Customer Rating: 
Summary: An inspired metaphysical journey
Comment: "The New Life" can be read on many levels. In its simplest form, it is the story of a young man (Osman) who falls in love with a young woman (her name is Janin; Osman feels that their names rhyme, which either makes sense in Turkish or otherwise it's a hint that his love has really made him lose it a bit); he loses her, searches for her, finds her, loses her again and so on. But immediately it becomes clear that much more is going on. We are quickly led to read this novel the way that Osman sees his search for Janin: as a metaphysical quest for the meaning of life. But then again, we can also read this book as a critique of the changes occurring in society.
One of the main themes of "The New Life" is coincidences. The protagonist is fooled several times believing something is coincidental when in fact it was all planned (and so are we, the readers). But at the same time, some very unlikely coincidences do occur, as when Janan joins Osman in the bus wreckage after he just sat down in "his" seat. Bus accidents, by the way, are frequently occurring central points in this book, and serve to signify the themes of randomness, fate, coincidence, and also, the way that a destructive event can be the starting point for new creation.
At many points in the story there are anomalies. Early in the story Osman mentions an "Angel" and he himself wonders where he got this from - but later we find out that the angel is a major theme in the book that Osman had just been reading when he said "angel" (which is the beginning of the story). And why, the reader might wonder, is Osman's name kept a secret for the reader until his rival Mehmet has chosen that very same name for himself as an alias? In many ways, this book belongs firmly in the category of the "magical realism" in Dutch/Flemish literature of the 1960's and 70's, examplified by authors such as W.F. Hermans and H. Lampo.
Reading this book one is made to wonder if, by including so many peculiar motives, double-entendres, irregularities, and convergences, the author is trying to convene a deeper message, or if he is simply trying to "be interesting". But then again, perhaps his point with the book is that life itself presents us many times with that very same question: is there a deeper meaning to life, or is it just, well, interesting?
Among the most touching parts of this book are those dealing with the profound changes that have occurred in Turkish society during the protagonist's lifetime. Bus-travel, described in great detail at several points in the story, changes enormously and although one would reflexively consider the changes positive: better hygiene, better illumination, better entertainment, greater safety; the tone of these narratives and the mood emerging are also nostalgic and a bit sad, conveying the sense of something lost while much was gained. At a more general level, similar observations and a similar feeling are conveyed about the change in Turkish society over the past several decades. I cannot know if this is an accurate representation of the changes in that country, but I can testify that I have personally witnessed changes of the same type, and invoking the same feelings, in another country.
The ending of the book was deeply moving to me... but only upon reading the book for a second time. While not wanting to give away too much, let me say that it succeeds in unifying some of the themes of this book in a compelling and satisfactory, if rather sad, manner.
I have great admiration for the translators of literature, and translating a work such as this, with all its symbolism, thematic names, and mystic constructions, must be a nearly superhuman task. Nonetheless, in some places this translation was probably a bit wanting, some sentences being quite elliptic or even nonsensical.
In summary, this is a complex book with many layers of (suggested) meaning underneath a simple story. Not an easy read if you want to get everything out of it. For some, this will be mighty annoying. For lovers of more serious literature, who are willing to spend some time on it, it's a must-read.
Customer Rating: 
Summary: Good Start, Mediocre Middle, Lousy Ending.
Comment: Orhan Pamuk's "Snow" left me absolutely speechless. It was a tour de force in literature that made me want to see what else he had to offer so I checked out "The New Life" on someone else's word. Recommendations usually work out well for me but you can't win them all.
This piece starts out great with Osman, a university student in Turkey, coming across a book that changes his life. It literally changes his life as he no longer knows himself and sets out on a journey of self-discovery across his homeland, hopping buses and searching for others who have lost themselves thanks to the book's mystical influence. We are later told of the book's title and who wrote it but never do we learn what it's actually about. That's kind of a good thing, one of few in this overblown work.
I have to admit that it kind of weirded me out reading about the unusual frequency of bus crashes in this book, as I read it on my bus commute to work every day. But I can't say that that alone swayed me from giving it a good review. It's just not a great book. Is Orhan Pamuk just a one-trick pony? Maybe, as his penchant for making his protagonists fall in love with women at light speed was endearing in "Snow" but painfully repetitious with "The New Life." It kind of makes him look like he's stretching for the romantic without actually knowing what it means.
I didn't really like the characters, I didn't like the morbidity of their obsessions with death and I don't like the book. Read "Snow," it's lightyears better.
Customer Rating:
Summary: Bad Literature.
