Author : Orhan Pamuk
Year : 2008
Publisher : Alfred A.Knopf, a division of Random House, Inc. New York
Star : 3.5
First I would say thanks to one of my best friend, Arsya who sent me the ebook version of Orhan Pamuk’s Museum of Innocence. Frankly speaking, this is the first novel which is spending my time in long period, 2 months to be précised. And I am not sure whether it is because I got bored with the long details narrative style of this work or I was spelled by the unique story which made me enjoy every word in this novel. But whatever it is, finally today I can post my review of this Turkish man’s work. Okey, enough for the introduction, lets hit the important part of this article.
Well, actually it’s not fair if I compare this work with other works of Orhan Pamuk since it’s my first reading of Orhan Pamuk’s work so perhaps I won’t compare this work with other big Orhan Pamuk’s work like Snow and My Name is Red which now I am currently reading. In short, it’s about the well educated and rich middle aged Turkish man named Kemal bay who has wrong passion over a young girl named Fusun which can be said as his cousin. Why I said wrong passion is because Kemal Bay has already fiancé named Sylvia who loves him very much, and even she gave her virginity to Kemal because he believed that Kemal will marry her. And still related to the wrong passion of Kemal Bay, there is interesting fact which I’ve just known from one of my readers named Audrey who told that fusun means magic, spell, charm, and enchantment. From this fact, it indicates that Orhan Pamuk not randomly choose the characters name for his Museum Innocence. The other interesting part is the long detail narrative which sometimes seems so hyperbole and irritating me. However, through the long detail narrative I can the deep desperate of kemal Bay after losing fusun. Moreover, it also makes me able to imagine the condition of turkey in the term of transition. In other words, I can follow the real condition of a country and culture in transition at that time, just like I lived there at setting time of this story. It also evokes the virginity’s cherished sanctity among Turkish women during in an Istanbul metamorphose with the changing trends which tends to follow the western culture.
For me personally, it’s symmetrical dissimilation of love, passion, and obsession which follows with the changing trends of Turkish cultural life. Though this work is not so enjoyable in some parts, but it’s still a wonderful creation of the mind that can be felt with physical senses. And last but not least, the title itself evokes the diffusion of real love and obsessive passionate of Kemal Bay who wanted to make a museum which contains the representation his real and pure love to fusun through the Fusun memorizing stuffs.
if you wanna read this novel for free just download it from this link
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