[REVIEW] Orhan Pamuk, Istanbul: Memories of the City

[rfmcdonald]

Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul: Memories of the City is an exemplar of the most interesting sort of literature about places to ignoramuses like me, that where a native initiate explains a place to an unacquainted readership. In this case, Pamuk is concerned with his native city of Istanbul, presenting that ancient Turkish metropolis to his readers through his childhood experiences of adventure and family, through the Western and Turkish books he read, through the vestiges of old empire and (pejorative) orientalism. That his experience of Istanbul as a dense complex brilliant nexus is presented to us through his wonderfully lucid prose is a bonus.