Osman first comes across a book called The new life when he sees a pretty girl carrying it around in the university refectory. He spots a copy on a bookstall, reads it himself, and finds his life transformed in some weird way by what he reads. Osman and the lovely (but regrettably unavailable) Janan set out on a quest for Janan’s lost lover that involves criss-crossing Turkey on an apparently endless series of bus journeys, a considerable number of which end in deadly bus-collisions.

Repeatedly, Pamuk seems to side-step any straightforward interpretation of the book, allowing the plot to shift directions unpredictably whenever we seem to be getting close to some kind of resolution. It’s a sweetly-ironic account of young love, a study of how conspiracies and counter-conspiracies work and of how ready young people are to allow themselves to be influenced by ideas that promise to bring an escape from the everyday, a look at how the power of an idea can become detached from its originator’s intentions when it is put into a book, and it's often also a gently satirical look back at life in provincial Turkey a few decades ago. And a nostalgic homage to obsolete Turkish brand names, overnight buses, rail travel, bad films and the low-grade children’s literature of the author’s youth. But it also brings in Dante, Rilke, and a whole bunch of other apparently incongruent threads, so you need to keep your wits about you.

Puzzling, but often quite captivating. If you are looking for a book about how many angels can dance on a candy-wrapper, this is the one. ( )

Hasta el inesperado momento en que abrió el libro. la vida de Osman se reducía a asistir a clases de Ingeniería y regresar a la casa que compartía con su madre. La lectura y un tiroteo en las calles nevadas de Estambul convirtieron al joven en un viajero nocturno cuya existencia nunca volvió a ser la misma.Osman recorre un inmenso país acompañado de una mujer que. por azar. dejó el libro sobre la mesa de un café. Una mujer que ama a otro hombre. El mismo a quien están buscando. el único que comprende el poder del libro.

La lectura de un libro cambia la vida del joven protagonista de esta novela, un estudiante llamado Osman, hasta alejarlo radicalmente de su anterior identidad. Poco después se enamorará de la luminosa y esquiva Canan, presenciará el intento de asesinato de un pretendiente rival y abandonará a su familia para vagar sin rumbo por un paisaje nocturno de cafés, y apocalípticas estaciones de autobús. El resultado es el maridaje fabuloso de un thriller intelectual y una sofisticada novela de amor.

Türkçe okudum böyleçe biraz daha zor geldi bu kitap, ancak oldukça beğendim. (ana dilim Türkçe değil)
( )

Not even 50 pages in, I quit... is it the translation? ( )