When thinking about the veil, I recall our local television chatter about the legitimacy of its use by Islamic women in European territory. Beyond the legitimate discourse on public safety, the comments of the so-called "token women" sprout like mushrooms. These women are simply questioned because they belong to the female gender (and thus, according to the logic of the talk show, are capable of speaking on behalf of the entire category). They discuss the danger that the veil poses to a woman's dignity. Then follows a series of banalities about the need to be women, "be feminine" (I swear, I've heard it), without fear of men, and all those speeches that pretend to be feminist because even radical chic is extremely glamorous (and thus, feminine).

What is lost in these debates that try to deepen an important topic by filling it with nothing is the meaning of words, which are used as if they had a single, marble-like, divinely willed meaning. What is dignity? Why must a woman's dignity be different from a man's? Is it so obvious that the use of the veil kills a woman's identity? If it is true that in some countries, like Iran, women are legally obliged to wear the veil, it is also true that there are Islamic women everywhere who consciously decide to wear it without any imposition. Do they act unconsciously under the influence of their own culture (or the man of the house), or do they truly see in the veil a source of dignity? It is difficult to give a single answer, simply because there isn't one.

Whether you are of the party that believes crossing one's legs is a tool of female independence or you are willing to put a "but" at the end of your convictions, this book will surprise you. Because "Snow" manages to make even the most open-minded Westerner, the one who observes every foreign fact through the filter of cultural relativism, believing himself to be impartial, ashamed of himself.

Pamuk is ready to short-circuit us, presenting us with a case that is already in itself a mystery to today's Westerner: is it possible that girls kill themselves because they are forbidden to use the chador? It seems impossible, and yet this is what happens in Kars, a border town between Turkey and Armenia where the story takes place.

Our personal chaperone is Ka, a Turkish poet and political exile in Germany, who goes to Kars to investigate the case of the young suicides. Turkey has been a democracy, more or less in appearance, since the 1920s, and the principle of the secularity of the state has led to the banning of headscarves and religious clothing, although female clothing was an exception until the mid-1980s. It therefore seems logical, to the European and to the Turk who embraces the Kemalist principles (of Kemal Ataturk, the father of democracy), that this constitutes an important milestone for women, finally free to show their own forms. We, as Westerners, and Ka, as a bourgeois Turk raised in the extremely Western Istanbul, can only share this thought. But these girls are a boulder that blocks the mechanism of our reasoning. No matter how much we continue to oil our convictions, the suicides remain there, stuck between the gears, with their inexplicable death. The only possible justification is the cultural backwardness in which the girls wallowed, or the pressure of religion on their minds.

Why is it so difficult for us to conceive of such a case without thinking that it necessarily depends on the cultural backwardness of the country in question? Simply because the West and the East are like two beasts that look at each other warily from a distance. They peer with their eyes so half-closed in a sneer of contempt that neither of them can focus on the characteristics of the other, except for one, which comes to absolutely define the entire subject. And so the West becomes, for Islamic fundamentalists, a place where all women want to be actresses with their buttocks in the wind, and the Islamic East a convoy of bearded men who oppress women without even asking themselves if this is right. This is how they are, it is their culture. It doesn't matter that between one extreme and the other there is the world.

I didn't go from the use of the veil to the relationship between the East and the West to catch my breath. Pamuk uses the question of the veil as a starting point for a two-team race, Westerners against Easterners, who at the moment of the gunshot in the air are divided into two clearly distinct groups by the color of their jerseys, but at the finish line they no longer have their jerseys and many of them don't even notice. Certainly not because the hostilities have ceased: on the contrary, the participants are perpetually armed against each other. What slowly erases the boundaries between the factions is the search for happiness, a driving force that pushes all the characters to their own conduct. Pamuk is very good at bringing out this aspect, because the problem between Easterners and Westerners is argued through the words of the characters, who intertwine ideals and daily life, dragging us, despite ourselves, into their existence, full of spiritual crises, remorse, and hopes. The truth is not dictated by an authoritarian outsider, but by this collection of voices with variously colored timbres. You will be surprised to love passionately characters that for their convictions you might be inclined to despise, like the young fundamentalist Necip, and to hate others who represent your own culture.

But "Snow" is not just this. If Pamuk shows you the man behind the Islamic fundamentalist, whether it is a man or a woman, in a second moment he leads you to turn your own finger against yourself. The Easterner is not only the one who refuses the Western identity to safeguard his own, but also the one who chases Europe like the positivists chased science. The West is the path to development, to happiness. Ka is an emblematic character from this point of view: exiled for political reasons in which he no longer even believes, an atheist out of conformism, he is ashamed of the poverty of his people and suppresses with fear his desire to believe in a god. Although he is a Turk, he walks around with that German coat he bought at the Kaufhof department stores in Frankfurt as if it were his second skin, because it protects him "from the evils". The truth is that it gives him the feeling of being part of a country that is not his and that rejects him. When he lives in Frankfurt, Ka lives in the deepest poverty and the blackest solitude, because even abroad the only ones who are interested in a Turk are his compatriots. Pamuk brings to the forefront the tragedy of the Turk who takes a step towards Europe by renouncing himself and finds emptiness under his feet, but no longer knows how to go back because he fears that it means going back on the path of backwardness.

