The Museum of Innocence

THIS IS what I observed while traveling the world, and wandering through Istanbul. There are two types of collectors:

1. The Proud Ones, those pleased to show their collections to the world (they predominate in the west)

2. The Bashful Ones, who hide away all they have accumulated ( and unmodern disposition) 

The Bashful collect purely for the sake of collecting. like the Proud, they begin - as readers will have noticed in my own case - in pursuit of an answer, a consolation, even a palliative for a pain, a resolution of difficulty, or simply out of a dark compulsion. 

In the writing of this book, Pamuk was influenced by the Bagatti Valsecchi Museum in Milan, Italy, as he noted in the museum's guestbook on June 27, 2007: “It is the third time that I have visited this extraordinary museum. I love this house, the idea and the imagination that hide behind these walls. They influenced me a lot for the novel I am writing, ''The Museum of Innocence''. I am happy to be here for the third time.”

This controlled atmosphere can be justified in part by the obsessiveness of the character of Kemal, whose mania is exhausting for the first couple hundred pages of The Museum of Innocence, and then simply becomes part of the air of the novel. Kemal thinks his main psychological problem (he has a few) is that he is unable to recognize happiness in the moment, as it is happening. This is the human condition, as Pamuk is at pains to enunciate in both the novel and catalog, and Kemal’s inability to know happiness as it happens isn’t unusual. Neither is it unusual that Kemal, like other lovers, dwells unhealthily on objects that his beloved has worn or touched
What is peculiar about Kemal’s case is that these objects become his main obsession, even while his beloved is still alive. Rather than trying to win Fusün back, or free her from her loveless marriage, or even get to know her better, Kemal becomes addicted to gathering and handling Fusün-related objects. Her untimely death doesn’t interrupt this fetishistic collecting, but intensifies it.