I am at Barnes & Noble, the first in line to have two books signed by their author, Orhan Pamuk when he visited our campus yesterday. He won the Nobel for literature last year. I’ve been waiting for this since June, when his visit was planned. (I posted about him previously here and here.)
The lady organizing the signing line comes to me and asks if I’ve brought the books from home. “Yes,” I say. So she gives me a yellow card to place at the title page in each book.
Then another woman comes and asks if I want him to sign the books to me personally. “Yes,” I say. So she has me write “Ruth” big and legibly on a post-it note on the same page.
During the 15 minutes I wait for Pamuk to come to the table piled with books I strike up a conversation with the young woman in line behind me. She is wearing a Muslim head covering. Since the novel of Pamuk’s I’m reading, “Snow,” is about women who wear headscarves in Turkey, I am intrigued.
The woman in the head scarf, Maweza is a Pakistani undergraduate student at my university. She is full of excitement, like me, and we try to act like calm women instead of giddy school girls (hey, I’m a 51-year-old school girl sometimes) as we wait for the Nobel-prize-winning author to appear. I ask if I can photograph her, but she declines.
Maweza ate lunch with Mr. Pamuk earlier, with lots of other students and faculty members. (Why didn’t anyone ask me?) She tells me about the time with him, how he talked about translators. (His books have been translated into 55 languages.) We talk about her native language, Urdu, and her love of Urdu poetry. I tell her about my friend rauf, and how when his friends write comments in Urdu on his blog, I think it looks and sounds beautiful. She and I really hit it off.
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3pm
At last here he comes up the escalator, sits down at the table piled with books, and I hear him say to one of the staff that he won’t be signing personal names, there isn’t time. He will just sign his own name.
“Oh, ok,” I think.
Little side note. Ever since June, when I heard about Pamuk coming to campus, I’ve been practicing what I’d say to him when I met him, in Turkish.
So it was finally here. My moment to impress the 2006 Nobel prize winner for literature. I will welcome him in Turkish, and he will say, “Oh! You speak Turkish! What wonderful Turkish you speak! Imagine that, an American who speaks Turkish in this small university town. Did you live in Turkey? What? Istanbul! My city! How wonderful! How long? We have so much in common!” Etc.Etc.
At last, I walk to the table, he smiles, I welcome him in Turkish. He signs his name twice, once in each book. I say thank you in Turkish. I walk away.
Wham-bam thank you ma’am!
Maweza is next, he signs her book. She walks over to me where I’m snapping pictures, we stand around for a few minutes. Our mouths a little open, our faces a little stunned. We admit we are disappointed. I had been pretty big-hearted in line, saying, “you know, this isn’t the real Orhan Pamuk, we can’t know him, he only reveals himself to us in his books.” I was quite magnanimous then. But now, I think he’s an elitist snob.
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7pm
I meet Inge outside the auditorium and she tells me about her book signing experience with Pamuk. (We missed each other by a few minutes.) It was wonderful. She thought he was perfectly charming and thinks she’s in love with him.
I screw up my face. I tell her my story. But we’re mature people. We allow for the other’s perspective. We’re good friends that way.
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7:42pm
Orhan Pamuk is introduced by my previous boss, Dr. O. What an honor and all that.
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7:45pm
Orhan Pamuk begins his hour-long talk. He reads from his latest book of essays titled “Other Colours: Essays and a Story.”
He stutters in English. He reads the English translation haltingly. Oh, what is happening? He’s talking about his Istanbul (my Istanbul) and the melancholy of a city heartbreakingly beautiful in its decay. I’m sitting forward over my legs. He screws up his face in a smile. He’s talking about his time with his daughter when she is 7, how they play a game of crossing the room without touching the floor (tables, chairs and pillows only). I am being disarmed one faltering sentence at a time. I’m laughing. I’m aghast, hand over my mouth. He’s talking about writing 9 hours a day and having a half page of good writing to show for it. He's talking about the smell of paper, the smell of ink. He’s laughing at himself. He’s honest, completely honest. I can see it and hear it. He’s talking about Balzac. Balzac! Tolstoy. Dostoevsky. But he isn’t stuffy. He’s goofy. He’s not a snob. He reads every day and takes his joy from novels. He can't wait to read the next writer coming out of Venezuela, China. He’s just a guy, a guy who writes. He writes every day and feels deprived if he can’t. He’s in love with writing.
He’s just a guy.
He’s just a writer.
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10:53pm
I’m inspired, utterly.
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