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| Istanbul: Memories and the City | 
 enlarge | Author: Orhan Pamuk
Publisher: Vintage
Category: Book
List Price: $15.95
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Avg. Customer Rating:  (45 reviews)
Sales Rank: 26923
Languages: English (Original Language), English (Unknown), English (Published)
Media: Paperback
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 400
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 7.8 x 5.1 x 0.9
ISBN: 1400033888
Dewey Decimal Number: 949.61803092
EAN: 9781400033881
ASIN: 1400033888
Publication Date: July 11, 2006
Release Date: July 11, 2006
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 He doesn't deserve that Nobel.... It was a political decision! October 14, 2006
3 out of 87 found this review helpful
He doesn't deserve that Nobel.... It was a political decision!
 Roller Coaster Ride October 13, 2006
10 out of 15 found this review helpful
I have known his works for quite sometime, and have just finished reading "Istabul" two days prior to his appointment as the winner of Nobel 2006 in literature. Congratulations to Orhan Pamuk.
This memoir started as Orhan Pamuk introduced himself and his nuclear family to the audience. Pamuk means cotton in Turkish. Orhan is the name of the second sultan during the Ottoman reign for about 500 years around the near/middle east and Mediterranean regions.
The author remembered his childhood impressions and fantasies up till he graduated from the college (or did he graduate from Roberts College?) This is quite interesting, as reading memoirs in general for me is like reading a fiction/novel, which in reality is not fictitious at all. Another great memoir read is by another great author, Lisa See, of which title I cannot remember.
Being an avid history and historical fiction books, I found Mr. Pamuk's description of Istanbul since the 1950s up till 2000s are awesome. He described the Republic of Turkey's transformation from a beleaguered Ottoman Empire to a secular republic lead by Mustafa Kemal Ataturk. Having just also finished reading another book about Turkey some two weeks ago by Louis de Bernieres titled Birds without Wings, I found that Orhan Pamuk's interpretation took off somewhat one or two decades after Mr. de Bernieres. Where he finished off, Orhan Pamuk entwined them together. I highly recommend thse two books to be read in tandem, by reading Loius de Bernieres' book first and continued by Pamuk's Istanbul.
Here in Istanbul, Pamuk also described about ex-Harem dwellers. Having one of his grandmother's acquaintance being one of the ex-Harem dweller, gave me the thrill. Really East-meets-West and antiquity-meets-modernity has materialized in Turkey. The old Sophia Hagia and Topkapi Palace were also included in this memoir. Orhan was also a painter during his younger years, an amateur painter that is. He eventually sought ought writing, instead.
Those pictures, there are at least sixty pictures, mainly of old pictures and personal pictures of himself. Those are great! A reader can "see" what Orhan Pamuk "wrote". This is one of the reason, though I don't like some parts of this memoir, I will keep this book and pass it on to my kids in later years.
Those I mentioned above are the parts I enjoyed. Well, I gave it a 3-star read because: he flaunted too much on Flaubert and his likes. This is the part I gave him a two-star. Since much of the memoir is laden with his fantasies and descriptions and this issue, I have heaviheartedly given this book a three-star, which actually deserved more.
 A river through time June 5, 2006
19 out of 19 found this review helpful
Pamuk spans the distances of time and memory in this novel as he searches for the meaning of the melancholy, or huzun as he calls it, of the city of Instanbul. Born into a wealthy Turkish family, Pamuk slowly watches his family's fortune dissolve in the hands of his father. He recounts his memories as his family moves from one quarter to another, interspersing personal accounts with various literary observations. Through it all we experience the uneasy balance between Islamic and Western forces that have shaped the city over the centuries. He explores through the writings of Europeans, how foreigners perceive the city, and how Turkish writers have attempted to respond to these views. Pamuk has such an elegant way of writing, with many undercurrents, like the Bosphorus which he so much loves. I particularly liked his literary chapters, like that of the four melancholy writers of Istanbul, and their attempts to forge an identity for the city. These attempts may have fallen short of their grand expectations, but the books became treasures, and helped to define modern Turkish writing. There are also his amusing observations on Flaubert, Nerval and other French writers and painters, who became absorbed in the city and to whom he felt modern Turkish writing owes a substantial debt. While Pamuk tries to escape this melancholy in his painting, ultimately finding a muse on which to hang all his hopes, he can never fully escape it, as he too becomes absorbed in this great city, which proves to be his literary release.
