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jdintr's review against another edition
5.0
Pamuk is a Nobel laureate who is at the top of his game in this novel. The way he tells a story is much the way a person might sew a shirt. With every new "stitch" of the novel, he pulls the thread long and clear, returning the needle very close to the original place.
This is why the chapters seem to loop out and return back to one another without progressing in a routine, chronological way. It can be confusing to a reader who is merely trying to get from Point A to Point B, but it is a luxurious way of writing--and for the attuned reader, it is exhilarating. This is how he can spend a chapter describing the way Fusun puts out her cigarettes, and another starting every sentence with the word, "sometimes," and yet another describing the odd habit of having a porcelain dog on top of the television.
The character of Kemal was truly offensive to me at the start. I found his actions to be selfish and repulsive. The beauty of The Museum of Innocence is the way the story begins with a loss of innocence, then slowly grows through an eight-year process of redemption, only to... well, I won't give the end away after all.
I find it ironic, though, that Kemal--in order to restore Fusun's sexual purity--resorts to another vice to tide him through the years: stealing. It is a wonderful literary touch, if one that is utterly lacking in verisimilitude.
This was my first book of summer break from school. It was a great way to kick off the break and it bodes well for more great reading to come.
This is why the chapters seem to loop out and return back to one another without progressing in a routine, chronological way. It can be confusing to a reader who is merely trying to get from Point A to Point B, but it is a luxurious way of writing--and for the attuned reader, it is exhilarating. This is how he can spend a chapter describing the way Fusun puts out her cigarettes, and another starting every sentence with the word, "sometimes," and yet another describing the odd habit of having a porcelain dog on top of the television.
The character of Kemal was truly offensive to me at the start. I found his actions to be selfish and repulsive. The beauty of The Museum of Innocence is the way the story begins with a loss of innocence, then slowly grows through an eight-year process of redemption, only to... well, I won't give the end away after all.
I find it ironic, though, that Kemal--in order to restore Fusun's sexual purity--resorts to another vice to tide him through the years: stealing. It is a wonderful literary touch, if one that is utterly lacking in verisimilitude.
This was my first book of summer break from school. It was a great way to kick off the break and it bodes well for more great reading to come.
mildibobildi's review against another edition
1.0
good Lord I can't stand reading this book.
I don't like not finishing a book I start, but after reading 200+ pages and skimming another 100, I just can't do it anymore. So, I skipped and read the last chapter.
I don't like any of the characters, and the story doesn't really go anywhere. Reading the last chapter sort of give me an idea of what happened and I don't have the desire to go back and read the pages in between.
I don't like not finishing a book I start, but after reading 200+ pages and skimming another 100, I just can't do it anymore. So, I skipped and read the last chapter.
I don't like any of the characters, and the story doesn't really go anywhere. Reading the last chapter sort of give me an idea of what happened and I don't have the desire to go back and read the pages in between.
sh00's review against another edition
5.0
В этом издании огромное количество опечаток. Некоторым сумасшествием было отмечать их, но сам факт их отмечания говорит о том, что читал я внимательнее своего обыкновения читать романы.
Прекрасная вещь для меня лично - и получает огромный отклик внутри меня, резонанс в стопиццот баллов по шкале Рихтера.
Вероятно, только мне понятно, почему.
Прекрасная вещь для меня лично - и получает огромный отклик внутри меня, резонанс в стопиццот баллов по шкале Рихтера.
Вероятно, только мне понятно, почему.
