The Red-haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk

 

The red-haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk

Turkish fiction

Original title –  Kırmızı saçh kadın

Translator Ekin Oklap

Source – Library copy

Another from the list of books I missed last year and another I feel may be on the man booker prize. I love Orhan Pamuk he is one of those Nobel winners that write good books every time not knock out of the park books. I have enjoyed all the books by him I have read and have so far reviewed three of his books. It was nice this book was shorter than his recent books which have both been over 500 pages long.

I had wanted to be a writer. But after the events I am about to describe, I studied engineering, geologyand became a building contractor. Even so, readers shouldn’t conclude from my telling the story now that it is over, that I’ve put it all behind me. The more I remember , the deeper I fall into it. Perhap you, too, will follow, lured by the enigma of father and sons

The opening lines set Cems past and present out and what is still haunting him even today.

This is the story of two men digging a well. Their relationship is almost a father and son one as the story unfolds. They are digging a well on the edge of Istanbul in the traditional technique. Mahmut the master well builder is using his age-old knowledge to tell his apprentice. Cem the apprentice is a man who has grown up with an absent father so the regular stories and talks Mahmut and Him have as the work down the ground as the work the ground looking for water to help supply the factory.Then one day the woman of the title appears the red-haired woman a member of a travelling company captures his eye.But also leads to an incident with his master.Then we meet him years later with his own wife and son. He is riddled with guilt for the past.Although he is a successful engineer but not the writer he had dreamed of being. He has an incident with his own son. Then we have the last section of the novel, is  going over the first section from the eyes of the red-haired woman.

As the horse and I reached the open doorway, two more figures emerged: first, a man, maybe five or six years older than I was, and then a tall, red-haired woman who might have been his elder sister.There was something unusual, and very alluring, about this woman. Maybe the lady in jeans was the mother of this red-haired woman and her little brother.

His first sighting of the red-haired woman one that lingers in his mind over the years.

This is a retelling of the old Oedipus Rex story of a son killing a father and the reverse a father causing the sons death. Is a story of how we talk Cem struggles to talk to his own real father a man more caught up in his Dissident movement, so his adopt father Mahmut becomes a father figure as they do the hard work working the well but one moment cause an accident that he blames himself for the rest of his life. In the present, he has another incident with his own son life. Then we have the red-haired woman as a sort of temptress that cause problems from the moment she meets Cem and causes him problems for his life. Less complex than his recent books but still full of thew twist and turns you expect from Pamuk and of course the shadow of Istanbul is always in his stories.