Turkish Delight

--revised from the Peony archives

Like Tibet, I sometimes dream of Istanbul. It is, of course, known as "the City"-- the city of dreams-- a city of bridges and tall minarets rising up from across the shimmering aquamarine waters of the Bosporus. Slowly gliding above the water, in my dream I watched as boats plied here and there across the busy harbor leaving great streaks of white-- like huge strokes of calligraphy-- in their wake.

I had, as you remember, an angel's eye view-- very much like that of a Persian miniature.

I was in a hotel in Europe. The room was beautifully wall-papered with European-style finishings and furniture. I could smell coffee. Although it was obviously sunny out, the thick curtains were drawn and I sat in a chair in the corner of the room extremely tense. There was banging on the door They kept banging and banging, and I watched paralyzed as the hinges started to give way on the door. I couldn't move. Where was there to go anyway? I was up on the 3rd floor. At that moment though-- just as I felt my powers to move come back, the door burst open. I had already spun around toward the curtains, and flinging them open, a blinding sunlight filled the room.

You could not believe how bright the sunlight was, shining off what was water below. There were french doors that led to a very tiny verenadah. The railing was beautifully worked wrought-iron. In one leap, I hopped on to the edge of the railing and leaped straight out! I was flying. And to my complete surprise, the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen spread out beneath me. Floating a short distance I found myself over an aquamarine color sea and just in front of me was a great mosque on a hill overlooking the harbor, which was full of boats. It was Istanbul. A city I had never been in before, but without a doubt it was Istanbul. Constantinople.

Khourosh would ask me, "what emotions did you feel in the dream?"

Well, it was pure delight. I can still see the dazzling sunlight reflecting off what were beautiful blue waters beneath me. And, I thought, this is how it must feel to be an angel.

Pure geometry drawn from the timeless perspective of God; Ottoman Miniatures are pictures portrayed as if seen from the top of a minaret rising above the city of dreams. They are also known for their rich, vibrant, intoxicating colors. In my dream, the colors were like that: richly detailed and incredibly vibrant-- the shimmering and rich colors of Herat and Tabriz.

So, settling in with a much awaited box of Turkish delight last weekend, I re-read My Name is Red.

*

The Sultan's ambassador, Enishte Effendi finds himself in Venice. A renown miniaturist in the service of the Ottoman Court, he is utterly speechless when he sees his first Venetian-style Renaissance paintings. That is, the paintings completely boggle his mind. What could they possibly mean, he wonders?

One painting in particular has him so disturbed he is unable to sleep. It is a portrait- done in the Renaissance style. It is not meant to present a timeless realm, or represent any deeper truths. It does not seek to embellish a tale or illuminate the perspective of God, but rather, he realizes, it is something which stands all on its own.

I learned from the Venetian gentleman who was giving me a tour through the palazzo that the portrait was of a friend, a nobleman like himself. He had included whatever was significant in his life in his portrait: In the background landscape visible from the open window there was a farm, a village and a blending of color which made a realistic-looking forest. Resting on the table before the nobleman were a clock, books, Time, Evil,  Life, a calligraphy pen, a map, a compass, boxes containing gold coins, bric-a-brac, odds and ends, inscrutable yet indistinguishable things that were probably included in many pictures, shadows of jinns and the Devil and also a picture of the man's stunningly beautiful daughter as she stood beside her father.

"What was the narrative that this representation was meant to embellish and complete? As I regarded the work, I slowly sensed that the underlying tale was the picture itself. The painting wasn't the extension of a story at all, it was something in its own right.

I have already written elsewhere something about the similar Chinese reaction to Renaissance painting. You see, this desire to portray in art the manner in which the eye sees things, was in fact unique. Aiming at something altogether different, many Chinese literati painters upon seeing a Western painting, perhaps simply wondered, so what?

That was Enishte Effendi first reaction as well. And yet-- and yet!-- he found himself increasingly intrigued by the idea of representing individual people or horses or landscapes. Unable to get the idea out of his head, he thought, "I, too, wanted to be portrayed in this manner."

This is how the idea came about to have the Sultan's portrait painted in the style of the Venetians.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, Minerva of my "ladies" group (yes, I use the term loosely) happened to recently post something which like a piece of a puzzle, reminded me something important at just the right place and time...

