The story is interesting both narratively and in structure, but this audio book reading is pretty terrible.

Such painfully slow narration that I almost gave up!

I very much enjoyed this look at 1980s Turkey. There was so much content to sink my teeth into - from westernization/secularization, religion, nationalism vs. liberalism, generational differences, etc. And it felt like Pamuk handled each of these subjects very thoughtfully and considerately. All of the characters are unlikeable but that doesn't mean they aren't fascinating people to read about. Each of them felt so well drawn and each of the perspectives had such different voices as well. I also liked how Pamuk would often blur time by interrupting a character's thinking about their past with dialogue from the present. One complaint I had was that these inner monologues sometimes felt too long, which made the book slow going at times. Also, I first started reading this book in 2017, but I was put off by what I perceived as a poor translation and didn't pick it back up until last December. While this translation didn't annoy me as much when I picked it up again, I do think the translation is inconsistent in its strengths. The writing style very skillfully depicts a character's thought process, but its descriptions of character's actions felt much plainer and more basic. Of course, I cannot pinpoint whether this is a problem of the translation or with Pamuk's writing style (this is one of his earliest novels as well), but it didn't bother me quite as much this time.

Overall, this book was a very thought-provoking snapshot of a moment in Turkish history and has made me really excited to pick up more Pamuk.

The only reason I didn't give this book 5 stars is because it had no character that I fell in love with. To have a character that is great is very important for a fictional novel to be 5 stars. Look at catcher in the rye, A clockwork orange, Old man and the sea, art of racing in the rain and even Angela's Ashes. However, I began with a negative direction but let me tell you this book is beyond description. The characters are savages who get from boring to good and you keep zooming in and out of their lives. I would be shocked if the point of views of this many a diverse kind of people can be presented any better.


IT IS QUOTABLE. It will cover almost every concept of life. Morality, death, God, religion, cowardice, business, social stigmas, old age melancholy, nostalgia, science, this book is a pile of all that.

Its most redeeming feature is its depth of field. It really surprises you time and gain. Every single character has a quality or a thought that you will relate to.


I related to the dwarf when he was anti social.
I related to the grand mom cause my grand mom is like that maybe
I related to Hasan because he wants to be in so bad
I related to M
I related to N
I related to F
I related to their grandfather....splendid writing!

i bought this book years ago, and tried reading it; but i couldn't grasp what was going on in it. years later, now, after i've read through the books of woolf, joyce, faulkner, and ali smith; and after loving complex patterns of narrations in their books, i thought about reading this again. now, it was much easier. i loved this book. and, i admired pamuk's scintillating skill of applying non-linear, complex, and intersecting narrations through the different polyphonic voices in this novel. also, i loved how he brought the east-west dichotomy in this novel which, as an asian, i understood and somehow related to. i am glad that i thought of giving pamuk another chance. it was worth it.

Warning: I didn't finish this book.

I just can't read this book. Every time I try to read it I get distracted or fall asleep. I'm not sure why, but I can't get into this book.

