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There is a constant barrier between the reader and his consciousness of immediate contact with the world.

William Carlos Williams


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🦋 Not gonna happen

For a few months now I have had fixed in mind that I wanted to write a critical essay on Museum of Innocence with reference to Snow, examining (in a nutshell) Kemal's love for Füsun as a displacement of his desire to be authentically Turkish, a reaction to his feelings of alienation. But frankly I think writing this piece would take critical, sociological and psychological chops that I do not have -- every time I have started all I have come up with is a condemnation of Kemal for acting in bad faith -- which is not what I was aiming for. So, I'm going to move on from this, try and find something else to think about...

It is worth noting -- I didn't blog the end of the novel partly out of wanting to avoid spoilers, partly out of wanting to save material for the essay I was going to write -- that the last 50 pages of the book were just fantastically good reading. All through the book I felt conflicted about not liking Kemal, wondered if it was even worth reading with such a jerk for a narrator; but the end of the book took away any doubts I had been feeling about whether this is a great novel.

posted evening of Friday, December 25th, 2009
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Hey Jeremy! I've never heard of this book or the author. I guess you think it's worth picking up??

posted morning of December 28th, 2009 by Marcy

Absolutely -- Pamuk is one of my favorite authors. I would probably not recommend Museum of Innocence as the first Pamuk novel you read though, better candidates would be Snow, My Name is Red, or The White Castle.

posted morning of December 28th, 2009 by Jeremy

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