奥尔罕·帕慕克(Orhan Pamuk)1952年出生于土耳其伊斯坦布尔的一个富裕家庭，从小受到家人的影响，喜欢绘画和诗歌。1972年，帕慕克考入伊斯坦布尔科技大学学习建筑学，后转入伊斯坦布尔大学攻读新闻系。1982年，帕慕克发表了处女作《塞夫得特州长和他的儿子们》(Cevdet Bey and His Sons)，小说获得了奥尔罕·凯马尔小说奖(Orhan Kemal Novel Prize)。近三十年来，帕慕克先后出版了多部作品，其中较为著名的有《白色城堡》(The White Castle)、《黑书》(The Black Book)、《我的名字叫红》(My Name Is Red)、《雪》(Snow)以及《伊斯坦布尔：一座城市的记忆》(Istanbul: Memories of a City)。这些作品深入地刻画了受到欧洲文化冲击的土耳其社会的时代变迁，为此，2006年帕慕克获得了诺贝尔文学奖。《纯真博物馆》(The Museum of Innocence)是帕慕克于2008年完成的作品，是一部深情隽永的爱情小说。
Excerpts1)
I HAD NOT said, “This trip to Paris is not on business, Mother.” For if she’d asked my reason, I could not have offered her a proper answer, having concealed the purpose even from myself. As I left for the airport, I considered my journey in some sense the atonement I had obsessively sought for my sins, among them, my having failed to notice Füsun2)’s earring.
But as soon as I had boarded the plane, I realized that I had set out on this voyage both to forget and to dream. Every corner of Istanbul was teeming3) with reminders of her. The moment we were airborne, I noticed that outside Istanbul, I was able to think about Füsun and our story more profoundly. In Istanbul I’d always seen Füsun through the prism4) of my obsession; but in the plane I could see my obsession, and Füsun, from the outside.
I felt such consolation, the same deep understanding, as I wandered idly around museums. I do not mean the Louvre or the Beaubourg, or the other crowded, ostentatious5) ones of that ilk6); I am speaking now of the many empty museums I found in Paris, the collections that no one ever visits. There was the Musée Édith Piaf, founded by a great admirer, where by appointment I viewed hairbrushes, combs, and teddy bears, and the Musée Jacquemart-André, where other objects were arranged alongside paintings in a most original way—I saw empty chairs, chandeliers7), and haunting unfurnished spaces there. Whenever wandering alone through museums like this, I felt myself uplifted. I would find a room at the back, far from the gaze of the guards who paid close attention to my every step; as the sound of traffic and construction and the urban din8) filtered in from outside, it was as if I had entered a separate realm that coexisted with the city’s crowded streets but was not of them; and in the eerie9) timelessness of this other universe, I would find solace.
Sometimes, thus consoled, I would imagine it possible for me to frame my collection with a story, and I would dream happily of a museum where I could display my life—the life that first my mother, and then Osman10), and finally everyone else thought I had wasted—where I could tell my story through the things that Füsun had left behind, as a lesson to us all.
On returning to Istanbul, I went directly to see Aunt Nesibe11). After telling her about Paris and its museums, and sitting down to eat, I went straight to the matter foremost in my mind.
“You know that I’ve been taking away things from this house, Aunt Nesibe,” I said, with the ease of a patient who can at last smile about an illness he was cured of long ago. “Now I’d like to buy the house itself—the entire building.”
“What do you mean?”
“I’d like you to sell me the house and all its contents.”
“But what will happen to me?”
We talked it through in a way that was only half serious. I spoke almost ceremoniously: “I would like to find a way to commemorate Füsun in this house.” … I told her that I had found her an excellent apartment in Nişantaşı, on Kuyulu Bostan Street, where she’d once lived.
A month later we’d bought Aunt Nesibe a big apartment in the nicest part of Kuyulu Bostan Street, just a little way beyond her former apartment. She deeded to me the whole building in Çukurcuma, including the ground-floor flat and all the movables.
I brought my entire collection to the newly converted museum12) ... When the Keskins13) had lived in the house, the attic had been the domain of mice, spiders, and cockroaches, and the dark, mildewy home of the water tank; but now it had become a clean, bright room open to the stars by a skylight. I wanted to sleep surrounded by all the things that reminded me of Füsun and made me feel her presence, and so that spring evening I used the key to the new door on Dalgıç Street to enter the house that had metamorphosed into a museum, and, like a ghost, I climbed the long, straight staircase, and throwing myself upon the bed in the attic, I fell asleep.
