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Before I read Orhan Pamuk's Istanbul several of my friends told me how much fun they had visiting the city with its historical palaces and fabulous mosques. I wanted to visit the street markets and the seasides. I've read enough history about Byzantium and the Ottomans to whet my interest in the ruins of empires gone by.

But Pamuk has painted such a grim, dirty, and poor city that it left me wondering if my friends visited the same town. Dirt and crumbling mansions. Crashing pollution. Fires. Hobos and homeless. Antiquated buildings and transportation. Old ferries. Old men in skull caps and chattering aunties. Civic corruption. My goodness. This could be Naples. Or Detroit.

It seems the national passion is melancholy. Too much east and not enough west. Maybe, too much crappy west and not enough appreciation of east.

Is this a place I want to visit?

Maybe.

There is so much humour and self loathing in the book to warrant a second look. As if maybe Pamuk is making a little fun at himself.

It is certainly well worth it to read about Turkish poets and novelists and historians. About how French writers and artists viewed the city from the vantage point of the 19th century. And about how Pamuk traces his own development as a writer.

Pamuk and I are different type of people, although we are similar in age. He drastically tried to leave his identity as a middle class Istanbulu (I love that word) to blossom as a writer. Like him as a teenager I roamed the streets and went for walks that lasted for hours. For him it meant becoming a writer. For me it meant becoming nothing. I fell under the spell of a turn of the century novel called The Man Without Qualities. It struck me that abandoning the preconceptions of who I was or who I ought to be gave me the freedom to discover much more about life.

Sans judgements. Sans status. Sans expectations.

I became a carpenter, an accountant, a forensic auditor, a retailer, a historian, an actor. Anything and nothing. I stopped writing when I stopped having anything of meaning to say. In that nothingness came freedom.

I wonder if becoming a writer has given Pamuk freedom. I wonder if he has forgiven his father for being a lecher. ( )

Neither a guidebook nor a travel memoir, but a dual biography of the author and the city. How their identities entwined, even defined each other. A good read, despite being repetitive. ( )

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Autobiografía de Orhan Pamuk en donde se evidencia el poder de escribir lo que tu corazón te dicta. ( )