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    Snow: A Novel
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    Snow: A Novel
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    Snow: A Novel
    Audiobook18 hours

    Snow: A Novel

    Written by Orhan Pamuk

    Narrated by John Lee

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    “A great and almost irresistibly beguiling . . . novelist. . . . [Snow is] enriched by . . . mesmerizing mixes: cruelty and farce, poetry and violence, and a voice whose timbres range from a storyteller’s playfulness to the dark torment of an explorer, lost.”–The New York Times

    An exiled poet named Ka returns to Turkey and travels to the forlorn city of Kars. His ostensible purpose is to report on a wave of suicides among religious girls forbidden to wear their head scarves. But Ka is also drawn by his memories of the radiant Ipek, now recently divorced. Amid blanketing snowfall and universal suspicion, Ka finds himself pursued by figures ranging from Ipek’s ex-husband to a charismatic terrorist. A lost gift returns with ecstatic suddenness. A theatrical evening climaxes in a massacre. And finding God may be the prelude to losing everything else. Touching, slyly comic, and humming with cerebral suspense, Snow is of immense relevance to our present moment.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateFeb 27, 2007
    ISBN9780739354315
    Unavailable
    Snow: A Novel
    Author

    Orhan Pamuk

    Orhan Pamuk is the author of such novels as The New Life, The Black Book, My Name Is Red and The White Castle. He has won numerous international awards, including the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006. He lives with his wife and daughter in Istanbul.

