SOURCE: Emck, Katy. “Turkish Delight.” New Statesman 126, no. 4358 (31 October 1997): 44-5.

In the following review, Emck comments on the overriding theme of “spiritual yearning in ideology-led times” in The New Life, calling the novel “a satire on the mystique of transformation promulgated by books.”

Given that Turks don't usually write novels, and that Turkey is in many senses a liminal place—caught between Christian and Muslim, European and Middle Eastern cultures; not quite third-world poor—this book is every bit as paradoxical as a Turkish novel ought to be. It is also the fastest-selling book in Turkish history; 200,000 copies have been bought in less than a year. Pamuk, who is Turkey's foremost novelist, is also a writer of international stature who has been compared to Garcia Marquez, Kafka, Paul Auster.

Culturally and novelistically, The New Life exists between worlds, too. Pamuk, slyly over-modest, apologises for “the clumsiness of my...