In conclusion, "Snow" is a novel that has a lot to say. It doesn't have the solemn face of someone who warns you about the importance of his truth. Rather, it seems that the author himself wanted to recite a mea culpa with the Western reader, given his belonging to the bourgeois class of Istanbul. Between these pages there is the beauty of the reflections on life, on death, of the desire for happiness common to men who are diametrically opposed in their convictions, and of the continuous snowfall that never stops reminding men of their uniqueness compared to all others and the fragility of their existence. The snow is the symbol of the beauty of the created, of the uncertain presence of a god who ignores us, of the life that binds us to each other despite ourselves and forces us to remain close together on the same planet, like in a small border town closed in a glass ball.

One thing is certain. At the end of the novel, your convictions will have received a nice polish.

- If you put me in a novel set in Kars, I would like to tell the readers not to believe absolutely what it says about me, about us. No one can understand us from a distance.

- So no one would believe a novel of this kind.

- No, they would believe it, - he said at once. - To consider themselves intelligent, superior, and human, they will want to believe that we are ridiculous and charming, and that they can understand us as we are, even to the point of feeling affection for us. But if you put this sentence of mine, a doubt would insinuate itself in their minds.

The main concern of Pamuk's novel is the unresolved debate between tradition and modernization in Turkey, and in my opinion, it is the most political work of Pamuk. In the novel, issues such as the duality of society, the conflict between the East and the West (depicted through Ka's experiences of immigration and his exploration of identity), and the differences in views between Islamists and republicans are raised.

Each character in the story represents a spectrum of society. What interests me about the story is that it has a great resemblance to the current situation in Iran, with society being divided based on beliefs that the law is the only authority. The discussions between the characters revolve around theocracy and atheism, extreme Islamism and the imposition of beliefs, or Westernization and anarchy. The most sensitive part of this novel is where some people choose to wear the hijab while others remove it, or in other words, the breaking of taboos in a political context and its impact on society as a whole. An important point is that it invites the reader to be more accepting and raises doubts about faith, or the possibility of believing in a personal God.

Pamuk did not make any of the elements of the story prominent or create a heroic protagonist. Instead, he told the story in such a way that it seems Ka is his close friend, while highlighting the events very powerfully.

The character of Ka, like the heroes of Chekhov's melancholy, is lonely, and the snowfall during his few days in Kars poses the question of life and existence to him again. All the poems that inspire him draw their inspiration from the snow, and this is shown with the same pattern or shape as a snowflake.

The translation could be more fluent.

I will definitely read this book several more times!

Orhan Pamuk and I are definitely in a love-hate relationship.

After the Museum of Innocence, which I struggled with for months and finally had a divided feeling between 'the book is a true work of art' and 'I would never recommend it to anyone alive', Snow brings me to the same problem.

On the one hand, the book encompasses everything I love, a life story, a historical and social environment, love, poetry, and ideals. But on the other hand, I was looking forward to finally finishing it.

And I can't help but wonder if I would have given this book a 4 if I didn't know the author's name. And yet, on the other hand, because of how much I learned from it and the warmth with which the writer approached the story and the main hero, I can't give it less than a 4.

It's a complex and纠结的situation, where my feelings towards Pamuk's works are constantly in a state of flux.

Three and a half stars for the novel...

Just be careful that this novel is not the first reading of Orhan Pamuk.... It is capable of making you hate him!!

(We were all brothers here... But in recent years, each person began to say... I am Kurdish. I am Turkish.....

And now everyone is poorer and more corrupt)..

Once again, another encounter with Orhan Pamuk.... After his beautiful novel (My Name Is Red) and the interesting book of essays (Other Colors)...

I don't remember where I read a description of Orhan Pamuk as a rich writer... But this description really applies to his writings.... He is rich enough to drown his readers in the details of his novels and the details of his characters.... The richness was truly enjoyable in My Name Is Red... The novel that I plunged into its world and drowned in it for a whole week....

Except that it was not so enjoyable in his novel (Snow)

A great, powerful novel full of rich details with ideas that may agree or disagree with its content, but it provides you with a deeper understanding of things through the presentation of different points of view... But simply it was not enjoyable in its reading and perhaps the only reason for the perseverance in finishing it is the knowledge of where this complex plot of events and the fate of its heroes will lead...

The novel begins with the arrival of (Ka), a forty-year-old journalist who spent many years in Frankfurt, Germany, as a political refugee, to the city of Kars in order to investigate the case of the suicide of Muslim girls or as they are known as the girls of Işıklar...

And through that small, cold city that Pamuk uses as a stage for the events.... The conflict that includes all the ideologies and nationalisms that dominated the Turkish political climate starting from radical Islam and the military and Kurdish nationalists and socialists and other political currents is revealed....

And the events unfold with the implementation of many political assassinations against those who call for secularism and those who reject the arrival of the Islamic current to power. And the so-called Süleyman staging a military coup in the city and the arrest of all political currents opposed to the government starting from the Islamic current to the left and Kurdish nationalists.....

All those events that this troubled city is swept by and that Pamuk managed to depict accurately is a缩影 of what the Turkish society... And the Arab society in general is suffering from the domination of radical political ideologies on the scene starting from political Islam and ending with the military...

