Review of 'Istanbul'

A melancholy sort of autobiographical account of the city, interspersed with historical interludes but essentially the history of the author and what it felt to grow up in Istanbul in the 1950s and 1960s. Lots of engagement with the very mixed legacy of Turkish Republican Nationalism, in a way that few other Turkish people seem to want to do; as in 'Snow', he is not a religious fundamentalist but seems to have a certain sympathy for the people that are simple conservative Muslims. He wallows in the city's decay in a way that is a bit like ruin porn, but tied into a certain melancholy awareness that it has lots its role as the capital at the centre of the multinational, two-continents Ottoman empire. Bits of the book put me to sleep, but in other places it was utterly compelling.