a strangeness (4)

Pamuk’s ninth novel and his second since winning the Nobel Prize in 2006 — aspires to cartographic exactitude. It is a big book, bristling with paraphernalia: indexes, character lists and epigraphs. But it is also an intimate one, contrasting 40 years of Istanbul’s political and demographic upheaval with the quotidian experiences of some of its inhabitants. In a timeline at the back of the book, world-historical events (the Tiananmen Square protests, 9/11) are recorded alongside more everyday happenings — a first kiss, the growth of a moustache, the first viewing of a pornographic film — giving equal weight to each.

from here, FT.