Orhan Pamuk. The New Life
I reread “The New Life” by Orhan Pamuk. I reread it
because I am convinced that in a first reading, of any book, there is only an
impression, a flavor, an image of whether or not that is a good book.
I also reread it because I hardly remember anything
from the first reading five or six years ago. How odd! Usually, at least, I
always have a good taste, an image, or a tacit disapproval when I read a book;
but not in this one. So, with all my heart I start a second lecture.
With the advance of the pages, I confirm that Pamuk
writes a lot but in reality, says nothing, or very, very little. I say,
something worthwhile, because to write descriptions, anyone can do it. In
addition, I do not identify a single truth, nor a philosophical phrase that
shakes me or makes me think deeper; I also identify that the plot is not
complicated or complex, nor interesting. Of course, the book is full of nooks
and crannies and descriptions of bus stations, routes and accidents that last
for five or six pages, or more, to discover in their outcome that they do not
clarify anything and that it is not known what they were used for.
With that feeling I advance to the end of the book and
discover that it is practically impossible for me to write a good, helpful and
constructive review.
Yes, I know. Pamuk is the 2006 Nobel Prize winner, but
not for that I will say that “The New Life” is a book that deserves to be read.
And although it sounds catastrophic, here it goes my most honest recommendation.
Don't waste your time reading it. Save yourself time
and money and go and read other authors worthwhile... Because a book must have
philosophy to understand or "to discover" how life should be lived,
or how it should not be lived, it has to have suspense and mystery. The New Life
has it, but it is a suspense and a mystery without meaning and without grace,
and it has very little philosophy, and even so you have to know how to identify
it.
So, save yourself having to read hundreds of pages of
long and boring texts. The recommendation of the same book already says:
"Recommended for the reader who wants something really different."
Oh wow! Who will be that reader who wants something
really different? Will he be a fool, a forgetful or an incoherent one...?
I look for other comments on the internet. A reader
(Tabascas) writes:
I left it in the truck on the way home hoping someone
will find the magic that the back cover promises.”
By the way, in “The New Life” it is never remotely said that it contained the mysterious book, the one that deserves the first sentence of the book:
" I read a book one day and my whole life was
changed".
Not even a sentence or explanation of the content of
that terrifying and wonderful book. Could it be that Pamuk wanted to see us as stupid
ones?
Here I have nothing more to say than the analogy of
that joke that elementary school children tell, that of a text on a piece of
paper that when people read it they suffered a collapse, disgust or deep sadness;
so that in the end, when asking the evil man what the mysterious piece of paper
said when he went to hell because of his wickedness, he innocently replied:
"Oh, it burned when I entered hell."
Well, but there are readers who did understand him at
first and comment that it is a very introspective work and that it is a
profound novel.
Perhaps they are right. But I, as a writer, and after
a second reading, as patient as the first, if it were my book, I would never have
ventured to publish it.
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