Abstract
AbstractThis thesis discusses Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book in light of its metafictional techniques and multifaceted narrative identities. It also aims to explore the significant role of story and the influential impact of storytelling in relation to the problem of authenticity and the idea of public intellectual in the novel. In The Black Book, Pamuk uses the essential feature of story to problematize the notion of origin in the textual authority and mobilize the function of medium in both public and private concern. The encounter of public and private illustrates in the representation of book form and the press. My investigation into the multilayers of narrative discourse will draw on the significance of story and the medium form of the press. The examination will also touch the manipulation of mass media in response to the authenticity in columnist writing and information gathering in public.Chapter Two consists four parts. In the first part, I would like to highlight the cultural background of columnist writing in Turkey and Pamuk’s structural arrangement of columns in The Black Book. In this novel, the columns from the press present an influential arena for storytelling. I would like to draw attention to the role of storyteller and the forms of storytelling in The Black Book in response to Walter Benjamin’s notion in “The Storyteller.” The examination will address how Pamuk constructs Celal’s stories in the columns and how the stories generates truth and power and brings great impact on the readership. I would like to further investigate the representation on the game of power and truth of media in The Black Book in light of Marshall McLuhan’s conception in Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man. I would further investigate the way stories echo and reecho in both public and private. The next topic will lead to the discussion on the problem of authenticity in relation to the game and devices of writing columns which Pamuk reveals in The Black Book.Chapter Three I would like to discuss the complex relation between storytelling and memory in this novel. In The Black Book, the act of storytelling associates with the access of memory and the gesture of public confession. I attempt to discuss the interrelation of memory and writing in response to Pamuk’s description of Celal’s memory disease and his dilemma of keeping writing. I try to discuss how the access of memory through reading enforces readers’ participation in stories. The art of storytelling and its liberating function on the readership in the novel deserve a critical analysis. Thus, I would like to further focus on the readership in The Black Book in relation to the immense influence of reading and writing on readers.Chapter Four will be my conclusion. In this chapter, I would like to discuss the significance of reading Pamuk in Taiwan as a Foreign Languages and Literature student in response to the way Pamuk address the intellectual dialectic between East and West and the notion of “unlearning.” The way Pamuk reconsiders the relationship between author and authority, and historicizes the problems between past and present and also problematizes the issue on authorship and authenticity can offer further depth to rediscover the hidden stories in Taiwan. The multifaceted reflection on diverse cultures and the notion of public intellectual in his novels can be associated with the colonial past in a Taiwanese context. My thesis intends to offer a novel perspective to delve into Pamuk’s The Black Book through unpacking diverse layers of stories and reconsider the problem of authenticity and the intertwinements between stories, power and truth in the labyrinth of story.