Reviews
"It is neither passion nor homicide that makes Pamuk's latest,My Name is Red, the rich and essential book that it is. . . . It is Pamuk's rendering of the intense life of artists negotiating the devilishly sharp edge of Islam 1,000 years after its brith that elevatesMy Name is Redto the rank of modern classic. . . . To read Pamuk is to be steeped in a paradox that precedes our modern-day feuds beteween secularism and fundamentalism." --Jonathan Levi,Los Angeles Times Book Review "Straddling the Dardanelles sits the city of Istanbul . . . and in that city sits Orhan Pamuk, chronicler of its consciousness . . . His novel's subject is the difference in perceptions between East and West . . . [and] a mysterious killer... driven by mad theology. . .Pamuk is getting at a subject that has compelled modern thinkers from Heidegger to Derrida . . .My Name is Redis a meditation on authenticity and originality . . . An ambitious work on so many levels at once." --Melvin Jules Bukiet,Chicago Tribune "Most enchanting . . . Playful, intellectually challenging, with an engaging love story and a full canvas of memorable characters,My Name is Redis a novel many, many people will enjoy." --David Walton,Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Intensely exhilarating . . . Arresting and provocative . . . To say that Orhan Pamuk's new novel,My Name is Red,is a murder mystery is like saying that Dostoevsky'sThe Brothers Karamazovis a murder mystery: it is true, but the work so richly transcends the conventional limitations of genre as to make the definition seem almost irrelevant. . . .The techniques of classical Islamic literature are used to anchor the book within a tradition of local narrative, but they can also be used with a wonderfully witty and distancing lightness of touch . . . All the exuberance and richly descriptive detail of a nineteenth-century European novel . . . The technique of Pamuk's novel proclaims that he himself is a magnificently accomplished hybrid artist, able to take from Eastern and Western traditions with equal ease and flair . . . Formally brilliant, witty, and about serious matters . . . It conveys in a wholly convincing manner the emotional, cerebral, and physical texture of daily life, and it does so with great compassion, generosity, and humanity . . . An extraordinary achievement." --Dick Davis,Times Literary Supplement, UK "My Name is Redis a fabulously rich novel, highly compelling . . . This pivotal book, which absorbed Pamuk through the 1990s, could conclusively establish him as one of the world's finest living writers." --Guy Mannes-Abbott,The Independent, UK "A murder mystery set in sixteenth-century Istanbul [that] uses the art of miniature illumination, much as Mann's'Doctor Faustus'did music, to explore a nation's soul. . . . Erdag Goknar deserves praise for the cool, smooth English in which he has rendered Pamuk's finespun sentences, passionate art appreciations, sly pedantic debates, [and] eerie urban scenes." --John Updike,The New Yorker "Pamuk is a novelist and a great one...My Name is Redis by far the grandest and most astonishing contest in his internal East-West war...It is chock-full of sublimity and sin...The story is told by each of a dozen characters, and now and then by a dog, a tree, a gold coin, several querulous corpses and the color crimson ('My Name is Red')...[Readers will] be lofted by the paradoxical lightness and gaiety of the writing, by the wonderfully winding talk perpetually about to turn a corner, and by the stubborn humanity in the characters' maneuvers to survive. It is a humanity whose lies and silences emerge as endearing and oddly bracing individual truths." --Richard Eder,New York Times, "It is neither passion nor homicide that makes Pamuk's latest, My Name is Red , the rich and essential book that it is. . . . It is Pamuk's rendering of the intense life of artists negotiating the devilishly sharp edge of Islam 1,000 years after its brith that elevates My Name is Red to the rank of modern classic. . . . To read Pamuk is to be steeped in a paradox that precedes our modern-day feuds beteween secularism and fundamentalism." --Jonathan Levi, Los Angeles Times Book Review "Straddling the Dardanelles sits the city of Istanbul . . . and in that city sits Orhan Pamuk, chronicler of its consciousness . . . His novel's subject is the difference in perceptions between East and West . . . [and] a mysterious killer... driven by mad theology. . .Pamuk is getting at a subject that has compelled modern thinkers from Heidegger to Derrida . . . My Name is Red is a meditation on authenticity and originality . . . An ambitious work on so many levels at once." --Melvin Jules Bukiet, Chicago Tribune "Most enchanting . . . Playful, intellectually challenging, with an engaging love story and a full canvas of memorable characters, My Name is Red is a novel many, many people will enjoy." --David Walton, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Intensely exhilarating . . . Arresting and provocative . . . To say that Orhan Pamuk's new novel, My Name is Red, is a murder mystery is like saying that Dostoevsky's The Brothers Karamazov is a murder mystery: it is true, but the work so richly transcends the conventional limitations of genre as to make the definition seem almost irrelevant. . . .The techniques of classical Islamic literature are used to anchor the book within a tradition of local narrative, but they can also be used with a wonderfully witty and distancing lightness of touch . . . All the exuberance and richly descriptive detail