My Father's Suitcase by Orhan Pamuk - Research Paper Example

19 April Assignment Written by Orhan Pamuk, a renowned Turkish My Father’s Suitcase is a beautiful story about how he was influenced by his father’s art of writing. When Pamuk was a young boy, he believed that his father was a strong man who worked hard all day in order to earn for the family, and helped them live an easy and wonderful life. Pamuk never believed that his father could have a different side to him or a different personality that would change his perception about him. When he got older, his father handed him a black leather suitcase of texts, scripts, papers and even diaries to read when he would get older. His father said, “Just take a look,” slightly embarrassed. “See if there’s anything in there that you can use. Maybe after I’m gone you can make a selection and publish it” (Pamuk). At that time, Pamuk did not understand the gravity of the situation because he never understood that his father meant death. His story however unfolds as he opens the suitcase to find excellent pieces of writing and literature, something that made him think about his father from a different perspective altogether, something that made him the great writer and man that he is today. Pamuk talks about the characteristics of a writer by incorporating the way his father was; by reading the letters and papers that his father had left behind for him, he forms a different worldview about him. He begins to understand that his father did not take up his writing in order to help the family live a substantial life because his grandfather had been a wealthy businessman and thus Pamuk’s father did not want to disappoint the family by becoming a writer and taking the risk of not being able to earn enough money. He thus kept this personality of his a secret from the rest of the world, and was too scared to display it before he was gone. He was perhaps embarrassed because of the fact that he would have turned out to be a wonderful writer and that he would later feel regret in his life for not having taken up that path when he had the chance. He thus opted for the path of least resistance, the path where he showed his son what kind of a man he actually was, what his inherent personality revealed about him, and how he could make a difference in his son’s life by showing him all of that. Pamuk writes, “The lovely Turkish expression “to dig a well with a needle” seems to me to have been invented with writers in mind. In the old stories, I love the patience of Ferhat, who digs through mountains for his love – and I understand it, too” (Pamuk). He talks about how a writer is born and the kind of impatience that he contains within himself in order to deliver his thoughts onto paper. Every writer spends the rest of his life searching the depths of his soul for the exact words – something he is seldom able to find because of which he keeps on going, never satisfied with anything he has written or understood. Writers are people that tend to feel lonely on a frequent basis not because they remain aloof from the rest of society but because they feel their thoughts tend to desert them in times of need. When a man tries to look inside him and is not able to find the reason, he is most dissatisfied with himself, however there are many writers, like Pamuk’s father, who were hopeful and confident about what they wrote and thus witnessed the “angel of inspiration” visiting them on a daily basis, helping them understand what they want to extract out of life. Pamuk says that his ability to write is all because of his father; when he opened his father’s suitcase and found a different side to his father, he also found a different side to himself. It is his father that paved the way for him so that he could show the world what he truly was instead of hiding and waiting till after he was gone. He writes that he often feels that when he puts the words down on paper, they are coming not from his own imagination but from a different power or force outside his physical presence altogether. That, he says, is the beauty of a thought, especially when it boils down to paper. Pamuk never thought that his father could even be a writer; according to him, writers were those that remained away from the hustle and bustle of society, those that locked themselves up for hours at end, writing furiously and juggling their thoughts in a certain direction. However, he writes about the revelation that his father was indeed a brilliant man and even though he was somewhat a social butterfly, he always had time to devote to his writing. Even though he went to Paris and began to write alone, he always found himself amidst a chatter of chirpy people because that is what is made him happy. His writings came from various sources and emotions that he was able to feel because of the presence of people around him (“My Father’s Suitcase”). Pamuk writes about how he is grateful to his father for giving him the opportunity to think about so much in life. He writes, “Sometimes my father would stretch out on a divan, abandon the book or the magazine in his hand, and drift off into a dream, losing himself for the longest time. When I saw this expression on his face, which was so different from the one he wore for the joking, teasing, and bickering of family life, when I saw the first signs of an inward gaze, I would understand, with trepidation, that he was discontented. Now, many years later, I understand that this discontent is the basic trait that turns a person into a writer” (Pamuk). A writer is an artist, and Pamuk was able to tread upon that path of artistry because of his father. His father built an amazing library for himself as well as his son as he travelled all over Istanbul as well as the rest of the world. Pamuk felt that reading books helped him escape from his own culture and broaden his horizons about the world abroad. Despite this, he feels a stark difference from his father; Pamuk states that he has led a life of anger and jealousy, resentment and quarrels unlike his father. His father was a happy man who discussed political and social topics with as much valour and zeal. Unlike his son, he led a happy life without fighting much with others; Pamuk, however, feels that these angry thoughts are required to become a writer, but was proven wrong when he read his father’s works. He questions his father’s ability to climb into his mind every time he tries to escape reality: “What is happiness? Is happiness believing that you live a deep life in your lonely room? Or is happiness leading a comfortable life in society, believing in the same things as everyone else, or, at least, acting as if you did? Is it happiness or unhappiness to go through life writing in secret, while seeming to be in harmony with all that surrounds you?” (Pamuk) Pamuk tries to find a missing link in the relationship that he shared with his father; did he even know him at all is the question he asks himself. The one question that was driving him crazy was whether or not his father lived a secret life that he did not know anything about, and something that his father only endured when he had a pen in his hand. Pamuk unfurls a story of longing and yearning to understand what his father had been trying to tell him for so long – trying to understand the anxiety that he had underestimated his father while he wrote. He now feels closer to his father after having comprehended the life that he had led and he roots the success of his books, My Name is Red and The Black Book to his father for having helped him so much in gauging into his personality and understanding where he came from as well as what his purpose in life was (Goodreads). Pamuk’s father contained a sense of authenticity – something that Pamuk realized only after having opened his suitcase. He understood that when his father talked about the center of the world being far away than Istanbul, he meant that the center of their knowledge with respect to literature was far away and that they would only be able to reach the heart after having peered into their souls and experience various emotions throughout the beautiful journey of life. He meant that every individual ends up giving too much importance to reach the heart of the world without realizing that it lies within their very souls – something they spend their lives searching for and come home to find it was always there, all along. “Whereas the impulse that compels us to shut ourselves up in our rooms to write for years on end is a faith in the opposite, the belief that one day our writings will be read and understood, because people the world over resemble one another” (Pamuk). Works Cited Pamuk, Orhan. “My Fathers Suitcase.” The New Yorker. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. . "My Father’s Suitcase." Orhan Pamuk. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. . "Kellys Reviews My Fathers Suitcase: The Nobel Lecture." Goodreads. Web. 19 Apr. 2012. . Read More