Snow by Orhan Pamuk Summary and Reviews
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Book Reviews of Snow
Book Review: Couldn't get through it
Summary: 2 Stars
Well written but it didn't grab me like I hoped it would. I was never as interested in the protagonist as I should have been.Book Review: Covered Islamic Women
Summary: 3 Stars
Very interesting portrait of present day Turkey, specially useful to understand the issue of covered islamic women which is current in Europe these days.
Not the kind of book you cannot let down or cannot wait to get back to read.
The NY Times' label of Best Book of the Year may be an overrating.
Book Review: Did they like it because they're supposed to like it?
Summary: 1 Stars
One of the wonderful things abour reader reviews on Amazon.com is that you can find affirmation from SOMEBODY no matter what you think of what you are reading. However, in the case of Orhan Pamuk's "Snow," I can't help wondering how many laudatory reviewers realized that the man had received a Nobel prize, and reasoned that there must be something more to it than meets the ennui. I myself was relieved to read the negative reviews, because I sure am bored and disappointed. There is no possible way I will be able to get through this book. I think that I will keep it, though, since it certainly is better than drugs for inducing sleep. A few minutes of Pamuk at bedtime and I am out like a light! There is absolutely nothing that grabs me, moves me, excites me, or elicits my admiration. I was most interested in the Turkish reviewer who said that it was even worse in the original Turkish. I would not have thought that was possible. What is there to look for in a "great" book? Theme? Characters? Language? Plot? We don't even get to read these perfect poems that are dropping into Ka's brain like raindrops. The story skips and starts and hops from place to place like a demented rabbit. Ipek produces such admiration in Ka, but to us she is cut from cardboard. The language is repetitive and unimaginative (it calls to mind Hemingway's "Oh, little rabbit. Oh. Oh."). For me, the upshot is that I will not buy another book because the author received an award. I will read the reviews on Amazon first.Book Review: Disappointing
Summary: 1 Stars
In a nutshell, the author attempts to analyse the rise of Islamic extremism in Turkey (and the wider Middle East) and present this in a simplistic (and very dreary) manner that is obviously aimed at the (uninformed) Western reader. The story, set in a bleak miserable town, is so incredibly boring that I have been trying unsuccessfully to read it for over a year, and have reached the conclusion that if the Nobel Committee chose to award Pamuk based on this, then their criteria could not have included literary talent. There are several other Turkish and Arab writers whose works are far superior. Turkish speakers with whom I have discussed this are of the view that Pamuk's talent perhaps does not translate well, and that reading him in the original language is a different experience.Book Review: Drifts of Snow
Summary: 4 Stars
Snow was one of the books I picked up on a recent visit to my favorite bookstore, Tattered Book Cover, in Denver, Colorado. Something about that bookstore makes me want to read most every book on their shelves, and that is very many. I sank into one of Tattered's puffy armchairs and read a few sample pages of Snow, drawn by its blurry, snowy cover; drawn by a recent New York Times review; drawn by its non-westernized roots in Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk; drawn, too, by curiosity at this recent Nobel Prize winner for literature. The first few pages mesmerized me, the scene of a Turkish poet riding a bus through the snow capturing my imagination even as I left the bookstore, this and other novels in hand, into a 99 degree summer day.
That's literary power.
"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 snow..."
Snow never stops falling throughout this lengthy novel, and indeed becomes a presence, a barometer of the human condition, and "Snow" is also the title of a poetry collection the Turkish poet, Ka, writes over its time span. A diagram of a snowflake is his diagram of his core self, with branches into imagination, reason and memory. As snow gathers over the events of the story, it becomes at times a blizzard, at other times a gentle white blanketing over a trampled earth.
Ka is traveling to the city of Kars to write a report (like many poets, he also writes for a paper) about an epidemic of suicides among young Turkish women. As the force of westernization has entered the predominantly Muslim city, these young women have been "freed" to discard their head scarves. Their religious beliefs, however, are such that to bare their heads in public is more than they can bear--they would rather die. While investigating the suicides, Ka meets recently divorced Ipek, and he is instantly enthralled. The ensuing story is as much one of political rebellion as it is love story, complete with executions, betrayals, love found and love lost, and mysteries never quite solved.
In reading this novel, I was struck by a paradox of what I enjoy in literature from overseas cultures. My own background is European, and so I have grown up on European literature, with its dense and intricate plotlines, stories with no particular rush to reach conclusion and no linear path in getting there, in contrast to the fast-paced western literature with spare plotlines, quick action, and neatly wrapped-up endings. Of course, there are exceptions, but when I am in the mood to sink deep into a multi-layered tome, I choose non-western literature, and when I want a quick tap-dance of literary skill, I choose American literature. Each has its own pleasures. Snow was no exception. I enjoyed this blizzard, even if at times I lost sight of the path for all the white stuff.
Even the love story reminded me of the difference in the expression of love on either side of the ocean, with Ka's falling into something nearing a worshipful obsession, immersing himself whole into the object of his affection--while a westernized love story would be more geared toward seduction and conquest, less about the dance of courtship and romance. There is surrender to the heart with nothing left in reserve in non-western literature that fascinates me. Do or die. Love or leave. For this reason alone, I enjoy reading literature by a variety of international authors; each provides a view into a varied perspective and life sense.
On any side of the ocean, however, the human heart breaks as it might anywhere, and for the same reasons, even as we read of Ka's devastation at learning his beloved has betrayed him with another--from this heartbreak is seeded a suspicion of a murder (did Ka or didn't he?). The scene of confrontation between Ka and Ipek is perhaps the novel's most moving: hearts are shattered even as they continue to find comfort in each other's arms, a fatal mix of love intoxicated with hatred, and finally released by the chill of apathy. Pamuk writes of the complexities of love in any culture as far more baffling than reason alone might explain, and each time as unique as a snowflake.
Snow is not a quick read. Nor is it an easy one. Like Ka's love, it requires immersion and a certain degree of surrender. It is a skilled and often marvelous novel, even if I am not convinced it is worthy of the Nobel. I would say not. Yet it is worth the effort to move through this snowfall, if only for the occasional moment of sheer literary mastery.