From the P Shelf...

Author:  Orhan Pamuk
Title:  The New Life
First Line:  I read a book one day and my whole life was changed.

Isn't that a great first line? Orhan Pamuk's novel My Name is Red is one of my all-time favorite reads, so when I saw this book by Pamuk sitting on the 'P' shelf at the library, I couldn't resist checking it out.  It begins with Osman, an engineering student, finding and reading a book that utterly transforms his view of the world, and opens his mind to the possibility of a new life. So much so, that he becomes obsessed with finding it.

"Not only had the book permeated my being like a secret or a sin, it had dragged me into the kind of speechlessness one experiences in dreams.  Where were the kindred spirits with whom I could talk? Where was the country in which I'd find the dream that spoke to my heart? Where were those who had also read the book? Where? ... If only I could go on journeys, it seemed I'd reach the universe in the book. The glow of the new life I felt inside me existed in a faraway place, even in a land that was unattainable, but I sensed that as long as I was in motion, I was getting closer. I could at least leave my old life behind me."

 So begins his journey. He meets and falls in love with Janan, the girl who first showed him the book. Then he loses her. So he quits school and begins criss-crossing Turkey in random buses looking for her and this new life he hopes exists somewhere. But even when he finds Janan, his illusory journey goes on...and on.

I really wanted to like this book, but I didn't. In fact, I couldn't even finish it. Osman's odyssey was too introspective for me. Nothing much happens for a long time. After 60 pages, it started to feel like I was reading a surrealistic, overly-long soliloquy.  And I just couldn't do it any more. I did skip ahead hoping it got better, but it didn't. This just wasn't the book for me. No serendipity from the 'P' shelf with this read. Oh, well. Maybe with the next one.

Happy Reading!

Istanbul Intrigues

During World War II, Turkey 'teemed with spies
defectors, diplomats, assassins, journalists,
and a future pope.'

Here are a few snippets from this very interesting non-fiction read by Barry Rubin (that I bought at least ten years ago but never read until now):

• Istanbul was Germany's backdoor to the Middle East and the Allies' secret passageway into occupied Europe. It became a center of espionage and intrigue for both sides.
• No less than seventeen foreign intelligence services operated in Turkey during the war. The stakes were high, and the measures taken were desperate.
• Istanbul was no place for the innocent or unwary. Over 200 people made a living by wholesaling information to both sides and retailing it to journalists.
• Diplomats of opposing sides who had been poker-playing friends until war broke out now looked through each other without a flicker of recognition.
• Angelo Guiseppe Roncalli, a poor Italian priest who would later become Pope John XXIII, was assigned as the Vatican's legate and apostolic vicar to Istanbul's few Catholics during this time period.
• The only way the Allies could profit from Turkey's neutrality was to use the country as a secret base for gathering intelligence and supporting European resistance movements. These missions had to be accomplished in a way that would avoid any provocation which might make the Germans attack or the Turks expel the Allies
• "Few people realize how very difficult Turkey's position is and how dangerous a game she has been playing. ... Turkey has rendered her greatest service to the Allied cause by retaining her precious neutrality."

Happy Reading!