Orhan Pamuk

The Innocence of Memories is an important addition to the oeuvre of Nobel Prize-winning author Orhan Pamuk. Comprised of the screenplay of the acclaimed film by Grant Gee from 2015 (by the same name), a transcript of the author and filmmaker in conversation, and captivating colour stills, it is an essential volume for understanding Pamuk's work. Drawing on the themes from Pamuk's best-selling books, The Museum of Innocence, Istanbul and The Black Book, this book is both an accompaniment to the author's previous publications and a wonderfully revelatory exploration of Orhan Pamuk's key ideas about art, love, and memory.

The Innocence of Memories

Cristian Garcia

I have never been to Turkey, yet I have a difficult to explain curiosity towards that country. I plan to visit this year but until then, my infatuation is just based on ideas - and this book. I picked this one up on the street, a neighbour was getting rid of many books and this one got my attention. I read quickly, enjoying each page and connecting the the author. I have now realised this sort of essay is an entry door for me into Istanbul. The Innocence of Memories is connected to a book, a documentary an a museum, a creative exercise that amazed me and intrigues me.
For now, this book gave me all I wanted for my Istanbul fantasies, romantic, nostalgic, detailed and just compelling. Happy to have had found Pamuk's literature.

Safiya 

And so I coincidentally read a review about it somewhere on my feed, and what was just a curious investigation has turned into me actually reading it in one sitting!

I loved the frivolous shift of viewpoints and as a cinematic documentary, this book was also an autobiography of : the novel, the musuem, Orhan Pamuk and Istanbul...
Another reason for which I couldn't afford to put it down, was that I loved Istanbul too: 


  "The beautiful city views that Istanbul gifts us, the feel of the streets at midnight when the dogs take over, the city’s dilapidated backstreets, its cemeteries, its moss-covered walls, its old wooden homes with crooked bay windows, its new concrete buildings with their plaster already crumbling, its muddy, wood-coloured, unadorned streets, its cobbled pavements, all of these things together inject a feeling of hüzün into the inhabitants of Istanbul"


And always thought it was prettier by night when all the daily nuisances are silenced and only buildings and streets are hissing their little stories:


  "Istanbul is prettier at night, when all the day’s filth is covered up. There is a beauty in the city then that hides everything that happens during the day. "


All those views could only inspire you and make you relate to Turkish hüzün, as yearning for something yet acknowledging its absence at times and carrying on living:


  "The philosophy of hüzün tells us, ‘Retreat into your shell and find from there a way to live with dignity, to be and look like everyone else.’ Don’t try to be special or different"


Out of my speciality, I think that this is a rare book to read about urban experiences, spatializing feelings and emotions as one walked by - to put it crudely - the built environment. I was touched by the authors sensitivity as he describes the complex relation between the physical and perceived space:


  "The landmarks and landscapes of a city don’t just bring back memories, they can also amplify, or alleviate, or redirect our joy and our despair."


What's more is the peculiarity of Istanbul to offer you at any given moment almost a perfect view so spectacular that you'll end up saving both your feeling and the view inseparably, you might as well have been deeply consumed by thinking about the meaning of our existence, or simply remembering to make a call... That view will haunt you for a while :


  "Let me put it simply: you’re walking in Istanbul, and on your way down a hill you see a view of the Bosphorus. You happen to be in love, like Kemal. That view will forever be associated with your love and heartache. Five years later, your feelings may have changed, but you may find yourself back on that hill, and there’s that view again. The moment you see it, you will recall the anguish you felt the last time you passed this place. But it can be any feeling, really: it can be simple jealousy, or an extravagance of success, or plain joy; perhaps you’d just finished school, just sat the hardest exam, just graduated. It can be happiness that the city and its views remind you of; it can be anything."


Definitely including this one in Urban Studies required readings.... And here's why :


  "‘Why Didn’t I Become an Architect?’, on how I rediscovered in this period the domestic interiors and architectural nuances of countless Istanbul neighbourhoods, the unique urban texture created by the conjunction of the city’s relative poverty with its beautiful architecture, and the many ways in which the large families that have recently migrated to the city have taken ownership of venerable old homes left behind by the rich families who built them fifty, sometimes a hundred years ago."

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" Musuems Manifesto"
Orhan Pamuk was in fact an architecture school drop out...

The Innocence of Memories

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