Comment: This is a very difficult to read book. It is also very abstract and keeps you guessing about meaning of the story until the very end and even then it is hard to figure out what was this all about. Student of something, named Osman, reads a books which puts certain magical spell on him. He reads it over and over abandoning all his studies. The feeling that his life is transformed overwhelms him. That the new life is right behind the corner, right there with the mysterious Angel. Reading the books he gets impression that this book is about himself. In his wandering he meets girl also absorbed into the same book and falls in love with her, who apparently has a lover. Latter on her lover appears to be killed and she disappears. Our hero departs on a journey to find her. And in a fatal bus accident he stills money and identity from one of the dead passengers. Eventually he finds her and now they continue this mindless trip together taking one bus after another as she searches for her lost lover, whom she believes to be alive. This continues for months while she rejects all his attempts to approach her. All this happens on a backdrop of mysterious Angel, search for the new life, promised in the book and some strange semi-permanent current of collision between East and West, search to Turkish identity and what not. Eventually Osman leaves his companion in search of her lover in order to kill him, in which he succeeds. However, when he comes back she is gone forever. A broken man, he continues on living and many years latter he is a gain on a trip to discover mystery of the book, because he remembers caramel candies called "The New Life". Why this is important, how two can be connected is not clear. Resolved this problem, he departs back home and that is when his life and the book end as the bus he is on is about to collide with the oncoming truck. At the end of the book you are hinted that the book young Osman red is the one you are reading. It is all not too bad, but it is full of actions and events to which no causes are given or even seem to be possible to imagine, such as incident with the candies. It is also pretentious in places, especially at the end when main character starts to talk to the reader directly. This is definitely is not a pager turner. I did get impression that the author is trying to be clever, to show off himself as erudite. This book suffers greatly from too many sentences without meaning. All taken into account I would not recommend this book. Still, I have a hard time understanding how this one became a bestseller in Turkey. Not recommended.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A Novelist's Novel
Comment: The first sentence of Pamuk's, The New Life is: "I read a book one day and my whole life was changed." As the main character reads, he is infused with light, literally knocked off the path of his life. From that point on, dear Reader, abandon your preconceptions of what you think a novel should be, for The New Life won't conform to them.
The New Life can best be described as a prolonged, complex and highly poetic metaphor. If you try to take the endless journeys, the long rambling philosphical asides, indeed, the characters themselves, at face value you will find yourself frustrated by the obscurities, the meanderings, and the lack of tidy resolutions which Pamuk manages to dish out in heaping portions from the first to the last page.
In one sense this book is a typical "road story" taking us on an interminable bus ride with the protagonist as he searches for the meaning of life, love, and peace (and ultimately death). Osman, our romantic hero, is beset both by the book he reads and by love in equal portions. In fact, the two become so intertwined that it is almost impossible for the reader (or the author) to make a clear distinction between the transformation precipitated by the book, and the similar transformation produced by the honey-haired beauty who leads him on his long journey into ... what?
This is where most readers will be tempted to toss up their hands. What is our hero seeking? What is this New Life which ruins his placid existence? Why does he seek it with such fervor? Why does it lead to conspiracies, counterconspiracies, assassination? Pamuk doesn't clarify these central questions for us. Instead he heaps on multiple confusions--the main character and his nemesis have the same name, the same "father", the same girlfriend, the same body type, making the reader doubt the reality of either of these characters. The obsessiveness of Osman and the increasing absurdity of the interactions he has with just about everybody throw a constant curve on the plot, and on our willingness to cooperate with it.
So, with all this confusion, obscurity, and outright ridiculousness, (not to mention dizzying shifts of address) how does The New Life manage to work as a novel?
The answer is that it doesn't. The New Life is a parable. Our hero is Turkey itself, caught between the absurdity/tragedy of his/its own past (caramels and kerosene lanterns) and the absurdity/tragedy of his/its present (Coke and hamburgers). The tug-of-war between East and West which characterizes Turkey infuses this entire book. By the end, we are filled with Turkey's restless, unrequited, and unfulfilling love for that which was, and for the "progress" which can never be--Osman's seesaw between self-destructiveness and Nirvana.
Orhan Pamuk is perhaps the most original writer to have emerged in the past two decades. As an author, and as a philospher, he is not afraid to take risks. That quality makes this book a "heavy read", but if you can manage to stick with it, it will infuse you with light, because as Pamuk says "A good book is something that reminds us of the whole world." Like all good parables, The New Life reminds us of ourselves.
Customer Rating:
Summary: A new mysticism
Comment: Orhan Pamuk's main character reads a book and his whole life changes.
My life, unfortunately, was not changed after reading his book. It is far too abstract.
This fluently written search for the sense of life and the unified reality of the world ends in banalities: `What is life? A period of time. What is time? An accident. What is an accident? A life.
The accidents in this book (e.g. a car accident, a mysterious killing by the agents of the CIA and Coca-Cola), the mysterious characters (e.g. Angel(s) `who were unable to divine the mystery in the creation of the viceroy called man') should create a `thriller' atmosphere, but they seem to be more inspired by the readings of `The Principles of Mysticism' or `Annotated Dream Interpretations'.
The main character states that `A good book is something that reminds us of the whole world.'
One asks oneself when reading this novel if there is nothing more important on our planet than illusory meetings, killings, loves and travels.
This book is a perfect flight from reality. A huge disappointment.
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