tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post111579819408495829..comments2024-03-28T22:51:28.222+05:30Comments on The Middle Stage: Orhan Pamuk's IstanbulChandrahashttp://www.blogger.com/profile/07483080477755487202noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-82784222894262101762008-06-13T19:25:00.000+05:302008-06-13T19:25:00.000+05:30My comment has to do with your first sentence ("Pe...My comment has to do with your first sentence ("People who have travelled comparatively little but read quite a lot.."), as well as something the commenter above has mentioned in passing (" Pamuk's vision has completely supplanted my own memories of the city"): when does reading start supplanting real-life experience? While a book about, say, Istanbul by Orhan Pamuk, may provide a far, far more valuable picture of this place than we might ever personally hope to form, what does one give weight to? Is not personal, first-hand experience eventually more valuable - however less fleshed out it might seem in comparison - than the experience of something obtained from reading about someone else's experience?Ashwin Raghuhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03308636197495458632noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-9082470.post-1155634716859816532006-08-15T15:08:00.000+05:302006-08-15T15:08:00.000+05:30I have to say I loved Istanbul - and I never reall...I have to say I loved Istanbul - and I never really got it as a city when I visited in the late 1980s. Now it's reconstructed in my mind as an almost mesmeric place, drifting with smoke from coke fires. Pamuk's vision has completely supplanted my own memories of the city - which is a little strange but a testament to Pamuk's writing skill.Adrian Westonhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16949094257780832625noreply@blogger.com