The Red-Haired Woman by Orhan Pamuk

I don’t read much nowadays which is something I regret. Besides my day job, I have several side projects and rarely do I have my evenings free. The only time I am able to read is when I am traveling. On a recent road trip to Toronto, I was able to read “The Red-Haired Woman” by Orhan Pamuk. If you are reading this, please note this warning “Spoiler alert!”. This post will give away what happens in the book, so if that stops you from reading a book, please go no further!

Despite the title, the book is about father-son relationships. The book portrays Cem from his boyhood years until his middle age when he is murdered. As a boy, Cem’s father was largely absent, either because he was arrested due to his left-wing political activities or because he was a womanizer. Though he resents his father for the hardship he and his mother had to endure, his feelings for his father don’t border on hatred. His father was not a hard man and was never harsh to him or his mother. As an aspiring writer, Cem in his youth read fairly prolifically and one of his favourite stories was of Oedipus. Somehow, I feel that is how the book begins, he could not relate to his father as Oedipus did to his.

The story of Oedipus is as follows. Oedipus was married to the king and queen of Thebes. The king heard a prophecy that his son would one day kill him and marry his wife. Fearing this prophecy, the king asked someone to take away the baby and leave it somewhere to die. However, the person given this task took pity on the baby and instead handed the baby over to someone else until finally the baby ended up being adopted by the king and queen of another kingdom. As Oedipus grew, he found out about the prophecy, and not knowing that he was adopted, feared he would end up killing his adopted father and marry his adopted mother. He left the kingdom and set forth for Thebes not knowing that Thebes was where his parents really where. He kills an unknown man on the way and reaches the kingdom to find that the kingdom was being held ransom by a monster in the absence of the king. He solves a riddle, and defeats the monster. With this, he is made the king of Thebes and marries the queen. This fulfills the prophecy as he has now married his mother without knowing it and also unknown to him, the stranger he kills on the way was the king of Thebes, his own father. Later, the kingdom is again at the mercy of a plague, to solve which he must find out the killer of the previous king. He finds out that he himself killed the king without knowing it. His mother realizes the prophecy has come true, and hangs herself while he seizes two pins from her dress and blinds himself.

When Cem is working as a well-digger’s apprentice, he strikes an almost father-son relationship with the well digger who is referred as Master Mahmut. Initially, the relationship is cordial, with Mahmut training Cem, and also telling him stories which he has adapted from religious texts. Most of the story-telling happens at night before they sleep in their tent. One night, Mahmut asks Cem to narrate a story and Cem recites the story of Oedipus. Mahmut, being religious, didn’t like the story and shows his disapproval to Cem. At this point, I feel, their relationship took a turn. Mahmut tells Cem, how he feels any father-son relationship should be, though it is so ideal that it is impossible. Mahmut then tells him the story of Rostam and Sohrab.

In this story, Rostam was a king in Persia who has a son but his wife does not want the son to be taken away to battle so she sends the baby away before Rostam finds out he has a son. The son Sohrab, just like Oedipus ends up being adopted in a rival kingdom in Persia. When these two kingdoms come to war, father and son now find themselves as rivals without knowing it. Sohrab almost kills Rostam, but Rostam tricks him into letting him go. In the next battle Rostam kills Sohrab but soon finds out that Sohrab is his own son and grieves for him.

At this point, Cem draws the conclusion that all father-son relationships can be broken down into Oedipus types or Rostam-Sohrab types. In one, the father wrongs the son by intending the son die as a baby while in the other, the father does not know about the son’s existence. In one, the son kills the father not knowing it, while in the latter, the father kills the son not knowing it either. In the first, the son then punishes himself for killing his father, while in the latter, the father is heartbroken to find that he has killed his son.

