A Strangeness in My Mind

Portraying Istanbul over a period of five decades, Pamuk's (Silent House) latest novel introduces listeners to Mevlut, a street vendor of boza (a mildly alcoholic Turkish drink) and yogurt. As a protagonist, Mevlut is more an observer than an active participant; the novel opens with his realization that he eloped with the wrong woman (he glimpsed a beautiful girl at his cousin's wedding and wrote her letters for years, but when he has her on the train to Istanbul he discovers that he was tricked into taking the "less attractive" sister). He doesn't abandon her, however, so perhaps this is enough to make him a hero, although his disappointment with the match seems to set the tone for much of his not-entirely-rewarding life (money is always a challenge, and his effort at opening a business is not particularly successful, among other misfortunes). The novel is told in a fragmented style, sometimes switching perspectives as often as from paragraph to paragraph, and, along with the frequent shifts in time periods, this can be difficult to follow in audio. Narrator John Lee's English accent lends the reading a feeling of British imperialism at times, and the pace is slow enough to convince listeners that half a century really has passed.