My Name is Red

I love reading Pamuk novels. They are fascinating. This is one of my favourites.

First book I've read by Orhan Pamuk and certainly it won't be the last! I think like Salman Rushdie, you need to understand the writer's psyche to enjoy books like this. That said, I found the Satanic Verses a tricky read but then again, I've been told by Muslims you need to understand the Koran. I am not religious so I'm not going to comment on that. My Name Is Red is not like the Satanic Verses so let's clear that up. It is in its entirety a great read. I read over the Christmas period and I was literally devouring great swathes of it at any time. When I finished it I gave it to my brother who wouldn't really read this sort of book but even though he's older, he's now prone to experiment with his reading. I haven't heard back from him on it. He may not read it for months! I love historical fiction and Orhan Pamuk does it as good as any one else. Umberto Eco springs to mind while I read this.

Zum Inhalt; habe das Buch leider noch nicht viel gelesen. Aber da der Prof. von Harvard dieses Werk zu einem Weltliteratur zählt, gehe ich mal davon aus, dass es Wert ist reinzuschauen. Content: Since the Prof. in Harvard dealt with this Book as World-Literature, I think it is worth to look at it

Oğlum istedi. aldım. Ben kendi adıma eve sokmam :)

I love this book. I have never found a much more wholesome book than this. It is not just a historical fiction but also a love-story, with art versus religion conflicts and ties up with multiple other concepts. What I most found interesting about this book is the multi-faceted character story, so the story ships from the narrative of a ghost, who was recently murdered to the perspective of a person who is returning from exile. This person, nicknamed Black, visits a Coffee house and somebody in that coffee house, presents an allegorical view of dog; and finally it cuts to the murderer who murdered the person in the first chapter. So all these basically propels the story forward, and it’s a very rich and a layered narrative form of storytelling from different perspectives. The basic fictional backdrop is it covers the 16 century Ottoman Empire and tells the story of the Sultan at that time who commissions a group of miniaturists to decorate and illustrate a book commemorating the thousandth anniversary of Islam and he wants elements of western art embodied, making the project very controversial because Islam doesn’t having a stylistic view of calligraphy is against the tenants of Islam at that time. It paints a picturesque version of Istanbul in early 16 century —about the Bazaar, life and people, the emergence of coffee houses, the intermixing of peoples from various continents and ethnic groups. There is allegory representations from dog and a tree who claims to be lonely and who narrates the story of how the Sultan came to have this idea for the book of festivities. so yeah, it’s it’s a wonderful book that encompasses not just historical fiction but also has love story and a lot of emotional conflict between its multiple characters.