Orhan Pamuk's Calling Of "Huan" As Seem In Istanbul: Memories And The City

Ferit Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul. He is so deeply influenced by Istanbul's unique geographical position, history and culture, that he pays special attention to the cultural hybridity and the development of Turkish nation. We see that in Orhan Pamuk's works, there is a mood called " hii ziin " which is especially embodied in his work------Istanbul:Memories and the City. In this book, "huzn" has the traditional religious meaning, and then is extended to "sadness" in secular sense. But it essentially differs from sadness, for "huzn" was produced in a profound historical, cultural and religious background. As the personal sorrow of Orhan Pamuk, "huzn" is caused by the loss of a sense of centre that is bred from the decline of Ottoman Empire culture as well as by the derivative loss of a sense of self-centered; " hu zun' has gradually become a spiritual state of the Turks and the sadness of Turkish nation, which is from the Turks'sorrow for the gradual disappearance of the old traditional culture, from the collective sorrow for lacking the sense of belonging, from the sorrow for the imbalance of the cultural center, from the sorrow for Turkish perplexing development in the process of westernization. The essence of "hu zun" is to let Turks pursue memories of history, self-examine and understand, search for the way of Turkish future development, all in the sorrow. Istanbul:Memories and the City, Orhan Pamuk's memoir, is both a history of personal growth and description of Istanbul's unique grief. This ancient city, situated in the border of East and West, has been the background of all Orhan Pamuk's works. And the novel, Istanbul:Memories and the City, plays a great important role in Orhan Pamuk's works as well as in Turkish literature.