Images of melanholy in the novel “Istambul Memories of a City” by Orhan Pamuk

Abstract

The article analyzes the principles of the ekphrastic combination of the text of the novel “Istanbul memories of a city” by Orhan Pamuk and the photographs in it. The functions of melancholy and the leading images of its presentation in the text are defined. In particular, the black and white color of the photo, the seriality of family photographs, the transformation of the photographic index into a full-fledged image in the process of syncretization of the art of words and photographs and the formation of an ekphrastic novel-photography. The mechanisms of the transformation of metexis into mimesis in the novel “Istanbul memories of a city”, considered by us above, reveal one pattern of modern novel: the growth of ekphrastic transformations of the text. Of course, the technological development of society played the great role here, but the author's choice remains the decisive factor, he concentrates on the Istanbul melancholy. It becomes the key to understanding the world, despite its monotonous-hostile black color. Istanbul's sadness becomes a space of overlapping of collective and individual memories by O. Pamuk. The novel contains the motivation of the relevance of photographs, which is written by the children's image of the writer: they are intended to depict the contradictions between the unique moments of life and its usual routine. But in order for all this diversity of forms and contents to spill into organic aesthetic unity, the author had to find the principle of unity. It turned out to be Istanbul melancholy.