In the complete disappearance or the shameful emergence of all moderate political currents....

So that the result of that system is more extremism from the group of the Islamic current and more oppression and killing from the military system.... And there is nothing for us but to wait for the time of the next destruction...

It is a novel about how to manufacture terrorism.... And that Pamuk embodied it in the image of (Kahraman), the legendary man who spread his voice among the students of the seminary and preachers and the political Islamic current as a defender of Islam.... While in secret he does not find any remorse for having an illegal relationship with a girl... And then with her sister....

The person who trades in religion to obtain political gains like the personality of Mr. Mümtaz...

The media and its relationship with power and the extent of the influence of the directed media as we see in the personality of Mr. Serhad, the journalist who mastered the art of manufacturing the news before it happened...

The personality of Necip and Fadil... And the others among the students of the seminary those confused personalities who dream between the God they seek His mercy... And a religion that they do not know how to rule except by force... Personalities that seek to reach God... So that they do not become just fuel for conflicts that have no meaning or purpose...

A novel that is swept by all those conflicts between its characters... And between their different ideologies... It is in the end capable of making you finish it to the end in order to understand why the events reached that end with the separation of Ka and İpek... And the killing of Ka four years later in Frankfurt....

And the reader should not forget either the extent of the influence of the well-known German tendencies of Orhan Pamuk... And which he calls for as the only salvation from the dilemma of the Lion represented by political Islam on the one hand and military rule on the other hand...

But very simply... The novel was not enjoyable... And here lies the blatant contradiction in Pamuk's novels... That they are really great novels but they are difficult to read... Unlike the writings of Youssef, for example, which are the best example of great, enjoyable and amazing writings...

I do not recommend it as a first reading of Orhan Pamuk... And my only excuse is that it is the only novel of his with that political color...

Because richness may become enjoyable when we deal with a historical subject like Islamic art, for example... As happened in the novel My Name Is Red... But it will never be like that when we talk about politics.

After finishing this book, I felt a complex range of emotions. At first, there was a sense of virtue and relief, but then it quickly turned to bafflement, irritation, and finally dismissiveness.

Other Good Reads reviewers also express similar sentiments. They initially have the desire to like the book but end up being confused, bored, and insecure. Most conclude with the dismal feeling that they didn't "get it" and thus couldn't really like it. I felt the same way, but in addition, I was supremely annoyed and turned off by it. I'm not particularly fond of post-modern fiction to begin with, but I decided to set aside my bias because I had heard such great things about this author. And from what I had read, Pamuk didn't seem like a phony.

The story follows an expatriate Turkish poet named Ka who leads a solitary and unfulfilling life in Frankfurt. He travels to a remote village in his homeland, ostensibly to investigate a series of suicides by religious Muslim women protesting the removal of their head scarves at school. However, he is really there to rekindle a romance with a recently divorced woman he knew at university. The novel unfolds over three days when the snow isolates the town from the outside world. What transpires is a coup led by a dysfunctional theater troupe, a great deal of political intrigue, and much back-and-forth between the secular and religious townspeople. Pamuk gives equal weight to every opinion, but they don't really differ much in their simplistic, inflamed, and binary natures, nor do they capture my interest or hold my attention for long. This is largely because the protagonist, Ka, is stunted, childish, and infuriating, and the writing is both overly busy and detached. The political intrigue and opinions in "Snow" are not interesting or enlightening as they don't come from well-developed characters but rather from cardboard cutouts spouting long, dense, and tedious word bubbles.

Inspiration strikes Ka while in Kars, and he stops to write down a series of nineteen poems that come to him in perfect form. Conveniently, they get lost, but a conversation about them between Ka and his lover goes like this:
"Is it beautiful?" he asks her a few moments later.
"Yes, it's beautiful!" says Ipek.
Ka reads a few more lines aloud and then asks her again, "Is it beautiful?"
"It's beautiful," Ipek replies.
When he finishes reading the poem, he asks, "So what was it that made it beautiful?"
"I don't know," Ipek replies, "but I did find it beautiful."
"Did Muhtar [her ex] ever read you a poem like this?"
"Never," she says.
Ka begins to read the poem aloud again, this time with increasing force, but he still stops at the same places to ask, "Is it beautiful?" He also stops at a few new places to say, "It really is very beautiful, isn't it?"
"Yes, it's very beautiful!" Ipek replies.
To me, only a child under ten should be allowed to act this way, and even then, only by his mother. But Ka is never punished, ridiculed, or even scolded for his insufferable personality. In fact, I think we're supposed to admire him as embodying the innocence, purity, pathos, and single-mindedness of a true artist.

