The large Cotton it takes up an autochthonous narrative of its Turkish origins to open our minds to a multitude of approaches. So much so that sometimes the scenario seems a simple setting necessary for the author himself to know where to start when talking about the relationship between children and parents as a kind of extension of the telluric, with the force of traditions in contraposition of the yearnings for other airs of the new generations, of the love for the land in spite of everything, of the freedom of the individual and of how much knowledge can do through reading and the will to open up to new ideas.
About thirty years ago a murder occurred near Istanbul. Pamuk also brings us closer to the case, trying to find answers in a way that is almost parallel to the narrative, although allowing us to intuit that the foundation of that death also has its relevant weight in the story.
And at the same time that we enter the Istanbul of 30 years ago between East and West. In a space near the city, Master Mahmut and his apprentice strive to find the water to alleviate their endemic poverty, despite the stubbornness of the land and its refusal to become a source.
Not finding water can bring everything down ...
Culture and tradition also have their notorious family tragedies. Oedipus Rex did what he did, but the case of Rostam and Sohrab, two antagonistic accounts of the deaths of parents and children, did not lag behind.
And with such tragic ground references we navigate between the waters of the cultures here and there, the civilizations facing each other in mirrors and the doubts that always reside in free beings who, despite their respective currents, doubt. Ethics is variable, art, despite awakening antagonistic sensations depending on who admires it, is imperishable until the last of the days in which it can be contemplated.
A great little story of the master Orhan Pamuk.
You can now buy the novel The Red Haired Woman, Orhan Pamuk's new book, here: