ABOUT THE TIME OF ILLUMINATION AND ABOUT THE TIME OF ALLAH

On the subject of the Orhan Pamuk’s novel My Name is the Red

Abstract

Orhan Pamuk’s novel My Name is the Red deals with interpreting a work of fine art and changes in the interpretation over time. The issue of development and modification of the 16th century classical Islamic miniature style, under the growing influence of the Western European renaissance, was used by Pamuk as exceptionally original framework for discourse on the issue of style and identity. Pamuk structures his novel in much the same way a miniature composition is structured – in an open, polycentric perspective, without a dominant central character. Thus he fully follows the postmodern literary tastes. This is one brilliant prosaic work in which a tensed story about mysterious murders and exceptional studies on nature of the Islamic art intermingle.