That is how a book can be too good. Having read it, I don't want to see Istambul any more. I'm wholly satisfied with the melancholic vision of Pamuk.
By the way, One of the best Polish poets, Adam Mickiewicz, visited Istambul and died here probably due to the epidemy of choelera in 1855. He was so impressed with the town, that in a private letter from Istambul he admitted that only there he felt as good as in his small hometown, Nowogrodek. (situeted now in Belorussia).

I had high hopes for this one as I loved Istanbul when I visited it a few years ago. Ultimately I only made it through the first third and had to stop, it was just too boring and slow moving.

I read this at the end of my trip to Istanbul and was pleasantly surprised at how similar our assessments of the city were. Mr. Pamuk's reasoning behind it, hüzün in all of its many interpretations, is interesting. Despite stating that he skipped architecture classes, his logic and his writing is very much that of an architectural theorist.

Holy crap, I did the exact same thing. I really wanted to get into it because it seemed like an amazing book. In the end, I read half of it and gave up.

Beautifully written retrospective novel. Though it gives less insight into modern Turkish life than I expected, it offers a piece of dreamy nostalgia that made me feel as though I could better get into the mindset of an Istanbullus. The idea of Huzun, a sort of collective melancholy, that "descends upon every Istanbullus at one time or another" is a fascinating part of the book, and offers some interesting insight into the benefits as well as obvious drawbacks of melancholy and solitude. Far and away my favorite piece of the book, which I read over and over again, were the five pages devoted to nothing more than desribing picture-perfect scene after picture-perfect scene that describe Huzun. Incredible.

This book is especially meaningful if your hometown is Istanbul, but I recommend "My Name is Red" for the others.

so boring, couldn't finish it.

I liked it, it's nostalgic, I imagine it like black and white pictures in kind of a foggy ambiance

Beautiful, but too slow, too many details

A beautifully written book. Really insightful, thoughtful and well researched. I couldn't put it down. He has a really excellent style and a very sensitive disposition. I loved his appreciation of both eastern and western culture and how they inter-connected. He has created a masterpiece. I read it in 6 hours. I want to live in Turkey. Excellent.