Istanbul Memories And The City — Orhan Pamuk

A shimmering evocation by turns intimate and panoramic of one of the world s great cities by its foremost writer Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms His portrait of his city is thus also a self portrait refracted by memory and the melancholy or hüzün that all Istanbullus share the sadness that comes of living amid the ruins of a lost empire With cinematic fluidity Pamuk moves from his glamorous unhappy parents to the gorgeous decrepit mansions overlooking the Bosphorus from the dawning of his self consciousness to the writers and painters both Turkish and foreign who would shape his consciousness of his city Like Joyce s Dublin and Borges Buenos Aires Pamuk s Istanbul is a triumphant encounter of place and sensibility beautifully written and immensely moving