Some fill their dwellings with objects and, by the time their lives are coming to an end, turn their houses into museums. But I, having turned another family’s house into a museum, was now—by the presence of my bed, my room, my very self—trying to turn it back into a house. What could be more beautiful than to spend one’s nights surrounded by objects connecting one to his deepest sentimental attachments and memories!
Especially in the spring and summer, I began to spend more nights in the attic flat. İhsan the architect had created a space in the heart of the building, which I could see through a great opening between the upper and lower levels; I could pass the night in the company of each and every object in my collection—commune with the entire edifice. Real museums are places where Time is transformed into Space.
Whenever I was in Istanbul, I would pay monthly visits to Aunt Nesibe, who seemed happy with her new apartment and her new circle of friends. It was upon returning from my first visit to the Museum Berggruen in Berlin that I told her excitedly about the agreement I’d heard about between the founder, Heinz Berggruen, and the municipal government, a pact whereby he would be allowed to spend the rest of his days in the garret of the house he’d bequeathed to the city, to display the collection he had accumulated over a lifetime.
“While strolling through the museum, visitors can walk into a room or climb the stairs and find themselves face-to-face with the person who created the collection, until the day he dies. Isn’t that strange, Aunt Nesibe?”
“May God ordain that your time will be late in coming,” said Aunt Nesibe as she lit a cigarette. Then she wept a bit for Füsun, and with the cigarette still in her mouth, and the tears still streaming down her cheeks, she gave me a mysterious smile.
1. 本文英文节选部分选自该小说的第81和82节，主要讲述了在芙颂因车祸去世后，“我”前往巴黎的博物馆参观；回国后，“我”买下了芙颂家的房子作为博物馆，来珍藏“我”收集的关于芙颂的一切，以示怀念。节选部分有删节。
2. Füsun：芙颂，小说中的女主人公，男主人公凯末尔一直深爱着的女子
3. teem [tiːm] vi. 充满
4. prism [ˈprɪz(ə)m] n. 棱镜
5. ostentatious [ˌɒstenˈteɪʃəs] adj. 豪华的；惹人注目的
6. ilk [ɪlk] n. 类；等级
7. chandelier [ˌʃændəˈlɪə(r)] n. 枝形吊灯
8. din [dɪn] n. 喧嚣，喧闹声，嘈杂声
