PositiveThe Chicago Tribunenovels of the intervening centuries. This half-antique, half-contemporary style reveals itself in the structure of My Name Is Red. To begin with, the story is told from more than a dozen perspectives, including the illustrators', and also, apparently, many of their illustrations: a dog, a tree, a coin, and, perhaps connecting to the enigmatic title, the color red. Dead people also tell their tales.Within the individual narrative voices, we hear multiple mini-essays that pose questions about style and what effect art has on its viewers and its makers. More so even than the twin plots of love and death, these questions are the true center of My Name Is Red.
William T. Vollmann
RaveThe Los Angeles TimesThose pages consist more of a series of interlocking stories than a single narrative. The stories – told by several narrators, including a high-ranking Russian secret service operative and a telephone operator – weave a remarkable tapestry of mid-20th century continental history … The question of ethical behavior in despicable times is asked in different contexts throughout Europe Central. Scoffing at ‘intellectuals who'd never been compelled to pitch their tents in necessity's winds,’ one of Vollmann's narrators – himself no angel, a former philosophy student who ‘never shot a civilian except when under orders’ – breaks to address us, ‘Reader, which would you choose?’ Of course, this is impossible to answer in cozy high moral retrospect.
