Author: Meredith LaBelle

Hearing from so many voices/perspectives in My Name is Red allows us to be skeptical of each character’s reliability in their stories. There are many instances where characters show moments of unreliability in their account of the truth. I think this is a critical part of Pamuk’s novel because it is up to the reader to be analytical in their evaluation of the story, especially the murder mystery plot line.

One example of this is on page 114 where Enishte accounts: “”In that case, he won’t be able to marry me,” said my clever daughter smiling. Where did I come up with the detail about her smiling? During the entire conversation, I noticed nothing accept the occasional glimmer in her eyes.” I think it is interesting how small of a detail this is to miss. It is so minor that it seems unimportant, but it also makes us skeptical of Enishte’s perspective of reality.

In a less subtle way, Sheukre openly tells us on page 43 that, “If I happen to tell a lie or two from time to time, It’s so you don’t  come to any false conclusions about me.”

I think there is an interesting paradox here: characters are willing to tell us when they are being dishonest or when they get the facts wrong, which is truthful, but they are being truthful about their unreliability.

While I really enjoyed the storyline of the Secret of Kells, what captivated me most was the intricacies of its animation. One of the recurring patterns that I found most inspiring was the recurring geometric shapes, especially circles.  These two images show somewhat conflicting messages of nature, utilizing circles to do so. The first depicts an aerial view of the forest with the ominous presence of a crow, while the second is less ominous with more light and a sense of simplicity. Circles convey a sense of power; the one strong circle taking up the screen in the first image seems more threatening and ominous than the repeated circles in the second image. These images also give a sense of perspective. In the first image, seeing the forest from an aerial perspective shows its true expanse, while the second image has an outsider perspective that conveys nature as a less threatening force. I think these two screen captures are cohesive but also convey differing representations of nature.

It is interesting to consider the concept of paratext in terms of how the editors, printers, and publishers choose to illustrate the text. It is especially fascinating to me that the authors of a book are relatively uninvolved in the creation and selection of their cover art. Covers of books are the selling point, the image that draws us in as readers, and whether we like to admit it or not, we do judge books on their covers. So why are authors often detached from this process?

A book cover is a marketing tool; it is ultimately designed to engage and more importantly, sell. Even if the cover doesn’t represent the text in the way the author intended, the cover is still illustrating something, thus it will always convey meaning. This makes the cover art away to convey a text’s meaning in addition to the author’s text, giving this form of paratext even more power in its affect on the audience.

I experienced this inconsistency in meaning on a smaller scale this past winter break. My dad recently decided to self-publish a novel he had written, and hired one of his friends, a graphic designer, to produce cover art for the novel. I had read the book a while back, and saw the final copy this past month. The cover art, in my opinion, poorly represented the meaning I found in the book when I read it. While the art itself was relevant to the plot of the novel, I felt the stylized nature of the images gave off a vibe that I felt was inconsistent with the story. My point is that everybody has a unique reaction to a text, and no one’s interpretation will be exactly the same. Cover art serves a purpose, to pull in the reader, and everybody has their own tastes and opinions about what serves this purpose the best. The intersection between paratext and illustration poses a conflict of interest between the marketing tools of materials supplemental to text and the author’s intent of the meaning their text should convey.