East–West collisions

A magnificent historical fresco

Mehrdad Rahimi-Moghaddam

Nights of Plague

by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Ekin Oklap Hamish Hamilton

$32.99 pb, 683 pp

Orhan Pamuk’s latest novel, Nights of Plague, is set on a fictitious island called Mingheria, the twenty-ninth state of the Ottoman Empire, located in the Eastern Mediterranean Sea. In 1901, following the order of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, a steamer carrying an eminent Ottoman delegation consisting of various Ottoman officials entrusted with mitigating political animosity between China’s Muslims and European powers sets sail for China.

Notable among the steamer’s passengers are Dr Bonkowski Pasha, the Ottoman Empire’s Chief Inspector of Public Health and Sanitation; his assistant Dr Ilias; Princess Pakize, the newlywed daughter of the deposed Sultan Murad V, and her husband, Prince Consort Doctor Nuri Bey; and Major Kâmil, the officer assigned by the palace to guard the delegation. Soon we learn that Dr Bonkowski Pasha and his assistant Dr Ilias are not headed to China and will disembark at Mingheria to investigate a possible outbreak of the plague.

Populated by Muslims and Orthodox Greeks, Mingheria functions as a microcosm of the Ottoman Empire in its ailing years. Immediately after his arrival, Dr Bonkowski learns that Mingheria’s governor, Sami Pasha, is reluctant to admit the existence of the plague on the island, attributing such claims to domestic and foreign enemies of the Ottoman Empire. Acting as a catalyst, the outbreak polarises the island’s political scene, with Greeks blaming Muslims, and Muslims blaming Greeks.

In Pamuk’s Mingheria, space plays a manifest social and political function, resembling boundaries based on class, religion, and nationality. Muslims and Greeks, Ottoman governors, princes and princesses, pashas, dervishes, sheikhs, pharmacists, romantic nationalists, religious sects, and lodges all have their own space in Pamuk’s fictional island. Whether the plague is discovered in a Greek or Muslim neighbourhood is of crucial importance, for it leads to completely different political intrigues. One is reminded of Franco Moretti’s thesis: ‘Without a certain kind of space, a certain kind of story is simply impossible.’ Pamuk masterfully builds and delineates such a space, laying the groundwork for the interplay of various fissures that marked the final years of the Ottoman Empire. The mysterious murder of Dr Bonkowski Pasha adds another twist to the ongoing tensions.

Upon receiving news of the murder, the Sultan commissions Prince Consort Doctor Nuri to head towards Mingheria, asking him to solve the mystery and contain the outbreak. Arriving on the island and observing developments alongside her husband,

Princess Pakize starts writing letters to her sister, Hatice, in Istanbul. The novel’s purported author, a historian called Mina Mingher, has based her story on these letters. Unanimous denial of the plague by political and religious leaders – who resort to conspiracy theories, exploiting the outbreak to advance political manoeuvrings – the announcement of what we can call the ‘state of exception’ (Giorgio Agamben), formation of Quarantine Regiments, the resistance of the locals and the businesspeople against the quarantine, are described in extensive detail.

Gradually, the quintessential Pamukian theme emerges between the lines: East–West collisions. Whereas in My Name Is Red (1998) the story was focused on two antagonistic artistic camps, those preferring Western-style portraiture rather than traditional court miniatures, in Nights of Plague the central clash is between science and religion – modern-style pharmacists (Société de Pharmacie de Constantinople) versus traditional herbalists; quarantines and lockdowns versus consecrated amulets and talismans; rational calculated approaches to the outbreak versus Fatalism and resignation – which epitomises the discrepancy between West and East. Finding the killer becomes a question of method: Western-style inductive reasoning, dubbed ‘the Sherlock Holmes method’, a favourite of Sultan Abdul Hamid II, versus the traditional flogging of suspects until one of them surrenders and confesses, a method preferred by Governor Sami Pasha. Through these contrasts, Pamuk portrays the final years of the crumbling Ottoman Empire and its gradual and foundational transformation in the face of the West.

Following the blockade imposed on the island by the European powers, lest the plague spread to their own countries, some political figures seize the opportunity to declare Mingheria independent. In the wake of the emergence and establishment of state nationalism, we also witness the spread of nationalism to every corner of the island; the development of Mingherian language; the initiation of onomastic studies to revive age-old Mingherian names; the commissioning of archaeological excavations to discover the history and culture of ancient Mingherians; the indoctrination of the island’s children through its pedagogical institutions; the exclusion and suppression of the island’s national minorities. We see the birth of an ‘imagined community’ (Benedict Anderson) and the ensuing ‘invention of tradition’ (Eric Hobsbawm) in the novel’s second half. The novel’s allegorical structure will be obvious to readers familiar with Türkiye’s contemporary history and Pamuk’s oeuvre. Furthermore, the novel has no dearth of irony, especially in chapters where we witness the ‘Mingherianisation’ policies. The irony at the heart of the second half is displayed in the simultaneous portrayal of a state-imposed nationalism and of its assertions about a primordial Mingherian identity.

Nights of Plague merges historical novel and detective fiction in a slow-burn interwoven plot that requires patience from readers to appreciate its panoramic, multi-layered, and extremely rich world. For readers less conversant with Orhan Pamuk and his penchant for being at once a ‘naïve and sentimental’ novelist, starting with Nights of Plague might be a risky choice. At times, the book’s descriptions seem excessive and repetitive, making the reading experience tedious and exhausting. Readers familiar with Pamuk’s earlier works will also discover his creative genius in this magnificent historical fresco. g