CULTURE
The Innocence of Objects
When a collection was turned into a love story
Back in my teenage years, I used to read every book I saw in the hands of the librarian of the local bookstore; he was a good marketing strategy, so to speak; some of the books are hardly memorable today, while others shifted the ground I was standing on.
Only three copies of the book he was holding one day were available; two had already been purchased by others, and the final one piqued my interest and urged me to purchase it.
That day, I was told that this book is literally my ticket to The Museum of Innocence; there was also a printed map on the back of the book to a real place that I had not yet set foot in.
The Museum of Innocence is a museum based on a novel, which in turn is based on a museum. They all have the same name. And it’s all imbued with Istanbul’s life and culture in the second half of the 20th century.
I brought my copy home, eager to read the love story that had its own museum. I sat on the living room couch for six hours, I was nowhere close to the back cover but suddenly the 756 pages made sense to me.
As intrigued as I am by this work of fiction, this is not a book review. Perhaps a bit, but it’s more about exploring love dressed as sickness or obsession and how we can attach meaning to random objects and make a collection tell a tale.
Orhan Pamuk, the author, writes in the museum’s guide. “At the time, I did not know what sort of place the museum would be, and neither did I know the shape the novel would take. But I had the feeling that focusing on objects and telling a story through them would make my protagonists different from those in Western novels — more real, more quintessentially of Istanbul.”
Pamuk embarked on this secret project in the mid-1990s. He was collecting objects, the sorts of everyday flotsam that typified Istanbul in the second half of the 20th Century, along with salt shakers, old photographs, a quince grater, random objects.
In 2002, while still collecting, he began to work on the novel linking those objects to his fictional protagonists.
At the same time, he fantasized about setting up a museum to display the same objects, even though he conceded at first that it sounded as if he had “lost the plot.”: “At first, whenever anyone asked what I was going to do with the stuff that I was accumulating, I was unable to answer them. ‘I will build a museum, and its catalog will be a novel’ seemed too ambitious a response.”
Nonetheless, here we are.
The museum closely follows the book’s narrative, displaying 83 displays each mirror one of the book’s 83 chapters, as well as actions of interest to complement the plot. The entire thing has the feel of a type of cabinet of oddities, with the exception that each display claims to be a real-world description of the author’s imaginary world.
It’s a work of fiction, I had to remind myself looking at 4,213 cigarette stubs spreading across an illuminated, wall-sized panel. According to both the novel and museum, all were smoked by Füsun. Each had dates and remarks scribbled by Kemal detailing what Füsun had done or said to Kemal that day.
Pages of the author’s notes, described as notes from interviews with Kemal, were also displayed. Füsun’s lost earring, her dress, a cup she once had coffee with, and a thousand other random belongings, all of which made me consider the possibility that it wasn’t a novel at all. Maybe there was a real Kemal. Perhaps I’d missed something.
They’re all ordinary objects, we’d never relate to or consider art out of their context, the cigarette stubs are literal trash, yet it’s one of the most arresting display cases, and it just goes to show how much significance and power we can attach to things.
Pamuk’s aim has always been to focus on ordinary objects. His “modest manifesto for museums,” which welcomes visitors, states that most modern large museums are funded by the state, showing the fruits of grand (often privileged) achievements.
“These institutions, now national symbols, present the story of the nation — history, in a word — as being far more important than the stories of individuals,” he writes. “We all know that the ordinary, everyday stories of individuals are richer, more humane, and much more joyful.”
“When we lose people we love, we should never disturb their souls, whether living or dead. Instead, we should find consolation in an object that reminds you of them, something…I don’t know…even an earring”
― Orhan Pamuk, The Museum of Innocence
Kemal’s story is one of obsession, lust, and eventual ruin. A man spent his life collecting (stealing) any object his beloved, Füsun, touches, uses, or interacts with in the hopes of having her by having them.
Reading through his narrative of madness and being a witness to the collection of objects that reflect his love and loss, it’s difficult not only to feel for the wretched soul but also to empathize with what has been lost.
If the character were real, I believe most of us would steer clear of him in the same manner that Istanbul’s upper society did in the novel.
Like many of Orhan Pamuk’s works, the pace is slow and the atmosphere is dim, yet it paints such a vivid image that it’s difficult to put down. The intrusive view into the depths of a man’s follies, whether melancholic or not, is a captivating if ultimately heartbreaking glimpse into human nature.
