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Nov 02, 2011

miaaa rated it:

On-a-high version:

I am called Black, I longed for my dearest Shekure for twelve years;
I, Shekure, not quite sure what was I doing in this story;
I am called Butterfly, I was the one who drew the Death and Mia thought I was the murderer;
I am called Stork, I was the one who drew the Tree and Butterfly always envy me as I was more talented without the help from our master;
I am called Olive, I was the one who rendered the Satan and drew the exquisite horse;
I More...

94 comments like (23 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Darcy rated it:

Generally, when a book starts out with a chapter entitled "I Am A Corpse," you know it's going to be pretty good.

The novel is set up so that each chapter introduces a different narrator, including (but not limited to), Black, Black's uncle, Shekure, a dog, a horse, the murderer and various artists in the workshop. This type of structure for a mystery novel isn't new--Wilkie Collins, for example, employed it several times, most notably in The Moonstone--and it is an effecti More...

6 comments like (35 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Ayu rated it:

‘To God belongs the East and the West’ – Al-Qur’an, Al Baqarah ayat 115.

I had abandoned My Name is Red for how long I can’t remember. The brilliance of it was untouched, what a shame. But after reading Other Colours (an amazing essay collection also by Orhan Pamuk), I thought I should give Mr. Pamuk another shot, and boy, how much I enjoyed the novel! And I understand why Pamuk deserves the Nobel prize. He’s the kind of writer that can bring out the cultural richness but at the same More...

27 comments like (4 people liked it)

Nov 20, 2007

علی rated it:

It’s not a historical, though there is sort of history in it (Istanbul, Ottoman Empire, 1591). The mystery death of two master miniaturists doesn’t make it a murder mystery novel either. It’s not a philosophical novel though there are lots of discussions about illusrtation in European style concerning perspective, and traditional Eastern illustrating, which sees the world in the way Allah would see it.
What amazed me is, how Pamuk has taken a now forbiden discussion, 5 centuries back, to s More...

2 comments like (8 people liked it)

Sep 26, 2007

Lissa rated it:

I tried very hard to really like this book. But, I suppose it's impossible to succeed in everything.

My Name Is Red is both historical fiction and a murder mystery. It takes place in 1591 (according to the timeline at the end of the book). The over-arching motion of the plot centers around the death of a master miniturist in the Sultan's court. The death is revealed in the first chapter, though the reasons surrounding the his death are much slower in being revealed. What is known, alm More...

2 comments like (13 people liked it)

Dec 16, 2009

Sarah rated it:

Orhan Pamuk won the Nobel Prize for literature this year. Described as “part murder mystery, part love story,” I found this to be an absorbing novel, but what most interested me, and the reason that I recommend this book to you, were the passages which attempt to describe the late sixteenth-century Istanbul miniaturists’ attitudes towards art. My Name is Red, though it seems to be only loosely based upon historical fact, deals with the repercussions of the meeting of two visual worlds: Venetian More...

0 comments like (5 people liked it)

Sep 10, 2009

Kelly rated it:

My fickle heart longs for the West when I'm in the East and for the East when I'm in the West.
My other parts insist I be a woman when I'm a man and a man when I'm a woman.
How difficult it is being human, even worse is living a human's life.
I only want to amuse myself frontside and backside, to be Eastern and Western both.

This is Pamuk's enduring, never ending obsession. He's written fiction and non-fiction, journal articles and newspaper bites, and given endless int More...

29 comments like (20 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Leslie rated it:

Saying I liked it or didn't like it doesn't really capture the complexity of my experience with this book. Part murder mystery, part love story, and part historical novel about the book-art in the ottoman empire....I thought it was right up my alley. Maybe I expected to have more of an emotional connection but it was all very intellectual and somehow that frustrated me...churned up my stomach which was quite contented on the diet of all-fluff, all-the-time. Reading this was like eating roasted More...

0 comments like (11 people liked it)

Aug 07, 2011

Arwa rated it:

حسناً إذاً , أنهيت الكِتاب وأخيراً , قرأته في وقت حرج جداً , كنت أتمنى إن أنهيه خلال يومين على الأقل , لكن الأيام امتدت لـ عشرة أيام تقريباً !

- أجواء الرواية صعبة ! تتحدّث عن شيء مجهول بالنسبة لي , ما النقش ؟ وكيف هو ؟ أريد أن أرى وقة واحد مذهّبة منفوشة , لا أريد صورة خسرو وشيرين , أريد شجرة , عصا على قارعة الطريق , تكفيني ..

- أكثر ما أعجبني " المدّاح " , وكيف يستطيع تقمّص الأدوار , تمنّيت لو أجد مثله الآن , يذهلني بكلامه , وكيف يستطيع تقمّص دور النقود , الكلب More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Dec 02, 2008

Santh rated it:

“Orang yang buta dan orang yag melihat tidaklah sama” (Fatir: 19).

