The Black Book

Zusatztext “A glorious flight of dark! fantastic invention.” — The Washington Post "A splendid novel! as delicious to our mind's palate as a Turkish delight and as subtle . . . in its design as a Persian rug." — San Francisco Chronicle "An extraordinary! tantalizing novel." — The Nation "An inventive and . . . exuberant modern national epic."— Sunday Times (London) Informationen zum Autor Orhan Pamuk Klappentext A New Translation and Afterword by Maureen FreelyGalip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective novel-loving Ruya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her ex-husband or Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl's identity, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear the worst.With its cascade of beguiling stories about Istanbul, The Black Book is a brilliantly unconventional mystery, and a provocative meditation on identity. For Turkish literary readers it is the cherished cult novel in which Orhan Pamuk found his original voice, but it has largely been neglected by English-language readers. Now, in Maureen Freely's beautiful new translation, they, too, may encounter all its riches. Chapter One The First Time Galip Saw Ruya Never use epigraphs—they kill the mystery in the work! —Adli If that's how it has to die, go ahead and kill it; then kill the false prophets who sold you on the mystery in the first place! —Bahti Rüya was lying facedown on the bed, lost to the sweet warm darkness beneath the billowing folds of the blue-checked quilt. The first sounds of a winter morning seeped in from outside: the rumble of a passing car, the clatter of an old bus, the rattle of the copper kettles that the salep maker shared with the pastry cook, the whistle of the parking attendant at the dolmus stop. A cold leaden light filtered through the dark blue curtains. Languid with sleep, Galip gazed at his wife's head: Ruya's chin was nestling in the down pillow. The wondrous sights playing in her mind gave her an unearthly glow that pulled him toward her even as it suffused him with fear. Memory , Celâl had once written in a column, is a garden . Rüya's gardens, Rüya's gardens . . . Galip thought. Don't think, don't think, it will make you jealous! But as he gazed at his wife's forehead, he still let himself think. He longed to stroll among the willows, acacias, and sun-drenched climbing roses of the walled garden where Ruya had taken refuge, shutting the doors behind her. But he was indecently afraid of the faces he might find there: Well, hello! So you're a regular here too , are you? It was not the already identified apparitions he most dreaded but the insinuating male shadows he could never have anticipated: Excuse me, brother, when exactly did you run into my wife, or were you introduced? Three years ago at your house, inside a foreign fashion magazine from Alâaddin's shop, at middle school, outside the movie theater where you once sat hand in hand. . . . No, perhaps Rüya's memories were not so cruelly crowded; perhaps she was at this very moment basking in the one sunny corner in the dark garden of her memories, setting out with Galip in a rowboat. . . . Six months after Rüya's family moved to Istanbul, Galip and Ruya had both come down with mumps. To speed their recovery, Galip's mother and Ruya's mother, the beautiful Aunt Suzan, would take the children out to the Bosphorus; some days it would be just one mother taking them by the hand and other days it would be both; whatever bus they took, it shuddered as it rolled over the cobbl...

Report

A glorious flight of dark, fantastic invention. The Washington Post

"A splendid novel, as delicious to our mind's palate as a Turkish delight and as subtle ... in its design as a Persian rug." San Francisco Chronicle

"An extraordinary, tantalizing novel." The Nation

"An inventive and .... exuberant modern national epic."  Sunday Times (London)

Product details

• Authors: Orhan Pamuk
• Assisted by: Maureen Freely (Translation)
• Publisher: Vintage USA
• Languages: English
• Product format: Paperback / Softback
• Released: 11.07.2006
• EAN: 9781400078653
• ISBN: 978-1-4000-7865-3
• No. of pages: 480
• Dimensions: 132 mm x 202 mm x 26 mm
• Series: VINTAGE BOOKS; Vintage International; Vintage International
• Subject: Fiction > Narrative literature