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    Reviews for Snow

    3.5/5

    1,427 ratings75 reviews

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    • 4/5
      exasperatingly slow at times but an interesting story
    • 5/5
      Great book, love the imagery and the characters. Becomes a little laborious towards the end but I still thoroughly enjoyed this book.
    • 1/5
      Simply put: boring and overrated.
    • 4/5
      Tragi-comedy in a small Turkish town. A poet returns to his home town looking for...meaning? The town encompasses all of the divisions in Turkish society; religious and secular and military, Europhile and nationalist, ethnic divisions, and the poet is exposed to all of these, as both insider and outsider. The poet is inspired by the snow which covers the town to write much poetry; he is attracted to his former love and he becomes embroiled in all the local plots and rivalries. The book is a wistful shake of the head at modern Turkey.
    • 5/5
      Great book, love the imagery and the characters. Becomes a little laborious towards the end but I still thoroughly enjoyed this book.
    • 5/5
      I like small details and descriptions that make the book easy to visualize. I enjoyed listening to it. Complex characters framed in a small town in Turkey are being presented extremely well.
      The book provides an insight view of dilemma of being a religious Muslim Turk or a Eurocentric modern one, in both cases you are damned. Neither religion can save Blu’s life nor kar could get his happiness a firm believer and a confused doubtful poet, both extremes couldn’t work. What book seems to propose is a middle way to do what seems right at the moment. As died Khadijah and finds a happy life finally.
    • 4/5
      De setting van deze roman is prachtig: Kars, een stad in een uithoek van Turkije, met een glorieus verleden maar al een tijdje vergane glorie en dus erg droefgeestig, raakt door een sneeuwstorm afgesloten van de buitenwereld en wordt gedurende enkele dagen het toneel van dramatische gebeurtenissen. Het doet me een beetje denken aan de stad Oran in Albert Camus? La Peste, en door de sneeuw-parallel ook aan het Davos van Thomas Mann?s Der Zauberberg. Komt daarbij dat in Kars een bekend Turks dichter ronddoolt, nogal willoos de gebeurtenissen ondergaat, en niet toevallig Ka heet, waardoor de parallel met Das Schloss van Franz Kafka wel heel erg duidelijk is. Er zit wel wat actie in dit werk, maar het is toch in de eerste plaats een ?praat?-roman. Pamuk zoomt heel hard in op de bijna eindeloze en met elkaar samenhangende Turkse discussies over de eigen identiteit (Westers of niet?) en over de plaats van de godsdienst in de maatschappij (het kemalisme tegenover het opkomend islamisme). Dat vergt enige voorkennis van Turkse toestanden, zeker, maar het wordt wel heel boeiend gebracht, vooral in het licht van de islamofobie in het Westen na 11 september 2001. De roman springt van de ene discussie naar de andere, met telkens wisselende deelnemers, en dat vergt uithoudingsvermogen van de lezer, maar het loont. Het knappe is dat Pamuk geen simplismen debiteert, geen karikaturen brengt, noch van de ene, noch van de andere kant. Integendeel zelfs, voortdurend blijken zowel athe?sten als islamisten aan een hevige twijfel onderhevig en continu zwalpen ze tussen het ene en het andere standpunt, allebei vertrekkend van een existentieel eenzaamheidsgevoel. En als rode draad door heel die woordenstrijd loopt de voortdurend ambigue houding die alle protagonisten hebben met Europa, met het Westen: het is tegelijk een ideaal ?n een voorbeeld van hoe het niet moet, aantrekking en afstoting; nodeloos te zeggen dat deze roman bol staat van de minderwaardigheidscomplexen; en dus erg leerzaam. Maar Pamuk heeft met ?Sneeuw? niet alleen een heel erg politieke, zelfs bijzonder actuele roman gebracht, er zit ook een duidelijk postmodernistisch kantje aan, met een bezinning op wat schrijverschap precies is en welke betekenis kunst in de ?chte wereld kan hebben. We zien immers hoe Ka in Kars na jarenlange creatieve droogte plots 19 gedichten uit zijn mouw tovert en daarmee alles wat hij meemaakt goed kan duiden. Bovendien is er het verhaal van Ka zelf, zijn dooltocht langs kemalisten en islamisten, zijn relatie met de bloedmooie Ipek en de daaraan verbonden hoop en onvermijdelijke smart; vrij snel weten we dat we dit verhaal eigenlijk krijgen uit de mond van een collega-schrijver, maar pas op het einde rijst het vermoeden dat die ogenschijnlijk objectieve verteller een groot aantal elementen zelf heeft ingevuld, vooral dan over de binnenkant van Ka; het zou in elk geval verklaren waarom de figuur van Ka zo?n wispelturige indruk maakt, en nu eens in de ene en dan weer in de andere ideologische richting schuift. Knap dus hoe Pamuk al die lagen ineenschuift en tot een goed einde brengt. Maar toch ben ik niet helemaal enthousiast: het praat-gehalte van de roman ligt wel heel erg hoog, de omzwervingen van Ka in Kars stellen het geduld van de lezer bijzonder op de proef, en enkele elementen zijn ronduit zwak uitgewerkt, zoals Ka?s puberale kalverliefde voor Ipek, ook de figuur van Ipek zelf is allesbehalve overtuigend, net als de andere vrouwenfiguren. Kortom, dit is zeker een groot werk, maar er zijn wat haken en ogen aan.
    • 4/5
      De setting van deze roman is prachtig: Kars, een stad in een uithoek van Turkije, met een glorieus verleden maar al een tijdje vergane glorie en dus erg droefgeestig, raakt door een sneeuwstorm afgesloten van de buitenwereld en wordt gedurende enkele dagen het toneel van dramatische gebeurtenissen. Het doet me een beetje denken aan de stad Oran in Albert Camus’ La Peste, en door de sneeuw-parallel ook aan het Davos van Thomas Mann’s Der Zauberberg. Komt daarbij dat in Kars een bekend Turks dichter ronddoolt, nogal willoos de gebeurtenissen ondergaat, en niet toevallig Ka heet, waardoor de parallel met Das Schloss van Franz Kafka wel heel erg duidelijk is. Er zit wel wat actie in dit werk, maar het is toch in de eerste plaats een “praat”-roman. Pamuk zoomt heel hard in op de bijna eindeloze en met elkaar samenhangende Turkse discussies over de eigen identiteit (Westers of niet?) en over de plaats van de godsdienst in de maatschappij (het kemalisme tegenover het opkomend islamisme). Dat vergt enige voorkennis van Turkse toestanden, zeker, maar het wordt wel heel boeiend gebracht, vooral in het licht van de islamofobie in het Westen na 11 september 2001. De roman springt van de ene discussie naar de andere, met telkens wisselende deelnemers, en dat vergt uithoudingsvermogen van de lezer, maar het loont. Het knappe is dat Pamuk geen simplismen debiteert, geen karikaturen brengt, noch van de ene, noch van de andere kant. Integendeel zelfs, voortdurend blijken zowel atheïsten als islamisten aan een hevige twijfel onderhevig en continu zwalpen ze tussen het ene en het andere standpunt, allebei vertrekkend van een existentieel eenzaamheidsgevoel. En als rode draad door heel die woordenstrijd loopt de voortdurend ambigue houding die alle protagonisten hebben met Europa, met het Westen: het