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The Museum of Innocence. By Orhan Pamuk. 560 pages. Knopf. $28.95.
The Museum of Innocence
by Orhan Pamuk
A man’s obsession with a woman he cannot have manifests as a museum chronicling their thwarted love.
When Kemal, a wealthy denizen of Istanbul, meets Fusun, a beautiful shop girl and distant cousin, the two begin a torrid affair. Kemal, set to marry within his class, eventually breaks off his engagement, but only after it is too late. For the next 30 years, Kemal wanders Istanbul in search of Fusun, with an obsessive and self-destructive fervor. He turns into a collector of objects, hoarding ordinary items that remind him of his relationship and creating a museum of their thwarted love. The Museum of Innocence is Pamuk’s first novel since winning the Nobel Prize in 2006, though the National Post writes that the novel is “not as accomplished” as his earlier work. The Associated Press disagrees, writing about Pamuk’s oeuvre, “Having seen three brilliant van Goghs shouldn’t make laying eyes on a fourth any less astonishing.”
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