The White Castle, Orhan Pamuk's celebrated first novel, is the tale of a young Italian scholar captured by pirates and put up for auction at the Istanbul slave market. Acquired by a brilliant Turkish inventor, he is set to work on projects to entertain the jaded Sultan.
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Beautiful new paperback Faber Firsts edition to commemorate Faber's 80th Anniversary
From the Back Cover
The White Castle, Orhan Pamuk's celebrated first novel, is the tale of a young Italian scholar. Captured by pirates between Venice and Naples, he is put up for auction at the Istanbul slave market, and bought by a Turkish savant eager to learn about scientific and intellectual advances in the West. But as they bond over each other's sins and secrets, and their relationship grows increasingly complex, master and slave find themselves part of the Sultan's army, and on a journey that will lead them, ultimately, to the White Castle.
'A new star has risen in the East - Orhan Pamuk. The White Castle is one of those rare novels that call into being a complete and self-contained world shot through with a peculiar brilliance ... [He] is a story-teller with as much gumption and narrative zip as Scheherazade.' New York Times
'Elegant and important ... Comparisons with Kafka and Calvino do not exaggerate; their seriousness, their delicacy and their subtlety are everywhere in evidence.' Independence
'Turkey's foremost novelist and one of the most interesting literary figures anywhere ... A first-rate storyteller.' Times Literary Supplement
'Up there with the best of Calvino, Eco, Borges and Marquez.' Observer --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful
By Mutt
Format:Paperback
Future Turkish Nobel laureate Orhan Pamuk draws heavily on his own highly competitive relationship with his smarter older brother for this curious little musing on the nature of identity that updates the classic tale of "The Prince and the Pauper" to Istanbul in the waning days of the Ottoman Empire for a slim but painfully engaging first novel from a fresh young voice before he became mired in the twisted politics of his homeland.
The bland narrator, an Italian scholar captured and brought to Turkey as a slave, brings a unique perspective to this rarefied milieu as he is drawn into an uncomfortable and almost sadomasochistic relationship with his equally uninspiring master, a wannabe Turkish intellectual, and the two set out to outdo and even undo each other in reinvigorating the sick man of Europe with the latest in 17th century scientific advancements.
The novel provides little atmosphere and no dialogue in its often-discomforting recreation of Ottoman era Istanbul that merely serves as a cipher for an exploration of Turkey's search for identity from Atatürk to Erdoðan that has seen it seek to impersonate modern Europe in an increasingly ill-conceived search for a place in the modern world that the debut novelist seems unable to either condone or condemn because he is an integral part of it.
At first I didn't know quite what I would do with the book other than read it over and over again.
The bland narrator, an Italian scholar captured and brought to Turkey as a slave, brings a unique perspective to this rarefied milieu as he is drawn into an uncomfortable and almost sadomasochistic relationship with his equally uninspiring master, a wannabe Turkish intellectual, and the two set out to outdo and even undo each other in reinvigorating the sick man of Europe with the latest in 17th century scientific advancements.
The novel provides little atmosphere and no dialogue in its often-discomforting recreation of Ottoman era Istanbul that merely serves as a cipher for an exploration of Turkey's search for identity from Atatürk to Erdoðan that has seen it seek to impersonate modern Europe in an increasingly ill-conceived search for a place in the modern world that the debut novelist seems unable to either condone or condemn because he is an integral part of it.
At first I didn't know quite what I would do with the book other than read it over and over again.
2 of 2 people found the following review helpful
By rob crawford
TOP 1000 REVIEWER
Format:Paperback
I have wanted to read something by this author for some time. He came recommended as a truly unique voice, with the additional interest of being a Turk steeped in the mores and traditions of his country and yet able to view them with some satirical distance.
SO I was very happy to discover this volume and was not disappointed. It is a first-rate historical novel set in the Ottoman Empire during the beginning of the Enlightenment in Europe. Without giving away any secrets, the plot follows a young Venetian university graduate who is enslaved and given to a Turkish savant, who wishes to learn from him as much as he can. From the most horrible humiliations and labor, the young Venetian rises to the top of Ottoman society, all the time battling to maintain an identity independent from his owner.
The historical details are fascinating and often very funny. The reader witnesses the limits of proto-science in a more of less Medieval Islamic culture, which is viewed as half magic but also as full of potential power. Then there is the Ottoman court, in which the slave and his owner become key players through guile and some scientific accomplishments, in particular during the plague. The intrigues are full of tension and mystery, a world glimpsed but not wholly explained in a perfect balance of novelistic art.
Finally, there is the inter-play between slave and owner, a conflict that is brutal and terrifying and yet a rare treat for the reader. The psychology of this conflict, I found, is extremely profound and realistic, showing the effect that each had on the other as the years passed. It is also full of surprises.
