Istanbul: Memories and the City Istanbul: Memories and the City Istanbul: Memories and the City ("İstanbul: Hatıralar ve Şehir") is a largely autobiographical memoir by Orhan Pamuk that is deeply melancholic. It talks about the vast cultural change that has rocked Turkey – the unending battle between the modern and the receding past. It is also a eulogy to the lost joint family tradition. Most of all, it is a book about Bosphorus and Istanbul's history with the strait. It was translated into English by Maureen Freely in 2005. Pamuk wrote the book when he was on the verge of depression. In an interview he
Strait is the Gate the one finding a secret permission in the excess of the other, so that the two together form an equipoise?" The title refers to a phrase in the Gospel of Luke in the Bible: This verse appears at the end of the first chapter as the subject of a sermon on the Sunday after Alissa's mother runs away with another man. During this sermon Jerome resolves to become virtuous enough to deserve Alissa. However Alissa ultimately interprets the "strait and narrow" to preclude any earthly happiness that Jerome and she could share in marriage. The problem here being that the