Pamuk’s “Istanbul”: great for prose other than fiction

People are finding this work a winner for prose other than the novel or short story.  It crosses genre distinctions with ease, including travel notes, autobiography, literary criticism–and probably others. It contains a sentence that could go head to head with all others for length in the chapter, ‘Huzun’  a word which describes the feeling of melancholy from a Turkish angle. Perhaps something of the Portuguese ‘saudade.”  Both are akin to the mode often described in the English literary tradition as “elegiac.” It’s not uncommon for adolescents to come face to face with this phenomenon, and Pamuk gives them a good introduction to coming to some articulation about it.

Adding in the youtube video entitled ‘Huzun’ provides a good visual accompaniment.

[youtuber youtube=’http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SGtvxu55F4′]

Try this text or even an excerpt in Part 4.