Margaret Atwood says in the New York Times Book Review that "Snow" is "Not only an engrossing feat of tale-spinning, but essential reading for our times. [Pamuk is] narrating his country into being." This seems to me the best explanation for why the book won the Nobel Prize. It makes Turkey understandable and palatable to the West. The novel is filled with allusions to white Western male institutions – Kafka, Coleridge, Mann, Nabokov. There's an annoying and intrusive narrator, a novelist named Orhan whose games of peek-a-boo become harder and harder to tolerate, a糟糕的, abysmal use of literary devices, a gloomy and misunderstood hero who falls hopelessly in love with a woman he stubbornly refuses to give more than one dimension to. The sex scenes, incidentally, are some of the most unintentionally off-putting I've ever read and recall the experience almost every woman has unfortunately had at least once, where she feels she could leave the room, get some cheesecake, and stand in the doorway watching her partner rhythmically brutalize a stack of pillows in laughable ignorance of her whereabouts or even existence. Afterwards, our hero has the gall to call this essentially masturbatory act "love-making". In fact, this pretty much sums up my response to the whole book.

Ka returns to his country after living in a kind of exile in Germany for 12 years. Four days after arriving, he goes to Kars. Now, he is looking at the strange city under the constantly falling snow.

The snow is very beautiful. It is falling gently, each flake different from the others. He begins to get to know the new city from its streets and cafes. Then, faces appear. Faces that look at him for a long time. Judging faces, questioning faces, scolding faces, curious faces.

Snow is the second work I read by Orhan Pamuk and, in the author's words, his first and last political novel. It is a book that touches on many topics and people, which is clearly written after solid research. As Pamuk also indicated in the preface, his desire to create a political miniature of Turkey is also evident. However, in this miniature, the colors do not always blend with each other. Kurds, veiled women, political Islamists, leftists, all are together, and very familiar faces for each of them appear with different names. As also mentioned in the book, there is 'not understanding them and what happened without living there'. But Ka's strangeness takes precedence over what is being told. Ka's love for Ipek, and the words of Blue and Kadife also remain in the air. Snow is a good book, but for me it is not 'from the heart'. I don't know how to express this. It's like the combination of the careful words we choose when telling our observations and our experiences.

I will continue to read Orhan Pamuk's books.

Neve is Pamuk's first political novel and also a portrayal of a Turkey embroiled in various internal and external conflicts, whether political or religious, under the poetic vision of the writer and his sensitivity to the demands and regimes that prevail in his country.

Narrating the return of Ka, an exiled poet in Germany, to his hometown, the remote Kars, in order to investigate the high number of suicides among young women and soon report his impressions to a newspaper in Istanbul, the poet who seeks clarification mainly finds a city on the verge of chaos, where political and cultural tensions are on the verge of exploding and catapulting everyone there.

And that is precisely what happens when a snowstorm isolates Kars for three days from any external contact, providing the ideal condition for the overthrow of the government, the instauration of a revolution for some and a coup for others. Thus revealing the various sources of power that are not only in the city but throughout Turkey, from secret agents, to ex-communists, to Islamic extremists, to Kurds and even a fascist nationalism that together represent the degradation of a national ideal.

Moreover, through the conflict, Pamuk takes Ka as our guide. He interacts with all spheres of power, giving us not only the dimension of the present fundamentalism but also of Turkish nationalism, but especially revealing the loneliness of an isolated Turkey and its resentment towards the Western world. At the same time, it is in this great confusion that the poems that once fled return to the poet. Therefore, there is a symbolism and a beauty in the work, there is a message for the West and there is also the reason why Pamuk is so accurately exalted.

As for me, I really liked the first part of the work; the second seemed a bit too chaotic. Perhaps a little more clarity and fewer repetitions would make it better. I will continue to read Pamuk. After all, authoritarianism has no borders and one must always be vigilant.

I have been reading this novel for the second time, and I find it extremely difficult to put my thoughts on paper. Why? Because I lack creativity, because the essence of the written word eludes me. The writer has brought to the forefront some crucial subjects that demand our attention. The subject matter is vast, encompassing creation, silence, the power of the word, the creation of the text, the journey through life and its profound reflection on the imaginary level, reaching the core of man's existence and extending to the exterior world. The political situation reverberates on individuals, especially those living in a town on the frontier of civilizations, such as Turks, Persians, Russians, Armenians, Kurds. Those who come there to seek the truth and also to help themselves, like Ka, the central character, and the friend of the narrator, the novelist. Both of them are literary men, grappling with their own demons, whether it's love or the power of faith. And all of these are intertwined with identity in the modern world. How can one be a man and an intellectual, a poet, an atheist, or a religious man? What is the meaning of life and existence? What must one possess to lead a fruitful and dignified existence in this contemporary world? What role is the most significant? Plays, dialogues, miracles, and story-telling are interwoven throughout the novel, with the theatre within the theatre, and the setting and times constantly changing. From different perspectives, the narrators, Ka, the poet, and his friend, the narrator, swap. Their identities merge, and there are many such prolongations in this novel of close friends whose identities become one, like SF, where one has planned to publish a work with the love of a woman at the core of the identity process, similar to the story of Rustem and Surhab. Two enemies or friends, adversaries yet close, representing one stance of life, are vying for the hand of a beautiful woman or land. They represent opposite poles, the Other, with possible interpretations of the world, such as faith and non-faith, past and present. Terrorists, lovers, and poets, all harking back to the Renaissance and even earlier, to the early days of civilization, of soldiers on horseback going about their tasks while simultaneously creating the first word about their actions and engagements.