liberrydude's review against another edition
3.0
"It was the happiest moment of my life, though I didn't know it." So begins 532 pages of love, obsession, depression, joy, and tragedy. That opening sentence had me hooked and so I began what turned out to be an at times enthralling,sometimes disturbing, and other times tedious journey into a man's tortured soul. This story is being told in retrospect by Kemal, a rich upperclass Turk and you immediately know it's headed for a train wreck of monumental proportions. Like lookie-lou's at a traffic accident, the reader's morbid curiousity is stimulated and must unravel what will ultimately happen to him and the love of his life, Fusun. Pamuk or Kemal emphasizes constantly the uniqueness of the situation to the culture of Turkey. But I think this overemphasis has the opposite effect. I could see what's unfolding happen in any culture with a love besotted man. Once Kemal later in the book starts to visit museums around the world and seeks out collectors of all sorts of paraphernalia, he looks less and less like a Turk but any man from any country. Pages up to 250 or so go fast and then it gets tedious and then it takes off again when there is a rapprochement. I was left with a diversity of feelings for Kemal: empathy, boredom,disgust,contempt. Pamuk took me to a lot of places in this book. I can see this book being analyzed in a college literature class. I can also see why the author was awarded the Nobel, but that was before he wrote Chapter 69 of this book in which every sentence begins with the word "sometimes." I'll be reading more from Orhan Bey.
cherircohen's review against another edition
5.0
The first 200 pages and last 100 or so pages of this book were absolutely beautiful. Just amazing.
ajkhn's review against another edition
3.0
A friend got me to watch Scent of A Woman once. He explained it, generally, as, "You'll ask yourself why you're watching it for most of the movie. And then the ending will come and you'll be happy you did."
I feel the same way about Museum of Innocence. The narrator is a rich playboy who is about to be engaged to a woman who is, by all counts, incredible. He then starts an affair with an 18-year-old who is, by all counts, incredible. The entire time, I got the feeling that if this was Museum of Innocence and Zombies, where zombies attack whenever a character does something against their better judgment, you would need buckets to catch the lead. There are then 400 pages of longing and questions of sexuality and modernism. Then there's a denouement.
The denouement is fun. Anytime a writer gets to say, "Hello, this is Orhan Pamuk!" it's pretty amusing. And, I mean, I'm a museum nerd, so the fact that Pamuk actually went to all sorts of tiny museums to get at the essence of collection is kinda fun.
There are probably huge chunks I don't understand, not having any crippling questions of Modernity swelling up inside of me. There are lots of fantastic descriptions of Istanbul in the spring, making this sort of a partner-book with Black Book and its focus on winter. And it was nice for Celal Salik, Ka, and Pamuk himself to show up, thus shifting his books into a whole other shadow universe. Fun stuff. And Orhan Gencebay shows up? Fantastic!
This was probably my least-favorite Pamuk book (White Castle is still my favorite), and while I respect what Pamuk does in his work, and how he tries to build up all of his books along the same thoughts....this was 400 pages of longing in a 500 page book. I can't take that much longing, from such an objectionable character, myself.
I feel the same way about Museum of Innocence. The narrator is a rich playboy who is about to be engaged to a woman who is, by all counts, incredible. He then starts an affair with an 18-year-old who is, by all counts, incredible. The entire time, I got the feeling that if this was Museum of Innocence and Zombies, where zombies attack whenever a character does something against their better judgment, you would need buckets to catch the lead. There are then 400 pages of longing and questions of sexuality and modernism. Then there's a denouement.
The denouement is fun. Anytime a writer gets to say, "Hello, this is Orhan Pamuk!" it's pretty amusing. And, I mean, I'm a museum nerd, so the fact that Pamuk actually went to all sorts of tiny museums to get at the essence of collection is kinda fun.
There are probably huge chunks I don't understand, not having any crippling questions of Modernity swelling up inside of me. There are lots of fantastic descriptions of Istanbul in the spring, making this sort of a partner-book with Black Book and its focus on winter. And it was nice for Celal Salik, Ka, and Pamuk himself to show up, thus shifting his books into a whole other shadow universe. Fun stuff. And Orhan Gencebay shows up? Fantastic!
This was probably my least-favorite Pamuk book (White Castle is still my favorite), and while I respect what Pamuk does in his work, and how he tries to build up all of his books along the same thoughts....this was 400 pages of longing in a 500 page book. I can't take that much longing, from such an objectionable character, myself.
brew_and_books's review against another edition
3.0
The storytelling flair of Pamuk is probably manifested by the fact that despite hovering and tiring over this book for four long months, I suddenly didn’t want it to end when I was nearing the finish. I guess it's one humongous task to do justice to a story when it spans some 720 pages. I didn't love all bits of it; I was tired of the narrator's constant lamentations about lost love. It made me cringe, helpless, and downright irritated. I wanted to put sense into him, shake him off his suffering, and stir him to make something of his loss and pain. But then it got better and ended great, from the story and writing perspective.
