Today i finished the second book of this month (first being Gunaho ka Devta), 'Istanbul memories of a city' by Nobel prize winning Turkish author Orhan Pamuk (courtesy my dear friend Aviral). This book is about Istanbul (known as Constantinople in the times of Byzantine empire) and its miseries because of the very position it occupies in the history as well as in geography (sandwiched between two continents as well as two civilizations) . Western authors describe battle of 29th may 1453 as the fall of Constantinople (the last great ancient Roman empire or the Byzantine empire) while the Turkish authors describe it as the Conquest of Istanbul and the people of the Istanbul had been divided on those lines since then. The story talks about the confusion of the people of Istanbul to choose between the Western civilization and the dying Ottomon civilization.
Orhan goes on saying that the western people who come to visit Istanbul praise Istanbul for its Ottomon past and its remains while the very people of Istanbul feel very shameful about their Ottomon past. The greatest Turk of the last century Kamal Attaturk in the zeal of founding a new western looking Turkey banned the ethnic dress of Turkey and many ancient buildings were destroyed to make Turkey more western.
This book is a sort of autobiography of Orhan as well as the story of last 150 years of Istanbul and the psychology of its people. This book will be a difficult and boring book to read for a person who is alien to Turkey but for a person who loves to read between the lines its a gem of books.
Recommended (7)
Enjoy reading till i sign again.
1 comment:
Going by your review am tempted to read the book...
You can continue with The Name Is Red...if you want to...
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