La historia de amor entre Kemal, un joven miembro de la burguesía de Estambul, y su pariente lejana Füsun, es una extraordinaria novela sobre la pa...
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Feb 12, 2012
Sandybanks
rated it: 
I must confess that for the last five years, I have had a love and hate relationship with Orhan Pamuk (I also had a similar relationship with Charles Dickens, but that’s another matter altogether).
Pamuk’s style is meticulous and ornate, intensely introspective, sometimes deliberately repetitive, shot through with that particular Turkish kind of melancholy called ‘huzun’. At his best, his prose achieves a poetic, hypnotic quality that makes My Name Is Red such a compelling, mesmerizi More...
Pamuk’s style is meticulous and ornate, intensely introspective, sometimes deliberately repetitive, shot through with that particular Turkish kind of melancholy called ‘huzun’. At his best, his prose achieves a poetic, hypnotic quality that makes My Name Is Red such a compelling, mesmerizi More...
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(15 people liked it)
Feb 06, 2011
Renato
rated it:
Aún con el enorme cliché que se carga (chico rico se enamora de chica pobre) me decidí a leer la última novela de Orhan Pamuk pues hasta el momento es un autor que no me ha decepcionado. 648 páginas despues puedo decir con certeza que es una de las mejores novelas que he leído aunque seguramente se debe a que la he tomado en un momento preciso de mi vida (ya veremos si a la relectura sigo opinando igual).
El libro puede ser dividido en dos partes, la primera nos narra el desenfrenado More...
El libro puede ser dividido en dos partes, la primera nos narra el desenfrenado More...
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Dec 18, 2009
Irwan
rated it: 
(Additional notes below)
One thing I just realized, whenever I am about to finish reading a book, usually some sketchy ideas or sentences appear in my mind, so that right after I finish it, I can just open Goodreads, rate the book and write those ideas. I am also usually satisfied after writing three or four paragraphs, feeling that I have said what I have to say. But, I can't do that with Pamuk's books.
The night I finished this book, I was sitting at my desk with my hand More...
One thing I just realized, whenever I am about to finish reading a book, usually some sketchy ideas or sentences appear in my mind, so that right after I finish it, I can just open Goodreads, rate the book and write those ideas. I am also usually satisfied after writing three or four paragraphs, feeling that I have said what I have to say. But, I can't do that with Pamuk's books.
The night I finished this book, I was sitting at my desk with my hand More...
14 comments
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(35 people liked it)
Apr 12, 2011
Ben
rated it:
A magnificent obsession turns fatal
A review by Ben Antao
The Museum of Innocence
By Orhan Pamuk
Translated by Maureen Freely
Knopf Canada, 536 pages, $34.95
In an interview in Mumbai recently, Orhan Pamuk, 57, the author of The Museum of Innocence, said rather petulantly, “When Proust wrote on love, everybody read it as universal love; when I write about love, they call it Turkish love.”
Having read both Proust More...
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Apr 20, 2010
Mimi
rated it: 
I had a lot of trouble reading the first half of this book and didn't really enjoy reading it until around page 300. Since I normally love Pamuk (one of my favorite books is My Name is Red), I stayed with it. I know being a woman who really can't stand it when men are cluelessly unfaithful made the first half more unbearable for me.I kept putting it down, because I found it hard to read for very long. I also could tell pretty much exactly how it would end, which I'm sure he intended. By the end
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(2 people liked it)
Oct 19, 2011
Lillian
rated it: 
I'm not sure what to think of this book. I loved Pamuk's memoir, Istanbul: Memories and the City. But this novel, which covers much of the same material from a fictional perspective, with a woman, instead of a city as the focus of attention, was a frustrating read. The cataloging of every meaningful interaction with Fusun, the focus of Kemal's obsession, and the collecting of thousands of objects she touched or that are associated with her, does capture something ... a period of time? Reading
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Sep 27, 2011
Erin
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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
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Sep 19, 2010
Nitya
rated it:
I ploughed my way through most of this book. In the middle, it really slowed down. But the last 100 pages sucked me in and made the whole book worth it.
I never felt any empathy for the central characters Kemal and Fusun. I thought he was too obsessive - a personality that would fix on anything or anyone to be obsessed by, irrespective of their personal qualities. I didnt get Fusun - she seemed to be very blurred. I could visualise her well, but not her personality and character. Tow More...