is tegelijk een ideaal én een voorbeeld van hoe het niet moet, aantrekking en afstoting; nodeloos te zeggen dat deze roman bol staat van de minderwaardigheidscomplexen; en dus erg leerzaam. Maar Pamuk heeft met “Sneeuw” niet alleen een heel erg politieke, zelfs bijzonder actuele roman gebracht, er zit ook een duidelijk postmodernistisch kantje aan, met een bezinning op wat schrijverschap precies is en welke betekenis kunst in de échte wereld kan hebben. We zien immers hoe Ka in Kars na jarenlange creatieve droogte plots 19 gedichten uit zijn mouw tovert en daarmee alles wat hij meemaakt goed kan duiden. Bovendien is er het verhaal van Ka zelf, zijn dooltocht langs kemalisten en islamisten, zijn relatie met de bloedmooie Ipek en de daaraan verbonden hoop en onvermijdelijke smart; vrij snel weten we dat we dit verhaal eigenlijk krijgen uit de mond van een collega-schrijver, maar pas op het einde rijst het vermoeden dat die ogenschijnlijk objectieve verteller een groot aantal elementen zelf heeft ingevuld, vooral dan over de binnenkant van Ka; het zou in elk geval verklaren waarom de figuur van Ka zo’n wispelturige indruk maakt, en nu eens in de ene en dan weer in de andere ideologische richting schuift. Knap dus hoe Pamuk al die lagen ineenschuift en tot een goed einde brengt. Maar toch ben ik niet helemaal enthousiast: het praat-gehalte van de roman ligt wel heel erg hoog, de omzwervingen van Ka in Kars stellen het geduld van de lezer bijzonder op de proef, en enkele elementen zijn ronduit zwak uitgewerkt, zoals Ka’s puberale kalverliefde voor Ipek, ook de figuur van Ipek zelf is allesbehalve overtuigend, net als de andere vrouwenfiguren. Kortom, dit is zeker een groot werk, maar er zijn wat haken en ogen aan.
    • 3/5
      I read My Name is Red a few years ago and thought it amazing, so I began Snow with anticipation and high hopes. Unfortunately, I struggled to like this book, or even finish it. I think it would have made a good novella.Ka is a self-absorbed poet who lives in political exile in Frankfurt, Germany. Returning home for his mother's funeral, Ka learns that a woman he formerly had a crush on, İpek, is now divorced and living in a town in the far northeast of Turkey called Kars. When he hears news of a rash of suicides there by girls forbidden to wear headscarves to school, Ka boards a bus for Kars with the intent to write about it for a Frankfurt newspaper. En route it begins snowing heavily, and he barely makes it to Kar before the roads are closed. For the next three days, Ka investigates the headscarf girls, gets involved in a coup, and woos İpek.The novel is riddled with literary wannabes who seem to have a hand in creating the plot. It is a story within a story with two plays in the middle and peppered with poems which are never revealed to the reader. From page one, the reader is aware that someone is narrating Kars story, and, although he claims omniscience by dint of having read Ka's diaries, the narrator (a novelist) also mimics Ka and seems jealous of him. Is he relating Ka's story or writing it? Ka, who had been in a creative drought prior to his return to Turkey, is flooded with fully composed poems as soon as he arrives in Kars. Is he creating them or simply recording them? Journalists fabricate stories which then come true, actors stage plays with live action consequences, and everyone wants to pass along a message to the West.The love stories in the book are facile, with little sincerity but lots of angst on the part of our protagonist. I failed to connect with the characters and had little sympathy for their machinations. The only characters I found truly sympathetic are a couple of religious school students and the headscarf suicides whom we never meet.Pamuk touches upon many issues in his novel—secularism vs Islamist politics, militant nationalism, Kurdish guerilla fighters, the wearing of headscarves, the role of art in Turkish politics—about which I know little. Perhaps if I were more conversant with Turkish history and politics, I would have gotten more out of these sections. As it was I either appealed to Wikipedia or muddled my way through.Snow was Pamuk's first novel after the wildly successful My Name is Red, and I felt as though he were trying to be as clever and innovative as he had been in that book, but missing the mark.
    • 5/5
      It’s nice to be European. There is currently no better place to live on the planet. Ireland found wealth and individual freedom by joining Europe. As Europe expands, I’ve been a supporter, glad to give other nations the same chance we had. However, when Turkey joined the queue, I hesitated; partly because I think Europe is growing too fast and showing growing pains; but mainly because I feared Turkey shows none of the characteristics I think it needs to be European. After reading this fantastic book, I haven’t changed my mind.Ka is an exiled poet with writer’s block. An intelligent, sensitive and lonely man, he is no hero or danger to the regime and his exile even looks like the result of a misunderstanding. On a return visit to Turkey, he refinds his muse and the poetry begins to flow. A minor local insurgency erupts and the various powers and influences all come to regard him as a pawn in their ambitions. Ka is no hero and though principled he is full of complexes and lies to all around him. His only real concern is finding happiness which he feels has eluded him all his life. The result is a deeply poetic and intelligent novel which explores political and religious questions in modern Turkey. The cast includes lovely characters including an insurgent actor, his adoring complicit belly-dancer wife, a very pliable newspaper editor, a peaceful islamic radical, the beautiful woman who is the object of Ka’s amorous attentions and her veiled sister.Trying to pin down just what makes me uncomfortable about Turkey, I’ve concluded it’s not Islam. Most of the wonderful characters in this book are worth sharing Europe with. Orhan Pamuk presents all their positions in what sounds to me a balanced way and they all have merit. Naturally, as a westerner, I’m not comfortable with Islamic notions or freedom or individuality, but I don’t think that this is what has convinced me that Europe is not ready for Turkey. I think what turned me against Turkey was the police; the surveillance; the torture; all carried out at the behest of the State. Frequent comparisons with Iran also disturbed me. When Turkey is ready to resolve differences between its very different peoples in a tolerant European way, it will be ready for Europe. Before that, Europe would only be importing tensions that could spread like a virus.Indeed, Pamuk himself has been on the receiving end of state oppression and a pawn in their European membership ambitions. He was charged with insulting Turkishness, giving rise to an international outcry. The charges were dropped on a technicality when the EU began reviewing the Turkish legal system.Orhan Pamuk received the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature.
    • 4/5
      The last of my self imposed punishment of reading only good books!

