Snow

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It's a hit!

“Snow” is a book about the difficulties faced by a nation torn between tradition, religion, and modernization. Set in the farthest east of Turkey i... (show more)

“Snow” is a book about the difficulties faced by a nation torn between tradition, religion, and modernization. Set in the farthest east of Turkey in a town named Kars, the locals are certain that in Western eyes they're all considered ignorant yokels. They suffer from a dreadful inferiority complex, and a need to prove themselves to counter that. Religion is the easiest crutch to rely on, and the struggle is not only with the West, however, but also with the strong tradition of secularism in Turkey itself. As one character says "to play the rebel heroine in Turkey you don't pull off your scarf, you put it on."

It is a novel of lesser scope than its grand and magical predecessor that is “My Name Is Red", and it is certainly more narrowly focused, although it is enriched by the author's same mesmerizing mixes: cruelty and farce, poetry and violence, and a voice whose timbres range from a storyteller's playfulness to the dark torment of a lost explorer. All this finds voices through characters whose tactile immediacy fades imperceptibly into a fog of ambiguousness and contradiction. But what makes it a brilliant novel is its artistry. Pamuk keeps so many balls in the air that you cannot separate the inquiry into the nature of religious belief from the examination of modern Turkey, the investigation of East-West relations, and the nature of art itself. All this rolled into a gripping political thriller.

Conclusively, “Snow” vividly portrays the cruelty and intolerance of both the Islamic fundamentalists and the representatives of the secularist Turkish state. More importantly, however, Pamuk has created believable, sympathetic characters representing both sides of that great divide and has given eloquent voice to their anger and frustration. These are no monsters but ordinary human beings who actually have much more in common than they would wish to acknowledge. (show less)

 

 

by Mohammad Al-Shatti

No, it's a flop!

This book was very difficult for me to get through but I finally finished it after a couple stops and starts. At one point I put it down and didn't... (show more)

This book was very difficult for me to get through but I finally finished it after a couple stops and starts. At one point I put it down and didn't want to read it any more. It was just too depressing. I did like the things I learned about Turkish politics and the Turkish people, their daily lives in this small crummy town in the middle of nowhere. The characters, especially the poet, were too enigmatic and complex for me. I didn't attach myself to any one as a reader. The poems themselves were never revealed to the reader so there was never that sense of happy completion, well at least he got some good poems out of the deal. It was a tragedy. My favorite thing about the book was, the way the snow was constantly brought into the story justifying the title at least. It kept me going, thinking at least at some point all of this is going to make sense. Too bad, it never did. (show less)

 

 

by Catherine Hansen

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  Hypnotic... a book to immerse in, but in small doses. This is not the sort of novel to be devoured in a weekend. Every sitting is a mixture of pleasure and pain -- as in all good poetry.

   

   

  by Jennifer Wolgemuth on Mar 08, 2009 at 10:10PM

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  It's nice to have read a book about a topic/country that I know very little about, but I don't think that it necessarily had to be 'Snow'.

  Parts of it reminded me of reading Russian literature, in that the responses of the characters to certain situations seemed so foreign, disconnected, and not what I'd expect from someone who, say, had just witnessed a murder, or been beaten for information - I certainly wouldn't be thinking about going back to my hotel to watch a certain TV show, but perh... (show more)

  It's nice to have read a book about a topic/country that I know very little about, but I don't think that it necessarily had to be 'Snow'.

  Parts of it reminded me of reading Russian literature, in that the responses of the characters to certain situations seemed so foreign, disconnected, and not what I'd expect from someone who, say, had just witnessed a murder, or been beaten for information - I certainly wouldn't be thinking about going back to my hotel to watch a certain TV show, but perhaps it's different when you live in a society that has had to adjust to violence as part of the norm (I don't know, I'm just trying to understand Turkish life from this one novel).

  If the novel is at all accurate, then a couple things I can conclude are:

  1. I understand less of Islam than I thought (I thought morality was important in Islam, but this book seems to portray extra-marital relationships as being normal for Muslims).

  2. Turkey (and perhaps other eastern countries) are obsessed with the 'West'. They're constantly talking about the West, and what the West would say, and how the West would view them, and frankly I think that most of the West just doesn't think that much about the East. Perhaps it's different in Europe.

  By the way, it would have been nice if a book that talked so much about poetry could have included some poetry.

  So, I did enjoy the read a little, but I don't think I'll be recommending the book because it's just not that great, and there are plenty of great books out there that need to be read first, but at least this will give me something to talk about if I run into someone from Turkey. (show less)

   

   

  by Michael Nicholls on Oct 01, 2009 at 08:50AM

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