Sebuah novel yang disajikan dengan penuturan dari sudut pandang tiap tokohnya. Gabungan antara sejarah dengan misteri pembunuhan yang berlatar di kota Istanbul pada masa kekuasaan Sultan Murat III di Kesultanan Utsmaniyah, khususnya pada musim salju tahun 1591.
Buku ini dibuka dengan pembunuhan seorang penyepuh emas – Elok Effendi – yang sebenarnya sedang terlibat dalam proyek pembuatan buku yang dipesan langsung More...

6 comments like (2 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Steve rated it:

I loved this book. It's passionate, provocative and intelligent, surprisingly bringing the field of 16th-century miniaturist painting to bear on aesthetic and ethical issues that seem urgent (at least for artists) today. The main concern is with the notion of 'style' in art: is it desirable to have a personal style as an artist or are traces of style simply evidence of faults? In the process of investigating this question we discover the more fundamental question: what constitutes 'style'? Chara More...

0 comments like (4 people liked it)

Feb 08, 2008

laura rated it:

this book sort of felt like a text from an art history elective i never went to but had to study for the final...with all its intricate descriptions of artworks that were interesting, but too unfamiliar to respectably imagine, i skimmed paragraphs and pages waiting to get the chunky parts of the story. i really wish it had pictures to be honest.

as one member of my book club said "i feel like i need to read this book again, but i wish i never read it in the first place". th More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Oct 28, 2009

Melody rated it:

My rating is more like 2 1/2 stars - because I do want to encourage you to read it. It is a curious mix of murder mystery, religion, violence, sex and art. I felt like I was reading the King James Version of some religious document that covered all these subjects. Very odd to have someone proclaim his praises to God or Allah in this case, and then recall how lovely it was to bugger the pretty boys.

The book is told through the eyes of several narrators - the miniaturists, their m More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Bina rated it:

I guess this is in the realm of historical fiction: a murderous tale set in the mystical landscape of 16th century-Istanbul, populated by book illuminators and sultans.

In the Faulknerian (Faulkner-esque?) tradition, it paints a narrative in layers, with each chapter an account from the point of view of a different character. Everyone has a voice, from incorrigible gossips and forlorn lovers to a painting of a tree and death itself.

Here's a gem from Pamuk:

" More...

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Feb 10, 2011

Victoria Evangelina rated it:

~WANDERING THE STREETS~

The beauty of the language enchanted me and I was lost in descriptions of Istanbul, the city I love dearly, the city which is today, in my eyes, is one of the capitals of Islamic Art. The stories of the murdered one, seeking justice; of two love birds, wishing to unite and the history of miniaturist art and apprenticeship of the 16-century Ottoman Empire (now Turkey) and other story lines, narrated by some 10 story-tellers, are masterfully woven in this e More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

May 29, 2011

Jaspreet rated it:

I picked up My Name is Red by Orhan Pamuk to fulfill the November destination of the World Party Reading Challenge. It took me much longer than expected to finish the book. While the story was interesting, it is a murder mystery with many possible suspects, I found it hard to get through in the beginning. I was confused by the cast of characters, but I grew to enjoy the subplots as well as the main plot. Looking at paintings and artistic style to determine a murderer was very intriguing. I More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Tarfah rated it:

This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here

0 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jul 26, 2010

Amalia rated it:

I've spent quite a bit of time debating how to rate this book- more than once it nearly landed on my "May I please have these hours of my life back" shelf, mostly because it moves so, so slowly and because (for me) the detail that Pamuk puts into it turns into nothing more than tedium.
However, parts of the story are so beautiful and well-written (see the chapters written from the perspective of the color red or the horse in the painting) that I don't feel that my time was entirely More...

2 comments like (5 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Saf rated it:

A great murder mystery and love story set in 16th century Istanbul with multiple characters providing narration, some of whom happen to be inanimate objects or animals.

The opening paragraph did enough to capture my attention and from then on in I was hooked:

"I am nothing but a corpse, a body at the bottom of a well. Though I drew my last breath long ago and my heart has stopped beating, no one, apart from that vile murderer, knows what’s happened to me. As for that wretch

More...

3 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jan 26, 2012

Salma rated it:

تحديث: إضافة القراءة بالعربي من عام 2007 و لا أدري لم وضعت قراءة بالانكليزية أصلا، ربما لأني كنت أظنه موقع بالانكليزية
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أمممممم...0
لا أدري ما أقوله عن هذه الرواية التي حاز صاحبها جائزة نوبل لهذا العام و التي بلغت شهرته الآفاق بسببها و التي ترجمت لـ 24 لغة...0
هي قصة جريمة حدثت في الزمن العثماني و بين أوساط النقاشين (أي المصورين الذين كانوا يزينون الكتب برسوماتهم). و من خلال القصة ينقلنا باموق بإسهاب و معرفة و عناية إلى أجواء النقش الإسلامي و تاريخه و مواضيعه و الأل More...

