Orhan Pamuk - A Strangeness in My Mind

SUMMER 1982

Mevlut sells ice cream for the first time.

SEPTEMBER 1982

Mevlut and Rayiha’s wedding.

OCTOBER 1982

Mevlut begins to sell cooked rice and chicken.

NOVEMBER 1982

The results of a referendum back the 1982 Constitution, and the leader of the 1980 coup, Kenan Evren, becomes president of the Republic.

APRIL 1983

Mevlut and Rayiha’s first daughter, Fatma, is born.

APRIL 1983

The ban on abortions is lifted until ten weeks into a pregnancy. Married women seeking an abortion must provide proof of their husbands’ consent.

EARLY 1984

Samiha runs away with Ferhat.

AUGUST 1984

Mevlut and Rayiha’s second daughter, Fevziye, is born.

26 APRIL 1986

After the Chernobyl nuclear disaster, clouds carrying nuclear waste reach Turkey.

1986-88

The new Tarlabaşı Avenue is built.

FEBRUARY 1987

The Gloria Theatre burns down.

18 JUNE 1988

Assassination attempt on Prime Minister Turgut Özal.

3 JULY 1988

Opening of the second bridge over the Bosphorus, Fatih Sultan Mehmet Bridge, named after Ottoman sultan Mehmed the Conqueror.

EARLY 1989

Mevlut loses his rice cart to the municipal police. Around this time, he also meets the Holy Guide. Ferhat begins to work as a meter inspector for the electricity board.

4 JUNE 1989

Tiananmen Square protests in Beijing.

SEPTEMBER 1989

Mevlut starts working as manager of the Binbom Café in Taksim.

9 NOVEMBER 1989

The Berlin Wall falls.

1990–1995

The breakup of Yugoslavia introduces a period of civil war in the Balkans.

1991

The production and distribution of electricity in Turkey is privatized.

17 JANUARY- 28 FEBRUARY 1991

The First Gulf War.

14 NOVEMBER 1991

In the Bosphorus, a ship from Lebanon collides with a ship from the Philippines and sinks along with the twenty thousand sheep it is carrying.

25 DECEMBER 1991

The Soviet Union is dissolved.

24 JANUARY 1993

Radical, secularist columnist and journalist Uğur Mumcu is killed by a bomb placed inside his car.

2 JULY 1993

Thirty-five leftist liberal secular intellectuals are killed when political Islamists burn down the Madımak Hotel in Sivas.

1994-95

The separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish army are at war. Villages are burned down and many Kurds resettle in Istanbul.

EARLY 1994

Ferhat meets Selvihan.

FEBRUARY 1994

Mevlut loses his job at the Binbom Café.

27 MARCH 1994

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan wins the local elections and becomes mayor of Istanbul.

30 MARCH 1994

Mevlut is mugged by a man and his son while out selling boza at night.

APRIL 1994

Mevlut and Ferhat open the Brothers-in-Law Boza Shop.

FEBRUARY 1995

Rayiha becomes pregnant for the third time.

MARCH 1995

Korkut gets involved in an attempted Turkish coup against the president of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Heydar Aliyev.

12-16 MARCH 1995

Unrest in the Alevi quarters of the Ghaazi and Ümraniye neighborhoods of Istanbul results in the deaths of twelve and five people respectively.

EARLY APRIL 1995

The Brothers-in-Law Boza Shop closes down.

MID-APRIL 1995

Mevlut starts to work as a guard in a parking garage.

MAY 1995

Rayiha dies while trying to induce a miscarriage by herself.

LATE 1995

Upon Ferhat’s suggestion, Mevlut begins to work as an electrical meter inspector.

EARLY 1996

Süleyman marries Mahinur Meryem. They have their first son, Hasan.

NOVEMBER 1997

Ferhat is murdered.

1998

Süleyman’s second son, Kâzım, is born.

JUNE 1998

Mevlut begins to work in the Beyşehir migrants’ association.

FEBRUARY 1999

Having waged a guerrilla war on the national government for fifteen years, Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan, who had been hiding in Syria for many years, is captured by Turkish forces.

SUMMER 1999

Süleyman asks Mevlut to allow Bozkurt to marry Fatma.

17 AUGUST 1999

An earthquake in the Sea of Marmara, close to Istanbul, kills 17,480 people.

LATE SEPTEMBER 2000

Mevlut’s elder daughter, Fatma, goes to university.

JUNE 2001

Fatma meets Burhan at university. They soon get married and move to Izmir.

11 SEPTEMBER 2001

New York’s Twin Towers collapse in an attack by Al Qaeda.

SEPTEMBER 2001

Mevlut’s younger daughter, Fevziye, elopes with Erhan, a taxi driver from Kadırga.

LATE 2001

A hotel in Aksaray hosts Fevziye and Erhan’s wedding ceremony.

2002

Mevlut encounters bottled boza for the first time.

MAY 2002

Fevziye’s son and Mevlut’s grandson Ibrahim is born.

AUTUMN 2002

Mevlut and Samiha get married.

3 NOVEMBER 2002

Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s Justice and Development Party (AKP) win the general elections and form a government.

MARCH 2003

A ban preventing Recep Tayyip Erdoğan from taking office is lifted, and he becomes prime minister.

20 MARCH 2003

Invasion of Iraq.

28 MARCH 2004

The AKP win local elections in Turkey.

7 JULY 2005

Fifty-six people die in London after a series of attacks on subway stations and public buses organized by Al Qaeda.

19 JANUARY 2007

The Armenian journalist Hrant Dink, outspoken about the Armenian genocide, is shot dead.

22 JULY 2007

The AKP win the general elections.

29 MARCH 2009

The AKP win the local elections again (gaining ground in Duttepe and Kültepe).

APRIL 2009

Mevlut sells his father’s house to buy an apartment.

17 DECEMBER 2010

A street vendor sets himself on fire in Tunisia, leading to a series of the protests and revolutions known as the “Arab Spring.”

MARCH 2011 AND THEREAFTER

Hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees flee to Turkey.

12 JUNE 2011

The AKP win the general elections.

MARCH 2012

The Karataş and Aktaş families move into their new apartments.

ORHAN PAMUK won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006. His novel My Name Is Red won the 2003 IMPAC Dublin Literary Award. His work has been translated into more than sixty languages.

The discussion questions and suggested reading that follow are designed to enhance your group’s discussion of A Strangeness in My Mind , a captivating and thought-provoking novel by Nobel Prize — winning author Orhan Pamuk. Discussion Questions

1. Evaluate the title of the book. Where does the title come from and what is the strangeness that Mevlut believes is in his mind? Is Mevlut really as different from the others as he feels he is? What causes him to feel this way? Does he ever overcome this feeling?

2. Who narrates the story and how many points of view are represented? Why do you think that the author chose to incorporate these particular characters as narrators? Are the narrators reliable? If so, how do you know this? If you feel that they are not, why do you feel that they might not be so reliable? How do the narrators contributecollectively to the telling of the story as a whole and to a dialogue about the major themes of the book? How do you think that your interpretation of or reaction to the story would differ if the author had employed a single narrator? Do you feel that the use of multiple narrators was an effective choice? Explain.

3. What are some of the lessons that Mustafa teaches or hopes to teach his son Mevlut? For instance, why does Mustafa tell Mevlut that the neighboring hill has no electricity? What does he tell his son about compromise? What other lessons does Mevlut learn from his father either directly or indirectly?