History is Always Something Else

'[Orhan Pamuk:] The duty of the novelist, if he or she is going to be ethical, is to see the world through a character’s point of view rather than obeying some theoretical inevitability. And believe me, those inevitabilities in history never work out. It’s always something else.’

Pankaj Mishra, ‘Interview: Orhan Pamuk on Taksim Square, the Effects of “Breaking Bad,” and Why the Future of the Novel Is in the East’, New Republic, 29 July 2013.