Customer Reviews

Other Colors

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"Pamuk has two enduring loves: books and Istanbul. Often they converge as his journeys through his hometown come to resemble excursions through memory itself." Pico Iyer

I had the extraordinary good fortune to see and hear Orhan Pamuk speak at Dartmouth College about his life, his writing, his family and his books, on the first anniversary of his Noble Prize for Literature. Orhan Pamuk elicited total attention as he brought us from his education as an architect to a realization that his life was in writing. His life was not complete without books, paper and pen, and he spoke emotionally about his writing life. "It keeps me sane", he said. There you have it. In this day and age of stress and strain, as he said "I feel as if I have two souls, sort of schizophrenic". I understand this completely after reading his book 'Other Colors'. Like his country, Turkey, he is caught between two continents Asia and Europe. He sits at his desk looking out towards the Bosphorus Sea and writes about the land and the people he loves.

After Pamuk won the Nobel he was badgered by the press for new stories. He was used to writing slowly, a couple hundred pages a year, but now he needed to have 4 pages in two hours every week. These stories in 'Many Colors' are the accumulation of that time. He was also asked over and over why all his books had the titles of colors, 'The White Castle', 'The Black Book', and 'My Name Is Red'- thus, to satisfy his urge to put one over on the media, he titled this book, 'Many Colors'. This book contains so many fascinating stories. One of my favorites is that of the Ferries of the Bosphorous. When Pamuk was a boy, his father and his friends all chose one ferry that they could identify as theirs. As the ferries would come down the sea towards Istanbul, they could make out their ferry by one characteristic, usually the shape and size of the smokestack. They could then place their ferry, and it seemed their world was a little smaller. Those large ferries are gone now replaced by motorized, faster versions. And, Pamuk speaks lovingly of his daughter, Ruya. One year she did not like school and would spend hours giving her father reasons why she should not attend. He wrote down these daily messages verbatim, and into a story we can all relate to, we have been there. Pamuk tells us about his favorite authors. Dostoevsky, Nabokov, Camus, Bernhard and each author has a place in his heart. He reads them every day and it is because of them he became a writer. He relates his personal experience in an earthquake that took the lives of many of his countrymen. His books are his life, and he writes about book covers, his library, his to be read lists, the Freedom of the writer. Pamuk's guide to the Mediterranean, to the European bank, and the Views from the Capital of the World, New York City. His Interview by Paris Match is a must read, as is his PEN Arthur Miller Speech. And, of course his arrest for his speaking out about the Armenian tragedy. So much to read and to discover about this man.

"In "Other Colors," his first big assemblage of nonfiction, Pamuk gives us several of his many selves inta centrifugal gathering of memory-pieces, sketches, interviews and unexpected flights. The result is a gallery of Pamuks: here is the author of the haunted, half-lit inquiry into melancholy and neglect, "Istanbul: Memories and the City," with further glimpses of the "forest of secret stairways" that is his home; here is the man who so loves books that he wrote a whole novel." Pico Iyer

Orhan Pamuk is a fascinating man who is a writer of the extraordinary. He has taken the extraordinary of life and turned it into a 'resurrection of the ordinary',Marilynne Robinson's novel "Housekeeping" by way of Pico Iyer's"
so that we can better understand the day to day existence of his world. It is easy to fall under Pamuk's spell when he is talking about his writing and his country. I found this book so illuminating. Pamuk has a wonderful sense of humor and irony. He gives photographers 5 minutes to take pictures at the beginning of his lecture, he finds the flashes interfere with his concentration. At the end of his lecture when the question and answer period started, Pamuk would take a flash picture of each questioner. A roar of approval from the audience! Bravo, Pamuk!

Heartily Recommended. prisrob 11-01-07

Not a moment or detail of life and living appears to pass Orhan Pamuk by without notice. This collection is breathtaking, both in terms of the wide range of topics he tackles and how easily he transitions between what might otherwise be considered mundane vs. majestic moments. The glue here is that Pamuk brings an incredible eye and humanity to everything he touches, leaving little to get lost in translation. Few writers that I have come across over the years capture the texture and tone of those often simple daily scenes more sparingly, vividly and memorably. Fewer still write as though literally every single word on every page matters. Here, they do, in the hands of someone who clearly loves everything about putting pen to paper. You can't help but read a book like this and savor the experience. What a joy--I finished it only a few days ago and I'm already looking forward to re-reading.

