Chapters 1 through 4 Summary and Analysis

"Istanbul: Memories and the City" by Orhan Pamuk, is part autobiography, part memoir, and part intimate portrait of his native Istanbul. Pamuk takes the reader through his childhood in a family that had once been wealthy, but squandered most of its money through poor choices. In young adulthood he finally turns away from his dream of being a painter and decides to become a writer instead. While his personal story is woven throughout the book, most of the pages are devoted to descriptions of Istanbul and the melancholy that has enveloped the city and its people since the fall of the Ottoman Empire, and the author's own conflicted feelings about the city where he has spent his life.

Chapter 1, "Another Orhan," begins with the author stating that from the time he was very young, he suspected that another boy...