Pamuk, Orhan "The New Life"

(Turkish: Yeni Hyat) - 1994

Reviewed by Marianne
from Let's Read


I've said it before, I'll say it again, Orhan Pamuk is one of my favourite authors. He never fails to surprise.

In this novel, the protagonist reads a book. Sounds familiar?

Now, even reading a brilliant book doesn't mean it will change your entire life. But in this case, it does. Osman is a student in Istanbul. He gives up his studies, leaves his family and friend behind and goes on a long journey through Turkey with no destiny or motive.

It's not just the story itself that's so fascinating, it's the way the author tells it. He has a special way of describing people and situations, the story unfolds in quite a unique way, it's full of symmetry. His puns and allusions to life in Turkey are so Interesting. He is one of their most important authors.

I am looking forward to his next novels.

From the back cover:

"'I read a book one day, and my whole life was changed.'

So begins The New Life, Orhan Pamuk's fabulous road novel about a young student who yearns for the life promised by a dangerously magical book. He falls in love, abandons his studies, turns his back on home and family, and embarks on restless bus trips through the provinces, in pursuit of an elusive vision. This is a wondrous odyssey, laying bare the rage of an arid heartland. In coffee houses with black-and-white TV sets, on buses where passengers ride watching B-movies on flickering screens, in wrecks along the highway, in paranoid fictions with spies as punctual as watches, the magic of Pamuk's creation comes alive."


Orhan Pamuk "who in the quest for the melancholic soul of his native city has discovered new symbols for the clash and interlacing of cultures" received the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006.

Orhan Pamuk received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2005.


Read my other reviews of the Nobel Prize winners for Literature.  

Original Post on "Let's Read".