It's been a few hours since I finished reading the last page of Orhan Pamuk's The New Life, and I feel like I know everything, and that there's nothing to know. On the surface, the book is a post-modern mess. As you read through the first few chapters, you start questioning the honesty and genuineness of the narrator. I don't think many will disagree with the absurdity of someone declaring that reading a book changed one's life, and then going on a nonsensical journey to seek the truth in that book, only to end up committing a crime to eliminate his lover's previous partner.

The plot itself has still not sunk in for me but I'll give it a go. A young boy (Osman) reads a book that influences him strongly. At college, he meets a beautiful girl (Janan) who introduces him to her partner (Mehmet) who has read the same book. Osman then witnesses the assassination of Mehmet, which no one else seems to notice. This raises Osman's suspicions of a wider conspiracy so he goes to find Janan, and together they embark on an indefinite journey around Turkey to meet people who are involved with the book. While they are journeying, they watch Western movies on buses, and witnesses many brutal accidents. Somehow, they end up in a town where a man by the name of Doctor Fine lives. Doctor Fine believes that his son (Mehmet - the same Mehmet?) died as a result of him reading the book. So to stop this 'conspiracy', he appoints several spies (all with codenames of brands of watches) to find, monitor, and assassinate all those who read the book. At the same time, while reading all the reports written by the spies to Doctor Fine, Osman realises that Mehmet had not died. So to rid the world of Mehmet and ensure that Janan does not meet him again, Osman goes on his own quest to kill Mehmet, which he does mid-way through the novel. The novel ends many years later, when Osman goes back to his main mission to find out what the book means.

Underlying the absurd storyline are themes that are often considered Pamuk's trademarks such as the issue of East vs. West. The main characters in the book spend a lot of time on buses watching replays of Western movies. Is this perhaps, Pamuk telling us that we (as Middle Eastern people) spend most of our lives in vehicles controlled by others, while we passively watch the West develop and create for itself a core identity? Throughout the novel, the identify theme is reinforced in other ways. For example, there are several references to products and brands that change from being 'local' to 'mass-produced'. There are also times where the narrator travels from dark little towns, and returns to the lands of billboards, burgers, and Coca-Cola. On a metaphysical level, perhaps this all means that what we're reading is not really a story about a young delusional man who falls in love with a girl and then goes on a mission to kill her former lover. What Pamuk is trying to say is that Turkey is so lost in the middle of modernisation and Westernisation that it has really assassinated itself despite all the attempts of maintaining its ancient identity. One particular quote that has stayed with me from the book is to the effect of - if maintaining old things to keep our identity is called enlightenment, then flea markets should be full of it!

At times, it felt like Pamuk was talking to us directly, telling us how he likes to read books and how prefers to write. These passages become more apparent towards the end of the book, where there is a noticeable jump in time from when the narrator was a teenager to 'now' - where he is married and has a daughter. I personally found these passages engaging, but there was a sense of detachment that came with them as there was a subtle shift in voice from a confused and irritated narrator to a calm, and focused voice.

Despite the changing circumstances of being 'normal' again, the narrator goes on a final road-trip, which brings the books to its morbid conclusion.

Overall, this is a book that you could read if you wanted to have a deep and meaningful discussion with someone about the meaning behind the words, or if you have an interest in the issues of identity and absurdity. It's a short read, but by no means a light one. ( )

Hard to follow as most of the things that happen take place in Osman's (the narrator) head. Sometimes it is hard to understand what is real and what is not. The narrator as well as some other boys his age are influenced by a book in such a dramatic way that it changes their destiny. The narrator leaves his home and sets out to experience the dualism between love and hatred and life and death in the search of more people who have been changed by the book. He ends back home, setting down and dying at the moment of trying to close the circle once opened with his departure from home.

'I read a book one day and my whole life was changed. Even on the first page I was so affected by the book's intensity I felt my body sever itself and pull away from the chair where I sat reading the book that lay before me on the table.' Light surging from its pages illumines his face: 'Its incandescence dazzled my intellect but also endowed it with brilliant lucidity.' The book seems to be about him, so that 'my point of view was transformed by the book, and the book was transformed by my point of view.'

Pamuk is a writer that helps me understand why I like reading; for the discovery of ideas, cultures, language, worlds, and most importantly, self. When reading his novels, the space and things around me just disappear. His plot lines are at times tenuous, something seen peripherally, weaving in and out of focus. I don't read Pamuk for the pleasure of a well-crafted story-line (though I do find the story-lines well-crafted). I read him for his style. He continually pulls me into his writing. I can't leave his books alone once started and when finished, cannot easily forget them.

'A good book is something that reminds us of the whole world - Perhaps that’s how every book is, or what each and every book ought to be.'

In The New Life, Osman (maybe that's his name), reads a book (also called The New Life) that completely changes his life and propels him on a quest to find the meaning of the book, and life. Along the way he falls in love, aimlessly travels on buses, visits bus crashes to walk among the dead and dying, hunts down spies code-named after watch brands, and he speaks to the Angel for guidance and absolution.

'Some went into solitude with the book, but at the threshold of a serious breakdown they were able to open up to the world and shake off their affliction. There were also those who had crises and tantrums upon reading the book, accusing their friends and lovers of being oblivious to the world in the book, of not knowing or desiring the book, and thereby criticising them mercilessly for not being anything like the persons in the book’s universe.'
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DAMN! I wrote the above with 50 pages left to go. Well, I just had lunch unknowingly eating a chicken pie as I pored through the final pages. When I closed the book I found myself fighting back tears, not tears for the characters in the book, tears for myself. It's more than puzzling to me. Magical words these were. And although I immersed myself in the first 250 pages enjoying every single word I was not fully aware what the story was about. I had a hint. I imagined. I guessed. And then the last 50 pages. And then the last 2 pages. Nothing is black and white. I still can't tell you the secret to the mystery of The New Life. I only know that this book hit a nerve with me and I can only now appreciate Osman's (if that's his name) opening line... 'I read a book one day and my whole life was changed' and understand what it feels like to have 'my body sever itself and pull away from the chair where I sat reading the book that lay before me on the table'. I'm still shaking...
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The book is a labyrinth. There are hidden traps. The words deceive. The words tease. Pamuk plays games with text from other books by Jules Verne, Dante, Rilke, Ib'n Arabi... Comparing Pamuk to Borges? I can understand. This is not a book that I think many would appreciate or enjoy. It is filled with thoughts on Westernization, Islamic fundamentalism, Turkish nationalism... Ultimately, 'what is important [of a book:] is your own perception, what you read into it...' ( )

The New Life begins with its attention focused on the power of a book over its reader. Over time though, this focus dissipates into a confusing tangle of conspiracy that I could not follow well. It is entrancing enough to compel me to read forward despite not understanding half of what goes on, but that is all. I can definitely see how Pamuk got the literary world's attention with this book, but it doesn't hold up to his later work. ( )