The writer Orhan Pamuk is a writer of great depth, reflecting on the things read or said, delving into them, looking at the snow and marvelling at the universe. Just like Hamlet, Ophelia in her madness, or Horatio, looking at his dead sister and marvelling at existence. Just like Shakespeare, who perhaps also played with his identity, swapping it with Thomas Kyd. The novel is never finished, just like life, with a postscript in the present. There is always someone to finish it, marvelling at the beauty and fascination of the subject and the secret meaning of men's motives in the choice between the two paths, the past and the present. Which is the best? And how can one preserve one's identity without being reactionary? And all of them marvelling at the beauty of the universe symbolized by falling snowflakes, similar to man's existence. The two characters resemble friends and adversaries superficially in faith, love, and the artistic profession.

I cannot finish this novel for the second time because I have been reading another one that is not present on GR but borrowed from a friend or acquaintance who is in Strasbourg like me with my companion. She has given me this book by her Croatian compatriot, The Tears of the Black Mulberry Tree, by Izet Perviz. The author plays with a macrocosmic time, which is like the wind, tempest, or conflagration, moving fast and taking away each moment of existence implacably. The instance is too transient. No matter how hard one tries, one cannot stop it because in the very next moment, they are hundreds of millions of light years away from where we are. And again, the narrator, or his conscience, is a man who masters time, a watchmaker and watch repairer. Everything is transient, living and continuing to live at some distant place where the implacable time has taken them into the depth of the cosmos. What remains are the traces of memories, torn and incomprehensible, like fools' gibberish, a baby's babble, a bird's chirping, a lover's sigh and cry in the exhaustion of the satisfying act. From all of life, an eye can see three moments: birth, puberty, and death, with accidents, floods, conflagrations, and war. With joy, sardonic smiles, and death, and deep down, a profound eye can discern a yearning and dolor at the secret and mystery of their existence.
I am preoccupied with these novels. Reading and rereading them to their ends, I marvel at the man who dreams, sleeps while awake, thinks while dreaming, is somnolent or awake or drunk in his metamorphoses through life, bungling through his or her existence. Like me, man dreams and reflects. These novels are man's response or rather his intuition on time in the calculation of his life, at the depth of its meaning. Who am I? Therefore I exist. But where is God, the creator? In us, deep down. Snow is just that sort of novel, poetic, with the author's crying need to engage and share his experiences with his compatriots. And about religion and atheism. Only when you have reflected upon the universe to the extent of experiencing revulsion can you grasp the meaning of religiosity. But no matter how hard you try, you need many years of thinking. A novelist in the digietic story didn't have that outlet. He died too young, just at the moment when he intuitively saw the difficulties in the outcome, which were strongly personal. It is a novel about coming to consciousness.

It makes one wonder about the nature of our existence and the choices we make in this complex world.

The themes explored in these novels are universal and timeless, and they continue to resonate with readers today.

We are all on a journey of self-discovery, trying to make sense of our lives and find our place in the world.

These novels offer us a glimpse into the human psyche and the mysteries of existence, and they challenge us to think deeply about our own beliefs and values.

As I continue to read and reflect on these novels, I am constantly amazed by the power of the written word to transport us to different worlds and to make us see things from a new perspective.

I hope that others will also have the opportunity to read and appreciate these wonderful works of literature.

Maybe they will find answers to some of the questions that have been困扰 them, or maybe they will be inspired to ask new questions and embark on their own journey of discovery.

In any case, these novels have left a lasting impression on me, and I will continue to cherish them for years to come.

I work with a person from Bulgaria, and on occasion, she becomes so despondent that I simply have to say (while smiling), "Could you, for goodness' sake, stop being so Eastern European?" This is also the case with this book, which is set in Eastern Turkey (more Asian than European, but still...).

This novel clearly belongs to the category of books that I admire rather than love. In the same folder, I would place masterpieces such as The Brothers Karamazov and Les Misérables. However, with those works, the brilliance of the storytelling far surpasses their flaws. This is not the case here. Although Pamuk is regarded as a first-rate author, and I do not dispute his talent, unlike these more accomplished works, after approximately the first 200 pages of Snow, it began to feel like a depressing drudgery, and then it continued for another 250 pages.

Yes, I recognized his approach here, the rather meta construction involved. Because the residents of Turkey (particularly in the town of Kars, in the far eastern part of the country) were and are living through their own depressing struggle, which seems to be only interrupted by the terror that periodically enters their lives.

This book was also very timely for me because while I was reading it, the terrorist attacks in Paris occurred. Much of the political confusion and chaos that takes place in Snow is the result of the very conflicts that are also happening in the wider world.

Still, although I persevered until the bitter end, it just didn't seem worthwhile to have endured the experience. Perhaps I am being shallow and not capable of the deep engagement required to stick with a work like this. So be it. Nevertheless, I can't help but think that an artist has a certain obligation to give us something to hold onto as we read. There is some (very dark) humor in the book, and some love. But these seem to be doled out in such small, stingy portions that I had a very difficult time understanding why I should bother.

Snow is a phase of Η-μικρή-Αννούλα-πήγε-στη-δημοτική-βιβλιοθήκη-και-είπε-να-γνωρίσει-τον-κόσμο. It is followed by a review of an appropriate level.

