Adrian Curtin's Reviews > Istanbul: memories and the city

Orhan's memoirs of his childhood in Istanbul portray a romantic but melancholy view of the city. He depicts his hometown as caught between the despair of its past and its own conflicted soul between western and eastern influence. A considerable discussion relates to Istanbul authors and the prior Europeans who chose to describe the city, presenting both the way that the city chose to define itself and the way it let itself be described.
The work is not a good peice of historical perspective on the city, but rather a sort of love letter from the author to his home. In his Istanbul, he describes both the light and the darkness that envelops the city and its citizens, and the way in which this collective experience interplays with his upbringing. It is a poetic perspective with a touch of despair.