Shayne’s Reviews > My Name Is Red > Status Update

Esther lets Hasan read Black’s letter to Shekure. Hasan also gives her a letter for Shekure to whom she then delivers both and is disheartened by them, saying she is waiting for her husband to return.

Black visits the other two master miniaturists. Stork tells three parables about the value of time in illustration. Olive relates three stories that exemplify the virtue of blindness in art and how it connects the artist with the world as Allah sees it.

Black first visits Butterfly, who narrates three parables related to style and signature, and then is questioned by Black about Elegant’s disappearance.

Black, after mulling over the meaning of Shekure’s letter and appearance at the window, makes his way to the Sultan’s workshop. Here he reunites with Master Osman after 15 years and is shown what is being worked on including the illustrations for the Book of Festivities. They speak about the four master miniaturists and the growing influence of western art styles, heretical to the Islamic tradition.

A sketch of a tree doesn’t want to be a tree, it wants to be its meaning.

Esther recounts how she came to possess the letter and what she makes of it.

Orhan interrupts the meeting of Black and Enishte, briefly meets Black, and is scolded by his mother. Black’s mind is occupied by thoughts of Shekure as he wraps up his visit and begins the his journey to the Sultan’s workshop. He runs into a peddler named Esther who gives him a mysterious letter and points him in the direction of a window where is love is looking from.

The murderer, in apparent paranoia, recounts the murder and its motive-a dispute over a work of art commissioned by the sultan between him and his fellow miniaturist. A comparison is drawn between the murder and a crude work of art. Then Enishte recounts to Black how he was commissioned with his apprentices to do the illustration.

A murdered man describes his killing and pleads for vengeance on his killer. A man returns to Istanbul after working abroad for twelve years and describes his walk around town on a snowy night, including visits to family members’ graves and trying to discover the whereabouts of his love. The storyteller’s picture of a dog refutes Islam’s canine disdain and expresses his hatred for the cleric.