MEMORIES OF DISTANT MOUNTAINS

Pictures of a writer’s days.

From the many notebooks in which Nobel Prize–winner Pamuk wrote and drew from 2009 to 2022, he has assembled an intimate volume revealing glimpses of his life and work. Because he puts pages into “emotional” rather than chronological order—emotions that range from melancholy to exhilaration—readers may find it helpful to consult the appended chronology, which contains details of Pamuk’s worldwide travels, teaching, lecturing, and publications. Between the ages of 7 and 22, he recalls, he thought he was going to be a painter, influenced by pointillists like Seurat. Although he gave up artwork in favor of writing, he still finds pleasure in combining both, as did William Blake. In waiting rooms, on trains, in cafes and restaurants, Pamuk makes sketches, sometimes painting them with watercolors when he returns home. “The loveliness of this landscape,” he notes of one, “is a call to respect the world and the whole universe.” Some illustrations, glowing with pinks, greens, and yellows, evoke Matisse. In slashes of black and grey, Pamuk captures the dark mysteries of seascapes; in other drawings, he tries to convey the quality of his dreams. “The only way to transpose the mood of a dream onto paper,” he writes, “is to paint it in watercolor.” Throughout, Pamuk reflects on the challenge of constructing his Museum of Innocence, an exhibition space that he conceived as a companion to his novel of the same name. “Sometimes,” he writes in 2009, “I think of this notebook as a museum,” a repository of memories. “When I draw in my journals,” he writes, “the poetry of the world seeps into my day-to-day life.” In 2019 he adds, “To live is to see.”

A lyrical illuminated memoir.