Talking about the mysterious manner in which people's personalities change depending on location, she eloquently writes:

I know this guy who has a Jekyll and Hyde personality depending on where he is even in his own country. He loves hiking and nature and when he's in the countryside is a really nice, relaxed, generous person, but he insists on living in Manhattan because of various complexes and delusions of grandeur of his, and there he's mean, nervous, absurdly competitive and rude. He moved there
thirty years ago because it's The Center of The Universe, even though he's miserable and there's nothing keeping him there except his youthful dreams of a life it's way too late for him to ever have. Time to wave the white flag and admit defeat. Giving up is underrated. Sometimes it's the only thing to do, and sometimes a place is just a place.

The question of place is interesting, of course-- and indeed, it is a question that seems to occupy Orhan Pamuk's writing to some extent. Pamuk has written again and again about the tension one feels between life in the Center of the Universe (New york City perhaps) versus that at the edges (Turkey).

When one lives one's life outside the center, he says, it can come to feel almost as though one's existence hardly matters at all. Talking about Turkey's own internal grappling with Western-style reforms, he says that in the beginning they arose in a manner which "sent the message to many that their culture was defective." This message, he continues:

"gives rise to a very deep and confused emotion: shame; and whenever a people feels deeply humiliated, we can expect to see a proud nationalism rising to the surface."

I see this conflicted kind of expression in the some of the translations I do for older generation Japanese business executives. It seems to inevitably rise to the surface in their speeches and writings-- a conflict between self and place; center and hinterland. This is also part of the project Eiji Hattori has written about which interests me as well-- this desiring need to be heard.

In my own case, I see things quite the opposite to Minerva and her friend. Traveling back and forth across Adonis' empire, I don't think my personality undergoes any significant change whatsoever. Yes, I tell more jokes and perhaps enjoy conversations more in the Eastern part of the realm, and enjoy books more in the Western part-- but that is perhaps the extent. On the other hand, while I don't change back and forth by place, still, over time my self is indeed influenced, stained and molded by place; indeed, the places we go, I think, are every bit as significant as the people we meet.

Candide's own journey of course ended in a garden in Istanbul and like I suggested last time, the Turk's garden-- like all gardens-- could symbolize just about anything.

Was Voltaire implying a passive retreat from the outer world to cultivate one's inner Self, or was he instead advocating productive occupation and engagement (in the form of gardening) with the world-- that is working to improve the world through metaphorical gardening.

Candide's garden-- like all gardens-- could symbolize just about anything.

However, reading it in light of Orhan Pamuk's work, I think it means both-- simultaneously--. Like a Japanese lacquer craftsman, in almost any interview or essay you read by Pamuk, he repeats the same phrase-- like a mantra. "All I want to do is sit in a room and write. That's it." It all comes down to that really-- some people require time alone, time apart. They truly only wish to focus on their CRAFT (which is their meaningful occupation). And, that is both a retreat into the self as well as part of the way in which they interact with the world-- which is to say that the garden serves, in the words of another Vltaire, as an End in Itself.

**

Highly recommended interviews with Pamuk:  this interview from Boston's public radio & This BBC Interview with the author is also highly recommended. Though the interviewer tries to keep steering the conversation to Turkish politics, the Great Orhan keeps to his own project: "my devotion for the grand art of the novel... my devotion not to the art, but to my table, to my paper; to my fountain pen...; to being alone in a room and writing."

And finally, another Nick Cave video

--revised from the Peony archives

Like Tibet, I sometimes dream of Istanbul. It is, of course, known as "the City"-- the city of dreams-- a city of bridges and tall minarets rising up from across the shimmering aquamarine waters of the Bosporus. Slowly gliding above the water, in my dream I watched as boats plied here and there across the busy harbor leaving great streaks of white-- like huge strokes of calligraphy-- in their wake.

I had, as you remember, an angel's eye view-- very much like that of a Persian miniature.