Highest recommendation.
SO I was very happy to discover this volume and was not disappointed. It is a first-rate historical novel set in the Ottoman Empire during the beginning of the Enlightenment in Europe. Without giving away any secrets, the plot follows a young Venetian university graduate who is enslaved and given to a Turkish savant, who wishes to learn from him as much as he can. From the most horrible humiliations and labor, the young Venetian rises to the top of Ottoman society, all the time battling to maintain an identity independent from his owner.
The historical details are fascinating and often very funny. The reader witnesses the limits of proto-science in a more of less Medieval Islamic culture, which is viewed as half magic but also as full of potential power. Then there is the Ottoman court, in which the slave and his owner become key players through guile and some scientific accomplishments, in particular during the plague. The intrigues are full of tension and mystery, a world glimpsed but not wholly explained in a perfect balance of novelistic art.
Finally, there is the inter-play between slave and owner, a conflict that is brutal and terrifying and yet a rare treat for the reader. The psychology of this conflict, I found, is extremely profound and realistic, showing the effect that each had on the other as the years passed. It is also full of surprises.
Highest recommendation.
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful
By Elizabeth Taylor
VINE™ VOICE
Format:Paperback|Amazon Verified Purchase
The central character of this novel is an italian who is captured by pirates and taken to Constantinople where he is sold as a slave. The individual he is sold to just happens to look phyiscally very much like him and moreover his principle interest in his slave is to extract from him his western education. The main bulk of the novel is the close quarters contact between the two men, mainly as the turk (who is somewhat connected to the court of the sultan) tries to come up with new ideas, or simply ponder how a clock works, what is the nature of evil. There are pages and pages of the two men simply testing each other out psychologically, sharing ideas, trying to learn all one about the other, trying to outdo one another, in a way courting one another. During this time its not at all clear who is the slave and who is the master, and, being so similar physically whether they are functioning as one or two people. The writing is very interesting told like a fairy story however I am not really sure having turned the last page what the book was about. To me its a story of a foreigner who becomes so completely absorbed in this adopted land and that almost no trace is left of the young italian captured at sea, of individuality and what happens if you live so closely in an unequal relationship (the italian is the slave and his life is determined by the master or is the master too influenced by the slave?) or maybe its simply a fairy-story of an italian who is captured and leads an interesting life in Turkey, I'm not really sure.
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Most Recent Customer Reviews
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pamuk's First Novel falls short of his later work
This short novel never raised itself above the parapet. My view is that anyone new to Pamuk will be left disappointed. I really enjoyed 'My Name is Red'. Read more
Published on 2 Dec 2010 by Kiwifunlad
1.0 out of 5 stars
Sorry
This book starts - to no purpose that I could see - with a framing device. A writer discovers a 17th-Century manuscript - the novel itself - and reads it, he tells us, 'with... Read more
Published on 4 April 2010 by Bob Ventos
3.0 out of 5 stars
Pamuk's start as a post-modern novelist
The White Castle is set in medieval times. A Venetian sailor is captured by the Turkish pirates and is forced to convert to Islam. But he refuses to do so. Read more
Published on 31 Dec 2009 by Pankaj Saxena
4.0 out of 5 stars
Blurred lines
How refreshing to read something that gives a real sense of the blurred lines that always existed between Christian Europe and the Islamic world. Read more
Published on 18 May 2008 by Simon Darling
5.0 out of 5 stars
A tale of identical differences
The narrator of Orhan Pamuk's first book is a young Italian scholar who is captured by Turkish pirates. Read more
Published on 28 Dec 2007 by Manchester Manual
3.0 out of 5 stars
Adventures to Orhan Pamuk's White Castle
The White Castle is the first novel by Orhan Pamuk that I have read. I guess I read it out of cruriosity because Pamuk won the 2006 nobel prize for literature instead of the... Read more
Published on 9 Aug 2007 by Herman Norford
4.0 out of 5 stars
Engrossing, evocative and troubling: a study of identity and...
In The White Castle Orhan Pamuk, winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2006, has produced another spelling-bindingly atmospheric novel of duplicity, identity and... Read more
Published on 29 July 2007 by Rivercassini
1.0 out of 5 stars
Pamuk's First Novel is a Disappointment
Like many others in my book group, I had been looking forward to finally reading something by Pamuk. Read more
Published on 4 May 2005 by A. Ross
5.0 out of 5 stars
Buy it now!
A great little (only 145 pages) book that should be required reading for anyone taking a course in world literature. Read more
Published on 18 Jan 2003 by Jeffrey Asselstine
5.0 out of 5 stars
A mysterious scrutiny of cultural-individual identity.
The setting is historical, protagonists almost unreal due to a combination of historical irrelevance and a romantic mystery. Read more
Published on 21 Jan 2000
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