SOURCE: Marien, Mary Warner. “Catch a Turkish Story Star.” Christian Science Monitor 83, no. 96 (12 April 1991): 13.

In the following review, Marien examines Pamuk's recurring theme of “the limits of the imaginary” in The White Castle.

Although he is not yet 40, Orhan Pamuk has emerged as Turkey's leading novelist. Moreover, despite the intimately Turkish nature of his settings and subject, he has come to enjoy an international reputation.

Pamuk's books have been translated and issued by many of Europe's prestigious publishing houses. Last year, Carcanet, the trend-sensitive British publisher, sponsored a translation that has just been released in the United States by Braziller. American readers now have the opportunity to become acquainted with the compass of Pamuk's considerable talents through Victoria Holbrook's sensitive translation of this, his third novel.

The White Castle is more experimental than Pamuk's previous volumes. The first and most formidable of them, Cevdet Bey and Sons, which...