I had long wanted to read a work by Pamuk, and through a little research I did (mainly on goodreads), I saw that all his books are considered equally good. So, I chose this one purely by chance (my visit to the library should not last more than a few minutes). I also knew that the author lives in Constantinople and thought that all his books are set there. NO CONNECTION...

This particular one is set in Kars, a city on the northwest side of the country, close to the border with Armenia. It is a small city of about 70,000 inhabitants (something like Veria), inhabited by many ethnic groups (Turks, Kurds, Armenians, Georgians, Azeris...). For years, it belonged to the Soviet Union, and it is one of the lands claimed by the Kurds. It is also 1.5 days away from Constantinople by bus, and in winter it has extremely cold weather (and snow). For more information about the city: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kars or http://www.pontos-news.gr/village/102...

The city is visited by Ka, a well-known Turkish poet (a fantastic character), who lives as a political exile in Frankfurt and was in Turkey for a few days. He went to Kars as a correspondent for a newspaper in the City to cover the local democratic elections, which polls showed would be won by the party representing political Islam. At the same time, during the same period, many girls who wore the hijab committed suicide, all with the common characteristic that they had been pressured to remove their hijab, as the state wanted to impose a more European way of life. Ka visits the city for a third reason, this time personal: an old classmate of his lives there, and he is very much in love with her.

During his stay in Kars, which lasted 3 days, the following paradoxes occurred: First, so much snow fell that the roads were closed, so the city is isolated. Second, a unique military coup took place, and I describe it as such because it started during a theatrical performance that was broadcast live on the local channel throughout the city.

Regarding the case, I will only say that, apart from the political aspect of the matter, Ka struggles with all the emotions that inspire a poet (sorrow, happiness, misfortune, hope, collapse, anxiety, anger), to such an extent that he writes an entire poetry collection. At the same time, he wonders about what is happening around him, and unfortunately, he is called upon to take a position and act as a mediator between the two groups.

Regarding the political and social aspect... I really have no words to express myself.... but let me try with the simplest thoughts I can. First of all - and with the recent coup in the summer as a pretext - the issue of "military coup" in Turkey is not something unusual. The country is really at the crossroads of the West and the East, and the people are divided over the way of life they want to lead. On the one hand, Europe, with the ideas of the Enlightenment, self-determination, and the way of dressing and level of education (especially regarding women), is very close to the country. Turkish citizens travel frequently, while on the other hand, Iran (with the Islamic Revolution) and other fanatical Muslim countries surround it and naturally influence its inhabitants. The balances are very delicate - and of course, I will not take any position - and the biggest problem I identify is that for anyone who takes a public position in favor of one or the other (and I'm not talking about a political career, let's take an artist for example), there is no guarantee that he will live his life without problems, as there are many changes in the regimes, and while with one regime (e.g., the cosmopolitan one), he would be a thinker giving lectures, with the change (theocratic regime), he would either be exiled or killed.

For more information for those who are interested, I am attaching some articles that I read during the reading of the book:
http://presscode.gr/2016/01/politiko-...
https://islamforgreeks.org/2012/10/02...
Also, for those who are interested in the coups in Turkey, a short article
http://www.reporter.com.cy/internatio...

One last comment I will make about the size. Although the pages were turning beautifully, I took frequent breaks to look for more information about what I was reading. Then, I could leave the book for hours, and although I wanted to continue it, many times it did not attract me. You will tell me, of course, that it was not a matter of excitement about what would happen next, and also I knew that when I started, I would stop again to go to the computer to search for new information... this is more of a study than a reading of literature.

For those who want a more detailed analysis of the book and the character, let me leave the experts to speak http://zephyr.nsysu.edu.tw/researchce....

For the next book by Pamuk, I would like to read something that is set in modern Constantinople. From a more detailed search, "The Black Book" and his latest book "Something Strange in My Head" seemed interesting. Are there any suggestions?

The best and most complete critique I have read of this work is Pamuk's explanations in 2006 when he won the Nobel Prize in Literature.

If you don't have the desire to read this book, I highly recommend that you definitely read this critique.

Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish writer and the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature, published the novel "Snow" one year after the September 11, 2001 Islamic terrorist attacks on the commercial and government centers of the United States. He had started writing his novel several years before these events, and there is no direct connection between this book and the events of September 11. Nevertheless, many literary critics consider the novel "Snow" as a response to the questions raised in the Western world regarding the roots of this terrorist act and an attempt to analyze the psychology of fundamentalist Muslims and Islamic terrorists.

From the time of the publication of the novel "Snow" until today, Turkish society has undergone many changes. The moderate Islamists and the "Justice and Development Party" in Turkey, whose members and supporters were the victims of the suppression by the Turkish military and security forces in the novel "Snow", have been in power in Turkey for years and have carried out significant reforms in the direction of approaching Europe and respecting the rights of Turkish citizens. The Turkish economy has made remarkable progress in recent years thanks to foreign investments. This progress has to some extent alleviated unemployment and severe poverty in the villages and suburbs of large cities.

