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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
kumipaul's review against another edition
3.0
Summaries I’ve read tout this as an enduring story of an obsessive love. I saw it more as a one-sided obsession by a privileged alcoholic with serious mental health issues. He calls it love, but it looks more like lust. His business decisions and personal decisions are driven but this obsessive lust, and he suffers their consequences again and again. Kemal claims to understand Fusun’s deepest thoughts which always result in Kemal’s belief that she loves him, or at least will love him again. I would be interested to hear the story from Fusun’s perspective as I believe it would reveal Kemal’s folly. The Museum was such an interesting idea throughout the story, but I can only see it as a creation of a deranged person.
alinasknar's review against another edition
5.0
I tried as much as I could to prolong the last 20 pages of this book before I had to part with the love of Kemal and Fusun, but alas, I had to say goodbye to the tear-soaked pages of my paperback.
This is not a typical, hopeful, watered-down and stereotypical version of passionate love between a man and a woman, but a celebration of devotion, reverence, patience, and sacrifices people ought to make in order to be complete together with their soulmates.
Orhan Pamuk's prose is extraordinarily precise at capturing the gentle hues of romance, elegant verses of passion as well as the reflection of emotional distress caused by love conflicting with unsuitable time frames, family desires and social norms. The characters in the novel are inviting you to their welcoming Istanbul homes where you will feel not like a guest, but like the resident of their unique reality.
An excellent book to re-read, despite that now I know the story. I know I will come back to it when I miss my own loved one and will want to see my love expressed in words of some other human being, (and an amazing author by coincidence).
This is not a typical, hopeful, watered-down and stereotypical version of passionate love between a man and a woman, but a celebration of devotion, reverence, patience, and sacrifices people ought to make in order to be complete together with their soulmates.
Orhan Pamuk's prose is extraordinarily precise at capturing the gentle hues of romance, elegant verses of passion as well as the reflection of emotional distress caused by love conflicting with unsuitable time frames, family desires and social norms. The characters in the novel are inviting you to their welcoming Istanbul homes where you will feel not like a guest, but like the resident of their unique reality.
An excellent book to re-read, despite that now I know the story. I know I will come back to it when I miss my own loved one and will want to see my love expressed in words of some other human being, (and an amazing author by coincidence).
nothingforpomegranted's review against another edition
dark
reflective
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.5
I’m honestly not entirely sure why I finished this book. It was dragging for hundreds of pages, and it was absolutely not what I was looking for in the middle of a war. Also, though I like to read and keep the books from my travels, this purchase from an emergency landing that brought me to the airport in Istanbul hardly counts as a travel book. In any case, I powered through the over 700 pages of rambling and navel-gazing that, while written quite beautifully, comprised a plot that was utterly predictable.
The first 200 pages or so were engaging and exciting as Kemal and Füsun developed their attraction to each other and as the structure of the novel began to take form. The idea of a museum within a book is creative and struck me by surprise multiple times throughout the set up. Even Kemal’s helpless wandering as he sought out Füsun was intriguing, with great atmosphere and interesting characterization. But the eight years of meals at the Keskin’s as Kemal pined over Füsun and indulged his kleptomania were exhausting and repetitive, made the more frustrating by the narrator’s insistence that the reader/visitor is bound to be struck and moved by these recollections of quotidian beauty. Perhaps it reinforced the character’s delusions. but mostly I just found it irritating.
Pamuk clearly has tremendous skill as a writer. This novel is filled with well-crafted sentences (credit to the translator as well) and unique structural choices (including the author’s writing himself into the story as the character writing the story. I respect his skill and would consider picking up another of his books, but it would have to be significantly shorter, and I would need the assurance that it didn’t become gratuitous as the chapters went on.
The first 200 pages or so were engaging and exciting as Kemal and Füsun developed their attraction to each other and as the structure of the novel began to take form. The idea of a museum within a book is creative and struck me by surprise multiple times throughout the set up. Even Kemal’s helpless wandering as he sought out Füsun was intriguing, with great atmosphere and interesting characterization. But the eight years of meals at the Keskin’s as Kemal pined over Füsun and indulged his kleptomania were exhausting and repetitive, made the more frustrating by the narrator’s insistence that the reader/visitor is bound to be struck and moved by these recollections of quotidian beauty. Perhaps it reinforced the character’s delusions. but mostly I just found it irritating.
Pamuk clearly has tremendous skill as a writer. This novel is filled with well-crafted sentences (credit to the translator as well) and unique structural choices (including the author’s writing himself into the story as the character writing the story. I respect his skill and would consider picking up another of his books, but it would have to be significantly shorter, and I would need the assurance that it didn’t become gratuitous as the chapters went on.
ozymandias634's review against another edition
emotional
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.75
9lyn9's review against another edition
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
2.25
encgolsen's review against another edition
challenging
emotional
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.75
An intricately detailed, meditative account of obsessive love set in 1970s Istanbul, this novel brings its narrator's world to vivid life. Kemal, son of a wealthy family, seems destined for a happy marriage and bright future until his fixation on a beautiful shopgirl becomes the focal point of his life. Somehow this hyperfocus gives the book a surreal air, the internal workings of Kemal's mind taking precedent over any other point of view.
dootsiez's review against another edition
sad
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? N/A
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
2.0
sunchica's review against another edition
2.0
This was a hard book to get through. It is incredibly detailed; too much so in my opinion. The writing leaves nothing to the imagination, and I didn't love the storyline either.