As the digging of the well progresses badly without finding any water, Mahmut’s behaviour towards Cem gradually turns nasty. During an accident, Cem believes he has killed Mahmut. In the book, Cem’s fear is that he will be arrested for the murder and his poor mother would be all alone. For this reason, he flees to his mother. But I feel, the reason why he flees, is because he feels he has become an Oedipus and killing Mahmut was inevitable as Mahmut was not proving to be the benevolent protector Mahmut feels any father should be towards his son. Cem’s fleeing to his own mother was to comfort himself that he might not through some accident end up in the arms of a woman who might have been like a wife to Mahmut though Mahmut never married.

The night before the accident, is where the red haired woman comes into Cem’s life. The red haired woman is a theater performer with a leftist group that tours the country. The night before, he sees the red haired woman in the scene of Rostam and Sohram as she being the mother of Sohrab grieves for her dead son. Watching that scene and gripped by the emotion she shows on stage, Cem is fascinated by the story of Rostam and Sohrab. Later that night, Cem ends up sleeping with the red-haired woman before coming back to his tent shared with Mahmut in the early hours of the morning.

So thus I suppose the title “The Red-Haired Woman”. She opens up that fascination of father-son relationships in Cem and his later visits to museums all over the world to look at paintings of the scene when Rostam kills his son Sohrab. Cem later goes to university, marries and embarks on a life of a successful engineer and then as a businessman. However, he and his wife never have children, which further increases his fascination for the stories of Oedipus and Rostam-Sohrab.

Much later, he receives a communication from someone claiming to be his son. It turns out to be true as the son is from the red-haired woman he slept with when he was a teenager. And here is where Orhan Pamuk turns out to be a master storyteller. Gradually, he unravels how the red-haired woman through her association with leftist groups was once the mistress of his own father during his days of leftist politics. With this, one part of the Oedipus story comes true as he realizes by sleeping with his father’s mistress he has unknowingly slept with a mother-figure.

Many wise people including Cem’s own current wife advise him to make no contact with his son. He however, ends up going back to the city where worked as a well-digger’s apprentice and where the red haired woman and her son still live. He meets the red-haired woman who tells him about herself. He finds out that Mahmut the well digger did not die from the accident but was merely injured. He continued digging the well and eventually found water. Mahmut was considered a saint in the city later for bringing water to the city dwellers. Cem can’t resist visiting the site of the well again and asks if the red-haired woman could help in leading him to it.

As I read this last part of the book, I was racing through the lines, as I thought to myself “Could he really be this stupid?”. The red-haired woman asks a young man to escort Cem to the site of the well. Cem almost knew something was about to happen as he brings with him his pistol which was legally allowed to possess being a businessman who might be a target of violent crime. As the young man escorts him to the well, the conversation gradually becomes accusative with the young man attacking Cem for a multitude of reasons – leaving Mahmut at the bottom of the well to die, for being an atheist. The young man finally reveals himself as Cem’s son and expresses his intent on killing Cem by throwing him into the well to die the way he did to Mahmut. Cem tries to protect himself with his gun but his son eventually kills him.

I suppose Cem knew one of them was going to die at the site of the well and his son would appear. Cem had lived all his life with Oedipus on one side and Rostam-Sohrab on the other. And he couldn’t resist to ask this question even if it meant costing his life or his freedom “What would his son be? An Oedipus or a Sohrab?” Would his son kill him only to regret later or would his son let Cem kill him?

It turns out his son was an Oedipus. Enraged that Cem never replied to his first communications or tried to reach out to him, this made Cem’s crimes of abandonment even worse. In this case, Cem did not know about his son’s existence unlike Oedipus’ real father. But Cem abandoned the city once he fled after thinking he killed Mahmut. Would that be seen as the same abandonment that Oedipus’ father was guilty of? Rostam however never knew his son existed because his wife had the baby sent away. So initially, Cem was like Rostam but he was later to find out but still chose not to acknowledge his son. So Cem did turn into a figure similar to Oedipus’ father.

Another masterpiece by Orhan Pamuk. Unfortunately, unlike “Snow” there are not too many quotes that are memorable. But it has a story line that will make you think for days after you put down the book.