All I Really Need To Know About Turkey I Learned From Orhan Pamuk

My friend Leanne first introduced me to Orhan Pamuk's work in 2007 when she gave me a copy of I Am Red which I consumed during a vacation in Cannes. Pamuk became the first Turkish author to win the Nobel Prize for literature earlier that same year. I Am Red is a historical mystery which takes place in Ottoman Istanbul which has a unique focus on the art of the time period. It is beautiful storytelling with regular changes of narrator comprised of both beautiful and dark elements.

I then left Pamuk alone for a couple of years, eventually reading Snow which is a contemporary story taking place in Kars – a small city in far east Anatolia. That's when when Pamuk writes about contemporary Turkey, he shares the experience of being Turkish today. More than any other author I have read, Pamuk invites you into his culture and his world – knowing that most of his readers do not understand it. Pamuk carefully makes the reader aware that he presents Turkishness, and in other books – Istanbulu-ness, from his own unique perspective – not as a universal truth. Pamuk's Kars, Istanbul and Turkey in general have have a distinct melancholy, but also a strongly rooted love for what they are and the life that can be found in them.

I read Pamuk's Istanbul in 2010 when I knew Emily and I would be going there that November. It set the stage to better understand and digest what I saw and made the experience more meaningful. I learned about different parts of the city such as his beloved neighborhood of Nisantasi where he has lived since childhood and the importance of tea and dessert houses in community life. How many Istanbullus like to share the sesame seeds from their simits – a round, bagel-like pastry – with the birds in the parks. Stories of yalis, the Ottoman Era mansions, how they burned and about those few that remain in the city – and especially along the Bosphorous. About the Bosphorous itself and how its role in the cityscape and people's life.

When I finally saw sooty, old houses and apartments that were clearly once clean and elegant, I appreciated their charm and their place in Istanbul's identity rather than take them as decay or apathy. And I wasn't surprised how people lingered for hours at meyhanes (mezze restaurants), cafes and dessert houses – seemingly idling time away because those are the places where people come together. They are the community homes.

During our travels in Turkey, we enjoyed Mediterranean Turkey, but we LOVED Istanbul and our 17 days there in October were some of the best of our trip. Anyone considering a trip to Istanbul should know that Autumn is clearly Istanbul's season.

Around 2015-2016 I went through an extended run of Pamuk books choosing some lesser known titles and then when it came out, A Strangeness In My Mind – Pamuk's ultimate love letter to Istanbul. I mostly listened to these books in the car and when I would get home, I when I got home I would tell Emily how desperately I wanted to return to Turkey. All the little details, the flavor, the ways of life made me long to return.

For this reason, I was very happy to come to Kusadasi. It doesn't have the richness and character of Istanbul, but it is Turkish nonetheless and find myself looking and appreciating so many of the little things Pamuk taught me to notice like the character of the old, Ottoman Era houses, decaying as they are up on the hill over the kaleci. Or the way in the 1950's so many of the characterless block towers were built by families of means to replace their old mansions – thinking that a multi-story apartment building was somehow more modern, and grander for an extended family to live in than an old mansion. The people sitting around sometimes spartan corner cafes, spending time over cay (Turkish tea) and cigarettes, maybe playing backgammon. And the simits being sold from carts in the street. 

We haven't explored very far in Kusadasi – mostly staying around the touristy center. But I haven't had to go far to find those little things that make Turkey distinct – they are on the walk down the hill, on the side streets as well as the main boulevards and touristy kaleci. If you know what you're looking for – it's everywhere you turn. In those moments of small observations, I feel warm and satisfied.

On another note, Emily and I were also warm and satisfied after our visit to the Kusadasi Hammam this afternoon. Built in 1495. this original stone and marble bathhouse still operated and like we experienced in Alanya and Antalya back in the summer of 2010, the experience was amazing and like no-other. Sitting in the vaulted, domed stone sauna, it was easy to imagine how people would come the the Hammam on Fridays to clean themselves – in a time when homes had no running water or really anything resembling a modern bathroom. In the main bathing area, seeing the many marble seats and brass spigots where presumably men once ritually washed themselves with soap and bowls of water could also be imagined. But laying down on a marble slab and being scrubbed more thoroughly than you have ever been scrubbed – by another person – remains shocking. Did people really get scrubbed the way cars move through a car wash – only hard enough to peel the paint? According to people running the hammam – yes, they did.

Emily and I were thoroughly exfoliated, lathered down with citronella scented soap and then covered over in the largest, fullest suds anyone can imagine – and then washed again before being told to sit up as bowl after bowl of warm and then cold water were poured over us – leaving us cleaner than we could ever get ourselves. It was strange, a little uncomfortable and in the end, sublime.

That experience was then followed by a 40 minute massage.

While hammams and Ottoman bathing traditions do not seem to be part of Pamuk's Turkey, Emily and I are both glad they are part of ours.