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My Name Is Red
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 36 mins
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Publisher's summary
The Sultan has commissioned a cadre of the most acclaimed artists in the land to create a great book celebrating the glories of his realm. Their task: to illuminate the work in the European style. But because figurative art can be deemed an affront to Islam, this commission is a dangerous proposition indeed. The ruling elite therefore mustn't know the full scope or nature of the project, and panic erupts when one of the chosen miniaturists disappears. The only clue to the mystery - or crime? - lies in the half-finished illuminations themselves. Part fantasy and part philosophical puzzle,
My Name is Red is a kaleidoscopic journey to the intersection of art, religion, love, sex, and power.
Translated from the Turkish by Erdag Goknar.
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Susanna Dallet is the daughter of a Flemish painter and wife to a philandering husband, living in the court of Henry VIII. When her husband is murdered, Susanna is suddenly left with a household to provide for and nothing to her name. Her days of anonymity are over when Susanna finds that guild rules preventing women from working do not apply at the king’s court, and she manages to secure a position as a miniature-portrait painter. Before long, she has not only made a name for herself, she is close to those who surround Princess Mary. But even in this lofty company, Susanna is not safe....
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DON'T FALL FOR THE PRINT VERSION AMAZON REVIEWS
- By The Louligan on 03-06-14
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The Fairy Tales of Herman Hesse
- By: Hermann Hesse, Jack Zipes - translator
- Narrated by: Donovan
- Length: 2 hrs and 53 mins
- Highlights
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Step into a world of visions, philosophy, and passion in which dreamers, seekers, princesses, and wandering poets dwell. The 6 wonderful, romantic tales in this collection are reminiscent of ancient Oriental and German fairy tales. The selections, "The Poet," "The Flute Dream," "The Dwarf," "Faldum," "Ziegler," and "Dream of the Gods" were hand-picked by the narrator, legendary folk and rock musician Donovan.
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The reading is quiet and heavenly
- By Atalante Lemuria on 11-12-20
By: Hermann Hesse, and others
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The Leopard
- A Novel
- By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, Archibald Colquhuon - translator
- Narrated by: Paul Woodson
- Length: 9 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Set in the 1860s, The Leopard tells the spellbinding story of a decadent, dying Sicilian aristocracy threatened by the approaching forces of democracy and revolution. The dramatic sweep and richness of observation, the seamless intertwining of public and private worlds, and the grasp of human frailty imbue The Leopard with its particular melancholy beauty and power, and place it among the greatest historical novels of our time.
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Timeless
- By Robert Massarella on 12-05-23
By: Giuseppe di Lampedusa, and others
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The Satanic Verses
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sam Dastor
- Length: 21 hrs and 36 mins
- Unabridged
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Inextricably linked with the fatwa called against its author in the wake of the novel’s publication, The Satanic Verses is, beyond that, a rich showcase for Salman Rushdie’s comic sensibilities, cultural observations, and unparalleled mastery of language. The book begins with two Indians plummeting from the sky after the explosion of their airliner, and proceeds through a series of metamorphoses, dreams and revelations.
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Use an audiobook to really enjoy Satanic Verses
- By David Edelberg on 11-24-12
By: Salman Rushdie
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The Red-Haired Woman
- A Novel
- By: Orhan Pamuk
- Narrated by: John Lee, Katharine Lee McEwan
- Length: 7 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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On the outskirts of a town 30 miles from Istanbul, a master well digger and his young apprentice are hired to find water on a barren plain. As they struggle in the summer heat, excavating without luck meter by meter, the two will develop a filial bond neither has known before - not the poor middle-aged bachelor nor the middle-class boy whose father disappeared after being arrested for politically subversive activities. The pair will come to depend on each other and exchange stories reflecting disparate views of the world.