I was in a hotel in Europe. The room was beautifully wall-papered with European-style finishings and furniture. I could smell coffee. Although it was obviously sunny out, the thick curtains were drawn and I sat in a chair in the corner of the room extremely tense. There was banging on the door They kept banging and banging, and I watched paralyzed as the hinges started to give way on the door. I couldn't move. Where was there to go anyway? I was up on the 3rd floor. At that moment though-- just as I felt my powers to move come back, the door burst open. I had already spun around toward the curtains, and flinging them open, a blinding sunlight filled the room.

You could not believe how bright the sunlight was, shining off what was water below. There were french doors that led to a very tiny verenadah. The railing was beautifully worked wrought-iron. In one leap, I hopped on to the edge of the railing and leaped straight out! I was flying. And to my complete surprise, the most beautiful landscape I had ever seen spread out beneath me. Floating a short distance I found myself over an aquamarine color sea and just in front of me was a great mosque on a hill overlooking the harbor, which was full of boats. It was Istanbul. A city I had never been in before, but without a doubt it was Istanbul. Constantinople.

Khourosh would ask me, "what emotions did you feel in the dream?"

Well, it was pure delight. I can still see the dazzling sunlight reflecting off what were beautiful blue waters beneath me. And, I thought, this is how it must feel to be an angel.

Pure geometry drawn from the timeless perspective of God; Ottoman Miniatures are pictures portrayed as if seen from the top of a minaret rising above the city of dreams. They are also known for their rich, vibrant, intoxicating colors. In my dream, the colors were like that: richly detailed and incredibly vibrant-- the shimmering and rich colors of Herat and Tabriz.

So, settling in with a much awaited box of Turkish delight last weekend, I re-read My Name is Red.

*

The Sultan's ambassador, Enishte Effendi finds himself in Venice. A renown miniaturist in the service of the Ottoman Court, he is utterly speechless when he sees his first Venetian-style Renaissance paintings. That is, the paintings completely boggle his mind. What could they possibly mean, he wonders?

One painting in particular has him so disturbed he is unable to sleep. It is a portrait- done in the Renaissance style. It is not meant to present a timeless realm, or represent any deeper truths. It does not seek to embellish a tale or illuminate the perspective of God, but rather, he realizes, it is something which stands all on its own.

I learned from the Venetian gentleman who was giving me a tour through the palazzo that the portrait was of a friend, a nobleman like himself. He had included whatever was significant in his life in his portrait: In the background landscape visible from the open window there was a farm, a village and a blending of color which made a realistic-looking forest. Resting on the table before the nobleman were a clock, books, Time, Evil,  Life, a calligraphy pen, a map, a compass, boxes containing gold coins, bric-a-brac, odds and ends, inscrutable yet indistinguishable things that were probably included in many pictures, shadows of jinns and the Devil and also a picture of the man's stunningly beautiful daughter as she stood beside her father.

"What was the narrative that this representation was meant to embellish and complete? As I regarded the work, I slowly sensed that the underlying tale was the picture itself. The painting wasn't the extension of a story at all, it was something in its own right.

I have already written elsewhere something about the similar Chinese reaction to Renaissance painting. You see, this desire to portray in art the manner in which the eye sees things, was in fact unique. Aiming at something altogether different, many Chinese literati painters upon seeing a Western painting, perhaps simply wondered, so what?

That was Enishte Effendi first reaction as well. And yet-- and yet!-- he found himself increasingly intrigued by the idea of representing individual people or horses or landscapes. Unable to get the idea out of his head, he thought, "I, too, wanted to be portrayed in this manner."

This is how the idea came about to have the Sultan's portrait painted in the style of the Venetians.

Perhaps not so coincidentally, Minerva of my "ladies" group (yes, I use the term loosely) happened to recently post something which like a piece of a puzzle, reminded me something important at just the right place and time...

Talking about the mysterious manner in which people's personalities change depending on location, she eloquently writes:

I know this guy who has a Jekyll and Hyde personality depending on where he is even in his own country. He loves hiking and nature and when he's in the countryside is a really nice, relaxed, generous person, but he insists on living in Manhattan because of various complexes and delusions of grandeur of his, and there he's mean, nervous, absurdly competitive and rude. He moved there
thirty years ago because it's The Center of The Universe, even though he's miserable and there's nothing keeping him there except his youthful dreams of a life it's way too late for him to ever have. Time to wave the white flag and admit defeat. Giving up is underrated. Sometimes it's the only thing to do, and sometimes a place is just a place.

