Other Pamuks

I have decided to write a line or two about Orhan Pamuk because the way he is clamping upon my soul is disconcerting. I love Pamuk because I have a deep emotional association with his writing. I feel he writes only and only to reach out to me, as if to assert that it is me and no one else in the universe that he is writing for. Pamuk is my property. I own him, I own all interpretations of his work and look away when anybody tries to discuss Pamuk. Because they have no idea what Pamuk is. They might have read his novels but only I have lived them. Only I have understood what it is to feel that your thoughts are someone else's too, that he has written them down for the express purpose of saving you.

I feel incredibly relieved thinking of this. Thinking that Pamuk is my own and that those surrounding me have accepted it. Thinking that once the whole world recognises that Pamuk is my personal saviour, they will also grasp the fact that he and I are part of the same mental faculty, having profoundly symbiotic existences. That my disillusionment is valid because he felt the same disillusionment thirty years ago. That my city can burn down because the yalis lining the Bosphorous did too. And most importantly, that I can lie to my father because so did Pamuk when he was my age.

The other day I was revelling in a particular similarity between me and my author when suddenly a voice inside me said, 'Pffft.' It was snide and mocked my fanaticism. And because the voice was mine I decided that maybe I was being illogical. And that just maybe, the right to worshipping Pamuk was not just mine. I decided to start discussing him. I will discuss him more. For all I know, the voice could have been his.

Okay it was not. Stop laughing immediately.