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Drags On
- By T. Conrad on 10-25-17
By: Orhan Pamuk
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The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories
- By: Nikolai Gogol
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 17 hrs and 2 mins
- Unabridged
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The Diary of a Madman and Other Stories is a bizarre and colorful collection containing the finest short stories by the iconic Russian writer Nikolai Gogol. From the witty and Kafkaesque "The Nose", where a civil servant wakes up one day to find his nose missing, to the moving and evocative "The Overcoat", about a reclusive man whose only ambition is to replace his old, threadbare coat, Gogol gives us a unique take on the absurd.
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Brilliant writer, fantastic narration, plus TOC
- By Reader on 04-01-22
By: Nikolai Gogol
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Birds Without Wings
- By: Louis de Bernieres
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 23 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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Birds Without Wings is the story of a small town in Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the men and women (Armenians, Christians, and Muslims) whose lives are intertwined and rooted there: Iskander, the potter and local fount of wisdom; Philotei, the Christian girl of legendary beauty, courted almost from infancy by Ibrahim the goatherd, a great love that culminates in tragedy and madness; and many more.
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Not for the faint of heart
- By a on 01-03-05
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In the Name of the Family
- A Novel
- By: Sarah Dunant
- Narrated by: Nicholas Boulton
- Length: 14 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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It is 1502, and Rodrigo Borgia, a self-confessed womanizer and master of political corruption, is now on the papal throne as Alexander VI. His daughter Lucrezia, age 22 - already three times married and a pawn in her father's plans - is discovering her own power. And then there is his son Cesare Borgia, brilliant, ruthless, and increasingly unstable; it is his relationship with Machiavelli that gives the Florentine diplomat a master class in the dark arts of power and politics.
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One of the best historical fiction novels
- By GrandmaNurseHeather on 04-13-17
By: Sarah Dunant
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Galilee
- By: Clive Barker
- Narrated by: Paul Hecht
- Length: 23 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The Barbarossa family’s roots are far more ancient and ethereal, but they are bound to the Gearys by a shared history of murder, insanity, and adultery. When Rachel Geary and Galilee, the seductive prince of the Barbarossa clan, fall in love, they unleash powerful enmities that could destroy both dynasties. Shorter and more conventional than some of Barker’s other work, this novel is especially rich with complex, passionate, three-dimensional characters, lush settings, and elegant language.
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An Audiophile's Dream
- By Joseph on 09-01-11
By: Clive Barker
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A Tale of Love and Darkness
- By: Amos Oz
- Narrated by: Stefan Rudnicki
- Length: 23 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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It is the story of a boy growing up in the war-torn Jerusalem of the 40s and 50s in a small apartment crowded with books in 12 languages and relatives speaking nearly as many. His mother and father, both wonderful people, were ill-suited to each other. When Oz was 12 and a half years old, his mother committed suicide - a tragedy that was to change his life. He leaves the constraints of the family and the community of dreamers, scholars, and failed businessmen to join a kibbutz.
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His life was interesting, but not his memoir
- By DR Harle on 01-27-19
By: Amos Oz
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Abundance
- A Novel of Marie Antoinette
- By: Sena Jeter Naslund
- Narrated by: Susanna Burney
- Length: 11 hrs and 52 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Marie Antoinette was a child of 14 when she was made to leave her family and country to become the wife of another child, France's 15-year-old King Louis the XVI. Far from home and suddenly thrust not only into the role of a woman and wife, but of a queen, Marie Antoinette lived an astonishing, though short, existence.
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Not for history fans
- By Cx30 on 12-09-06
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Following years of lonely political exile in Western Europe, Ka, a middle-aged poet, returns to Istanbul to attend his mother's funeral. Only partly recognizing this place of his cultured, middle-class youth, he is even more disoriented by news of strange events in the wider country: a wave of suicides among girls forbidden to wear their head scarves at school.
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All the good & bad that is Pamuk
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Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
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one of the very best I've ever heard
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Istanbul
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A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.
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Terrible pronunciation
- By K. Jaynes on 02-25-18
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Nights of Plague
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- By: Orhan Pamuk, Ekin Oklap - translator
- Narrated by: Amira Ghazalla
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It is April 1900, in the Levant, on the imaginary island of Mingheria—the twenty-ninth state of the Ottoman Empire—located in the eastern Mediterranean between Crete and Cyprus. Half the population is Muslim, the other half are Orthodox Greeks, and tension is high between the two. When a plague arrives—brought either by Muslim pilgrims returning from the Mecca or by merchant vessels coming from Alexandria—the island revolts.
