'A Strangeness in My Mind' by Orhan Pamuk

?A Strangeness in My Mind? by Orhan Pamuk, translated by Ekin Oklap (Faber £20/Knopf $28, 624 pages)

Orhan Pamuk?s latest novel is a sprawling 600-page, 40-year saga based on the life of a poor street vendor in Istanbul. At its best, ?A Strangeness in My Mind? almost does for modern Istanbul what Dickens did for Victorian London - combining a richly rewarding private story with social insight. It may not be Pamuk?s most sophisticated work, but it is certainly among his most enjoyable.

In many of his novels, the Nobel laureate has focused on Istanbul?s middle and upper classes, sometimes referred to (non-racially) as ?White Turks.? In this book, his focus is firmly on the less well-to-do ?Black Turks?: A sprawling cast of migrants from Anatolia who built their ramshackle homes on Istanbul?s periphery, who remain attached to their rural traditions, who work temporary menial jobs found through family contacts, and who club together in hometown support associations. This milieu may not be Pamuk?s home territory, but on the whole he pulls of the transition convincingly. 

The book?s central character is Mevlut, who spends his winter evenings selling boza, a traditional fermented wheat drink served with cinnamon or roasted chickpeas, favored in the Ottoman era so Muslims could drink low quantities of alcohol in disguise. Street peddlers, with their distinctive calls to woo customers, are a charming but dwindling breed in Istanbul. Boza itself is now an almost-extinct novelty, barely known by younger generations and barely remembered as a nostalgic curiosity by older ones. Mevlut is described as ?a living relic of the past that had now fallen out of fashion.?

Over the course of decades, against the backdrop of a turbulent urban landscape,...