orhan pamuk istanbul memories and the city

The book ends with the observations of the 22-year-old aspiring writer. Those who come from outside often have an alienating gaze, but the native still remembers.įor Orhan Pamuk the relationship between the Orient and Occident is foremost a history of the gaze. The book is chronologically structured, interspersed with several chapters dealing with famous visitors to Istanbul of yesteryear, such as Flaubert and Nerval. Such vivid and forceful writing could only come from someone paying homage – a homage not driven by the intent to impassion, but written with the precision of a psychologist whose destiny is intimately connected with that of his patient. The ships passing through the Bosporus on their way between the continents of Asia and Europe, the wooden houses with their weathered facades, the omnipresent water are all given a distinctive voice that goes beyond all clichés about Istanbul. Many motifs from this family saga reappear in 'Istanbul': in particular, the decline of a family that accompanies the ground-breaking process of modernization.Īs in his novels Pamuk also succeeds in this essayistic book in letting places and objects speak for themselves. His first novel 'Cevdet Bey and His Sons' has been read as a Turkish version of Thomas Mann's Buddenbrooks. Pamuk's writing has often been compared with Thomas Mann's. This decline also befalls the author's family when the wealth accumulated by the grandfather is compromised within one generation. What emerges is a unique tension between the author's relatively carefree childhood and youth, embedded in a middle-class family, his reading, everyday experiences, strolls, and the aged city with its dilapidated panoramas. 'Istanbul' is an autobiography, in which the city is not only a place remembered, but is itself a writer of memories, an aging, poetic beauty, full of melancholy, but without a trace of maudlin sentiment. It is thus equally about an aspiring writer who really wanted to be a painter and who, at the urging of his mother who was concerned about the future of the young man, began studying architecture, only to drop out in order to pursue writing. The original Turkish version has a more fitting subtitle: 'Memories and the City.' 'Istanbul' is not only about memories of a city, but also the author's memories of his childhood and youth.

Orhan Pamuk's 'Istanbul, Memories of a City,' is such a book. There is always a certain book in an author's oeuvre that can be regarded as a seminal work. Turkey's best-selling writer Orhan Pamuk won the 2006 Nobel Literature Prize, becoming the first Turk to win the coveted award

Orhan pamuk istanbul memories and the city