Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Translated from the Turkish by Maureen Freely

 

Nominated by:

The novel starts off smartly enough with Ka, a poet and political exile home from Germany, travelling to far-flung Kars, in eastern Turkey. His mission is twofold - firstly to cover the story of suicide by six young girls and secondly to renew acquaintance with the beautiful Ipek, a former student colleague.

Snow is falling in Kars. The city is cut off and at a theatrical performance in The National Theatre the impresario stages a coup. Thereafter all is confusion. Ka is sucked into the ensuing intrigues and he wanders around the city in a dazed state bringing messages to and from the various factions which include the Army, the Police, the young Islamists, the media, the Kurdish dissidents, the secularists and almost every possible grouping evident in modern day Turkey. The issues are the secular state, the Islamic movement and the influence of western culture (malign or beneficial depending on your standpoint). There is much black humour in the midst of all the mayhem e.g. everyone downs tools (including the secret police in mid interrogation) to watch the daily instalment of the Mexican soap opera "Marianna" on TV. Ka is also a very unreliable messenger, telling each faction what he thinks they want to hear while his whole focus is on winning the enigmatic Ipek.

This is a demanding read, a bit like climbing a mountain, hard going at times but you are glad you persevered to the top. In its overriding theme of tension between the values of East and West, on this reading, the twain are unlikely to meet.

Sheila McGetrick
Raheny Library Readers' Group

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