The New Life PDF
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[hisJ fusion of elegance compansons he ... Timeless has a headlong intensity, a mes- merizing prose style dreamlike of a vision." Weekly ''l'rn dazzled, delighted and eager to read more .... This enchant ing book combines the vertiginous surreality of a dream, the mythic resonance of a fairy tale, the heroic adventure (in ironie version) of a comic book and the sly sleight ofhand of a Borges." -Dan Cryer, Newsday ttPamuk in his dispassionate intelligence and arabesques of intro- spection suggests Proust." - John Updike, The New Yorker UWe are fortunate that Pamuk is alive, and that his The New Life is out there." - The Nation "Turkey's foremost novelist and one of the most interesting figùres anywhere ... a first-rate storyteller. ... Pamuk's is an astonishing achievernent." - The Times Literary Supplement (London) a HAn Aiso by R PAIl1UK The White Castle The Black Book My Name is Red Snow Orhan Pamuk is the author of seven novels and the recipient of major Turkish and international literary awards. is one of Europe's most prominent novelists, and his work has been translated into twenty-six languages. He lives in Istanbul. INTERNATIONAL .. For ~eküre FIRST VINTAGE INTERNATIONAL EDITION, APRIL 1998 Translation copyright © 1997 by Güneli G'ün AlI rights rese~ed under International and Pan-Ameriean Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Vintage Books, a division of Random House, Ine., New York. Originally.published in Turkish as Yeni Hayat by Ilep§im Yaylnlan in 1994- Copyright © 1994 by Orhan Pamuk. First Ameriean edition originally published in hardeover in the United States by Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Ine., New York, in 1997, and published here by arrangement with Farrar, Straus & Giroux, Ine. The translations of passages from Dante' s La Vita Nuova in Chapter 15 are by Barbara Reynolds (Penguin Classies, 1969) and that from Rainer Maria Rilke' s Duino Elegies is by David Young (Norton, 1978). The other translations are Güneli Gün's, by way of the Turkish version. N e§ati Akkalen and his book are Orhan Pamuk's invention. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publieation Data Pamuk, Orhan, 1952- , [Yeni hayat, English] The new life / Orhan Pamuk : translated by Güneli GÜn. p.em. ISBN 0-375-7°171-0 1. Gün, GÜneli. II. Title. PL248.P34Y46131998 894'·3533-de21 97-35622 CIP Author photograph © Miriam Berkley Random House Web address: www.randomhouse.eom Printed in the United States of America 10 9 8 7 6 others experienced even they same tales. - NOVALIS 1 READ A BOOK ONE DAY AND MY WHOLE LIFE WAS on page 1 was so affected book' s intensity 1 my body sever itself and away 1 sat reading the book that lay before me on the table. even though 1 my body dissociating, my entire being remained so concertèdly at the table that the book worked its influence not only on my soui but on every aspect of my iden tity. was such a powerful influence that the light surging from the pages illumined my face; its incandescence dazzied my intel lect but also endowed it with briUiant lucidity. This was the kind of light within which 1 could recast myself; 1 could lose my way in this light; 1 already sensed in the light the shadows of an ex istence 1 had yet to know and embrace. 1 sat at the table, turning the pages, my mind barely aware that 1 was reading, and my whole life was changing as 1 read the new words on e~ch new page. 1 felt so unprepared for everything that was to befall me, and so helpless, that after a while 1 moved my face away instinctively as if to protect myself from the power that surged from the pages. was with dread that 1 became aware of the complete transfor mation of the world around me, and 1 was overtaken by a feeling of loneliness 1 never before experienced-as 1 been 4 Orhan PaIIluk stranded in a country where 1 knew neither the lay of the land nor the language and the customs. 1 fastened onto the book even more intensely in the face of the helplessness brought on by that feeling of isolation. Nothing be sides the book could reveal to me what was my necessary course . of action, what it was that 1 might believe in, or observe, and what path my life was to take in the new country in which 1 found myself. 1 read on, turning the pages now as if 1 were reading a guidebook which would lead me through a strange and savage land. Help me, 1 felt like saying, help me find the new life, safe and unscathed by any mishap. Yet 1 knew the new life was built on words in the guidebook. 1 read it word for word, trying to find my path, but at the same time 1 was also imagining, to my own amazement, wonders upon wonders which would surely lead me astray. The book layon lUy table reflecting its light on my face, yet it seemed similar to the other familiar objects in the room. While 1 accepted with joy and wonder the possibility of a new life in the new world that lay before me, 1 was aware that the book which had changed my life so intensely was in fact something quite ordinary. My mind gradually opened its doors and windows to the wonders of the new world the words promised me, and yet 1 seemed to recall a chance encounter that had led me to the book. But the memory was no more than a superficial image, one that hadn't completely impressed itself on my consciousness. As 1 read on, a certaindread prompted me to reflect on the image: the new world the book revealed was so alien, so odd and astonishing that, in order to escape being totally immersed in this universe, 1 was anxious to sense anything related to the present. What if 1 raised my eyes from the book and looked around at my room, my wardrobe, my bed, or glanced out the window, but did not find the world as 1 knew it? 1 was inhabited with this fear. Minutes and pages followed one another, trains ~ent by in the
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