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A review by nothingforpomegranted
The Museum of Innocence by Orhan Pamuk
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.