Book Review: Strangeness in my mind by Orhan Pamuk

Title: Strangeness in my mind
Author: Orhan Pamuk
Pages: 624
Publisher: Knopf
ISBN: 9780307700292
Price: $ 19
Genre: Fiction/ Turkish literature
Source: Library




Summary
from goodreads
A Strangeness In My Mind is a novel Orhan Pamuk has worked on for six years. It is the story of boza seller Mevlut, the woman to whom he wrote three years' worth of love letters, and their life in Istanbul.

In the four decades between 1969 and 2012, Mevlut works a number of different jobs on the streets of Istanbul, from selling yoghurt and cooked rice, to guarding a car park. He observes many different kinds of people thronging the streets, he watches most of the city get demolished and re-built, and he sees migrants from Anatolia making a fortune; at the same time, he witnesses all of the transformative moments, political clashes, and military coups that shape the country. He always wonders what it is that separates him from everyone else - the source of that strangeness in his mind. But he never stops selling boza during winter evenings and trying to understand who his beloved really is.

Review

I  read great deal about this novel as Pamuk took six years to complete it..This book has become one of my favorites of Pamuks work. .

The protagonist is Mevlut Karatas who as a kid moves from his village to the city with his father in the 60s with dreams and longs for a better life for love , respect and abundance but with successive failure in schooling, business and politics , he ends up as a poor boza vendor, there are plenty of  other small jobs he holds like selling yogurt, ice cream, chicken on street, being a waiter at a cafe plus working at a electric shop, but its his bozo job at night that impressed me the most as it is when the streets come alive..Later on he falls in love with a woman with beautiful eyes and there are exchange of love letters over three years only to elope with her older sister with few mixups..still he accepts his fate as a gift and they live happy though they remain poor..Yet through all the ordeals of his life he remains innocent to his state of mind and I loved the character even more.

One of the best parts of the novel is Pamuk's  love for Istanbul that you see through all characters of the novel mostly Mevut's extended family..Just like in his  other books, image of Istanbul's image comes alive through his words like a poem.The description is rich that makes you smell the heavenly Bozo and wow it taste so perfect.As we learn about bozo's popularity from the days Ottoman empire and its losing demand and being replaced by a more modern drink raki, Pamuk underlines how the old life was slowly disappearing to the modern day and still when the very few do get a bozo from Mevlut  just for sake of  old days, Pamuk holds us all tight with the grip of nostalgia.

 The different of point of views of all the characters gives us a comprehensive take on socio-economic and  legislation of Turkey moving the story ahead too.The vibrant city of Istanbul  surrounds the reader in all its plenty. I wouldn't be exaggerating if I said that you could see the streets through the novel so precise are the details.His love for his doesn't blind him though. He points out the inequality of women in the society, their lack of education that does bad for the society than good..

The book also takes an interesting cut on the changes of yesterdays tradition that confronts the present and a hope for the future. Pamuk is a master of loss and memories and if you have read his other works you would know what I mean.This is a very long read but for a lover of classics I even felt that I could go on even more that's the extend of my love for this book , definetely one of my favourites of all time.

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Title: Snow
Author: Orhan Pamuk
Publisher: Faber and Faber (Penguin India)
Pages:448
Price: Rs 350
ISBN:9780571222995
Rating: 5 out of 5
Source: Personal

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Summary
Poet Ka (kerim Alakusoglu) returns to his homeland Turkey after 12 years of political exile in Germany.. As a journalist he has two motives one to get to the roots of the sudden suicides among girls and the upcoming election, but the main intention is to revive the flair he had for a classmate who is now separated from her husband.... In a city clung between  extreme religious ideologies and secularism this journey gives  Ka to relive his life and rediscover the poet that he is....

