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rebeccareads3a0b2 's review for:
The Museum of Innocence
by Orhan Pamuk
3.5/5
I am always impressed with the quality Pamuk's writing. His turns of phrase are incredible. The reader is taken inside the mind of Kemal and his obsessions with exquisite, beautiful detail. However, for much of the book, I was a bit jaded with the plot: A man's over the top infatuation with a woman portrayed with little depth...this is a story I have heard before. I came to realize, however, that this may be intentional. The reader is meant to understand the course of the novel through the perspective of a man with a profound obsession. Indeed, by the end of the book, it seems that this story serves as a collection of all of the minutiae of Kemal's experience loving Füsun, that is, a written museum, so to speak. Indeed, the book (as is explicitly stated towards the end) is meant to be the "line" that connects all the objects Kemal collected together. Still, at times it got a bit tedious.
As a frequent museum-goer, I really enjoyed the descriptions/contexts of the items Kemal collected throughout the book. I left the book with some new, interesting ideas about the nature of museums, displays, and collections. Fascinating!
I am always impressed with the quality Pamuk's writing. His turns of phrase are incredible. The reader is taken inside the mind of Kemal and his obsessions with exquisite, beautiful detail. However, for much of the book, I was a bit jaded with the plot: A man's over the top infatuation with a woman portrayed with little depth...this is a story I have heard before. I came to realize, however, that this may be intentional. The reader is meant to understand the course of the novel through the perspective of a man with a profound obsession. Indeed, by the end of the book, it seems that this story serves as a collection of all of the minutiae of Kemal's experience loving Füsun, that is, a written museum, so to speak. Indeed, the book (as is explicitly stated towards the end) is meant to be the "line" that connects all the objects Kemal collected together. Still, at times it got a bit tedious.
As a frequent museum-goer, I really enjoyed the descriptions/contexts of the items Kemal collected throughout the book. I left the book with some new, interesting ideas about the nature of museums, displays, and collections. Fascinating!