Proust as a Sufi dervish: metamorphoses of the Proustian intertext in Orhan Pamuk’s The Black Book

Abstract

The study of proustian intertextuality in The Black Book by Orhan Pamuk calls for the consideration of the whole of intertextual references of the novel, of a teeming multiplicity, and for the study of the place of the proustian intertext in what we must consider as a rhizomatic intertextual system. This investigation leads us to link the different oriental and occidental intertexts which embody the narrative and transform the proustian text in a spiritual journey or in a mystical quest : The Conference by the Birds by Farid ud-Din Attar, the Mesnevi by Rumi and Beauty and Love by Cheik Galip.