The Museum of Innocence

The Museum of Innocence (Turkish original title Masumiyet Müzesi ) is a 2008 novel by the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk . The German translation by Gerhard Meier was published by Carl Hanser Verlag in 2008 . The novel describes a love story that led to the creation of a museum. In 2012, a museum based on the novel was opened in Istanbul .

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Kemal, the 30-year-old, well-educated son of a factory owner, and his girlfriend Sibel plan to get engaged in a short time. Kemal happened to meet the poor 18-year-old relative Füsun when he was about to buy Sibel a handbag. Emotionally touched by Füsun, he begins to meet her and help her prepare for the university exam. These meetings end when Kemal and Sibel become engaged. Kemal can no longer reach Füsun and therefore becomes depressed and unhappy. He separates from Sibel and spends his days in the apartment where he and Füsun made love.

After the death of his father, Kemal receives a message from Füsun and learns where she lives. He visits her and sees that she is married. Her husband Feridun is a filmmaker who has loved Füsun since childhood. He needs financial support for his film, and that is also the reason why Füsun invites Kemal. They meet often, go to the cinema together, but Füsun behaves formally. Kemal fears that one day he will lose Fusun and secretly collects her personal belongings. Füsun's husband falls in love with the leading actress in his film. The film is successful, but Feridun and Füsun's marriage falls apart.

After the death of Füsun's father, Kemal and Füsun live together and plan to go to Paris with Füsun's mother . Füsun dies in a car accident in Edirne and Kemal is seriously injured. When he is feeling better, he decides, with the objects from Füsun that he has been collecting all the time, to open a museum in the place where Füsun and her family used to live. So he offers the writer Orhan Pamuk to write a catalog for the museum, and Pamuk writes the book.

Relationship between books and museums

Orhan Pamuk got the idea to write a fictional story about the house he passed every day when he was taking his little daughter to school. Then he bought this corner house in Çukurcuma (pronounced: Tschukúrdschumaa) and began to write.

The house was renovated in 2003 by the Turkish architects İhsan Bilgin, Cem Yücel and a German team of architects who were friends with Pamuk (Sunder-Plassmann Architects).

In the entrance hall of the museum, visitors are confronted with a wall covered with 4,213 cigarette butts that Fusun smoked. The 83 showcases in the museum correspond to the number of chapters in the book. Everyday objects such as earrings, women's shoes, lipsticks, handkerchiefs, matchboxes, empty bottles, photographs, advertising posters, glasses, rakı bottles, a bird cage, and a wall clock can be seen in display cases on the first and second floors. Upstairs in the attic is Kemal's room, where he spent the last years of his life, as well as Pamuk's manuscripts and his drafts for the museum.

In an interview with Jörg Steinleitner , Orhan Pamuk said: “I am glad that German readers will now pay more attention to Turkey and its authors. I am happy that The Museum of Innocence , the novel I have been working on for the past six years, is being published around the same time in Turkey and Germany. This novel took a lot of effort. I am happy that it is now finished. It includes everything I have come to know and see in life. By life I mean life in Istanbul, in my corner of the world. It's about the people and streets that I'm most familiar with. This idea makes me happy. And I find it exciting that German readers will run down these streets in their imagination. "

Facade of the "Museum of Innocence" in Istanbul

reception

The Turkish pop music singer Nazan Öncel wrote the song Canım benim nasılsın? (German: How are you, my darling? ) after reading the book and being touched by the characters' love. The fourth edition of the magazine Başka Kültür Sanat Dergisi (German: Die other Kultur & Kunst ) made the story of the military coup in Turkey from 1980 to the Ergenekon case the topic and used the cover of the book as the title page with a small difference: Instead of Masumiyet Müzesi was the title Mahkumiyet Müzesi (German: The Museum of Judgment ). On May 5th and 6th, 2012, the symposium for The Museum of Innocence was held at Mimar Sinan University .

Demet Haselçin implemented the novel as a documentary film. She called Orhan Pamuk in 1999 and started making the film after the talks. Every two to three weeks she visited the museum under construction, filmed it and kept the copies to document the changes in the condition of the building. After Pamuk published the book, the director Orhan contacted Pamuk by email. They met to watch the footage. After the film was finished, Haselçin and her colleague Pınar Yakışıklı introduced the protagonists to the film. In the role of Kemal, Hakan Gerçek synchronized the history of the museum. The film also includes interviews with Pamuk, the architects and the team.

Honors

In 2014 the museum was named European Museum of the Year .

expenditure

• Orhan Pamuk: Masumiyet Müzesi . İletişim Yayınları, Istanbul 2008, ISBN 978-975-050-609-3 .
• Orhan Pamuk: The Museum of Innocence . Hanser, Munich 2008, ISBN 978-3-446-23061-3 .

Web links

• Masumiyet Müzesi. The Museum of Innocence - Istanbul Museum website
• The Museum of Innocence in pearl
• The Museum of Innocence at Literature Blog
• Museum of Innocence, Istanbul - project website Sunder-Plassmann Architects
• The Museum of Innocence at Google Cultural Institute

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Masumiyet Müzesi, Çukurcuma Caddesi, Dalgıç Çıkmazı, 2, 34425, Beyoğlu, İstanbul, Türkiye
2. ↑ The Museum of Innocence . In: Deutsche Welle of May 11, 2012.
3. ^ Museum of Innocence, Istanbul , accessed February 6, 2016.
4. ↑ http://www.kleinezeitung.at/nachrichten/kultur/3050998/magie-des-alltagere.story ( Memento from November 22, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) . In: Kleine Zeitung of June 25, 2012.
5. ↑ 4213 Beloved Woman's Cigarettes . In: The time of May 3, 2012.
6. ↑ Orhan Pamuk writer. Interview with a Nobel Prize winner on Jörg Steinleitner's website .
7. ↑ Nazan Öncel Masumiyet Müzesi'nin şarkısını Yazdi in Hürriyet .
8. ↑ Başka Kültür-Sanat Dergisi'nin 4. Sayısı Çıktı on bianet.org from November 18, 2008.
9. ↑ Masumiyet Müzesi Sempozyumu at tramvay duraği .
10. ↑ “Orhan bey, başıma bir şey gelirse kayıtlar şurada ...” In: Milliyet of April 29, 2012.
11. ↑ European Museum of the Year Award 2014 ( Memento of the original from June 9, 2014 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. , accessed May 20, 2015.