I'm a huge fan of the Turkish Nobel laureate writer Orhan Pamuk, so I read his latest novel A strangeness in my Mind with great anticipation. I found the book to be vintage Pamuk. In this family saga, the great, complex and beloved city of Istanbul itself shares the limelight with the protagonist, Mevlut, one of the millions of people who migrated to Istanbul from the Anatolian countryside in the last quarter of the 20th century. The story is as much about the changes and transformation of the city as it is of the eventful life events of Mevlut, who moves there in 1975 and still wanders its streets as the novel timeline ends in the early 21st century. The narrative has two interesting characteristics. First, we begin the story in media res, at an event that seems to be a minor one in the life of the protagonist, but which has psychic significance (Mevlut gets mugged on the street while selling "boza", a traditional beverage). The narrative thereafter brings us backward to 1975 and then later, forward, past the book's first narrated event. Secondly, Pamuk uses multiple narration to tell the story from the perspective of various key characters. It is a somewhat clunky artifice but does round out the narrative and provide depth to the characters, many of whom are minor players in the events they describe.
Central to the story (indeed, alluded to in the title) is the particularly local version of melancholy that infects Istanbul's millions of inhabitants and that Pamuk comes back to time and time again in his novels (e.g., in The Museum of Innocence, The Black Book, Snow). Pamuk here links it to a general sense of dislocation that is no doubt exacerbated by the extreme and rapid changes to his beloved city over the course of four decades, as the population explodes from 3 to 13 million, the landscape is radically changed, and traditional ways of life are eradicated. Symbolic of the later is Mevlut's profession (or really, avocation) of selling Boza on the street.
The book is a meditation on the sadness of that change, and, like many of his books, has a quiet and nostalgic tone. It's warmly written and quite a good read, particularly for Pamuk fans who enjoy being immersed in the strange and compelling world of the lovely, crazy, lonely, bustling, unique city of Istanbul.
For a review of the book from The Guardian, click here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/02/strangeness-in-my-mind-orhan-pamuk-review-istanbul-novel
Central to the story (indeed, alluded to in the title) is the particularly local version of melancholy that infects Istanbul's millions of inhabitants and that Pamuk comes back to time and time again in his novels (e.g., in The Museum of Innocence, The Black Book, Snow). Pamuk here links it to a general sense of dislocation that is no doubt exacerbated by the extreme and rapid changes to his beloved city over the course of four decades, as the population explodes from 3 to 13 million, the landscape is radically changed, and traditional ways of life are eradicated. Symbolic of the later is Mevlut's profession (or really, avocation) of selling Boza on the street.
The book is a meditation on the sadness of that change, and, like many of his books, has a quiet and nostalgic tone. It's warmly written and quite a good read, particularly for Pamuk fans who enjoy being immersed in the strange and compelling world of the lovely, crazy, lonely, bustling, unique city of Istanbul.
For a review of the book from The Guardian, click here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2015/oct/02/strangeness-in-my-mind-orhan-pamuk-review-istanbul-novel