7 comments like (2 people liked it)

May 19, 2008

Desiree rated it:

MP bet me $20 that I wouldn't like this book. The Brats were enthralled by this, because they can't remember the last time I whole-heartedly liked a book we read.

I liked and enjoyed the book, right until about page 350 (of 500) when I absolutely did not want to read any more about the philosophy of 16th century Islamic art nor flowery speeches about famous Turkish miniatures. Pamuk does himself a lot of injustice by making the book twice as long as it needs to be. I stopped caring an More...

1 comment like (3 people liked it)

Dec 17, 2009

Miguel rated it:

Exactly... if I can somewhat parrot what Eric said, I was surprised and disappointed by the reviews of this book on this site. I really have not read a historical fiction that was written in such a stylistically pleasing and creative way; from all kinds of perspectives (My name is death, I am a gold coin, etc etc). It also really reminded me of the Name of the Rose in that the quality of the epic struggle is so finely encapsulated in this book. Struggles over the quest for knowledge, what it More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Aug 28, 2007

Z rated it:

This book took me about three weeks to a month to finish, which included a period of 10 days or so when I was out of town and didn't touch it. Though I was in the middle of the book at the time, I didn't miss it at all. That kind of says it all for me.

My Name is Red is based on a unique storyline, set in the late 1500s in Turkey. One of the Sultan's miniaturists has been murdered, and the art as it exists in the country is changing, unable to escape the influence of Venetian portrait More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Jun 19, 2009

Siria rated it:

A triumph of hype over substance, I thought. I'm not sure whether this is because of Pamuk himself, or whether the astonishingly stiff and formal style of the narrative can be attributed to the translator, but I was very much underwhelmed by this. The aspects of the novel which covered the differences between Western Christian and Islamic perceptions of art and aesthetics were certainly interesting; there were also some moments of true inventiveness and creativity, such as the chapters which wer More...

2 comments like (3 people liked it)

Nov 02, 2011

Hayes rated it:

Well I finished it. I had to skim through the second half, however; this book was a real struggle.

The idea was lovely: the various chapters are told from different points of view, starting with a stunning opener: I am nothing but a corpse now, a body at the bottom of the well. We hear from the corpse's daughter, relatives, colleagues, servants. We hear from a painting, a coin, a sketch of a dog. We even hear from the murderer. But I couldn't get interested in any of it.

More...

18 comments like (2 people liked it)

Jan 30, 2012

Juliane rated it:

Loved this book, the mixture of historical fiction, murder mystery and love story. I learned a lot about the conflict between the miniature painters who advocated the traditional Islamic style of illustrating and those, who tried to bring forward the Western style. The Frankish mode of painting, particularly of portraiture and also perspective is on of the central points of these debates and discussions. I also loved Pamuk's way to tell his story written from the point of view of multiple chara More...

0 comments like (1 person liked it)

Dec 03, 2011

Isabel rated it:

“Now then, draw Death for me,” the old man said.[return]“I cannot draw a picture of Death without ever, not once in my entire life, having seen a picture of Death,” said the miraculously sure-handed miniaturist, who would shortly, in fact, end up doing the drawing.[return]“You do not always need to have seen an illustration of something in order to depict that thing,” objected the refined and enthusiastic old man.[return]“Yes, perhaps not,” said the master illustrator. “Yet, if the picture is to More...

0 comments like

Aug 07, 2011

Maria added it

My first experience of Orhan Pamuk, I wanted to love this book, but by the end I guess I was just lukewarm. I loved the device of writing from the perspective of all the main characters of the novel, rotating through the chapters, both living and after death and indeed non-living objects. It gave you multiple perspectives and allowed you get more deeply into many more characters than a novel often allows. Of the various sub-plots I was most drawn to the love story between Black and Shekure, surp More...

0 comments like

Nov 15, 2010

Karenina rated it:

Ho impiegato un po’ di pagine ad entrare nel mondo descritto in questo libro; un escursus storico fra i miniaturisti del ‘500 in Turchia e nelle aree limitrofe con numerosi ed interessanti riferimenti ai kanati dell’Asia centrale, all’antica Persia e alle figure mitiche di sultani e condottieri. La scrittura di Pamuk è densa, ripetitiva, quasi claustrofobica, la realtà narrata è lontana oltreché nel tempo, anche nello spazio: l’oriente del mondo islamico difficile da afferrare per noi occidental More...

0 comments like

Feb 26, 2009

Jason rated it:

“My Name is Red” is many things at once: a love story, a murder mystery, a historical tale with parallels to modern times. In 1591, Black returns to Istanbul after twelve years abroad. The woman he loves, Shekure, is raising her two children alone after her husband failed to return from a military campaign. Charged by the Sultan to assemble an illuminated book using techniques borrowed from the Europeans, Black’s beloved Uncle has secretly assembled the finest group of miniaturists in the city. More...

0 comments like (3 people liked it)