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Istanbul
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Istanbul (2005) (edit title/settings)

Memories and the City

by Orhan Pamuk (Author), Maureen Freely (edit contributors)

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Description edit see section history

A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a... read more

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Quotes edit see section history

  • “The streets of Beyoglu, their dark corners, my desire to run away, my guilt - they were all blinking on and off like neon lights in my head. I knew now that tonight my mother and I wouldn't fight, that in a few minutes I would open the door and escape into the city's consoling streets; and having walked away half the night, I'd return home and sit down at my table and capture their chemistry on paper. 'I don't want to be an artist,' I said. 'I am going to be a writer”
    Orhan Pamuk
  • “Huzun (Melancholy) doesn't just paralyze the inhabitants of Istanbul; it also gives them poetic licence to be paralyzed”
    Orhan Pamuk
  • Popular Highlights from Kindle Customers
  • Tanpınar’s Peace, the greatest novel ever written about Istanbul:
    Highlighted by 37 Kindle customers
  • The hüzün of Istanbul is not just the mood evoked by its music and its poetry, it is a way of looking at life that implicates us all, not only a spiritual state but a state of mind that is ultimately as life-affirming as it is negating.
    Highlighted by 31 Kindle customers
  • We might call this confused, hazy state melancholy, or perhaps we should call it by its Turkish name, hüzün, which denotes a melancholy that is communal rather than private.
    Highlighted by 27 Kindle customers
  • Although everyone knew it as freedom from the laws of Islam, no one was quite sure what else westernization was good for.
    Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers
  • Hüzün does not just paralyze the inhabitants of Istanbul; it also gives them poetic license to be paralyzed.
    Highlighted by 25 Kindle customers
  • If the city speaks of defeat, destruction, deprivation, melancholy, and poverty, the Bosphorus sings of life, pleasure, and happiness. Istanbul draws its strength from the Bosphorus.
    Highlighted by 22 Kindle customers
  • The difference lies in the fact that in Istanbul the remains of a glorious past civilization are everywhere visible. No matter how ill-kept, no matter how neglected or hemmed in they are by concrete monstrosities, the great mosques and other monuments of the city, as well as the lesser detritus of empire in every side street and corner—the little arches, fountains, and neighborhood mosques—inflict heartache on all who live among them.
    Highlighted by 21 Kindle customers
  • But even as I pondered these dilemmas—if you pluck a special moment from life and frame it, are you defying death, decay, and the passage of time or are you submitting to it?—I
    Highlighted by 20 Kindle customers
  • Conrad, Nabokov, Naipaul—these are writers known for having managed to migrate between languages, cultures, countries, continents, even civilizations. Their imaginations were fed by exile, a nourishment drawn not through roots but through rootlessness. My imagination, however, requires that I stay in the same city, on the same street, in the same house, gazing at the same view. Istanbul’s fate is my fate. I am attached to this city because it has made me who I am.
    Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers
  • You can often tell whether you’re standing in the East or in the West, just by the way people refer to certain historical events. For Westerners, May 29, 1453, is the Fall of Constantinople, while for Easterners it’s the Conquest of Istanbul.
    Highlighted by 14 Kindle customers
Show all 12 quotes from this book

First Sentence edit see section history

From a very young age, I suspected there was more to my world than I could see.

Series & Lists edit see section history

This book is in KCPL Discussion Kit (Aug2010). (community list)

Authors & Contributors edit see section history

  1. Orhan Pamuk (Author)
  2. Maureen Freely

Other Contributors:

  1. Maureen Freely (Translator)

First Edition edit see section history

Original Language: English
Publisher: Knopf
Country: USA
Publication Date: 2005
ISBN: 1400040957
Page Count: 400

Awards edit see section history

Classification edit see section history

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