of a nineteenth-century European novel . . . The technique of Pamuk's novel proclaims that he himself is a magnificently accomplished hybrid artist, able to take from Eastern and Western traditions with equal ease and flair . . . Formally brilliant, witty, and about serious matters . . . It conveys in a wholly convincing manner the emotional, cerebral, and physical texture of daily life, and it does so with great compassion, generosity, and humanity . . . An extraordinary achievement." --Dick Davis, Times Literary Supplement , UK "My Name is Red is a fabulously rich novel, highly compelling . . . This pivotal book, which absorbed Pamuk through the 1990s, could conclusively establish him as one of the world's finest living writers." --Guy Mannes-Abbott, The Independent , UK "A murder mystery set in sixteenth-century Istanbul [that] uses the art of miniature illumination, much as Mann's 'Doctor Faustus' did music, to explore a nation's soul. . . . Erdag Goknar deserves praise for the cool, smooth English in which he has rendered Pamuk's finespun sentences, passionate art appreciations, sly pedantic debates, [and] eerie urban scenes." --John Updike, The New Yorker "Pamuk is a novelist and a great one... My Name is Red is by far the grandest and most astonishing contest in his internal East-West war...It is chock-full of sublimity and sin...The story is told by each of a dozen characters, and now and then by a dog, a tree, a gold coin, several querulous corpses and the color crimson ('My Name is Red')...[Readers will] be lofted by the paradoxical lightness and gaiety of the writing, by the wonderfully winding talk perpetually about to turn a corner, and by the stubborn humanity in the characters' maneuvers to survive. It is a humanity whose lies and silences emerge as endearing and oddly bracing individual truths." --Richard Eder, New York Times Book Review ", "It is neither passion nor homicide that makes Pamuk's latest,My Name is Red, the rich and essential book that it is. . . . It is Pamuk's rendering of the intense life of artists negotiating the devilishly sharp edge of Islam 1,000 years after its brith that elevatesMy Name is Redto the rank of modern classic. . . . To read Pamuk is to be steeped in a paradox that precedes our modern-day feuds beteween secularism and fundamentalism." --Jonathan Levi,Los Angeles Times Book Review "Straddling the Dardanelles sits the city of Istanbul . . . and in that city sits Orhan Pamuk, chronicler of its consciousness . . . His novel's subject is the difference in perceptions between East and West . . . [and] a mysterious killer... driven by mad theology. . .Pamuk is getting at a subject that has compelled modern thinkers from Heidegger to Derrida . . .My Name is Redis a meditation on authenticity and originality . . . An ambitious work on so many levels at once." --Melvin Jules Bukiet,Chicago Tribune "Most enchanting . . . Playful, intellectually challenging, with an engaging love story and a full canvas of memorable characters,My Name is Redis a novel many, many people will enjoy." --David Walton,Milwaukee Journal Sentinel "Intensely exhilarating . . . Arresting and provocative . . . To say that Orhan Pamuk's new novel,My Name is Red,is a murder mystery is like saying that Dostoevsky'sThe Brothers Karamazovis a murder mystery: it is true, but the work so richly transcends the conventional limitations of genre as to make the definition seem almost irrelevant. . . .The techniques of classical Islamic literature are used to anchor the book within a tradition of local narrative, but they can also be used with a wonderfully witty and distancing lightness of touch . . . All the exuberance and richly descriptive detail of a nineteenth-century European novel . . . The technique of Pamuk's novel proclaims that he himself is a magnificently accomplished hybrid artist, able to take from Eastern and Western traditions with equal ease and flair . . . Formally brilliant, witty, and about serious matters . . . It conveys in a wholly convincing manner the emotional, cerebral, and physical texture of daily life, and it does so with great compassion, generosity, and humanity . . . An extraordinary achievement." --Dick Davis,Times Literary Supplement, UK "My Name is Redis a fabulously rich novel, highly compelling . . . This pivotal book, which absorbed Pamuk through the 1990s, could conclusively establish him as one of the world's finest living writers." --Guy Mannes-Abbott,The Independent, UK "A murder mystery set in sixteenth-century Istanbul [that] uses the art of miniature illumination, much as Mann's'Doctor Faustus'did music, to explore a nation's soul. . . . Erdag Goknar deserves praise for the cool, smooth English in which he has rendered Pamuk's finespun sentences, passionate art appreciations, sly pedantic debates, [and] eerie urban scenes." --John Updike,The New Yorker "Pamuk is a novelist and a great one...My Name is Redis by far the grandest and most astonishing contest in his internal East-West war...It is chock-full of sublimity and sin...The story is told by each of a dozen characters, and now and then by a dog, a tree, a gold coin, several querulous corpses and the color crimson ('My Name is Red')...[Readers will] be lofted by the paradoxical lightness and gaiety of the writing, by the wonderfully winding talk perpetually about to turn a corner, and by the stubborn humanity in the characters' maneuvers to survive. It is a humanity whose lies and silences emerge as endearing and oddly bracing individual truths." --Richard Eder,New York Times Book Review "
