Name: The New Life
ISBN: 9780571193783

Orhan Pamuk

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.

The New Life

Aske Dørge

'I read a book one day, and my whole life was changed.' So begins The New Life, Orhan Pamuk's fabulous road novel about a young student who yearns for the life promised by a dangerously magical book. On his remarkable journey, he falls in love, abandons his studies, turns his back on home and family, and embarks on restless bus trips through the provinces, in pursuit of an elusive vision. This is a wondrous odyssey, laying bare the rage of an arid heartland, from the bestselling author of My Name is Red and Snow. In coffee houses with black-and-white TV sets, on buses where passengers ride watching B-movies on flickering screens, in wrecks along the highway, in paranoid fictions with spies as punctual as watches, the magic of Pamuk's creation comes alive. From a writer compared to Kafka, Nabakov, Calvino and Garca Mrquez, The New Life documents the spiritual journey of a young student, who leaves his family behind in the name of love, life and literature.

Mevlut the story’s protagonist reads a book that end up having profound consequences for the rest of his life. Somewhere between dreams and madness he goes on a quest to find the meaning of the book, to win the girl of his dreams, and to make sense of the world. The traditional Turkey is fading away around him, in a malstrom of westernization, paranoia, love, madness, repetitions, endless melancholy, and so many fine little details, it feels like you’re watching static on the TV that leaves behind the impressions of a tormented soul.
If you’re prone to melancholic thoughts, this book will eat you up.
Highly recommended.