45   Turkey – Orhan Pamuk – “The White Castle”– March 2017 (Score 3.71)

Set in mediaeval times after the Turks had taken the Near East, this is the story of an Italian who was captured, along with the crew of his ship, when they fell afoul of a large Turkish fleet. Taken into slavery with the rest of the crew he earned their hatred when he used his knowledge to get some slight privileges by curing illnesses.

Eventually he was put to work under a man called Hoja (who was his spitting image, but did not realise it} to devise a spectacular fireworks display for a high society wedding anniversary.

He was offered his freedom if he converted to Islam, but twice refused. Later the Turks carried out a mock execution and he thought he was about to be decapitated, but still did not convert. The Pasha confirmed that he was to remain as Hoja’s slave. Hoja was now working on making a magnificent clock as a present for the Pasha. He wanted to make use of European knowledge for this.

The plague struck the city with many, and ongoing, deaths. Hoja found a bubo on his body and begins to panic, worrying for many pages. Nothing came of it. Eventually, and very belatedly, Hoja became aware that the Venetian was his double.

Up till this point the story went well enough, but when Hoja began to hear (In his head) the Biblical “I am that I am”, this seemed passing strange in a Moslem character. I obviously wasn’t seeing the point, and certainly not the “cool and elegantly jaundiced look at the results of cultural fusion” mentioned in the preface to my edition.

I began to tire of it and was sorely disappointed because of Pamuk’s reputation. Perhaps it was simply a “first novel” problem for me. I scored it at 5.0.