However, many political and social problems in Turkey still remain unresolved. The separatist forces in Kurdistan are being increasingly suppressed with violence, and ethnic and religious minorities such as Armenians and Alevis are increasingly facing the aggression of Turkish nationalists and extremist Muslims. A large part of the secular forces in Turkey accuse the Justice and Development Party of being a hidden coup d'état party with the intention of imposing Sharia laws on Turkish society. The threat of a military coup still exists. Even now, a group of high-ranking Turkish military officers are awaiting trial for attempting to stage a coup against the legitimate government of the Justice and Development Party.

Most of the events in the novel "Snow" take place over three winter days in the small town of Kars (Kars) in the northeastern border region of Turkey, near the border with Armenia. The main protagonist of the novel, Ka, who has chosen the abbreviation "Ka" for himself, is a poet who, due to his friendship with leftist students in Istanbul, was forced to flee and seek refuge in Germany after the 1980 military coup in Turkey. After twelve years, he returns to Istanbul to attend the funeral of his mother and there he is confronted with the offer of one of his former friends, who is now the political editor of one of the liberal newspapers in Istanbul. Ka is offered to travel to the town of Kars and prepare reports on the upcoming local elections in this town and the reason for the suicide of eight Islamist female students in this town. Ka knows that Ipek, a beautiful female student whom he was in love with in the past, lives in this town with her father and younger sister Kadife after separating from her husband Muhtar. Ipek paid no attention to Ka in those years and married Muhtar, who was one of the leaders of the leftist students. After the coup and the defeat of the leftist movement, Muhtar became an Islamist and is now the candidate of the Justice and Development Party for the post of mayor of the town of Kars.

After Ka enters the town of Kars, due to heavy snowfall, all the communications of the town with the outside world are cut off. The next day, during a nationalist propaganda theater performance, the military and security forces of the town, together with the leader of this theater group, stage a coup and begin to suppress, kill, and terrorize the Islamists and separatist Kurds. In this chaotic and violent environment, Ka is the element that has entered the town from the outside world and, without his own will, acts as a mediator and liaison between the political forces involved. He has come to Kars in search of the happiness that has eluded him, hoping that this time he can win Ipek's heart and take her with him to Germany and start a happy life with her help.

Throughout the three days of the events in Kars, it snows. The snowfall is like a curtain that is drawn in front of the reader's eyes, and the reader witnesses everything from behind this snowy curtain. The snow covers everything and becomes a barrier to the brutality of the dogs in the suburbs of the town and the violence that prevails over the lives of the people of Kars. The election propaganda posters of different groups are covered by the snow, and the cries of the coup plotters and the sound of their gunshots are muffled by the snowfall.

The snowfall creates a surreal or dreamlike space. A dream that turns into a terrifying nightmare with the occurrence of the coup. In this space, events pass by like a dream, with an incredible speed. On the same day that Ka enters Kars, he meets the publisher and the only writer of the local newspaper, goes with him to meet the deputy director of the town's security department, sees the families in the poor areas of the town whose daughters have committed suicide, meets and talks to Ipek, witnesses the killing of the dean of a school who is held responsible for the suicide of these girls by the extremist Islamists for preventing the veiled girls from entering the school, then meets Muhtar, is searched in the security department, witnesses Muhtar's torture by the security officers there, and on his way back from the security department, at the invitation of one of the students of a religious school, goes to meet the leader of the fundamentalists in his hiding place.

Ka, this strange person, attracts everyone's attention in Kars. The groups that only communicate with each other through the language of violence sit down with him for a friendly conversation.

The security officers treat him well and try not to object to a critical report in the Istanbul newspapers. One of the coup plotters tells Ka: "We are pulling these fundamentalists so that you can see the European dream again. So that the situation in Iran is not repeated in Turkey."

The Islamic fundamentalists, the separatist Kurds, and the left-wing democrats want to convey their voices to the ears of the world through him. The families whose daughters have committed suicide tell him about their situation, and the Sheikh of the town listens to his hidden sorrows.

In these circumstances, Ka falls in love with Ipek and feels happy. He, who has not been able to write poetry during his twelve years of exile, opens his poetic notebook again and, in the midst of the turmoil of the town, sits down in a corner for a few minutes each time, like a corner of a coffeehouse, and writes a new poem inspired by the events around him.

The novel "Snow" is a work with elements of detective novels, fantasies, and love stories. At the same time, this novel is a document of the social conditions in Turkey at the end of the 20th century. Orhan Pamuk makes the isolated town of Kars a social laboratory and places the main elements of Turkish society under his microscope, hoping for their mutual interaction and reaction.

In the town of Kars, all the residents, from intellectuals and secularists to unemployed workers and Islamists, sit in front of the television in the afternoon and follow a Mexican soap opera.

Not all secularists are democrats and modern, and not all Islamists are against democracy. The government officials in the name of the republic and modernity trample on the most basic human rights and kill their opponents. Muhtar, the candidate of the Justice and Development Party, resigns from his candidacy for the post of mayor under torture. Turgut Bey, Ipek's father and a former communist who is initially happy with the suppression of the Islamic fundamentalists, soon realizes that this suppression does not only include the fundamentalists and will soon burn everyone in its fire.

The religious beliefs among the fundamentalists are not a personal faith but a group matter and a prerequisite for belonging to the group. They consider the republic and the modern society as something imposed by the kafir Westerners and their internal agents, and the only way for the salvation of the Turkish people in their view is to return to Sharia and deny all the signs of modernity, including democracy and the republic. The Islamists know that in the eyes of the Westerners, they appear backward and ignorant. They are ashamed of their backwardness but accuse the West in their defense, believing that every sign of poverty is equated with ignorance and stupidity by the West.

