Did you ever read one of those books that's just so full of ideas that you feel like you need to talk about it with someone?
Snow, by Orhan Pamuk, is one of them.
I just finished it today. The novel is about a million different things (art in society, politics, east vs. west, love, hypocrisy, democracy, modernism vs. religion, Islamist science fiction, and more), and paints a fascinating picture of Turkey in (I think) the late '90s.
This is the second Pamuk novel I've read (the first is
My Name Is Red; I made a tropes page for that as well).
Snow is a good companion piece, since it shows how Turkey has and hasn't changed since the Ottoman era presented in
My Name Is Red. A big theme in both novels is Turkey's uncomfortable position between the east and west.
One of the things that really makes
Snow so excellent is the way it shows the different factions in a very human light. None are entire blameless or entirely depraved, instead consisting of people with all their messy flaws and uncertainties. Pamuk's very much in the Westernized Turk camp (he lives in the United States), but he shows some of the problems and inconsistencies on his side.
I will say that I liked
My Name Is Red a bit more than
Snow. A lot of the dialogue in
Snow sounds stilted, though this could be a result of the translation (there may also be degrees of formality in the Turkish language that do not easily translate).
Anyway, I was wondering if anyone else here had read
Snow. If not, I'm happy to introduce it to you all!
edited 22nd Jun '12 5:29:20 PM by Destron
I bought it for a song last month at a used bookstore, and I'll begin it as soon as it comes up in my personal reading queue (three & a half in front of it). Shall post my impressions once I get started.
