Rating: 
Summary: Pamuk adds passion to his pallette
Review: My Name is Red is as sensual as the color it borrows its name from. While there are comparisons to Umberto Eco or Italo Calvino, this novel is far more accessible and has a lyrical quality the formers don't. While it's true the novel marries art history with philosophy and wraps them all in an intriguing cloak of romance and mystery there's a more intricate tapestry here. I absorbed the first person narratives of the characters (animate and inanimate) the same way one takes in a new painting in a museum or gallery - the one that stops and speaks to you from not only it's composition and technique, but from some deep emotional well of recognition. I'm so glad Mr. Pamuk has added passion (red) to his palette.
Rating: 
Summary: The joy is in the destination
Review: very uneven mix of dialogue/plot and history/theology...the joy here is not in the journey, but in the destination...The End.
Rating: 
Summary: four stars, because he is going to keep writing..
Review: When I read Pamuk's this book, I thought that 'Red' is not a color itself, a color that contains all colors and a color that contains no any color (even,red) at the same time.
Anybody who wish to understand Pamuk's books have to find the deepest meaning of 'being everywhere and nowhere at the same time', this can't be understood clearly and,just because of that it is pure reality. In my opinion, Pamuk's books are implying that 'There are only ways to walk but nowhere to arrive'.
Rating:
Summary: A theological/political historical thriller.
Review: Orhan Pamuk has written a political/theological murder mystery, if such a work can be imagined. He has cleverly and imaginatively posed the question of how a Muslim society, in this case his beloved Turkey, reacts when faced with the "modern" as represented here by Frankish western Europe. Although the issue is over art, the real issue is theological: What is God and how does He see the world? On one side is the modified realism of the west as seen by the Greeks and modified by St. Thomas Aquinas. God, he said, is the creator of the world and, like a painter, stands apart from His good creation. And to study His creation (through science) is good because it is the study of the work of God. Islam, on the other hand sees the scientific examination of the work of God as blasphemous, To study the real world, say, the study of oxygen cycle of plants and to deduce its scientific laws, is to imply limits on the limitless will of God. That debate here is cast in the language of art. Traditional miniaturist art vs. the emerging realist art of western Europe. The plot of the book revolves around the seductive quality of realistic European art among the Ottoman Empire's intellectuals and leadership and the rearguard actions and thinking of the traditionalists. What I have said above only gradually emerges but Mr. Panuk explicitedly tips his hand at the end of the novel when he cites an event in the early 17th century when Ottoman Sultan Ahmet I, destroyes the large clock with statuary sent to the sultan as a present by Queen Elizabeth I. This World Trade Center stand-in of the day, must be destroyed. In Nov. I am making a twenty day tour of Turkey and I happened upon this wonderful novel as part of my preparation. What good fortune. Orhan Pamuk's prose is a delight. It was either very difficult to translate or very easy. I don't know which. But the prose is fabulous, ranking with that of today's Tom Wolfe or the great English novelist of the contemporary Indian subcontinent...
Rating:
Summary: Great depth of style, uninteresting story
Review: The short story: - Orhan Pamuk's writing style is outstanding.
- His method of relating the story/plot and characters as alternating perspectives on events is refreshing.
- Outside of those interested in historical Persia, the story line itself is rather boring and once my interest is Pamuk's prose itself wore off, I lost interest in what was happening.
Rating:
Summary: Intriguing
Review: My Name is Red is an extraordinary book. Set in Turkey in the 16th century, the novel revolves around a murder mystery of a Sultan miniaturist. The mystery component is fascinating and keeps the reader wanting more. This interest is further spiked by the way the novel is composed--different chapters are told by different characters, paintings, the murdered, the killer, Satan, colors, death. The reader gradually pieces together the whole story, gaining a textured and deep perspective on the plot. The book however is as much about the mystery as it is about the perception of art--what is truly art and what is a sacrelidge. Through the eyes of the various characters, we experience the doubts, creativity and dispair artists experience when the fruits of their entire lives are questioned by the approach of more modern and open styles. At the same time, enthusiasm, freedom and ambition guide the artists who are ready to give up tradition to pursue their individuality. It is the conflict between the norm and standard vs. individuality and and ambition that gives the book its essence.
Rating: 
Summary: Nothing but a tremendous disappointment..........
Review: Whenever ý read the books of Mr. Pamuk, I was always
surprised at his point of view in looking the history
of his own nation. It seems that Mr. Pamuk has never
supposed himself as a member of the Turkish society.
As if, he tries to communicate a hidden message to the
West in all of his books that "it is an unfortunate
mistake of the nature to send me to Turkiye instead of
one of the Western countries! I am doubtlessly on your
side, please believe me!!" It is because of this character of his books that makes him popular day by
day in USA.. I do not think that he should be counted
among the best Turkish authors. He believes and sees
that to be meaningless in his writings is interpreted
as an indication of a great talent and brilliant
mind.. In fact, we pay special attention to Europians'
thoughts about what we produced.. Being approved by
them makes us happy and motivated (as part of the
traditional complex of under-developed country
citizens against the Western civilization). Mr. Pamuk
found the way to impress the western media and we
should admit that he knows the way to get approval
from there, even if at the expense of putting a large
gap in between himself and the Turkish community.....
Rating:
Summary: Kafka, Marquez, Mann, Hesse, Usual Suspects, Matrix....
Review: When you read these words, do you have a positive feeling in your mind? Then go and read this book. You will not regret.
Rating:
Summary: A new era.
Review: Though it is not comparable to 'Black Book', in 'My Name is Red', I think, Pamuk has done a great job and opened an era for Turkish readers who usually accustom to so-called 'westernized' modern Turkish literature, as he showed that they have inherited a great history and it did not started in 1923.
Rating:
Summary: crimson says: "my name is red"
Review: This is an exciting book that makes the reader forget about the author. This book is like a diary in which we learn the stories of various objects in different settings rather then that of traditional characters of a novel. A figure in a picture pinned on the wall of a coffee house frequented by the artists, a dead man lying on the bottom of a well waiting for his murderer to be found and punished, a color in a painting (crimson), all talk to the reader and explain themselves, impeding our "misunderstanding" and complementing the mystery - not only the one about the murder that is mentioned in the very beginning of the book, but also the mystery of the objects, people, whatever, and their relationship to one an other as a web of phenomena depicting a life scene from the sixteenth century Ottoman capital, Istanbul. I confess that I was reluctant to read the book when I first heard about it, knowing that a book from Mr. Pamuk is not very easy to read. Yet, the first page stroke me and I realized that I was really thirsty to read it at once. This the best book that I have read recently, I recommmend it to everyone.
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