Pamuk uses the plot of the suicide of the religious girls as a pretext to explore the traditional family relationships and the role and rights of young girls and women in them. "Smile", an Islamist girl, says: "For many young girls in situations similar to ours, the desire to commit suicide is the only way to assert ownership over their bodies." The pressure from the government to remove the veil on the one hand and the pressure from the family and friends of the Islamists to maintain the veil on the other hand crush their spirits and put them in a situation where they see no way out but suicide.

The poor and traditional men are ashamed to express their love for their wives and see the only way to prove their manhood and connection with their families in being violent towards their wives.

The journalist sitting in the security department, who is tasked with improving his meager sitting rights by tracking Ka and those around him, has his lunch with Turgut Bey and only gives his Russian bosses the information that will not cause serious harm to Ka and others.

Ka, who has always been an atheist, discovers a kind of spiritual belief in himself during his meeting with the Sheikh of the town, and Najip, the religious school student who is in love with Kadife, Ipek's sister, and the leader of the veiled girls, and wants to write the first Islamic science-fiction story, doubts his faith in God.

Love and betrayal, satire and tragedy, happiness and disaster, faith and doubt, these form the framework of the novel "Snow". Ka is like a lost rider who passes over the mountains and deserts to find his fairy-tale princess. Ipek is this beautiful princess, but together with her sister Kadife, she is in love with the leader of the fundamentalists. Ka, at the peak of his happiness from his love for Ipek, is afraid of the end of his happiness. He predicts that failure in love is his doomed fate.

Love is one of the most important themes of the protagonists in the novel "Snow", to the extent that it even affects their political actions. Ka schedules a meeting with the representatives of the left-wing democrats, the Islamists, and the separatist Kurds in order to have an hour alone with Ipek. Ka promises that the statement of this meeting will reach a fictional journalist of the newspaper "Frankfurter Rundschau".

Finally, after three days of snowfall, it stops, and as the snow melts, the roads open up. Nothing remains of the surreal space of the town. The leader of the fundamentalists escapes in a mysterious way and is killed by the coup plotters. Ka leaves Kars by the first train bound for Istanbul and Germany. Ipek does not accompany him. Pamuk leaves the reader in this doubt, wondering if Ka has lost his love rival. Four years later, Ka is terrorized in the city of Frankfurt and carries the killer of his poetry notebook in Kars with him.

Orhan Pamuk follows the fate of Ka like a snowflake that falls on the town of Kars until it melts. Ka's failure is a testimony to the futility of the individual's attempt to find happiness in a time when the social conditions crush everything under their wheels.

At the beginning of the novel, an unknown narrator tells the news of Ka's death and describes the events from Ka's perspective. In the final chapters, the narrator, who is named Orhan and is an old friend of Ka, enters the story like a detective in search of documents and evidence to clarify the details of the three-day events in Kars, and from here, Pamuk gives the effect of a documentary report.

In addition to the journalistic style of the novel, the incredible details, such as the publication of the news of an event that will take place the next day in the local newspaper of the town, give the novel magical touches.

Pamuk depicts the love story of his protagonists with the language of a report and the political events full of violence with the language of a fairy tale.

The novel "Snow" is a multi-voiced work, without the author issuing a verdict for or against any of these voices. Pamuk's art in this work is to truthfully express the views of groups and individuals who are opposed to each other. Even a view that he himself has no agreement with. He does not take the right of judgment from the reader.

Pamuk tries to explain the Turkish human spirit to his reader and find the roots of fanaticism in it. He has no intention of justifying or approving these roots.

Pamuk believes that the main task of a political novel is to shake the foundations of absolute and unchangeable political judgments. He is obsessed with these great ideas and tries in his novel to create a distance between the reader of the book and the hot political market with a bitter satire, to tell the reader: "Don't take these claims seriously. Isn't life beautiful?"*

Translation..... Kamiar Sharif

The gentle and sensitive novelist, the engineer novelist is the one who wrote this novel. Perhaps that is due to its political answers, but it does not justify it being as dry as a historical or population statistical research. I found it closer to a report written with high literacy. A novel full of details like everything Turkish seems, and here, although the details were not boring, they were also not exciting. A novel of such length that I did not attach to even one character or was affected by its fate, and only one event out of hundreds startled me.

A great building where every brick was executed with great precision, and yet no one inhabited it so it became soulless, resulting in a novel with no life in the end.

The engineer novelist, who is between the gentle and sensitive novelist, penned this novel. Maybe its political responses account for this, but it doesn't make it right for it to be as dull as a historical or population statistical study. I felt it was more like a report written with a high level of literacy. It's a novel full of details, just like everything Turkish appears to be. Here, while the details weren't tiresome, they also weren't thrilling. A novel of such length that I didn't connect with a single character or be influenced by its fate, and only one event out of hundreds shocked me.
A magnificent building where every brick was implemented with great exactitude, and yet no one lived in it, so it became lifeless, ultimately resulting in a novel with no vitality.