|
Some thoughts after my visit to the Museum of Innocence at Galatasaray on October 8th.
I am one of those people who never collect anything. That is why the idea of gathering keepsakes or souvenirs was somewhat strange to me until I read Orhan Pamuk’s novel. The charming museum tells the same love story in an elegant way, and I cannot help seeing it as a part of this piece of art. Like another version or another voice.
The exhibition consists of small compositions each representing a passage of the book - and of an era of history at the same time. Those especially touching for me were
AŞK ACIMI YATIŞTIRACAK KÜÇÜK BİR UMUT İÇİN ‘to entertain a small hope that might allay my heartache’ with small pictures and items which during the time the lovers were separated helped Kemal not to lose his hope. What was in the middle of it? Horoscopes, of course!
ONA EVLENME TEKLİF EDECEKTİM ‘I was going to ask her to marry me’ with an old mirror and a basin with half-used beauty products on it.
KALKIP GİDEMEMEK ‘on being unable to stand up and leave’, a collection of things that Kemal used as an excuse not to leave Füsun’s house even if it was late.
BAZAN ‘sometimes’, tiny memories of coincidences which took place during the evenings Kemal spent with Füsun’s family. For eight whole years.
KÖPEKLER ‘the dogs’, a case full of cheap porcelain dogs - Kemal regularly snitched the small decorative dogs from above the TV set and replaced them with new ones, and no one ever made a number of it.
A paragraph of the novel describing flow of time is quoted on the wall in one of the exhibition halls. Go see it and cry.
|
