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Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk questions father-son relationship

Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk questions father-son relationship

Posted July. 07, 2018 07:18,   

Updated July. 07, 2018 07:18

한국어

“Oedipus,” a play by Sophocles, is a famous mythology that deals with a tragedy between father and son. In the middle-east, but there is another story of Rustum who killed his son Sohrab without knowing at the battle site. This story, which appears in the ancient “Shahnameh,” a story of kings, is foreshadowed throughout the novel along with the Oedipus mythology. The protagonist agonizes over the two old stories between the absence of his birth father and his teacher, who is like his father.

The identity of Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish novelist, screenwriter, academic and recipient of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature who calls himself a “writer of Istanbul,” is indicated in parts of the novel. With cities of Turkey, middle east and Asia as the background, the classics of the East and the West is incorporated subtly into the lives of the characters who live in the modern world. Multi-leveled establishment of the protagonist’s past and present along with the mythology reveals the capacity of the writer.

Oedipus complex suggests matters to think about regarding father-son relations, freedom and obedience, true self and destiny. The portrayal of the comprehensive feelings that Oedipus, who killed his father without knowing, and what Cem felt in front of the mythology of the “book of kings” and the fast development allow no time to be bored.


Yeun-Kyung Cho yunique@donga.com