What is Life? What is the meaning of A "New Life"? Will you leave behind everything to seek it? Will you abandon, transform and rearrange your identity to just feel it in your tongue for a second? Is a "New Life" something that transcends the ordinary? Will you destroy everything just to get it? These are the questions behind and on the mind of Osman, a young university student, who reads a book that changes his life. He attempts to search for the world as depicted in the book and travels across the country to find his dream. His traveling companion is the beautiful and mysterious Janan who also seeks this world. Yet their reasons have seperate agendas.
The brilliance Of Pamuk was delivered to me by reading this book of his called "The New Life". I had decided to try out Pamuk when my friend Poetic Piety told me to read him as he marvelled at Pamuk's genius.For those of you who are unaware Mr. Pamuk won the Nobel Prize in 2006 and it was well deserved. The novel is my first taste of Pamuk and I was not disappointed. Pamuk experiments with the standard first person narration and stream of consciousness narrative and expertly blends them together in this literary masterpiece. The book has deep metaphysical roots and one may have to concentrate at certain times to gather the deeper meanings of the embedded philosophies, however, nothing is overly tedious or boring to make you feel out of place. Pamuk describes Turkey in a manner that is so iridescent and blooming that you feel you yourself have become one with Osman and are travelling across the majestic country. Characters are deep, three-dimensional, complex yet simple and confusing and real as the people you interact with everyday. One might find similarities with Osman's style of thought as it becomes haphazard at times portraying a flourishing realistic feel. By the end of the novel one does bond with Osman - you may be irritated, angered, annoyed, happy or ecstatic about him but guarenteed you will have a reaction and you will feel you know Osman in the flesh.
Orhan Pamuk has left me breathless by his genius storytelling. I am eager to read his other translated novels (he originally writes in Turkish). Please go and pick up one of his novels - Pamuk is an experience that will last a lifetime.
1 comment:
you had already made me greedy 'bout reading this book.. and now with this review you have strengthened it further ~
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