I never felt any empathy for the central characters Kemal and Fusun. I thought he was too obsessive - a personality that would fix on anything or anyone to be obsessed by, irrespective of their personal qualities. I didnt get Fusun - she seemed to be very blurred. I could visualise her well, but not her personality and character. Tow More...
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Apr 05, 2011
jeand99
rated it:
Aren't we all surrounded by thousands of tiny little things of the ones we love(d)?
"What a bore is life and how predictable: to be born, live and die." This is what I told my grandma (from my mothersside) at the age of eight after reading next weeks TV-guide completely. She looked at me with a little mysterious smile and said "Yes, you are right". I was old at the age of eight. The strange thing is this feeling never really left me. In retrospect my opinion back tha More...
"What a bore is life and how predictable: to be born, live and die." This is what I told my grandma (from my mothersside) at the age of eight after reading next weeks TV-guide completely. She looked at me with a little mysterious smile and said "Yes, you are right". I was old at the age of eight. The strange thing is this feeling never really left me. In retrospect my opinion back tha More...
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Aug 14, 2011
Melinda
rated it:
This is a long and tedious book about a man's pathological life-long obsession with a beautiful young women. The story begins when Istanbul resident Kemal meets 18 year old shopgirl Fusan who is also a distant relative. She is attracted to his money and he is attracted to her youth and beauty. Twelve years older and engaged to be married, Kamal begins an intense, albiet short-lived, affair with the girl. However, his fixation with the teenager does not end there. (The Museum of Innocence is a
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Dec 23, 2011
Richard
rated it:
Rating: 2.75* of five
Five hundred pages of long-face about a pair of star-crossed lovers.
They're cousins. Only not really. And it's set in Istanbul in 1975, with excursions to the present.
I know more about Istanbul in 1835 than 1975, though the latter is within my own lifespan. (Okay, okay, WELL within my own lifespan.) I like Turkish history because it's so improbable and so full of moments when they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory! I like alternate More...
Five hundred pages of long-face about a pair of star-crossed lovers.
They're cousins. Only not really. And it's set in Istanbul in 1975, with excursions to the present.
I know more about Istanbul in 1835 than 1975, though the latter is within my own lifespan. (Okay, okay, WELL within my own lifespan.) I like Turkish history because it's so improbable and so full of moments when they snatched defeat from the jaws of victory! I like alternate More...
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Nov 30, 2011
علی
rated it:
A long and detailed account of the obsessive love that Kemal, a wealthy businessman, bears for Füsun, a lower class girl, relatively poor, 12 years younger than him, not regarding her interests or situation. His selfishness refuses to give up his fiancée (Sibel), to be with his love (Füsun), but becomes an obsessive collector of the objects of his short being with Füsun, a bizarre situation as Kemal objectifies Füsun, satisfying his emotional obsession. He can not / would not treat her as a subj
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(1 person liked it)
Nov 27, 2011
Ajk
rated it:
A friend got me to watch Scent of A Woman once. He explained it, generally, as, "You'll ask yourself why you're watching it for most of the movie. And then the ending will come and you'll be happy you did."
I feel the same way about Museum of Innocence. The narrator is a rich playboy who is about to be engaged to a woman who is, by all counts, incredible. He then starts an affair with an 18-year-old who is, by all counts, incredible. The entire time, I got the feeling that if More...
I feel the same way about Museum of Innocence. The narrator is a rich playboy who is about to be engaged to a woman who is, by all counts, incredible. He then starts an affair with an 18-year-old who is, by all counts, incredible. The entire time, I got the feeling that if More...
Oct 15, 2011
Neil
rated it: 
Okay, I'm going to tell it as it is. Nobel-winning writer aside, this book is insufferable. I frankly don't understand the hype, the glowing reviews, attention from the New Yorker - this book is bad. Really bad.
The story revolves around a privileged man in Istanbul who has a short affair with a shopgirl and proceeds to become completely obsessed with her. So obsessed is he that after the girl marries someone else, he ends up sitting at their dinner table for the next 8 years.
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The story revolves around a privileged man in Istanbul who has a short affair with a shopgirl and proceeds to become completely obsessed with her. So obsessed is he that after the girl marries someone else, he ends up sitting at their dinner table for the next 8 years.
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Sep 12, 2011
Ruhat
rated it:
The Museum of Innocence,in my opinion,isnt Orhan Pamuk's best work, but it is still an amazing novel.
