A Strangeness in My Mind

一個移民故事，一部城市史詩。2006年諾貝爾文學獎得主土耳其作家 Orhan Pamuk，對台灣讀者並不陌生，他的小說Benim Adim Kirmizi《我的名字叫紅》、Beyaz Kale《白色城堡》、Masumiyet Muzesi《純真博物館》等書都有中譯本。經過六年的蟄伏後，新作A Strangeness In My Mind正式面市。充滿史詩感又很現代的愛情故事。 Orhan Pamuk說在他的腦海中，與故事的主人公Mevlüt已經共度六年，他是在伊斯坦布爾街頭賣土耳其的發酵飲料Boza的小販，故事以他Mevlut Karatas的一生和白日夢，他一見鍾情的夢中情人，陰錯陽差，娶到的卻是她妹妹……橫跨四十多個歲月，從各種小細節裡尋找蛛絲馬跡將隱蔽街道裡的生活昇華，描繪了伊斯坦布爾乃至土耳其社會的風霜動盪。Orhan Pamuk是土耳其歷史上第一位獲得諾貝爾獎的作家，瑞典皇家科學院的評語是：「在追求他故鄉憂鬱的靈魂時發現了文明之間的衝突和交錯的新象徵。」這本A Strangeness in My Mind受到極大推崇，堅不可摧的樂觀，貫穿整本書，讀來哭笑不得，相信會是繼Benim Adim Kirmizi《我的名字叫紅》之後更受歡迎的土耳其作品。From the Nobel Prize winner and best-selling author of Snow and My Name Is Red: a soaring, panoramic new novel—his first since The Museum of Innocence—telling the unforgettable tale of an Istanbul street vendor and the love of his life. Since his boyhood in a poor village in Central Anatolia, Mevlut Karataş has fantasized about what his life would become. Not getting as far in school as he’d hoped, at the age of twelve 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 (a traditional mildly alcoholic Turkish drink) 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. As he watches his relations settle down and make their fortunes, he spends three years writing love letters to a girl he saw just once at a wedding, only to elope by mistake with her sister. And though he grows to cherish his wife and the family they have, he stumbles toward middle age in a series of jobs leading nowhere. His sense of missing something leads him sometimes to the politics of his friends and intermittently to the teachings of a charismatic religious guide. But every evening, without fail, Mevlut still wanders the streets of Istanbul, selling boza and wondering at the “strangeness” in his mind, the sensation that makes him feel different from everyone else, until fortune conspires once more to let him understand at last what it is he has always yearned for.Told from different perspectives by a host of beguiling characters, A Strangeness in My Mind is a modern epic of coming of age in a great city, a brilliant tableau of life among the newcomers who have changed the face of Istanbul over the past fifty years. Here is a mesmerizing story of human longing, sure to take its place among Pamuk’s finest achievements.