here is the outline from wikipedia.org :The main characters in the novel are miniaturists in the Ottoman Empire. The events revolve around the murder of one of the painters, as related in the first chapter. From then on, Pamuk — in a postmodern style reminiscent of Jorge Luis Borges — plays with the reader and with literary conventions in general.
The novel's narrator changes in every chapter. In addition to character-narrators, the reader will find unexpected voices such as the corpse of the murdered, a coin, several painting motifs, and the color red. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles, opening a window on the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III during nine snowy winter days in the Istanbul of 1591.
Enishte Effendi, the maternal uncle of Kara (Black), is reading the Book of the Soul by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a famous Sunni commentator on the Qur'an, and continuous references to it are made throughout the book. The most important of these is the fact that part of the novel is narrated by Elegant Effendi, a murdered miniaturist. Al-Jawziyya argues, in the same fashion as Islamic doctrine in general, that the souls of the dead linger on earth and can hear the living.
Pamuk suggests that viewing miniatures is a way to achieve a kind of eternity. Thus Shekure seeks to look upon the reader like women who view miniatures of a distant time and place do, thereby escaping time and place - 'just like those beautiful women with one eye on the life within the book and one eye on the life outside, I, too, long to speak with you who are observing me from who knows which distant time and place.' The murdered Elegant Effendi accused his murderer of sacrilegious illustrations offending Allah or God. Is true art an expression of the individual artist or is true art a close to perfect representation of the divine in which the individual artist has succeeded in overcoming his personal vanity? This question becomes an existential question in Pamuk's tale.
The novel's narrator changes in every chapter. In addition to character-narrators, the reader will find unexpected voices such as the corpse of the murdered, a coin, several painting motifs, and the color red. The novel blends mystery, romance, and philosophical puzzles, opening a window on the reign of Ottoman Sultan Murat III during nine snowy winter days in the Istanbul of 1591.
Enishte Effendi, the maternal uncle of Kara (Black), is reading the Book of the Soul by Ibn Qayyim Al-Jawziyya, a famous Sunni commentator on the Qur'an, and continuous references to it are made throughout the book. The most important of these is the fact that part of the novel is narrated by Elegant Effendi, a murdered miniaturist. Al-Jawziyya argues, in the same fashion as Islamic doctrine in general, that the souls of the dead linger on earth and can hear the living.
Pamuk suggests that viewing miniatures is a way to achieve a kind of eternity. Thus Shekure seeks to look upon the reader like women who view miniatures of a distant time and place do, thereby escaping time and place - 'just like those beautiful women with one eye on the life within the book and one eye on the life outside, I, too, long to speak with you who are observing me from who knows which distant time and place.' The murdered Elegant Effendi accused his murderer of sacrilegious illustrations offending Allah or God. Is true art an expression of the individual artist or is true art a close to perfect representation of the divine in which the individual artist has succeeded in overcoming his personal vanity? This question becomes an existential question in Pamuk's tale.
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