— Mâncarea e gata, doamnă, i-am spus. Poftiţi la masă!
N-a zis nimic. Stătea rezemată-n baston. M-am dus la ea şi am apucat-o de braţ, apoi am adus-o şi am aşezat-o la masă. S-a mulţumit să bolborosească ceva. Am coborât în bucătărie şi i-am adus tava, apoi i-am pus-o dinainte. S-a uitat la ea, dar nu s-a atins de mâncare. A bombănit ceva şi şi-a lungit grumazul, aşa că mi-am adus aminte să-i pun şervetul. L-am scos din dulap, i l-am trecut pe sub urechile alea mari şi i l-am legat la gât.
— Ce-ai mai gătit în seara asta? Ei, ia să vedem, ce-ai mai scornit?
— Vinete împănate, i-am zis eu. Ştiţi, mi-aţi cerut ieri.
— La prânz?
I-am împins farfuria în faţă. A apucat furculiţa şi-a scociorât prin vânătă. A răvăşit-o niţel, apoi s-a apucat să mănânce.
— Doamnă, uitaţi aici şi salata, i-am zis eu.
M-am dus apoi în bucătărie, mi-am luat o vânătă, m-am aşezat şi m-am apucat să mănânc şi eu.
Puţin mai târziu, a strigat după sare:
— Recep, unde e sarea?
M-am ridicat, m-am dus la ea şi m-am uitat după sare: era chiar sub nasul ei.
— Uitaţi-vă sarea!
— Asta-i ceva nou! a zis ea. De ce te duci dincolo când mănânc eu?
Nu i-am răspuns.
— Vin mâine cu toţii, nu-i aşa?
— Da, doamnă, vin! am zis eu. Nu vă puneţi sare?
— Tu nu te-amesteca în treaba mea! a zis ea. Deci vin?
— Mâine la amiază, am zis eu. Doar v-au telefonat…
— Ce altceva mai ai?
Am dus înapoi jumătatea de vânătă rămasă, am pus frumuşel nişte fasole pe-o farfurie curată şi i-am dus-o. Văzând-o că se apuca să scurme şi-n fasole, scârbită, m-am dus alături şi m-am aşezat, ca să mănânc şi eu. Peste puţin timp a strigat după piper, dar de data asta m-am prefăcut fudul de-o ureche. Apoi a strigat „fructe”, aşa că m-am dus şi i-am împins dinainte castronul cu fructe. Mâna ei subţire, osoasă a prins a se plimba încet, ca un păianjen ostenit, peste piersici.

For some reason, I had really high expectations for this book. The language is very bland, it takes forever for a character to get to the point and Hasan, Metin and, to some extent, Faruk are way too similar. I guess the last poin could be excused since Pamuk said something about him being each character. On the other hand, I really enjoyed certain parts of the plot and the voices (although similar) of the characters. I have no idea how should rate this tbh

I need to start my own personal campaign to get a "couldn't finish it" rating. I feel I'm being misleading by giving a book a rating I didn't finish. I especially feel guilty when the author is Orhan Pamuk. He's so well respected...he's won the Nobel Prize, Norman Mailer Award...on and on. I REALLY wanted to like this. I will say this is the only book of his I've ever read. And, it's one of his very early works, newly translated into English for the first time.

That being said, I gave it 100 pages. It's a story about 3 grandchildren coming to visit their grandmother who lives with her husband's illegitimate son as her caregiver (everything you can imagine about this bizarre relationship is true). Set in Turkey, the late 70's, the story is appealing enough (albeit slow moving) and the characters are interesting. There's the elderly curmudgeon grandma, the alcoholic historian grandson, the two younger ones that are kind of shiftless, no regard for tradition...dreams of coming to America, patronizing grandma etc...there's plenty of 1970's politics also. The story is told from the viewpoints of the characters, in alternating chapters.

The grandmother's voice (chapters) was maddening. There was not one period in a whole chapter, literally a 10 page sentence. This made it difficult to read. What I assumed, since she was hanging on to reality by a thread in her old age, that Pamuk wanted to convey the chaos going on in her brain. I understood that. What it did for me, was irritate the hell out of me and tempted me to skip (and skim) her chapters (big mistake, because she's a central character). I had no clue what she was saying the majority of the time, rereading and rereading. It took considerable effort to get as far as I did.

I really try not to read reader reviews before I read a book. I don't like being influenced one way or the other. Still, some influence is bound to occur just from reading the jacket etc...I wondered why this book was never translated into English before now. I may have found the answer. I'm not giving up on Pamuk. I'll try one of his better known works and chalk this one up as a first novel.

In 2019, before parts of the world closed down and things went belly-up, I visited Istanbul, the lifelong love of one of my favourite authors, Orhan Pamuk. Walking around Istanbul, I saw a city that was in flux : a city trying to reconcile it's identity as a metropolis straddled between the East and the West, a city, that has always reached out to the West, but doing so while keeping a foot in the East. Mosques stood beside grotesque centers for hedonism, and the devout and the nihilists went about their day for the most part, without stepping into each others shoes.

The conflict between tradition and modernity, symbolised by the oriental and the occidental in Turkey, is the underlying theme in Pamuk's Silent House. Pamuk masterfully mimics the political and social climate, resulting in mutually assured destruction for everyone involved. Silent House, for me, is not my favourite work of Pamuk, but is definitely a book that I would recommend to fans of the author.