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TOO Long!!!
- By Rachel Bahadir on 07-31-23
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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The Black Book
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Galip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective novel-loving Ruya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her ex-husband or Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl's identity, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear the worst.
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Pamuk read by John Lee....
- By Murasaki on 05-26-18
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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A Strangeness in My Mind
- A Novel
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- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 21 hrs and 56 mins
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Since his boyhood Mevlut Karataş has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he'd hoped, at the age of 12 he comes to Istanbul - "the center of the world" - and is immediately enthralled by both the old city that is disappearing and the new one that is fast being built. He follows his father's trade, selling boza on the street and hoping to become rich like other villagers who have settled the desolate hills outside the booming metropolis. But luck never seems to be on Mevlut's side.
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A Strangeness in My Mind: A Delight for my Commute
- By Andrea Frank on 03-19-16
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Snow
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- Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins
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Following years of lonely political exile in Western Europe, Ka, a middle-aged poet, returns to Istanbul to attend his mother's funeral. Only partly recognizing this place of his cultured, middle-class youth, he is even more disoriented by news of strange events in the wider country: a wave of suicides among girls forbidden to wear their head scarves at school.
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All the good & bad that is Pamuk
- By Elizabeth on 08-13-07
By: Orhan Pamuk
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The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely (translator)
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
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Overall
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Performance
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Kemal, scion of one of the city's wealthiest families, is about to become engaged to Sibel, daughter of another prominent family, when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shopgirl and a distant relation. Once the long-lost cousins violate the code of virginity, a rift begins to open between Kemal and the world of the Westernized Istanbul bourgeosie - a world, as he lovingly describes it, with opulent parties and clubs, society gossip, picnics, and mansions on the Bosphorus, infused with the melancholy of decay.
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one of the very best I've ever heard
- By Rebecca Lindroos on 03-06-10
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Istanbul
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- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 9 hrs and 46 mins
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A shimmering evocation, by turns intimate and panoramic, of one of the world’s great cities, by its foremost writer. Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul and still lives in the family apartment building where his mother first held him in her arms. His portrait of his city is thus also a self-portrait, refracted by memory and the melancholy—or hüzün—that all Istanbullus share.
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Terrible pronunciation
- By K. Jaynes on 02-25-18
By: Orhan Pamuk
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Nights of Plague
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- By: Orhan Pamuk, Ekin Oklap - translator
- Narrated by: Amira Ghazalla
- Length: 29 hrs and 8 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is April 1900, in the Levant, on the imaginary island of Mingheria—the twenty-ninth state of the Ottoman Empire—located in the eastern Mediterranean between Crete and Cyprus. Half the population is Muslim, the other half are Orthodox Greeks, and tension is high between the two. When a plague arrives—brought either by Muslim pilgrims returning from the Mecca or by merchant vessels coming from Alexandria—the island revolts.
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-
TOO Long!!!
- By Rachel Bahadir on 07-31-23
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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The Black Book
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely - translator
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 19 hrs and 16 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Galip is a lawyer living in Istanbul. His wife, the detective novel-loving Ruya, has disappeared. Could she have left him for her ex-husband or Celâl, a popular newspaper columnist? But Celâl, too, seems to have vanished. As Galip investigates, he finds himself assuming the enviable Celâl's identity, wearing his clothes, answering his phone calls, even writing his columns. Galip pursues every conceivable clue, but the nature of the mystery keeps changing, and when he receives a death threat, he begins to fear the worst.
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Pamuk read by John Lee....