      This is set in a black and white Turkey some time in the past when everything was black and white and people had philosophies about life and passion.

      All the characters have names like Kcirtap and Nivek and Enaj and the main character keeps getting released by his captors while his fellow captors get shot.

      It is hard if not impossible to work who are the bad guys, if anyone, while death is everywhere.

      I cannot remember if I finished it or not but I still have an indelible impression of snow covered streets that are only black and white.

      Not for the faint hearted or busy.
    • 3/5
      In this novel the Turkish poet Ka, who has spent 12 years in Frankfurt, returns to Turkey for his mother's funeral and to do research for an article on the situation in Kars in far eastern Turkey. A friend from Istanbul now lives there, and is recently divorced. And through a mysterious narrator (who is...the actual author inserting himself into his novel) and Ka's own perspective, we learn about the Islamists, the Nationalists, the Kurds, the communists, and leftists that are trying to coexist in this city.Cut off from the rest of the country by a snowstorm, a theatrical coup occurs--and Ka has somehow found himself as a go-between. And for the first time in years, he is writing poems again. Really all he wants is to take Ipek back to Germany with him, so they can live happily ever after and he can publish his new book of poems.I know there is a lot in this book that I missed. The poet's name (nickname) is Ka. The city is Kars. The title of the book in Turkish is Kar (snow). Obviously this all means something, but what, exactly, I don't know. Do "Kar", "Kars", and "Ka" sound alike in Turkish? The city of Kars has a very different history than most Turkish cities, as it had a Russian garrison in the past, and has a lot of Armenian architecture. Does the setting of a Turkish city with a different history than most Turkish cities to explain the various factions in modern Turkey mean anything? What?So, then story itself is interesting, but I am certain I missed a fair amount due to lack of cultural and historical knowledge about Turkey.
    • 4/5
      Interesting to read now that it is clear that the "head scarf" faction has won in Erdogan's Turkey. I preferred My Name is Red, but a good read nevertheless.
    • 4/5
      Melancholy and fatality pervade this novel. Here, poetic structure is a six-sided snowflake: reason, imagination, and memory forming the three axes. Ka, a well-known Turkish poet and the central character in the novel, returns to Turkey for a brief visit. He has been a political exile in Germany for many years. Specifically, he returns to Kars, an economically depressed and politically divided city that once was a hub of Russian, Armenian and Turkish culture. He has come to Kars ostensibly to report on a series of suicides by "head scarf girls." Whether these suicides were personal or political in nature remains undecided, as does the motivation for all action and inaction in the novel. Ka, not having written any new poems in years, writes 19 poems while in Kars, a group of poems that will comprise a lost manuscript entitled "Snow." These poems come to him all of a piece as if transmitted from "above" or "outside" himself. Ka, despite himself, becomes implicated in a weekend coup literally "staged" by an actor in cahoots with rogue members of the army and security forces, as well as mere hoodlums. The coup targets some religious high school boys and a mesmerizing Islamist rebel named Blue and results in 29 deaths. Events that seem to take place over an extended period of time actually transpire in a matter of 3 days during which the city is snowed in and cut off from the outside world. During these 3 days, Ka writes his 19 poems and experiences both bliss and fatal jealousy in the arms of the beautiful Ipek, one of Blue's former lovers. Midway through the novel, we learn that the narrator is a famous novelist and friend of Ka's who recapitulates Ka's journey thanks to Ka's journals. The journals describe the writing of the missing poems and all the events of Ka's weekend in Kars, except for the one missing hour that ultimately determines Ka's fate. At the end of the day, life can't be sorted out. Snow is always falling and obscuring our view. In this novel, as in all his writing, Pamuk's prose is mysterious and evocative.
    • 4/5
      A story about a poet who arrives in Kars, Turkey during a snow-storm and what happens afterwards . The plot doesn't always go where you think. Odd that an author would project himself into a work of fiction, as himself.
    • 1/5
      since i am about to visit Turkey i thought this would be an good preperation. however, the book was too slow for me Nd at page 110 it felt it was going in circles so i stopped. the writing style is ok, but unless you are really fond of the subject it will be just too difficult to keep reading.
    • 5/5
      Ka, a Turkish poet recently returned from exile in Germany, travels to Kars to investigate the recent suicides of "head scarf girls," the young women who wear head scarves in protest of the laws that do not allow them to wear them to university. Also, not incidentally, this is where a women he knew in school, Ipek, lives after her divorce. After his arrival, Kars is cut off from the rest of the country by a snowstorm that closes the roads.This rich tale is hard to explain. It unfolds in such a way that it is hard to describe accurately, since what seems important for the first 50 pages or so turn out not to be the main focus of this exploration of the tension between the secularists and the Islamists, politics and performance, personal happiness and duty. The narration distances us from events and characters by its layered narration. Though most of the story is told from Ka's perspective the actual narrator - a friend of Ka's who is unnamed for much of the story - knows the end of events before he begins, and will often speak directly to the reader about these future events. While in Kars (which means "snow"), Ka finds himself able to write poetry even while he is faced with questions about his own identity and faith, or lack of it. He becomes a (possibly?) unwilling participant in events that leave the narrator and reader intentionally fuzzy about exactly what happens. Not for the fainthearted reader, but for one willing to persevere and pick apart the novel, it's a meaty and involving read.
    • 4/5
      I think I'm learning something about Turkey and its politics... but there are probably better ways to do that. Don't know yet what I think -- I only read it in bits and pieces, on the way to work or before falling asleep over it in bed... we'll see...

