The Black Book: Amazon.co.uk: Orhan Pamuk, Guneli Gun: Books

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Product Description

*******
'A glorious flight of dark, fantastic invention . . . It offers many pleasures, Gothic, Borgesian and other, the best of which is a vision of Istanbul as a city of sinister complexity.' Patrick McGrath

Independent on Sunday
'One of the freshest, most original voices in contemporary fiction.'

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Customer Reviews

14 Reviews

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

Average Customer Review

4.2 out of 5 stars (14 customer reviews)

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28 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Not easy, but amazing - and important, 4 Dec 2006

By	Avid Traveller - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Black Book (Paperback)

Readers of Snow and My Name is Red will not be disappointed by this long-awaited new translation of Pamuk's most celebrated novel. Pamuk's evocation of Istanbul in the repressive mid-1980s - a crumbling, fearful city of dreams - is masterful. The episodic plot - at once a retelling of Dante's search for Beatrice in the circles of hell and a Kafka-esque quest for what it means to be yourself - can seem slow and ponderous at times, although enlivened by the newspaper columns of the mysterious Celal, but it is the ideas that Pamuk is wrestling with that make this not only an amazing piece of literature, but an important and significant contribution. It isn't an easy read, but it will stay with you long after you have finished reading.

A word about the translation. It is brilliant, one of the best renderings of Turkish into English this reviewer has ever had the pleasure to read.

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22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An inconspicuous classic, 10 Jan 2007

By	Jonathan Birch (Manchester) - See all my reviews (TOP 1000 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

This review is from: The Black Book (Paperback)

Darkly evocative, wackily postmodern, the writing of 2006 Nobel Prize winner Orhan Pamuk is a treasure trove little known in Britain. The decaying and repressed Istanbul of 1980 is brought to life magnificently in The Black Book, which roughly follows a man called Galip as he searches both for clues and for his own identity following the disappearance of his wife. Of all the languages written in Latin characters, Turkish is surely the most unlike English. It was written in Arabic characters until 1928, and so constructing a sentence mainly involves writing one word and adding at least five suffixes. Given this, the quality of the new translation is incredible. Much of this fascinating book is a joy to read, and much of the prose is as good as any I've read in English in a long time.

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20 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Weird but well worth it, 28 April 2003

By	A. Weston "Adrian Weston" (Brighton, UK) - See all my reviews (TOP 100 REVIEWER) (REAL NAME)

The back jacket description of this as a book the turns the detective novel on its head is true but a bit of a red herring. Yes, there is a detective story element to this - Galip on a search to find his vanished wife and (by default) her half-brother, a famous newspaper columnist who has gone underground or vanished too. This quest threads the novel together as a whole, but really it is a strange, skewed look at identity and obsession. Pamuk seems to be writing about how anyone can define themselves as 'them' - probing uncomfortably at self-definition and perception - and also nagging away at themes of Turkish identity, history and nationality. I say 'seems' because the book is very densely written, often impenetrable, and while I could not put it aside I'm not sure what it ultimately said. If this sounds off-putting, it isn't meant to be - the book is very arresting, darkly written and quite gripping. The doubt it raised in my mind was an interesting doubt!

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Most Recent Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars I dunno 'bout this........
This was like driving a car thats misfiring. When it did start to run true I found myself driving down country lanes in a foreign country in the fog with lots of unmarked... Read more

Published 4 months ago by K. N. Tole

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book, tough reading
Galip's wife, Ruya, leaves him one morning with a letter behind her. The Black Book is about Galip's transformation, while searching for his wife in the streets of Istanbul, from... Read more

Published 7 months ago by Kivanc Emiroglu

1.0 out of 5 stars Plot-less and pointless worthless rubbish
Not worth the paper it is printed on really. Forget all the over the top reviews of this book as a "Mystical tour of the Orient" "Magic carpet ride blah blah blah" Forget the fact... Read more

Published 11 months ago by Gogol

5.0 out of 5 stars A review by Philip Spires
I have visited Turkey, but not Istanbul. It's one of those iconic places that keeps cropping up in travel plans, but then gets overlooked, possibly because its name fits so easily... Read more

Published 21 months ago by Philip Spires

5.0 out of 5 stars a visit into your own blackness
His best book for sure...a journey to search for a woman named Hulya(dream)and a book about dreams...never knowing what is real and what is unreal... Read more

Published on 13 Oct 2006 by S. E. Erbabacan

3.0 out of 5 stars Hard going
The jacket description of this book as a detective novel is in modern speak an attempt to sex up the sale. Read more

Published on 14 Aug 2003 by Elizabeth Taylor

3.0 out of 5 stars It's not John Grisham
I was led into reading this book by meeting an old University friend carrying a copy of "My Name is Red". Read more

Published on 24 Nov 2002

5.0 out of 5 stars Stunning masterpiece
A very bad cover picture for such a good fiction. Synopsis means nothing for this book.
I'm not a reader after self improvement or learning something new. Read more

Published on 21 Mar 2002 by onursalapaydin@yahoo.com

5.0 out of 5 stars Kafka Revisited - Book of books
An incredibly complex book. It tells the story of Galip, who slowly transforms into Jelal, the brother of his missing wife. Read more

Published on 17 Jan 2001 by hunlu@geocities.com

5.0 out of 5 stars that's his best..
"black book" certainly is o.pamuk's best book. that was the book which made him famous in his home country.. Read more

Published on 22 Dec 2000

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Istanbul Berlitz Pocket Guide

""This is an invaluable guide for the public, for travel agents and... Read more
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	62% buy the item featured on this page: The Black Book 4.2 out of 5 stars (14)
	14% buy Istanbul: Memories of a City 4.7 out of 5 stars (7) �4.99
	11% buy My Name is Red 3.6 out of 5 stars (42) �4.79
	8% buy Snow 3.4 out of 5 stars (30) �6.29


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The Black Book (Paperback)

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