Product Description

A parable about love, literature and fanaticism. A young university student becomes obsessed with a magical book that delves into the dangerous natures of love and self. Abandoning his studies and his family, he goes with the beautiful Janan on a search for the meaning of the book's darker secrets.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #187629 in Books
• Published on: 2002-11-04
• Original language: Turkish
• Binding: Paperback
• 290 pages

Amazon.co.uk Review
In his native Turkey, author Orhan Pamuk's novel The New Life is a huge hit. Now English-language readers have an opportunity to sample this unusual book for themselves. The New Life begins with the declaration that "I read a book one day and my whole life was changed." That book leads the narrator, a young man named Osman, on a wild journey in the company of Janan, a mysterious young woman in search of her lover, Mehmet. He had actually managed to enter--and escape--the world of the book. In the course of their travels, Osman and Janan are involved in a bloody bus wreck from which they emerge with new identities; they meet several "false" Mehmets; Janan mysteriously vanishes; and Osman eventually encounters a family friend who may or may not be the author of the life-changing book and possibly of The New Life itself.

In case you hadn't already guessed, The New Life is strictly postmodernist fare, where plot and character are minimal and time and space tend to bend and warp in unexpected ways. The author's vision is certainly original, and his descriptions of violence and Turkish culture are particularly strong.

Literary Review
'A head-on collision between Ballard's 'Crash' and Hesse's 'Siddhartha'. A strange, haunting novel.'

Guardian
'Like Borges crossed with 'The Usual Suspects' . . . You could become obsessed about this book.'

Customer Reviews

Indescribable, well for me anyway
This is a very unusual book and to be honest quite hard going at certain points. What's it about? Well that's a very good question that I'm not 100% certain I can answer. The main theme of the story is how the main character Osman reads a book which is so profound it completely changes his ideas and indeed life. It changes his life by making him walk away from the one he has and go in search, in search of what I can't say. The only analogy I can come up with is that of a cult, how, the members are so enthralled by the concept that they submit themselves totally to it and reject their family and previous life. Osman rejects his life and goes in search of the book, the ideas and other people who have read the book. In this search he falls in love with a girl (who has also read the book) and with her searches for her boyfriend (who of course has also read the book) and was lost in strange circumstances (last seen being shot at in the street). The bulk of the novel covers the travels of Osman around Turkey on an endless stream of bus rides where he meets other people who have read the book or fragments of people who have read the book. How he struggles to understand life, and, to be more like the long lost boyfriend of the girl he yearns for but never possesses in a physical sense. All of this is enough to drive someone mad, and, I think in a way for a time he is beyond the normal reasoning of the common world. In the end the novel becomes clearer as Osman finds some answers to the questions he is seeking but what those answers are is not easy to describe - you would have to read the book :-) I have read other novels by the author and this is typical of his style, so be warned, if you have never something by him before he is very slow paced, however, his ideas and imagery are excellent if you persevere. At the beginning I must say I found this book hard going, but, at the end the story took over from the ideas and looking back I thoroughly enjoyed it. Confused, well, at some points so was I.

So different from 'Istanbul'
I read Pamuk's 'Istanbul' and was utterly absorbed. I couldn't wait to read one of his novels but I am finding 'The New Life' very hard going. Where 'Istanbul' was warm, tender and reflective, real and yet spiritual, 'The New Life' seems to be disturbing, repetitive and abstract beyond meaning. I am not yet at the hundredth page but it is hard to see where else this book can go. The protaganist, Osman, is unsympathetic, brutal and cold. His female sidekick feels like a cardboard cutout.

The callous descriptions of traffic accidents, and the protagonists' obsession with them, are hard to stomach. And is Turkey really the traffic accident capital of the world, as seems to be suggested? Magical realism it may be, but for this the reader should be able to believe in it, and I couldn't.

To savour, however, are the descriptions of the hinterland towns and villages, as well as Istanbul itself. Pamuk truly gets to into the soul of a place and its people. I wish there was more of this in 'The New Life'.

absolutely amazing
i doubt many people will be able to appreciate the feelings expressed and how well written this book is. this is pamuk's first book that i have read, and his writing reminds me of herman hesse's books, particularly steppenwolf. anyone that does like hesse, camus, coelho, or even dostoevsky should also like this.