The haunted metropole June 3, 2006
13 out of 15 found this review helpful
Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul--melancholy, decaying, and haunted by the memories of multiple shattered empires--does not even really exist anymore in quite the way he describes: the parts of the city which seem to him most characteristic of gorgeous and splendid decay have been largely rebuilt today, so that what seems most characteristic to him of Istanbul is something contemporary visitors to the city will have to seek out for themselves behind the bustle of Sultanahmet and Beyoeglu. But that makes his beautiful Sebaldian memoir of the city no less powerful nor evocative, and Pamuk draws a beautiful correspondence between the aging metropolis and his young self trying to find a vocation in a city that offers all kinds of possibilities to him he cannot fully see. (The memoir in many ways evokes Joyce's PORTRAIT, especially in the narrator's final recounting of a conversation with his mother when he decides upon his career.) This is a splendid introduction to Pamuk, the best-known Turkish novelist in the United States, and to his beloved city--even if the city he describes exists mostly in memory.
Written by the painter rather than the writer May 12, 2006
11 out of 27 found this review helpful
I read this book 'in parallel' with Amos Oz's "A Tale of Love and Darkness"; both are written by noted novelists looking back at their early years, but they are vastly different: a character-focused dynamic memoir marked by the birth of a state (Oz) versus a landscape-centered pathetic travelogue marred by the death of an empire (Pamuk)!
I generally do not read novels, so Pamuk is no exception. It is hard for me to believe that he has been so successful, as I found the writing in "Istanbul" rather mediocre. Although I can see an overall decadent individual producing great fiction, I suspect that his success is propelled by Turkey's bid to join the EU: identity fusion such as "White Castle"'s and overall 'confusion' between East and West serves as a great spice for Turkey's bid in the Brussells kitchen!
Of course a careful reading of "Istanbul" may reveal the origins of Pamuk's East-West vision, and explain the style of writing as well: when the author was young he dreamed of becoming a painter, and that dream was fueled by relentless exposure to Western painters and travelers, so in the end he is not sure whether he gazes at his own city as a Turk or a Westerner, etc etc.
But in addition to those Western painters and writers there were some local Turks whose quest for 'Turkishness' amidst Ottoman Istanbul's ruins -- and contemporary Istanbul's poorer districts -- did not escape Pamuk's notice. There is nothing unique in intellectuals from 'peripheral' countries searching for their 'roots' in the culture and lifestyle of those fellow men that are -- or rather were, before globalization -- least likely to be affected by foreign influences. But in Turkey's case we have the added paradox of a parent empire that shunned the mother tongue and generally did not view itself as 'Turkish'; add to that a city that was largely non-Muslim when Pamuk was born and the most prominent monuments of which are pre-Ottoman, and you begin to see where the author is coming from.
I could be biased due to my ethnicity, but the concept of contemporary -- to a youthful Pamuk at least -- Turks not knowing what to make of a fabulous city they somehow 'inherited' seems to emerge through the reading of "Istanbul". To his credit, the author is very open about the endless persecutions of the now nearly extinct Greek (Rum) minority, and he even mentions the silence of the Turkishness-seeking Istanbul intellectuals after the 1955 pogrom. But this honesty does not make me share his sorrow at the decay of Ottoman Istanbul, and the vividly described phantasmagoric to cathartic burnings of the old pasha villas by the Bosporus in particular.
Ah, yes, the Bosporus... Many of the book's best moments are connected to it -- like the young author's awe at the silent passing of a larger-than-death Soviet warship in the middle of the night, for example. Another moment for which I retain some affection is the old museum guard ending a young couple's kisses through the sound of his steps on decaying wooden floor...
As other reviewers -- notably Turks -- have pointed out, you don't get a good image of contemporary Istanbul and its dynamism by reading "Istanbul". I can even say that a Guardian article by his translator (Maureen Freely) following the November 2003 terrorist attacks was, in a way, more worthwhile reading than the entire Pamuk's memoir! Still, "Istanbul" might be remembered in the future as a valuable chronicle of that global city in its numbing phase between Ottoman Turkey and European Turkey.
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