      I realize that many people think this is a great book. For me, it was only ok -- the protagonist's quest for "happiness" was very irritating to me, and he really didn't interest me all that much. But maybe it was my mood!
    • 3/5
      This book was a bit of a roller coaster ride for me. It starts out with the main character, Ka, an exiled Turkish poet returning to the small town of Kars to investigate the suicides of the 'scarf-girls' - girls who due to a new law are no longer allowed to wear their head scarves in school. The stories told by these girls were sad and completely drew me in. But... it turns out that the story of the headscarf girls is just a ruse and Ka's journey back to Turkey is really to revisit his first love, Ipek, who has recently left her husband who has become a religious fundamentalist. So, forget the head-scarf girls and get drawn into the story of a romance with a lot of complications. But even then, the plot changes again and finally I felt that I just couldn't really get drawn into the new twists and subplots. Beautifully written, but the path was a bit too circuitous for me.
    • 4/5
      I still can't quite figure out exactly what I loved about this book. Except for one instance, I didn't find any exceptionally deep or poignant writing in it. Who knows, maybe the translation did that. The book did, however, keep me consistently interested from start to finish with very rich descriptions of the city and very full and very real characters. Not as sad as it was made out to be and somehow it was really quite beautiful. A solid 4.5 stars but since I've recently decided to become a little more cautious with my 5 star reviews, it will have to stay at 4.

