes a long time telling it, the
story is worth the journey.
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