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Liked It “I was about to travel to that city and one month ago the book was released here , in portuguese! I "ate" the 400 pages in 2 weeks. |
Didn’t Like It “Too much about his personal life and not enough about the city.” see full review » see other reviews » |
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“I was about to travel to that city and one month ago the book was released here , in portuguese! I "ate" the 400 pages in 2 weeks.
GIPA R wrote this review Saturday, November 7 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I love Orhan Pamuk!
The chapter 35 , 'first love" is so beautiful... read it at first.”
“Nobel prize winner in Literature, I was somewhat disappointed. It is a memoir but I got bogged down in Pamuk's melancholy, which apparently is a particularly Turkish feeling called Huzun which results from living in the ruins of a failed empire. But it's like reading the tirade of someone with a good control of language who feels eminently sorry for himself though not so much for his country, although there is some of that.
Mary v wrote this review Monday, October 12 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The photos are interesting and intriguing though mostly very old so provide perspective on Istanbul of the past which did seem particularly dark and depressing (but the pictures are also in black and white).I was disapointed they had no captions. I wanted to know what I was looking at.
Pamuk traces his history and his influences both western and Turkish as well as his rather chaotic homelife. His father lost his fortune and his parents were continually separated. His own trials mirror, in some ways, the trials of Istanbul and Turkey as they lost their place as a major power at the end of the 19th century.
It did not make me too interested in visiting Istanbul. In some ways, I felt like it was a eulogy for a dead city. ”
“It revived memories of a city were I spent many of my childhood summers. I loved the way he uses his memories to introduce his beloved country to the world. ”
Ghada A wrote this review Tuesday, August 4 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“Very Deep inward look at time, place and family and how our outlook on life is shaped by such experiences.”
Kathryn M wrote this review Friday, July 17 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“hats off to pamuk for weaving such a personal tale with so much universal appeal...that is what touched me most about this account of the autheor about the city that he grew up in and evidently loves so much...i read it in bareilly and it could be a story about lucknow or london or any land...the only condition is that you have to love the city...
anamika s wrote this review Saturday, June 6 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
the 'huzun' that he talks about...that pervades the entire city is also the huzun that parvades the spirit of the sensitive people...and without our realizing it, starts living and growing in us...
in one line...if one wants to understand nostalgia...then you have to read this book!!”“Too much about his personal life and not enough about the city.”
pB wrote this review Thursday, June 4 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No“I have not finished this yet. Found it hard to get into and have put it aside for later.”
Arnhild H wrote this review Friday, April 24 2009. ( reply | view 1 replies | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
“The images rose above the Bosphorus, enveloped by the mist of the bay; then just as sudden, the images were engulfed by the waves. But i caught a glimpse of shadows bigger than anything else, of window shutters like eye lashes shuddering with news entering the apartments, of streets hosting a parade of all sorts except for lovers holding each other's hands, of a smile that lingers as a century-old house falls into ashes, and i understood what melancholy was. I've never been to Istanbul but all these i saw from Orhan Pamuk's memoir. Istanbul's ruins burn with the poetry of his childhood. His memoir attests that indeed no writer or painter can illustrate the images wrongly, for there in Istanbul: "paintings seem to draw themselves, and I didn't feel I had to live up to the western artists who'd drawn the scene before me." But he pointed out one requirement though: "To savor Istanbul's back street, to appreciate the vines and trees that endow its ruins with accidental grace, you must, first and foremost, be a stranger to them."
thereal2 wrote this review Tuesday, April 21 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
The book brings me to the sweet desire of living somewhere - where no matter how crowded such a place may be, a space is clearly dedicated for you; or no matter how spacious such a place may be, inspiration crowds the poet's notebook, or the painter's canvass; where air breathes loneliness and happiness into one; where being a stranger brings you and many others to a new yet familiar ground.”
“This is arguably Pamuk's best. Had it with me while traveling through Istanbul and Turkey last year. On daily basis I was encountering strong reasons to return to the book. This is like no other travel companion. The factual elements are almost secondary to the feeling that it gives the reader. There can be only one name for it: Huzun. But watch out, once you get this it never leaves you. It is like a disease. It will not kill you but you will never be the same again and you will have to return to Istanbul. Again and again. Every shadow on the Bosporus becomes a huge secret soviet warship lurking and every woman is a beauty from the imaginary seray of Flaubert. You become Ara Guler and Pamuk at the same time and you will be so frustrated that things you find in the book are no more … as the book tells you in fact. Then you get this weird taste for lingering in small cafes tucked away in little cemeteries, walk endlessly across the streets in Sirkeci, watch the ferries for hours at end form the rose gardens perched on the hill of Top Kapi drinking strong tea or the Galata bridge smelling the fish. You have to go and have a coffee on a terrace close to the Galata tower and burn the midnight oil with the fish sandwich makers at Kadikoy. More here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/andreisinger/sets/72157606369674760/?page=2
Andrei Tarnea wrote this review Friday, April 10 2009. ( reply | permalink ) Was this review helpful? Yes | No
I gunler
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