The Museum of Innocence

I picked this book up, hoping to find refuge from already monotonous and boring days. Lo and behold, The Museum of Innocence. Boy, how wrong was I in assuming I could find solace in this book. This book had an interesting plot point in the beginning with a spoiled-mildly egotistic-oblivious-narcissistic protagonist Kemal. Throughout the reading, I had a love-hate relationship with the book. Either I would love the book for what it is and how it made me think and feel. Or, at other times, I would hate the book for what it is and how it made me think and feel. Let me elucidate; I loved the book for the fact that the plot and characters had so much depth, and it was almost like I could peep into Kemal's world like a fly on the wall. The book was like an onion slowly peeling itself off into its insides, the crux. And I hated the book for its monotonous tone. It was so dull and uninteresting after the engagement party until Fusun's divorce. Literally, nothing happened. It went on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on and on. At times I would read so many pages, yet I could surmise what I read in under a couple of sentences. That's how boring the plot went about in the middle portion. But then, all this is justifiable because this shows Kemal's extremely passionate love for Fusun and justifies him building a museum portraying their love. And if Fusun died without Kemal and her having a proper “intimate” time, I swear to God I would have been so pissed at the author and never forgive him for making me read so much to know that they will die sad and disappointed.

All in all, even though the book is extremely frustrating and tedious to read. Ultimately, it was rewarding to finish it off; to finally have closure to the painful and pathetic life of Kemal.

The Museum of Innocence may not display the ambitious storytelling of Pamuk's previous novels that I read. But it succeeds tremendously in its intentions: to portray the social and cultural structure of Istanbul in the last decades of the twentieth century; to tell a powerful love story of an unlikeable couple, for whom we feel sympathetic by the end; and to assert that it is the small events and articles that constitute the entire life. It tells us to celebrate them and relish in the memories they elicit.