Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul is a wonderful memoir that unravels his evolution as a writer with the melancholic legacy of the once glorious Istanbul casting its shadow on his life and writing. Pamuk identifies his melancholy (`huzun' in Arabic) and his transformation as a writer with the ancient city full of marks of past glory and present defeat and irrelevance. He at last finds another `Orhan' who, he thought when he was young, was living somewhere in Istanbul. He has found that Orhan when he says `I am going to be a writer'. One cannot but feel rejuvenated after reading Istanbul that is replete with insights on failed relationships, use of power and violence and conflict between tradition and modernity.
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Istanbul is a memoir with a difference - it is the history of a city hopelessly steeped in decadence while still bearing the stamp of its earlier glory. Pamuk is at his best while writing about his painting experiences dipped in concentrated nostalgia. Istanbul is a compass pointing towards west though intrinsically eastern in its soul. A must read.
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