- By Murasaki on 05-26-18
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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A Strangeness in My Mind
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Since his boyhood Mevlut Karataş has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he'd hoped, at the age of 12 he comes to Istanbul - "the center of the world" - and is immediately enthralled by both the old city that is disappearing and the new one that is fast being built. He follows his father's trade, selling boza on the street and hoping to become rich like other villagers who have settled the desolate hills outside the booming metropolis. But luck never seems to be on Mevlut's side.
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A Strangeness in My Mind: A Delight for my Commute
- By Andrea Frank on 03-19-16
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Istanbul
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- Narrated by: John Lee
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Turkey's greatest living novelist guides us through the monuments and lost paradises, dilapidated Ottoman villas, back streets, and waterways of Istanbul - the city of his birth and the home of his imagination.
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Birds Without Wings
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- Narrated by: John Lee
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- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
Birds Without Wings is the story of a small town in Anatolia in the dying days of the Ottoman Empire told in the richly varied voices of the men and women (Armenians, Christians, and Muslims) whose lives are intertwined and rooted there: Iskander, the potter and local fount of wisdom; Philotei, the Christian girl of legendary beauty, courted almost from infancy by Ibrahim the goatherd, a great love that culminates in tragedy and madness; and many more.
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Not for the faint of heart
- By a on 01-03-05
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The Glass Palace
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- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
Set in Burma during the British invasion of 1885, this masterly novel by Amitav Ghosh tells the story of Rajkumar, a poor boy lifted on the tides of political and social chaos, who goes on to create an empire in the Burmese teak forest. When soldiers force the royal family out of the Glass Palace and into exile, Rajkumar befriends Dolly, a young woman in the court of the Burmese Queen, whose love will shape his life. He cannot forget her, and years later, as a rich man, he goes in search of her.
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I struggled to finish... enough said.
- By Ty on 05-02-10
By: Amitav Ghosh
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The Museum of Innocence
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Maureen Freely
- Narrated by: John Lee
- Length: 20 hrs and 33 mins
- Unabridged
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Overall
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Performance
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Story
It is a perfect spring day in Istanbul. Kemal, a wealthy heir, is about to become engaged to the aristocratic Sibel when he encounters Füsun, a beautiful shop girl. He falls in love and finds his established world of Westernized families, opulent parties, society gossip and dining room rituals is shattered.
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Romantic with a Sardonic Twist
- By Audible Customer on 03-06-23
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Memories of Distant Mountains
- Illustrated Notebooks: 2009-2022
- By: Orhan Pamuk, Ekin Oklap
- Narrated by: Tolga Safer
- Length: 11 hrs
- Unabridged
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Story
For many years, Orhan Pamuk kept a record of his daily thoughts and observations, entering them in small notebooks and illustrating them with his own paintings. This book combines those notebooks into one volume. He writes about his travels around the world, his family, his writing process, and his complex relationship with his home country of Turkey. He charts the seeds of his novels and the things that inspired his characters and the plots of his stories. Intertwined in his writings are the vibrant paintings of the landscapes that surround and inspire him.
By: Orhan Pamuk, and others
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Istanbul: A Tale of Three Cities
- By: Bettany Hughes
- Narrated by: Bettany Hughes
- Length: 24 hrs and 35 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
From the Koran to Shakespeare, this city with three names - Byzantium, Constantinople, Istanbul - resonates as an idea and a place, real and imagined. Standing as the gateway between East and West, North and South, it has been the capital city of the Roman, Byzantine, and Ottoman Empires. For much of its history it was the very center of the world, known simply as "The City", but, as Bettany Hughes reveals, Istanbul is not just a city but a global story.
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A daunting undertaking pulled off superlatively
- By SGS on 12-24-17
By: Bettany Hughes
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In a Dark Wood Wandering
- By: Hella S. Haasse
- Narrated by: Katherine Kellgren
- Length: 26 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
In this novel, set in the 15th century during the Hundred Years' War between France and England, Hella Haasse brilliantly captures all the drama of one of the great ages of history.
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Challenging, but worth it!