An outstanding book, one I parceled off in reading for as long as i could because it is such a fine piece of writing. The Nobel Address was particulary moving but for that matter, the entire book was. I look forward to the next publication of Mr. Pamuk's and only regret I could not hear and seem him at Stanford University a few days ago.

"Other Colors," is a delicious, thoughtful read and a further opening of the writerly shell that insulates Mr. Pamuk from a world wanting badly for a bit order and deliberation. Perhaps this explains the scrutiny the author received as Turkey's author-on-trial-for-thinking-out-loud and Nobel laureate.

Orhan Pamuk is brilliantly able to bring that bit of order and deliberation to the fore writing handsomely from his interior. He describes his writing life with great insight and candor while discussing deliciously, authors he admires. I especially enjoyed the essays in the book about Tolstoy, Dostoevsky, and Nabokov among others).

Having set aside a rainy, grey Sunday to read "Other Colors," I felt a lovely, lonely empathy for the passages on book-mania. In one essay he describes dead-on, the odd reassurances that a book elicits, not merely as an escape mechanism but also as physical totem.

For those who read Orhan Pamuk, this essay collection is food for a book lover's soul. One story in the book is an evocation of his childhood memories of life with his abandoned mother. It stands out poignantly among the essays as he admits elsewhere in the book that she no longer speaks to him.

How curiously private yet opague is this important, gifted author. Hats off, Mr.Pamuk. As one of your "implied readers" I await anything your pen may put to paper.

OTHER COLORS contains autobiographical essays which encourage the reader to explore his novels. Personal experiences inform the content but do not consume it. Journalistic reportage on the Istanbul Earthquake in August 1999 breaks into the interpretative. What comes to mind is Gaius Pliny's comments in A.D. 79 about the eruption of Mount Vesuvius (Pliny, Letters 6.20). Other chapters offer literary insights into favorite authors from Sterne to Rushdi. His youthful interest in art comes out In "Black Pen". This essay with dark-ink drawings also reveals his love for Istanbul and Turkey. The miniature from Topkapi Palace Library depicts a storyteller astride a donkey with two companions on foot. Luminous colors are splashed over the scene. Another illustration points to the traditional story of Khrusraw and Sirin. Many references to color show the author's continued love of painting and architecture. Words in written composition are what colors are in paintings. The young artist changed career at twenty-two, turning to literature. He states, "writing -- if you're happy with it -- undoes all sorrows." The publication of this book coincided with Pamuk's media event on September 20, 2007 at Barnes and Noble. The free forty-four-minute presentation is still available on the internet.

Other Colors contains a series of stories by the author
and Nobelist-Orhan Pamuk. He was born in 1952 in Istanbul.
The family worked in railroad construction. The presentation
has a number of interesting stories which provide a window
into life in Istanbul.

As an American, this interests me because
I have never visited Istanbul. There is a moving story
about a visit to the seashore with Ruya, as well as
a home with a lonely man. The book has a very detailed
description of an earthquake during August of 1999.
The ground shook in Sedef near Buyukada and nearly 30,000
people perished. The author describes memorable scenes
on the Istanbul Ferry in places like the Golden Horn,
Bosphorus Sea and Marmara. A strength of the work is
that the author makes the scenery come alive like a
multi-dimensional movie.

The work combines a biography with short stories.
Toward the end, the author describes how a building's
hominess issues from the dreams and aspirations of
the occupants. I enjoyed the presentation due to the
variety of stories and themes enunciated.
The style of writing is simple and conversational.

This work should be on a high school or college
required reading list due to the unique multi-cultural
perspective.

Pamuk admits that some essays appeared in his other novels,
so if you want to spare yourself the tedium of reading his difficult novels this little book of essays will do just fine.

What a shame that the Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk decides not to publish his essays on Turkish writers that were a part of this book when it was originally published in Turkish. Is he a petty man who can't stand being compared to better Turkish writers? The only redeeming quality of the book however is the mesmerizing language Maureen Freely creates from the broken Turkish with which Mr. Pamuk continues to write in Turkish. Time will be very cruel to Mr. Pamuk as the persona he created for himself will be revealed to be nothing but a fake.