Approximately 20 years later, I reread "The White Castle" and this time I liked it even more. When I first read it (I think I wasn't even twenty yet); I was just a naive young reader who read everything that needed to be read in sequence, put a tick next to it. Now I read it more thoroughly and enjoyably. I am newly realizing that the novels that I read and put aside before and which were given little credit are actually something special. "The White Castle" is definitely one of these novels.
In the story set during the time of Sultan Mehmet the Hunter, who was curious about the animals caged in childhood, the concepts of twins, alter egos, East-West, us-them, me and him are explored through a Venetian who was captured by the Turks and is physically identical to him and in the person of his master, Hodja. The background is filled with interesting historical phenomena such as the astrologers around the Ottoman sultan, hunting expeditions, and the plague epidemic. This short book passes on knowledge to the reader in a flawless historical atmosphere along with the personal crises of the heroes.
I don't think it's Orhan Pamuk's best novel, but it's a work that those who are interested in other literary concepts of twins must read. It may be even more enjoyable if Dostoyevsky's "The Double" is read before it.