The question of place is interesting, of course-- and indeed, it is a question that seems to occupy Orhan Pamuk's writing to some extent. Pamuk has written again and again about the tension one feels between life in the Center of the Universe (New york City perhaps) versus that at the edges (Turkey).

When one lives one's life outside the center, he says, it can come to feel almost as though one's existence hardly matters at all. Talking about Turkey's own internal grappling with Western-style reforms, he says that in the beginning they arose in a manner which "sent the message to many that their culture was defective." This message, he continues:

"gives rise to a very deep and confused emotion: shame; and whenever a people feels deeply humiliated, we can expect to see a proud nationalism rising to the surface."

I see this conflicted kind of expression in the some of the translations I do for older generation Japanese business executives. It seems to inevitably rise to the surface in their speeches and writings-- a conflict between self and place; center and hinterland. This is also part of the project Eiji Hattori has written about which interests me as well-- this desiring need to be heard.

In my own case, I see things quite the opposite to Minerva and her friend. Traveling back and forth across Adonis' empire, I don't think my personality undergoes any significant change whatsoever. Yes, I tell more jokes and perhaps enjoy conversations more in the Eastern part of the realm, and enjoy books more in the Western part-- but that is perhaps the extent. On the other hand, while I don't change back and forth by place, still, over time my self is indeed influenced, stained and molded by place; indeed, the places we go, I think, are every bit as significant as the people we meet.

Candide's own journey of course ended in a garden in Istanbul and like I suggested last time, the Turk's garden-- like all gardens-- could symbolize just about anything.

Was Voltaire implying a passive retreat from the outer world to cultivate one's inner Self, or was he instead advocating productive occupation and engagement (in the form of gardening) with the world-- that is working to improve the world through metaphorical gardening.

Candide's garden-- like all gardens-- could symbolize just about anything.

However, reading it in light of Orhan Pamuk's work, I think it means both-- simultaneously--. Like a Japanese lacquer craftsman, in almost any interview or essay you read by Pamuk, he repeats the same phrase-- like a mantra. "All I want to do is sit in a room and write. That's it." It all comes down to that really-- some people require time alone, time apart. They truly only wish to focus on their CRAFT (which is their meaningful occupation). And, that is both a retreat into the self as well as part of the way in which they interact with the world-- which is to say that the garden serves, in the words of another Vltaire, as an End in Itself.

**

Highly recommended interviews with Pamuk:  this interview from Boston's public radio & This BBC Interview with the author is also highly recommended. Though the interviewer tries to keep steering the conversation to Turkish politics, the Great Orhan keeps to his own project: "my devotion for the grand art of the novel... my devotion not to the art, but to my table, to my paper; to my fountain pen...; to being alone in a room and writing."

And finally, another Nick Cave video

Comments

[chriswaugh_bj]

First a disclaimer: It's been a hell of a long time since I read any of Voltaire's work, and even then, I don't think I paid anywhere near enough attention in class. I know I didn't finish reading any of the assigned texts- but the same is true of all my other French and German literature classes, well, most of them. In fact, I sometimes wonder just how I managed to get my degree, considering just how much of my time was spent drinking coffee and discussing random stuff completely unrelated to French literature..... Oh well.

Anyway, I remember the lecturer (my favourite French lecturer, and up their with the best Russian lecturers, pity about his taste in books (Zola!)) explaining Candide and his garden like this: Having roamed the world and seen all the evils and that he can't do anything to change it, Candide realises the only thing he can do is dig his own garden, i.e. take care of the small things in his own life he can manage. I think Voltaire's life in Ferney is a good example of Candide in action- it wasn't just his little hidey-hole from which he could sprint across the border to Geneva when he inevitably got himself in trouble (some people just don't know when to keep their mouths shut), he also invested a lot of time, effort and money into the community, helping his neighbours and developing the community. He couldn't fix France, or even stubborn, Calvinist Geneva, but he could do good for one little village.

Something tells me Confucius would approve, but I'll leave that to the experts to decide.

[Peony]

Chris responds in greater length on his blog here

Chris, I am going to respond to the above over at your place...