I have just finished reading it and I am ,again,blown away by Pamuk's genius and his ability to grasp and to hold my attention for the whole length of 530 pages of the novel. Plus, I feel a bit melancholic, leaving his extraordinary but fictional world, made of the same ingredients: a man's quest to find love, his life's gradual but drastic change, and this endless pursuit of happiness whil More...
I have just finished reading it and I am ,again,blown away by Pamuk's genius and his ability to grasp and to hold my attention for the whole length of 530 pages of the novel. Plus, I feel a bit melancholic, leaving his extraordinary but fictional world, made of the same ingredients: a man's quest to find love, his life's gradual but drastic change, and this endless pursuit of happiness whil More...
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Sep 02, 2011
Ivan
rated it:
Anoche, después de un mes, terminé el maratónico The Museum of Innocence de Orhan Pamuk. Uno de mis roommates me lo obsequió de cumpleaños, y se lo agradecí genuinamente porque de no haberlo hecho, yo jamás lo hubiera comprado. Muy raras veces suelo leer novelas de amor, a excepción de las macondianas; sin embargo, ésta tuvo la virtud de tomarme la mano y conducirme a través del complejo entramado erótico-compulsivo del protagonista. Nunca me perdí en sus más de 500 páginas, y disfruté de la luz
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Aug 21, 2011
Hal
rated it:
Nobel winner Orhan Pamuk’s latest homage to Istanbul, THE MUSEUM OF INNOCENCE (Masumiyet Müzesi), following his previous Istanbul and My name is Red, tells the story of a rich modern society scion, Kemal and of his obsession and decades long pursuit of the shop girl Füsun while initially engaged to urbane Sibel who would have been the arranged preferred match. The story weaves Kemal´s single-minded pursuit collecting along the way mementoes of Füsun´s accessories that will eventually end up wit
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Aug 02, 2011
Cem
rated it:
Although replete with linguistic errors and an abundance of comma-overuse, Pamuk's new novel is a fabulous account of "kara sevda." His fascination with objects and their twilight existence in in/animation recall Borges' incredible poem "Las Cosas" and sets the conceptual framework of the museum. Pamuk's imaginary museum, although fictional and personal, plays on the narrative nature of reality and lends a gaze on the intersection between the personal/national and history/his
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Jul 29, 2011
This is a tale of obsession. Not love so much but the consequences of not being emotionally facile, and yet also bound by a culture that does not recognize romance. The book has a very Proustian feel to it--the same emotional constipation and inward looking to no real end that characterizes Remembrance of Things Past to me. A book I adored, and I loved this one as well. THe man is unlovable but the tale is so richly told that that does not matter. We are to love the story for the story's sa
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Jul 06, 2011
Jennyreadsexcessively
rated it:
This gorgeous Turkish novel tells the story of the obsessive love of Kemal, a wealthy business owner, for Fusun, a common shopgirl. Kemal is engaged to marry, but when Fusun insists he break off the engagement or else she will leave him, Kemal continues to believe that he can have it both ways. When Fusun leaves him, he becomes so determined to find her that he becomes ill and his world falls apart.
Okay, I know what you're thinking-- uhh, I've heard this story a hundred times. Well, More...
Okay, I know what you're thinking-- uhh, I've heard this story a hundred times. Well, More...
May 07, 2011
Marco Caetano
rated it:
Desde que terminei a leitura de “A casa do silêncio” que o regresso à companhia de Orhan Pamuk ficou marcado. Apesar de ter outras obras do autor em espera na prateleira cá de casa, este Museu da Inocência suscitou-me interesse logo que me apercebi do seu lançamento.
A história é narrada na primeira pessoa, pelo jovem turco Kemal Basmacı oriundo de uma família muito abastada pertencente à elite de Istambul. A meados do ano de 1975, Kemal está noivo da bela Sibel, uma jovem também perten More...
A história é narrada na primeira pessoa, pelo jovem turco Kemal Basmacı oriundo de uma família muito abastada pertencente à elite de Istambul. A meados do ano de 1975, Kemal está noivo da bela Sibel, uma jovem também perten More...
Apr 21, 2011
David
rated it:
Wow this was quite the read! I really succumbed to Pamuk's slow-paced love story when at several times I was annoyed. Even though there was so much praise for this book, two things arose.
First, Kemal the hero was a kleptomaniac, constantly stealing things to "remember" his love for Fusun. He justifies it as part of his so-to-be museum that holds up his love for the girl. Who else would gather some 4,000 cigarette butts? At this point I began to think he had some serious me More...