9. eerie [ˈɪərɪ] adj. 怪异的，神秘的
10. Osman：奥斯曼，小说中男主人公的哥哥
11. Aunt Nesibe：内希贝姑妈，小说中芙颂的妈妈
12. the newly converted museum：指由芙颂家的房子改成的博物馆
13. the Keskins：凯斯金一家，指芙颂和她的父母
作品赏析
据历史学家考证，世界上最早的博物馆修建于公元前3世纪，是托勒密王朝的统治者托勒密·索托在埃及的亚历山大城建立的缪斯神庙，里面收藏了来自各地的文化珍品。如果以这一时间为衡量标准，博物馆这一概念已经有两千多年的历史了。在当代，博物馆更是成为现代都市重要的景观之一。人们来到巴黎，会去卢浮宫，为了看一看蒙娜·丽莎的神秘微笑；人们来到伦敦，会去大英博物馆，为了看一看莎士比亚的手稿真迹；人们来到北京，会去故宫，为了看一看太和殿的庄严肃穆。帕慕克的小说《纯真博物馆》写的也是博物馆，也是收藏。不过，这座博物馆没有卢浮宫或故宫的壮丽恢弘，它不过是位于伊斯坦布尔穷街陋巷中的一所民宅；藏品也不是年代久远的名画或价值连城的古董，而是生活中最寻常的物品：勺子、叉子、挂钟、钥匙、彩票票根、手帕、发卡、耳坠……这是一个人为另一个人建立的纪念馆，为了纪念一份爱情。
小说中，修建博物馆的凯末尔出身于土耳其上流社会，他本来已有了门当户对的女友茜贝尔，却因为一次邂逅，爱上了远房的穷亲戚、比自己小12岁的芙颂。起初，凯末尔并不知道这份感情的真正含义，他一边和芙颂陷入热恋，一边和茜贝尔订了婚。为此，芙颂决然离开。在与茜贝尔订婚后，凯末尔才认识到，芙颂是他生命中最为重要的人，为此，他选择了与茜贝尔解除婚约。他下定决心要找到芙颂，和她结婚。可是，一年以后，当他和芙颂再次相遇时，却发现芙颂已嫁给了电影人费利敦。凯末尔为了接近芙颂，天天以亲戚的名义到芙颂家吃晚饭、聊天，就这样执着地坚持了八年。他甚至还赞助费利敦拍电影，帮助他成为知名的导演。然而，成名后的费利敦却和芙颂因感情破裂而离了婚。离婚后，芙颂接受了凯末尔的求婚。不幸的是，订婚第二天他们就遭遇了车祸，芙颂当场死亡。幸存下来的凯末尔决定建立一座博物馆来纪念他一生的挚爱。为此，他买下了芙颂家的旧居，并在其间摆满了他认识芙颂以来所收集的旧物。他希望能够透过这些展品，让人们了解他爱的是怎样一个女子，以及自己是怎样深深地爱着她。
所谓博物馆，其实是时间的招魂器。每一件物品，都源自于一段过去，各自诉说着各自的故事。在小说的结尾，凯末尔的最后一句话是：“我的一生过得很幸福。”按照世俗的标准衡量，凯末尔的生活离幸福有相当的距离：他爱了芙颂九年零四个月，两个人刚刚能够相守，芙颂就以死亡与他诀别。然而，从另外一层意义上看，凯末尔也的确是幸福的。如果我们将幸福定义为爱，那么他的一生正是因为芙颂而懂得了爱、得到了爱。而且，即便在芙颂死后，凯末尔也并不孤独：他通过建立博物馆，用一件件旧物穿起了时空的链条，还原出了他所深爱的芙颂，与她的灵魂永远相伴。
凯末尔从与芙颂相识之初，就养成了收集芙颂身边物品的习惯。这是因为芙颂是他在现实中没有资格靠近的女子：他们初相识，凯末尔不是自由身，有即将订婚的女友；他们再相遇，芙颂不是自由身，已嫁为他人之妻——凯末尔和芙颂坐在同一张餐桌，咫尺的距离，却像博斯普鲁斯海峡一样远；终于，他们订了婚，死亡却用无人能与其对抗的力量，将两人彻底分离。收藏对凯末尔来说不仅仅是爱好，他是在用它对抗现实对他爱情的否定。物品是无生命的，却会因为它与主人的靠近而沾染主人的气息，带上主人的精魂。凯末尔借着这些物品，汲取和依恋着芙颂温暖的存在感。芙颂是凯末尔一切藏品的源头，也是一切藏品的皈依。比如，凯末尔的藏品中有芙颂的4213个烟蒂，香烟来自同一个品牌，表面看不出特别的差异，但凯末尔的眼睛却辨别得出它们各自鲜明的个性：有的抽到了尽头，有的半中腰熄灭，还有的被狠狠掐灭。它们留下了芙颂的唇纹或指印，透射出芙颂4213个时刻的心情。借着它们提供的线索，凯末尔在心中细细回想着芙颂在这4213个时刻里每一刻的姿态和表情。即使人已去，只要物尤在，便可以凭借物，唤起记忆中的盈盈身影以及一颦一笑，以慰怀想。
当今的时代，爱情往往被简化成快餐式的欲望满足以及“和则成，不和则散”的潇洒。凯末尔对芙颂的爱却带着古典主义的执着。在他和芙颂重逢后的2864个日子里，他共拜访了芙颂家1593次。无论是冬夜还是夏夜，无论是平常日子还是发生军事政变，他坚持穿越半个伊斯坦布尔城，只为见芙颂一面，让自己的灵魂获得安宁。他的爱同时也带着古典主义的虔诚。凯末尔的博物馆其实是一座纪念爱情的圣殿，芙颂就是他的信仰。为了找到最适合的修建形式，他像一个朝圣者，花费了15年时间，走过了1743个博物馆。我们都知道，在参观博物馆的时候，最迷人的体验往往来自于在展品前停下脚步、细细观看的那一刻。那一刻，时间仿佛凝固，过去与现在相连，历史在我们专注的目光下，浮现出它深沉的故事和婉约动人的细节。《纯真博物馆》告诉我们，爱情的动人也存在于这样沉心静气的凝望。凝望爱人的笑靥，凝望爱人的睡颜，凝望她雪天冻得绯红的脸，凝望他骑着单车的背影，拾起她用过的黄杨木梳，收好他的灰色毛线围巾，在飞速发展的喧嚣时代，谈缓慢而悠长的恋爱……