- By Ina on 03-25-17
By: Hella S. Haasse
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The Moor's Last Sigh
- By: Salman Rushdie
- Narrated by: Sunil Malhotra
- Length: 20 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
Booker Prize-winning author Salman Rushdie combines a ferociously witty family saga with a surreally imagined and sometimes blasphemous chronicle of modern India and flavors the mixture with peppery soliloquies on art, ethnicity, religious fanaticism, and the terrifying power of love. Moraes "Moor" Zogoiby, the last surviving scion of a dynasty of Cochinese spice merchants and crime lords, is also a compulsive storyteller and an exile.
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The performance is enchanting.
- By Kelly on 05-04-18
By: Salman Rushdie
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The Janissary Tree
- A Novel
- By: Jason Goodwin
- Narrated by: Stephen Hoye
- Length: 11 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Story
It is 1836. Europe is modernizing, and the Ottoman Empire must follow suit. But just before the sultan announces sweeping changes, a wave of murders threatens the balance of power in his court. Who is behind them? Only one intelligence agent can be trusted to find out: Yashim Togalu, a man both brilliant and near-invisible in this world. You see, Yashim is a eunuch.
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Interesting premise, annoying narrator
- By Phillipa Somerville on 09-18-07
By: Jason Goodwin
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Istanbul
- City of Majesty at the Crossroads of the World
- By: Thomas F. Madden
- Narrated by: Edoardo Ballerini
- Length: 14 hrs and 26 mins
- Unabridged
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Performance
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Story
For more than two millennia, Istanbul has stood at the crossroads of the world, perched at the very tip of Europe, gazing across the shores of Asia. The history of this city - known as Byzantium, then Constantinople, now Istanbul - is at once glorious, outsized, and astounding. Founded by the Greeks, its location blessed it as a center for trade but also made it a target of every empire in history, from Alexander the Great and his Macedonian Empire, to the Romans and later the Ottomans.
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A History Without People
- By SeanO on 04-02-19
By: Thomas F. Madden
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The Bastard of Istanbul
- By: Elif Shafak
- Narrated by: Laural Merlington
- Length: 12 hrs and 38 mins
- Unabridged
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In her second novel written in English, Elif Shafak confronts her country's violent past in a vivid and colorful tale set in both Turkey and the United States. At its center is the "bastard" of the title, Asya, a 19-year-old woman who loves Johnny Cash and the French Existentialists, and the four sisters of the Kazanci family who all live together in an extended household in Istanbul.
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A tender gift from far away
- By Barbara on 11-07-07
By: Elif Shafak
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Palace Walk
- Cairo Trilogy Series, Book 1
- By: Naguib Mahfouz, William Maynard Hutchins - translator, Olive E. Kenny - translator
- Narrated by: Neil Shah
- Length: 21 hrs and 3 mins
- Unabridged
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A national best seller in both hardcover and paperback, the first book of the masterful Cairo Trilogy introduces the engrossing saga of a Muslim family in Cairo during Egypt's occupation by British forces in the early 1900s.
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great book, not so great narration
- By Amazon Customer on 02-01-19
By: Naguib Mahfouz, and others
What listeners say about My Name Is Red
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Corinne O'Rourke
- 03-28-23
Interesting and Exhausting in it’s attention to detail
Not for the faint of heart
I loved the way different perspectives were used in this very cerebral homage to history and artistry rolled in there was a “who done it” that for me was anticlimactic by the time it was answered. Not without it’s merits I wouldn’t be quick to recommend or reread this. The narrator’s voice was lovely.
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Overall
- C
- 07-30-09
A good choice
I really enjoyed this slightly unconventional book. The narration was also excellent. there were 2 things that I didn't like about it. it was a little long and repetitive and it was confusing in parts.
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3 people found this helpful
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- Karuṇā
- 02-21-19
A Nobel, Bravura Performance
A hysterically funny, sardonic, classic work by a magnificent writer. It's historical, moving, and wonderfully performed by the great John Lee. I read the book and listened to it twice on Audible. Gets better every time.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-05-17
Poor performance
The narrator pronounces almost all the names totally wrong and with difficulty. He struggles with the Persian and Arabic words so bad that ruins the experience of listening. His sense of timing and choices of intonations are inconsistent and predictable. The performance does not elevate the text but degrades it.