First, Kemal the hero was a kleptomaniac, constantly stealing things to "remember" his love for Fusun. He justifies it as part of his so-to-be museum that holds up his love for the girl. Who else would gather some 4,000 cigarette butts? At this point I began to think he had some serious me More...
Dec 14, 2010
Tom
rated it:
Last night in the wee hours I finished my latest book, Orhan Pamuk's The Museum of Innocence. In retrospect, when you are trying to blog with some degree of regularity, a book of more than seven hundred pages was never a wise move. But when every one of those pages seems specifically designed to drag the story out like a miser's butter, you are in trouble.
I rarely read contemporary novels, reasoning that if they are really worth reading now, they will still be worth reading in a couple More...
I rarely read contemporary novels, reasoning that if they are really worth reading now, they will still be worth reading in a couple More...
Dec 02, 2010
Stephen
rated it:
This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers.
To view it, click here
Oct 11, 2010
Hillary
rated it:
If you’re the kind of person who gets bored at actual museums, you’ll get bored reading The Museum of Innocence.
The Museum of Innocence was written by Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk. The story is narrated from the point of view of the museum’s curator, Kemal, who basically spends well over 500 pages pining after a much younger lover. The museum, naturally, is where he displays artifacts relating to their relationship, many of which he has pilfered from her over their time tog More...
The Museum of Innocence was written by Nobel Prize winning author Orhan Pamuk. The story is narrated from the point of view of the museum’s curator, Kemal, who basically spends well over 500 pages pining after a much younger lover. The museum, naturally, is where he displays artifacts relating to their relationship, many of which he has pilfered from her over their time tog More...
May 01, 2010
Doug
rated it:
I asked people for a good audio book recommendation that I could listen to while on my treadmill. So I read it/listened to it in many 45 to 55 minute workout sessions. It's one of those books that you need to rate in many categories. The reading and translation of the book were a total five. I was surprised how easily I followed every nuance of the story and looked forward to getting on my stairclimber for the next session. I give it an overall 4, because it seemed sometimes to go over and
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Mar 06, 2010
Azarin
rated it:
The Museum of Innocence - in my opinion - is not Orhan Pamuk's best work, but it is still an amazing novel.
I have just finished reading it and I am - again - blown away by Pamuk's genius and his ability to grasp and to hold my attention for the whole length of 530 pages of the novel. Plus, I feel a bit melancholic, leaving his extraordinary but fictional world, made of the same ingredients: a man`s quest to find love, his life's gradual but drastic change, and this endless pursuit of happ More...
I have just finished reading it and I am - again - blown away by Pamuk's genius and his ability to grasp and to hold my attention for the whole length of 530 pages of the novel. Plus, I feel a bit melancholic, leaving his extraordinary but fictional world, made of the same ingredients: a man`s quest to find love, his life's gradual but drastic change, and this endless pursuit of happ More...
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Feb 01, 2010
Enrique
rated it:
Estando en la librería por casualidad escuche por accidente a un lector preguntando a uno de los asistentes por el museo de la inocencia, a lo cual el joven le comento que se trataba de una novela de amor. Normalmente no soy de los que interviene en conversaciones ajenas, pero en esa ocasione, le aclare, que esta no es una historia de amor, ni tampoco se trata de la obsesión enfermiza de un hombre por una joven de 18 años, el museo de la inocencia, se trata acerca de los recuerdos y los momentos
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Jan 28, 2010
Tanja
rated it:
I started this book with high expectations. I had read 'Snow', and 'The Black Book' and really enjoyed the two books. But in this one, I believe Pamuk faltered. The story did not grab me, the characters' fate did not touch me, and this time his style of writing felt laborious and oftentimes simply boring. It cannot just be a translation issue (I read the first two books in German, and this one in its English translation), but the real problem lies with the story; this protracted, deeply unsatisf
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Dec 28, 2009
Karen
rated it:
This was the perfect book to have had in hand at the outset of a cold, snowed in weekend. I could not have cared less that I wasn't going anywhere for days because the book takes hold of the reader and transports one to another time and place. While some other reviewers commented on the eroticism of the novel, I don't see it as being erotic, rather I found it seductive, so much so that I had a hard time putting it down. Kemal is also seduced. At one point his fiancee, Sibel, comments to him that
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