The story starts simple, Kemal is engaged to her long-time beautiful girlfriend Sibel until he falls head over heels in love with a young lady (and his cousin), Fusun. What starts as one brief consummate affair slowly takes the form of this torturous, heart-wrenching, and disastrous obsession for Kemal. Following an awful separation with his fiancée and a fallout with Fusun (only to lose her to another man for marriage), Kemal is in the rock bottom pits of mania and obsession. Eight years of his life are consumed by his incessant grief-stricken heartbroken ruminations treading on lines of 'what-if' and an optimistic hope of a future together with Fusun.
It's an understatement if I say it was exhausting. One chapter, 'Sometimes,' has all the sentences starting from the word 'Sometimes' and spans ten pages, and they are all disconcerted ramblings. This 'eight years of Kemal's life' segment, all about deep philosophical ruminations, almost drained me out until Pamuk turned it around like the brilliant storyteller that he is. I got so immersed that I read the last 100 pages in one stretch giving up on all that passivity I felt before. The final form he carved of the story was stupefying, especially the last few pages and the ending paragraphs: the writing was just so good!
And in a way, it all made sense. All those trailing thoughts surfaced from the dark inner caverns of love and hopeless obsession, it did make sense, and it's enchanting and liberating. I almost disliked it and then loved it as in I never did want it to end (love-hate relationship, they say?).
The story starts simple, Kemal is engaged to her long-time beautiful girlfriend Sibel until he falls head over heels in love with a young lady (and his cousin), Fusun. What starts as one brief consummate affair slowly takes the form of this torturous, heart-wrenching, and disastrous obsession for Kemal. Following an awful separation with his fiancée and a fallout with Fusun (only to lose her to another man for marriage), Kemal is in the rock bottom pits of mania and obsession. Eight years of his life are consumed by his incessant grief-stricken heartbroken ruminations treading on lines of 'what-if' and an optimistic hope of a future together with Fusun.
It's an understatement if I say it was exhausting. One chapter, 'Sometimes,' has all the sentences starting from the word 'Sometimes' and spans ten pages, and they are all disconcerted ramblings. This 'eight years of Kemal's life' segment, all about deep philosophical ruminations, almost drained me out until Pamuk turned it around like the brilliant storyteller that he is. I got so immersed that I read the last 100 pages in one stretch giving up on all that passivity I felt before. The final form he carved of the story was stupefying, especially the last few pages and the ending paragraphs: the writing was just so good!
And in a way, it all made sense. All those trailing thoughts surfaced from the dark inner caverns of love and hopeless obsession, it did make sense, and it's enchanting and liberating. I almost disliked it and then loved it as in I never did want it to end (love-hate relationship, they say?).
teresavh's review against another edition
3.0
I didn't like this, except for the end. This is the reason why I don't judge a book until I finish it, because instead of giving it 2/5 I give it 3/5 because of how it ended.
It took me a lot to read about the turkish man super obsessed with a girl +10 years his younger. He tried to stop her from living in every sense, and he totally and sickly adored her. It really bored me though. Except when the book changes voices and gives a short lesson on museology, it was just boring.
I'd loved it if it expanded on how love works in a ultra conservative society like Istanbul's, but even though the theme is always there, all the attention goes to the guy's obsession.
Made me sleep wonderfully though.
It took me a lot to read about the turkish man super obsessed with a girl +10 years his younger. He tried to stop her from living in every sense, and he totally and sickly adored her. It really bored me though. Except when the book changes voices and gives a short lesson on museology, it was just boring.
I'd loved it if it expanded on how love works in a ultra conservative society like Istanbul's, but even though the theme is always there, all the attention goes to the guy's obsession.
Made me sleep wonderfully though.
secemozmen's review against another edition
i felt like i was forcing myself to read and didnt liked the characters. i wanted to give it a try because it was popular but not for me i guess