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- May
- 09-06-21
Worthy of it’s Nobel
Orhan Pamuk has managed to pour all that is great and important about the history of a highly artistic, religious, and everchanging land with a great deal of elegance and mystery. The best parts of the book come to life because you understand so well how artists and religion are colliding during this time, the historical background is painted for you just enough to build up the fighting and fear and mystery and love. Excellently narrated, is there anything they got wrong? This story is a gem, as an audiobook it comes alive even more.
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- Paulina VN
- 05-05-22
Great reader
I loved and enjoyed the exquisite interpretation of this amazing story.
Absolutely recommended
And looking forward to Re-listen it again
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- Reem
- 07-29-23
A wonderous philosophical story..
A beautiful novel set in Ancient Turkey during the height of the Ottoman empire. A story that honors the art of miniaturists, the rivalries between them, Sultan power, politics, and all the intricacies between. A journey that is both dangerous and loving. This one was hard to put down.
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- John L. Moncrief
- 03-12-15
A Dense Story that Stays with You
Not an easy story for me to keep up with in the audio book form due to the Turkish names and the detailed description of Turkish and Persian miniatures and miniaturists, It is the story of a murder within the Ottoman community of court sponsored miniaturists but also an examination of the brutality of Ottoman system and the stultifying effects of an ever narrowing Islamic clerical interpretation of what kind of art is permissible. Although I found the book sometimes tedious and sometimes difficult to follow, it has stayed with since I read it. John Lee is an over-the-top narrator with his old fashioned rolling "r's" and English acting style but his seeming command of Turkish words is amazing as well as his abililty to portray different characters.
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8 people found this helpful
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- Chris
- 12-23-14
Effect lost in an audio version?
I loved it and I didn't. Snow by Pamuk is one of my favourite books - poetic, beautifully written, intriguing and historical. However, I read Snow in print and listened to Red on audible. I liked the storyline of Red very much. I found the first person narrative interesting, however, it was easy to lose track of who's voice was being expressed. I thought the narrator had a nice voice, but found very little variance between the characters - e.g. couldn't tell the difference between the voices of Black, the protagonist, from the murderer, and the miniaturists.
I do recommend the book, with the caution that it's not an easy listen if you like to attend to the details of a story. If you like to read print as well, this is probably a book better suited to print.
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- John L. Murphy
- 05-29-16
Butterfly, Olive, Stork, and more tell their tales
Where does My Name Is Red rank among all the audiobooks you’ve listened to so far?
In terms of performance, once again for Turkish themed audiobooks, John Lee shines. In terms of Orhan Pamuk's works I've heard so far (this is the third), it is uneven if beguiling.
What was the most interesting aspect of this story? The least interesting?
I liked the wonderful descriptions in Chapters 28 and 58 (these may vary a bit in the format used to access this online or as a download) of manuscript illuminators' tensions and successes. The challenge to create as if one sees the world for one's self as with the Franks, or the way Allah sees the world, as with the school of Herat in Persia, intrigues.
The least interesting was as with Pamuk's other books his tendency to wander off. He gives so much detail and so many subplots that he can lose the reader or listener. Better to let this narration float on, and not to worry about the intricate details of the mystery itself herein.
What about the narrator’s performance did you like?
John Lee masterfully captures the sounds of Turkish in translation. This as it's narrated by a variety of men and women as well as a dog, a horse, Satan, a gold coin, and maybe Death is difficult to follow as a listener. But Lee does his best to remind us of the different voices.
Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?
No, as it is far too long. As I said above, it's preferable to take this at small portions. After a while, Pamuk's flow takes you up and the plot does not matter as much as the feel of the book. John Lee is a trustworthy guide as he navigates the ebbs and flurries of the novel.
Any additional comments?
It does encourage you to reflect on the shifts from traditional to modern art. Pamuk lavishes lots of love on the manuscripts he clearly loves. His enthusiasm is contagious, and erudite.
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