(no subject)
I expected to love Orhan Pamuk's The New Life, given how much I enjoyed My Name is Red and The White Castle, and the fact that the plot summary I saw basically consisted of "a dude reads a book. It transforms his life and sends him on wild adventures as he tries to enter the world of the book!"
This is . . . not an inaccurate summary, exactly, but the novel itself has sort of a different slant. Our protagonist becomes obsessed with the mostly-undescribed book, and then, in short order, with The Girl who introduced him to the book and her ex-lover who introduced the book to her. They ride buses all night long in hopes of getting into a car crash and seeing a mysterious Angel alluded to in the book and have a series of allegorical and bizarre encounters with pro- and anti-book factions as our protagonist becomes increasingly unhinged. Embedded in the story is a philosophical debate about the current state of Turkey and the pros and cons of Westernization, which was really interesting, but I kept wanting to read a straight essay on the topic instead of this particular abstraction of it filtered through a character I wanted to hit over the head most of the time. (I am sorry, but I have close to zero tolerance these days for "I MUST POSSESS THIS MYSTERIOUS CIPHER OF A GIRL." And I know Orhan Pamuk can write interesting characters! But he is not really interested in writing characters here.)
In general, The New Life veers far too much towards abstract postmodernism for my taste - though I've had luck with Pamuk so far, I often have trouble with that style of writing at the best of times, and 'on a bus, after an incredibly hectic week' is probably not the best of times. (I am also not sure how great the translation was - phrases kept hitting me oddly, and I do not know if that was deliberate or the weirdness of the translation.) I don't anti-recommend it, and people with more brain than I had at the time for absorbing postmodernist allegory probably will enjoy it.
(Also, at least I have taken another step forward in the Orhan Pamuk reading competition that schiarire and I are apparently having. Other Colours will be soon, Ji!)
This is . . . not an inaccurate summary, exactly, but the novel itself has sort of a different slant. Our protagonist becomes obsessed with the mostly-undescribed book, and then, in short order, with The Girl who introduced him to the book and her ex-lover who introduced the book to her. They ride buses all night long in hopes of getting into a car crash and seeing a mysterious Angel alluded to in the book and have a series of allegorical and bizarre encounters with pro- and anti-book factions as our protagonist becomes increasingly unhinged. Embedded in the story is a philosophical debate about the current state of Turkey and the pros and cons of Westernization, which was really interesting, but I kept wanting to read a straight essay on the topic instead of this particular abstraction of it filtered through a character I wanted to hit over the head most of the time. (I am sorry, but I have close to zero tolerance these days for "I MUST POSSESS THIS MYSTERIOUS CIPHER OF A GIRL." And I know Orhan Pamuk can write interesting characters! But he is not really interested in writing characters here.)
In general, The New Life veers far too much towards abstract postmodernism for my taste - though I've had luck with Pamuk so far, I often have trouble with that style of writing at the best of times, and 'on a bus, after an incredibly hectic week' is probably not the best of times. (I am also not sure how great the translation was - phrases kept hitting me oddly, and I do not know if that was deliberate or the weirdness of the translation.) I don't anti-recommend it, and people with more brain than I had at the time for absorbing postmodernist allegory probably will enjoy it.
(Also, at least I have taken another step forward in the Orhan Pamuk reading competition that schiarire and I are apparently having. Other Colours will be soon, Ji!)