Orhan Pamuk says #9. We write to go in search of that strange voice inside us, and to make it heard, first for ourselves, and then for others, so that readers, all readers, can hear it.

Orhan Pamuk

[It has been some time since I posted what Orhan Pamuk says, so I thought I'd catch you up with a selection from Mr. Pamuk's speech at the Frankfurt Book Fair, October 14, 2008, in Frankfurt, Germany.  The full text can be read at www.orhanpamuk.net]

Istanbul street at night

…We writers do not write our books thinking about the millions of other books in the world, nor do we write them to confirm our humility or our dreams of brotherhood; we write to go in search of that strange voice inside us, and to make it heard, first for ourselves, and then for others, so that readers, all readers, can hear it. 

That is why we know that we must look into the depths of our souls, until we arrive at the place of difference. That place owes its otherness to our soul, our body, our home, our family, our street, our city, our language, our history. All this reminds us that the urge to sit down and write has something to do with our identity – what others call our ‘national identity’.

Pamuk crossing an Istanbul bridge

…The novelist speaks with conviction about the poetry he sees in his personal life, or the shadows that darken it, but critics and readers read his books as expressions of a country’s poetry, and a country’s shadows. Even the novelist’s most private imaginings and creative idiosyncrasies are taken as descriptions of an entire nation, even as representations of that nation.

Ideas about identity and character may change from person to person, and from country to country; what is constant is the preoccupation with being misunderstood by the rest of the world.

 

Hirschworth magazine accepts "Tonsorial Parlor"

Monday’s frittata was the highlight of Creation for Big Sal’s wife.  She’d been working for years at perfecting the near Renaissance consanguinity of peppers, ham, tomatoes, potatoes, carrots, and onions nestled in the golden-baked whipped eggs and milk.  Big Sal--barber and half owner of Sal & Sal Hair Salon & Tonsorial Parlor--a redundant name because, when translated, it simply meant Sal and Sal Barbershop and Barbershop--had the sly confidence of knowing that The Other Sal would finally be impressed.  Like Caravaggio with his paintings, Big Sal’s egg pie was his lead upon the scale, by which he measured the world of his sins and desires.

 So begins "Tonsorial Parlor", my latest short story to be accepted by a literary magazine.  Hirschworth has slated it for publication on October 20th.  I hope you will read it when it appears.  Go to http://www.hirschworth.com.

A few days ago I finished my second John Fante book, Ask the Dust.  Needless to say, I'm looking forward to the next one in the Arturo Bandini series, The Road to Los Angeles. 

John Fante at work

To many Americans, to many literary Americans, Fante remains obscure.  It's too bad.  Hollywood found him in 2006, giving us a fine film with Colin Farrell, Selma Hayek, and Donald Sutherland.

 

 But Fante deserves more attention, much like some of the other writers who rode across the sky during the Great Depression and then were swept under the rug during the radical Sixties.  Some made their way during the post-World War II years, some during the Eisenhower administration, like Hamilton Basso, John O'Hara, John P. Marquand, Philip Wylie, and John Williams, just to name a few.  And I'm their undying devotee. 

Below are a few snippets of prime Fante from Ask the Dust.  There are more to come, I'm sure.

"Innocent little Evelyn went across the room and dragged poor little sister Vivian away from those lousy sailors and brought her to our table.  Hello Vivian, ...but what happened to your mouth, Vivian, who dug it out with a knife?  And what happened to your bloodshot eyes, and your sweet breath smelling like a sewer, poor kids, all the way from glorious Minnesota." 

"Poor little Vivian had worked down here for almost six months and not once had any of these bastards ever ordered her a bottle of champagne, and I, Bandini, I looked like such a swell guy, and wasn't Vivian cute, and wasn't it a shame, she so innocent, and would I buy her a bottle of champagne?"

"Dear Little Vivian, all the way from the clean fields of Minnesota, and not a Swede either, and almost a virgin, too, just a few men short of being a virgin.  Who could resist this tribute?  So bring on the champagne...Ah, Evelyn and Vivian, I love you both, I love you for your sad lives, the empty misery of your coming home at dawn.  You too are alone, but you are not like Arturo Bandini, who is neither fish, fowl, nor good red herring.  So have your champagne, because I love you both, and you, too, Vivian, even if your mouth looks like it had been dug out with raw fingernails and your old child's eyes swim in blood written like mad sonnets."

A residence hotel in Los Angeles, much like the one in Ask the Dust.

Angel's Flight, mentioned frequently in Ask the Dust

"This is bad Arturo.  You have read Nietzsche, you have read Voltaire, you should know better.  But reasoning wouldn't help.  I could reason myself out of it, but that was not my blood.  It was my blood that kept me alive, it was my blood pouring through me, telling me it was wrong.  I sat there and gave myself over to my blood, let it carry me swimming back to the deep sea of my beginnings." 

John Fante

"There will be confusions, and there will be hunger; there will be loneliness with only my tears like wet consoling little birds, tumbling to sweeten my dry lips.  ...Then it will be night, and the sweet oils from the shores of my sea, poured upon my senses by the captains I deserted in the dreamy impetuousness of my youth.  But I shall be forgiven for that, and for other things, for Vera Rivken, and for the ceaseless flapping of the wings of Voltaire, for pausing to listen and watch that fascinating bird, for all things there shall be forgiveness when I return to my homeland by the sea."