MY NAME IS RED
Orhan Pamuk (Knopf, 1998) ISBN: 0-571-20047-8
My Name is Red is a complex murder mystery set in 16th century Istanbul. It has taken me 4 attempts to read. I can’t really point to why. I suspect it might be a combination of my fundamental disinterest in the murder mystery genre, and a general failure to relate to very many of the characters. Perhaps, too, it might just be that Orhan Pamuk’s prose, while beautiful, makes it difficult for me to feel the emotional pull of the story. Since I can’t read Turkish it’s impossible for me to say whether this issue arises from the translation or from the author’s style itself.