Review
This was the first Pamauk's book I read and I became an instant fan...To call it a romantic or a political novel would be injustice to both genre for it is a beautiful union of romance at the heights with all its political turmoil...The novel begin with snow as in backdrop and snow is omnipresent all through...Though Ka returns to his hometown for his mother's funeral there is no mention about it there after... Ka enjoys the status of a celebrity in his hometown at the same he is the most distrusted by his fellowmen .. Ipak Ka's romantic interest is stuck with her life when her husband can only think and breathe religion and its principles that she is unable to follow....Islamic extremism overflows all through the novel.. Director of Institution of education is killed by a muslim extremist as he supposedly thinks the director to be the reason behind the suicide of girls by banning the head scarf.. Even when his people are hostile to Ka, he tries his best to get the bottom of the mass suicides...,he wanders through alley of Kars to institution where the religion has an upperhand over educational reforms..Pamuk's trademark of the beautiful portray of his city even in ruins and remnant is a treat to read, where all the structure stand still as a mute witness..To complete it all there is an editor in the local newspaper who publishes things even before they actually happen...
Ka's self -discovery as a poet is elegantly portrayed., as he comes face to face with all experiences in his home town naming it  "Snow" and  rest  of the poem just follows.. Theater becoming a military coup is the best way of expressing the state of affairs in a city...Characters such as  that of Sheikh Saadettin's is woven charmingly conveying a message to the reader...Politically reluctant Ka starts taking part in them inorder to safe guard himself and to marry his ladylove..Thus Ka's vantage on all these ideologies are of that of an outsider while Sheikh Saadetein 's views are of that of an insider, all the contrast are brought out well...All human emotions such jealously, sympathy, empathy, happiness ideally comes out  from Ka., his passion swings between obsession to hysteria...The best part of the novel is its being unpredictable....Outrage of Blue an islamic fundamendalist to Ka is more out of  fear than anger, his fear of misrepresentation of the suicides to the rest of the world is an ideal footing that all such events suffer from...Like other characters the headscarf girls also form an important aspect of the novel in spite of being dead .,they are dragged in time and again by anyone as per their convenience and even Ka struggles to get an idea of their feelings or experiences till it is staged by Khadife's performance..
I love this one especially form Fazil to Ka
Fazil says
"If you write a book set in Kars and put me init, I'd like you to tell your readers not to believe anything you say about me, anything you say about any of us. No one could understand us from so far away."
Reference is made to the western countries..
The story moves through a third person's perspective and it was disheartening to find out about Ka's death..The novel is a full package for a reader in all its form, just read and relish every bit of it...

Museum of Innocence By Orhan Pamuk

Price 599

Fiction

Everyone goes through this phase as Pamuk puts it right from the go "It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn't know it" ....I have loved all his earlier work.. He is one of my favourite authors..

The novel is about Kemal's (a wealthy eligible bachelor from elite class) compulsive obsession for Fusun (beautiful shop girl and his cousin)..The novel unravel through their extreme passion and attraction to each other making them to throw away the society's rule only to wreck their lives..In spite of being involved with Fusun he gets engaged to Sibel (good looking fashionable girl belonging to elite society) ..In the first phase Kemal let go off  Fusun and rest of the story is about his hardcore effort to stay around her (while she is married to)trying to get back her in his life even if that means to tolerate her husband her family's television dinner with her parents taking care of every single affair, finally even trying to become a producer to make her a famour heroin, because that is what she wants and he just wants to fullfill anything she desires..To follow his obsession he breaks up with Sibel driving his family and friends mad with fury...Kemal suddenly develops a habit of collecting every single thing that reminds of their time together as a souvenir like calm maniac building his own kind of a museum...After years of ardent faith and hope to get back Fusun to his when I read through the chapter  where they get engaged, I let out a sigh meaning "FINALLY" but soon a tragic hit shattering it all...

The beauty lies in the way Pamuk romances with his homeland Istanbul.. The novel is weaved through knook and corner of the city,from mosques to market street filled with simple everyday life, their abandoned apartment .All this is added one upon another like beads in a string building up shaping Kemal's life..I still remeber the details of the abandoned apartment, the  dusky mat, the table everything is sketched by the author so intricately that reader lives through the situation..Many a times I felt like arguing with Kemal to snap off, rather holding on miserably...

Just love it though I had some impossible moments reading it.