      "Despite the loss they were suffering, they'd both relaxed - as people do when they realize they've run out of chances for happiness."
    • 4/5
      This is an important book. For one thing, the author may well be assassinated, in part for having written it. Turkey is in a fascinating place in today's world: the border between the West and Islam and Pamuk lays out the issues with painful clarity. At times, the book feels downright Dostoyevskian. 'Snow' does suffer from 'political novel' disease, but it isn't fatal. The characters feel, for the most part, like real people, not cardboard stand-ins. My main complaint is the ultimate spinelessness of the main character. The West is left without a defender, though my intuition is that Pamuk himself is not so ambivalent.
    • 4/5
      In Orhan Pamuk’s Snow, a man comes home. As always, the context is excruciatingly important. Ka, a Turkish poet, who has lived for a while in Germany, returns to his home country to investigate a series of young suicides in the town of Kars. It’s a small town, and religious tensions run high. Ka doesn’t write much poetry any more, but the folks in Kars, when not dodging political subterfuge or looking for angles, give him more credit than he deserves for his writing. In the town of Kars lives Ipek, a woman recently separated from her political candidate husband, a woman who reminds Ka of better days, a woman who he thinks can save him and his poetry. In the dead of winter, Ka soon learns, however, just how heavy and silent the snow can be.Pamuk’s work comes from a country scarred by centuries of religious debate. While the government still desperately clings to idea that it can be secular and separate from the fight, those who run for office or speak out against those in power do so from the perspective of their faith. Ka’s business in Kars is constantly bombarded by people with questions about his faith. Does he believe in God? Did he leave Turkey because he no longer has faith? Does he think the suicides in town are due to the head-scarf debate? All Ka really wants is an answer to a single question: Will Ipek marry him? His indifference to all else leads him on a journey into the weird Orwellian political underbelly of Turkish culture. He meets with rebel leaders and local police on equal footing so long as it gets him in Ipek’s good graces. Snow presents itself as a gathered story. The narrator has found Ka’s journals, newspaper clippings, video tapes, and official documents and tries to piece together Ka’s story as the suicides unfold. Presumably, Ka keeps very extensive notes. The glaring exception here is that all of Ka’s poems are missing. He is even asked to recite a poem on local television, but he never gets the chance. All we get are snippets and environments, but never the finished products. In short, we keep seeing the inspirations, but never what was inspired. Even though Snow is about a foreign culture and debate, I never felt completely removed from the tale. Pamuk’s words are rich, haunting, detailed, and dripping with commentary. If I ever get a chance, I will definitely read more by him.
    • 5/5
      I share a birthday with Orhan Pamuk born in Istanbul in 1952. He grew up in a large family in a wealthy, westernized district of Turkey. According to his official website, until the age of 22 he dreamed of becoming an artist. He graduated from Robert College in Istanbul, and then studied architecture at Istanbul Technical but abandoned this course for a degree in journalism from Istanbul University. He never worked as a journalist. At the age of 23 Pamuk decided to become a novelist and retreated into his flat and began to write. Orhan’s books have been translated into 46 languages, and he has won numerous literary awards in Turkey and Europe. He was awarded the 2006 Nobel Prize for Literature, becoming the second youngest person to receive the award in its history. Apart from three years teaching in New York, Orhan Pamuk has spent his entire life in the same streets and district of Istanbul. He now lives in the building where he was raised. Pamuk has been writing novels for 30 years and never had any other job except writing.I always read at least one work by each year’s Nobel Laureate. This habit has led me to discover many great writers—Saramago, Kurtesz, White, and a few others. Snow by Orhan Pamuk is one complex novel – but don’t let that stop you! Pamuk has told an intricate tale with lots of interesting characters. The mystery narrator of the novel, reveals himself at the end, and that is a big surprise. The story is absorbing, and the history and politics provide the reader with lots the twists and turns.At first, I thought I might not get through Snow, but something kept pulling me along. I began to build up speed, and, about a third of the way through, I was captivated. I could barely put it down over the last 150 pages. A description of another of his novels intrigued me, and like the multiplication of cats, one good book leads to a full shelf. For me, the beginning of a novel holds great importance. The opening lines can bore, intrigue, cause laughter, or tears. Pamuk intrigues when he writes of Ka an exiled poet, who returns to his home village: “The silence of snow, thought the man sitting just behind the bus driver. If this were the beginning of a poem, he would have called the thing he felt inside him the silence of the snow. // He’d boarded the bus from Erzurum to Kars with only seconds to spare. He’d just come into the station on a bus from Istanbul – a snowy, stormy, two-day journey – and was rushing up and down the dirty wet corridors with his bag in tow, looking for his connection, when someone told him the bus for Kars was leaving immediately” (3). Pamuk mixes quiet introspection with the rush and hustle of the outside world.I did notice a couple of missing pieces of the cultural puzzle which would have helped me appreciate the story more. But the prose of Orhan Pamuk's novel, Snow is reward enough. 4½ stars.--Chiron, 5/25/14
    • 3/5
