The Naive and Sentimental Novelist by Orhan Pamuk

In 2009 Turkish novelist Orhan Pamuk delivered six lectures as part of the Charles Eliot Norton series at Harvard University. Faber published them.

The essays consider not only the workings of a writer’s mind, but the reader’s. I like this observation about the way we cherish and feel protective towards a book no one else is reading:

“Reading a novel that no one else knows makes us feel that we are doing the writer a favor, so we redouble our efforts and exert our imagination that much more while reading the book.” (143) Is this why I particularly enjoyed Penelope Mortimer’s The Pumpkin Eater and Michele Zackheim’s Last Train to Paris? Did I manufacture my own delight in their work?

Is this why we sometimes feel let down by much-hyped new releases?

Another interesting comment is on the cosy-appeal of detective stories:

“...genre novels do not inspire us with any urge to seek the center at all. It is for this reason that writers of such novels add a new element of suspense and intrigue every few pages. On the other hand, because we are not drained by the constant effort of asking basic questions about the meaning of life, we feel comfortable and safe when reading genre novels. In fact, the reason we read such novels is to feel the peace and security of being at home, where everything is familiar and in its accustomed place.” (160)