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Loading... A Strangeness in My Mind (original 2014; edition 2016)by Orhan Pamuk, Ekin Oklap (Translator.)
Work InformationA Strangeness in My Mind by Orhan Pamuk (2014)
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Sign up for LibraryThing to find out whether you'll like this book. No current Talk conversations about this book. Wow. I've been reading some long books this quarter! But this novel was worth the time. I loved the amusing rebuttals and interruptions from some of the main characters when they thought our narrator, Mevlut, had portrayed them incorrectly. Istanbul is such an unusual city & this book illuminates a part of it outsiders rarely see. ( ) This was an unexpectedly good read. I had hesitated to read it because I feared it would be as dense as 'My Name is Red' and I didn't know what to expect from such a weird title. But it turned out to be a delight. Immerse yourself in a love story that is also a family saga and a sweep of the changes Turkey underwent in the 20th century. Pamuk also managed to weave in key global events like 911. Mevlut is the book's unassuming hero - he married the sister of the woman he had yearned for accidentally but learned to love and rely on her; he learned not to hold on to the daughters he loved, and he continued to sell boza on the streets even when he didn't have to. It's a tragedy that his wife, Rayiha, died young. In a twist of fate, he still ended up marrying the woman he had originally loved but his number one love is still Rayiha. no reviews | add a review
Belongs to Publisher SeriesFischer Taschenbuch (03403) Gallimard, Folio (6614) Keltainen kirjasto (482) AwardsDistinctionsNotable Lists
"Since his boyhood in a poor village in Central Anatolia, Mevlut Karataş has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he'd hoped, at the age of twelve he comes to Istanbul--"the center of the world"--And is immediately enthralled by both the old city that is disappearing and the new one that is fast being built. He follows his father's trade, selling boza (a traditional mildly alcoholic Turkish drink) on the street, and hoping to become rich, like other villagers who have settled the desolate hills outside the booming metropolis. But luck never seems to be on Mevlut's side. As he watches his relations settle down and make their fortunes, he spends three years writing love letters to a girl he saw just once at a wedding, only to elope by mistake with her sister. And though he grows to cherish his wife and the family they have, he stumbles toward middle age in a series of jobs leading nowhere. His sense of missing something leads him sometimes to the politics of his friends and intermittently to the teachings of a charismatic religious guide. But every evening, without fail, Mevlut still wanders the streets of Istanbul, selling boza and wondering at the "strangeness" of his mind, the sensation that makes him feel different from everyone else, until fortune conspires once more to let him understand at last what it is he has always yearned for."--Jacket. No library descriptions found. |
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Google Books — Loading... GenresMelvil Decimal System (DDC)894.3533Literature Literature of other languages Altaic, Finno-Ugric, Uralic and Dravidian languages Turkic languages Turkish Turkish fiction 1850–2000LC ClassificationRatingAverage:
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