      Short synopsis: A story set in Kars, Turkey. Ka, a poet, visits on assignment to write about the suicides of young women. His reason for being there is Ipek who he plans to bring back to Germany as his wife. It is snowing……Reactions: at first I wanted to like this story, it has been described as poetic and I think that is accurate for the first part of the book but it is also as boring as looking at a snow covered landscape devoid of color. I think the author had something going by using the snow to describe the experience of Ka but then it just “melted”. At first, I felt resentment. I did not like that the Islamist kept telling others how they were thinking. It made me hate this religion. There is no grace or mercy here. Its hard for me to understand the intolerance for Christianity and the blindly tolerant view of Islam. Then there was some enlightenment. The mixed messages that people living in Kars receive through communism or socialism, Islam, etc was evident. The girls raised to wear a scarf, taught that it was expected in their religion and then told to “take the scarf off”. The confusion caused by the mixing of politics with religion and the manipulation used by the various parties. No one seemed to think it was wrong to lie and to harm others if it promoted the agenda. I first I thought I could like Ka but I could not. I could understand wanting to meet up with a former acquaintance and propose and get married. I think that is an okay goal but when he started being devious and manipulative in his endeavors, then I no longer was happy with him. The interest in pornography had also crippled him, in my opinion. He was a weak man and in the end he just went too far with his jealousies. The authors purpose: Mr Pamuk states that he wanted to write a novel that would explore the political conflicts in Turkey. He used a small town to give a microcosm view of the whole. He discusses in the postscript how difficult it is to write a political novel about this area and apparently there were political persecutions for which he had to hire a lawyer. The book involved a not of careful editing. The author is a recipient of the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006. His partner is the author, Kiran Desai. Why is it included in 1001 Books you Must Read Before You Die? Is there anything that this book adds to the development of the novel? I suspect that because this is a work that looks at political Islam, clash of Western and Islam and that the author is Turkey that this book is unique. The use of lyrical prose and the technique where the author writes himself into the story is not unique. Characters were frequently stereotypes. Ka was developed. The other characters represented certain characters and classes in the microcosm of Turkey. The language did create the scene, the use of snow was ‘smart’ in keeping everyone contained in this drama for three days and the tone was set by the snow. The book had emotional impact though not necessarily positive for me. I am glad to be done. I think the author probably deserved the Nobel Prize for literature for being able to write this controversial and potentially risky novel. I also wanted to add this quote; "If only to see themselves as wise and superior and humanistic, they need to think of us as sweet and funny, and convince themselves that they sympathize with the way we are and even love us." page 442. I think this is very true (but not for me). I don't like their religion or their politics.
    • 4/5
      Ka, a Turkish poet, has been living in exile in Germany for the last decade. His mother's death brings him back to Istanbul, but the thought of an old acquaintance soon draws him to the provincial town of Kars. Ka's excuse for visiting Kars is that he wants to write a newspaper story about the recent suicides among the headscarf girls and about the local elections. His real reason for the visit is to renew his acquaintance with Ipek, who he's learned is now divorced from his poet friend Muhtar. He secretly hopes to persuade Ipek to marry him and return to Germany with him. A heavy snowfall strands him in Kars for several days, and circumstance and fate drive the course of events. The snowbound city reawakens Ka's muse, and he begins to write poems again after a drought of many years.There is an undercurrent of paranoia throughout the book. While Ka is disturbed to learn that he's under surveillance, the residents of Kars accept this as normal. Nothing can be taken at face value. The local newspaper publisher writes about the day's events before they happen. Everyone Ka meets has an opinion about who he should trust and who he should avoid – but can he trust anyone's advice?Ka's thoughts and feelings come second-hand to the reader, through a friend who knows the details of Ka's visit. Does the reader get a clear picture of Ka, or has it been distorted by his friend's interpretation of Ka's actions and motivations?Like Salman Rushdie in Midnight's Children, Pamuk does provide some interpretive suggestions for the reader. Even with these hints, it still requires effort to work out the symbolism and structure of the novel. I think most readers will find it worth their effort to read, and possibly re-read, since I think it falls in that category of novels that hold back some rewards for the second reading.
    • 3/5
      Snow was interesting at first, but i was totally annoyed and bored by ALL of the characters by the end (last 100 pages). I generally love slow, "literary" books, but I wouldn't really recommend this one.
    • 3/5
      A poet's days in Kars, a city in Turkey. An exploration of love, politics, religion, and the absurdity of human beliefs.
    • 4/5
