I would like to mention three books I have recently read and liked. J.M. Coetzee is no new to me and I am his fan since I have read Disgrace: A Novel. Summertime is “a semisequel to the fictionalized memoirs Boyhood and Youth that takes the form of a young biographer’s interviews with colleagues of the late author John Coetzee.” I have loved this kind of fictionalized authobiographical work in addition to his powerful language and theme of a lonely man of which I am always interested in. It is not as majestic as Disgrace but full recommended.
Now that J.D. Salinger (b. January 1, 1919 ? d. January 27, 2010) is gone I can revisit The Catcher in the Rye. I will spare you the impact the book had on me or why my young mind adopted most of Holden Caulfield?s traits that still defines me today.
I am about to finish reading Murat Menteş’ last novel. This is the last of a series of quality novels I have been reading. He has earned quite a fame in Turkey and he deserves it. Good geeky appropriation of popular culture images. All other novels are award winning novels and I would recommend all … Read more
I recently finished reading Tom Boellstorff’s Coming of Age in Second Life: An Anthropologist Explores the Virtually Human. As an anthropologist Prof. Boellstroff added another site to the Archive of anthropology. It surely became a must-read in the growing anthropological literature on cybercultures. My major concern is what he repeatedly insists (also in the quotation … Read more
The masterpiece of Turkish literature’s one of the greatest novelists (Ahmet Hamdi Tanpınar) is published in English. “A mind at Peace” is so powerful that your mind will not be in peace after that (!) Enjoy! Book | A Mind at Peace by Ahmet Hamdi Tanpinar from Mavi Boncuk by M.A.M The first inaugural Istanbul … Read more
I have meaning to read Giorgio Agamben for a long while. Prof. Agamben has become a trendy personality in philosophical circles and I was curious about him, naturally. and I admit I am ashamed, I should have read him before. Anyway, I had bought Homo sacer among some other of his books but did not … Read more
I have finished reading Dan Brown’s last novel, The Lost Symbol, a few days ago. Maybe to be begin with, I must tell you that this is not a novel but a script for a planned blockbuster. Maybe if one takes it as a script, disappointment would be lesser. After the Da Vinci Code, this is a very frustrating one for the fans like me. Some quick notes:
1. Character formations in the novel are extremely weak, shallow. Robert Langdon is a reactionary guy. He first reacts to whatever told him, then he is surprised and accepts. Same pattern throughout the novel.
2. After the Da Vinci Code, Mr. Brown might have decided not to touch culturally and religiously sensitive issues. This book will not bring much reaction from the Church etc.
3. The novel looks likes a “sponsored post” (!). As if funded by freemasonry establishment. I have no problem with freemasonry, just that the novel should have gone beyond mere propaganda.
4. Well, despite all, if the narrative brought about exciting revelations like it did in the previous novel, it would still be satisfactory for me. But I wasn’t particularly excited with turning points in the novel…
I have read the novel, The Museum of Innocence, in Turkish last year. In strictly literary terms, this is his weakest novel. However, a very different sort of project intended here. An actual museum has been built in Istanbul and will be opened soon. This book is a novel-catalogue that actual museum and a great documentary of a particular section of Istanbul’s everyday life. Another intervention to the lives of republican Turkish elites. In the mean time, I have a plan to assign the first 100 pages to my first year students which has a very rich account of approaches to relations, sex and gender roles which are still valid in contemporary Turkish lives.
I was not in love with the literary level of narratives particularly but towards the end I fell in love and in the last pages I remember feeling sad and crying… Thank you Orhan Pamuk. You do enrich our lives.
Mueller, whose mother was sent to a Soviet work camp for five years and who herself was harassed by the Romanian Securitate secret police after refusing to be an informer, made her debut in 1982 with a collection of short stories.
Romanian-born German writer Herta Mueller, who charted the hardships and humiliations of Nicolae Ceausescu’s brutal regime, has won the 2009 Nobel literature prize.
Erkan as a soldier is best at reading. 152 days, 27 books
Thanks to one of my favorite Facebook application, Book Tracker, you can see what I have read while I was in the army. The list is at the end of this post.
Here is the playlist;I would like to listen in the loudest volume possible when I arrive Istanbul on Thursday morning:
Prof. Jenny White who specializes on Turkey and with whom I had the honor to meet also writes historical novels that take place in the late Ottoman period. Her new novel The Abyssinian Proof: A Kamil Pasha Novel will be released on March 16, the second in the Kamil Pasha series and the third episode, … Read more
Oh boy, the Guardian now has another 1000 list: 1000 novels everyone must read: the definitive list It was easier to finish up 1000 films list:) I am starting another novel by Haruki Murakami: A Wild Sheep Chase: A Novel This is not in the list. But i have read two of his novels that … Read more
Convergence Culture: Where Old and New Media Collide (Revised with a New Afterword) by Henry Jenkins This book has been my top recommended book for a while. I finally got the book and will start reading…
After all, what I do need is some rest and this is what I do after my first post-defense days. Now it sinks in well, that I finished up my long educational life and I achieved what I intended to do at the end of high school. I had secretly changed my study topic … Read more