My Name Is Red

By: Orhan Pamuk

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 20 hrs and 22 mins

Publisher's Summary

In Istanbul, in the late 1590s, the Sultan secretly commissions a great book: a celebration of his life and his empire, to be illuminated by the best artists of the day – in the European manner. But when one of the miniaturists is murdered, their master has to seek outside help. Did the dead painter fall victim to professional rivalry, romantic jealousy or religious terror? 

A thrilling murder mystery, My Name Is Red is also a stunning meditation on love, artistic devotion and the tensions between East and West.

©2001 Orhan Pamuk (P)2012 Faber Audio

Captivating and beautiful

Thoroughly enjoyable, intriguing with a knowledgeable basis. Narrator is fantastic, as always. Highly recommended book.

2 of 2 people found this review helpful

Performance mars content.

An important novel, but one where voice performance dreadfully obstructs the accessibility and enjoyment. To be ungenerous, it screams unrestrained 'luvvy'.

1 of 1 people found this review helpful

Great storyteller even though he tired me at times

A wonderful technique by Orhan but the philosophy of painting didn't inspire me. I prefer his post Nobel books.

Torturous

It's hard to say what does not work here. Is the translation poor? Are the sentences too elaborate and baroque? Is the difference between an contemporary Anglo-phone audience and a medieval Turkish court too wide to remain interested? Temporal and cultural distance does not prevent the enjoyment of say, Umberto Eco's work or Garcia Marquez's, though.

The story begins - intriguingly - with the murder of an illuminator of manuscripts, and we expect to be taken into the world of scribes and illustrators. And so we are, but the pace of description and plotting is as slow, and the story as digressive, as the arabesques adorning the margins of medieval manuscripts. Perhaps that is the point. Unfortunately it did not hold my attention. I have no idea who killed whom and why, and I'm never going to find out: I gave up after four hours.

John Lee's narration feels laboured. Certainly the editing of the chapters, with their abrupt ending and no pause between end and new chapter, makes it harder for the reader to digest the narrative. It's all a little too abrupt.

3 of 6 people found this review helpful