      Set in the early 1990s in Kars, a remote and dilapidated city in eastern Anatolia famed less for its mournful relics of Armenian civilization and Russian imperial rule than for its spectacularly awful weather. Snow, "kar" in Turkish, falls incessantly on the treeless plains and the castle, river and boulevards of Kars, which the local scholars say takes its name from "karsu" (snow-water).In this novel, the city is cut off from the world and also, to an extent, from normal literary reality by three days of unremitting snow. Written, the reader is told, between 1999 and 2001, Snow deals with some of the large themes of Turkey and the Middle East: the conflict between a secular state and Islamic government, poverty, unemployment, the veil, the role of a modernising army, suicide and yet more suicide.Amid the desperate students, cafés, small shopkeepers, gunshots and inky comedy are the trickeries familiar from modern continental fiction. The result is large and expansive, but, even at 436 pages, neither grand nor heavy.Pamuk's hero is a dried-up poet named Kerim Alakusoglu, conveniently abbreviated to Ka: After many years in political exile in Frankfurt, Ka returns to Istanbul to attend his mother's funeral. He is then commissioned by an Istanbul newspaper to write an article about the municipal elections in Kars and investigate a succession of suicides by women and girls in the city. In his role as journalist, Ka trudges through the snow interviewing the families of the girls. He learns that they are committing suicide because of pressure by the college authorities to take off their headscarves in class. (Compulsory unveiling succeeds just as well as compulsory veiling, which is, not well at all.)It soon emerges that Ka is not greatly interested in headscarves but has come to fall in love with his old Istanbul schoolmate, Ipek, who has ended up in Kars and is separated from her husband. Meanwhile, his lyric gift returns to him with a force bordering on incontinence, and he is forever plunging into tea houses to get his latest poem down in a green notebook. Another narrator, called Orhan Pamuk, tells the story not from the notebook, which is lost or stolen, but from notes in Ka's handwriting that he finds four years later in the poet's flat in Frankfurt.The book is full of winning characters, from Ka himself to Blue, a handsome Islamist terrorist with the gift of the gab, an actor-manager and his wife who tour small Anatolian towns staging revolutionary plays and coups de main, and Serdar Bey, the local newspaper editor, who has a habit of writing up events and running them off his ancient presses before they occur. There are many fine scenes, including one where a hidden tape records the last conversation between a college professor in a bakery and his Islamist assassin.In general the story is worth the read although it was slow at times (it took me forever to finish). Written between 1999 and 2001, it hints at the rising political-religious unrest between Muslims and western society.
    • 3/5
      This is a novel by a Turkish author that won the Nobel Prize for literature. I chose it because it's a 1001 book and there's a group read going on now. Unfortunately, I did not enjoy it. This is the story of Ka, a Turkish poet who emigrated to Germany as a young adult. He travels back to Turkey all the way to Kars, a small city on the far East border of Turkey and ends up trapped there for several days in a snowstorm. His excuse for going to Kars is that he is writing a newspaper article on the suicides of several young Islamic women who committed suicide after being pressured to remove their head scarves, but he's actually going to reunite with a woman, Ipek, who he met years ago and is in love with. He wants her to come back to Germany with him. I actually really enjoyed the first 150 pages or so of this novel. Pamuk sets up the story well, creating a beautiful sense of the surroundings and describing the political and cultural tensions in Turkey, where the government wants to be secular but there is a large, vocal faction of Muslims who want an Islamic state.As I read on several things began to bother me so much that they ruined my enjoyment of the book. One is that it's narrated by the author, who is re-telling Ka's story through notebooks that Ka kept while in Kars. This created a stilted kind of language that I could not get into. I felt that it was because of how far removed the language was from the actual events. What I mean is that Ka experiences these actions/conversations, paraphrases them into his journals, and then the author paraphrases yet again to create the novel. Add to that a translator and I have no idea what the flow of the language should have been, but it ended up not being good.Also, the opinions of the characters in this book on both sides were pretty hard to take. There was no gray about anything - all was black and white. Over and over I read, if you don't believe in women wearing head scarves you are an atheist. Either side with political Islamists or you area western-loving atheist. It got really old.And the worst part was Ka's "love" for Ipek. It was absolutely ridiculous. He is madly in lust with this woman who he does not know at all and feels his whole life hinges on her willingness to marry him and return to Germany. Their relationship was so far outside anything I would consider love that I was extremely annoyed. Plus, there was all of this serious political stuff going on (murders, beatings, suicides) and all Ka can think about is getting Ipek in bed and writing poems.The sad thing about this book is that I felt like it really had potential. It just spiraled into this very pretentious novel with utterly selfish characters that I just couldn't enjoy.
    • 1/5
      Very disappointed by Orhan Pamuk's "Snow," which I really thought would be right up my alley from reading the description-- its focus on Turkey, the suicides of young girls and religious freedom really sounded promising. I'm still at a loss how it went so awry.It was an incredibly slow read. I don't know if it was the translation or the original material, but I just found the writing incredibly dull. The best description for it would be clunky, as another reader said below. I couldn't find myself investing in any of the characters at all and often put the book down after a reading just a few pages. It also felt really repetitive... the same things circle round and round, but never really seem to lead anywhere but back upon themselves. Overall, the book really never captured my interest.... reading it felt like work.