This is my fourth Pamuk novel. The more of his work I read, the more I am eager to explore his literary world. The first one I encountered was The White Castle during my college days. All I recall is that I truly adored it, which sparked my desire to read more of Pamuk. (I should probably re-read it now.)

After graduating, a few years later, I got My Name is Red. At that time, there was no Goodreads to guide me, and I had no one to turn to when I faced difficulties. So, I abandoned it, thinking I would pick it up later. However, recently, I read it with my Middle East/North Africa group on Goodreads, and it was an incredibly fulfilling experience. I chided my younger self for giving up so easily. Especially because My Name is Red was not the only casualty of that earlier attempt. It made me hesitant to read Snow, even though I knew it dealt with topics that intrigued me and in which I was fairly knowledgeable, not necessarily in the Turkish context. But I should not have been afraid.

About a year ago, I borrowed The Museum of Innocence from the library. To be honest, it was hardbound with a plastic protective sleeve, chunky, and had an appealing cover art. I simply had to have it. I started it with a bit of caution, but it quickly drew me in. I loved it. Towards the end, when Pamuk connected the book to Snow, it was like a revelation for me. I WILL BE SCARED NO MORE.

Now, I have finally read it, thanks to the Worlds Lit group moderator for including it in the schedule at the beginning of our exploration of Turkish literature. I still need to catch up on the discussion in that group. Normally, I participate in discussions while reading, but this book unfolds so gradually that I wanted to experience it on my own without being influenced by others' reactions. Part of my reason for this is not just a fear of spoilers, but Pamuk is such an evocative writer that I wanted to get lost in the mood he created for me. I think this is one of the things I like most about Pamuk now that I have fully embraced his work: He has a unique style. Each book has its own distinct atmosphere, making you feel that you are reading a Pamuk novel, yet it doesn't resemble any other Pamuk novel or any other novel you have read before. I wanted to get lost in that, and I did. Usually, I get annoyed and frustrated if I don't finish a book quickly enough. I read this one for a much longer time than I had planned, but I have no regrets. His writing is somewhat substantial, but not at all difficult to understand if you just let yourself engage with it.

Regarding the book itself, there are multiple layers to the story, and I'm not sure if I have fully grasped all of them. Also, there were some aspects that seemed odd to me, and I'm still trying to figure them out. So, I will refrain from commenting on those for now. I still need to join the discussion, and I think I might re-read this book someday.

A wonderful story. It was worth every hour I spent with it. The experiment that was carried out here in writing with the wise voice, which is essentially an inner, great voice. And the characters that oscillate between two opposite poles, the complex, rich and chaste characters. One can write books for them.

This story takes the reader on a journey through different emotions and experiences. The use of the wise voice adds a layer of depth and authenticity to the narrative. It makes the reader feel as if they are part of the story, listening to the inner thoughts and feelings of the characters.

The complex and rich characters are another highlight of this story. They are not one-dimensional but have their own flaws, desires, and dreams. This makes them more relatable and engaging for the reader. One can't help but be drawn into their lives and root for them as they face various challenges and obstacles.

Overall, this is a story that will stay with you long after you have finished reading it. It is a testament to the power of good writing and the ability of a story to touch the hearts and minds of its readers.

This should be required reading for western civilization, or at least for western politicians. Pamuk, as a native of Istanbul, has spent his entire life straddling the line between East and West. Therefore, he has a unique perspective that allows him to see the issues from both sides, which almost all of us lack.

Unlike "The Black Book," which I believe would only appeal to a native Turkish audience, "Snow" completely captivated me. From the very first chapter, the fascinating characters and engrossing plot draw you in. The characters are simple, the conversations terse, the setting remote, the tone hushed, and the pace slow, yet you won't be able to put this book down. The complex issues it raises will linger in your mind and foster discussion.

In its examination of the East vs. West conflict, the book has a perhaps perfect structure and balance. Pamuk doesn't take sides. You can literally take the six-pointed snowflake diagram that Pamuk presents to catalog Ka's poems and instead place characters, or groups of characters, at opposite corners. Each Eastern character has his/her Western counterpart. And each of these counterparts is equally compelling, powerful, sympathetic, and persuasive.

Maybe instead of the word "opposite," I should use the word "mirror." One of Pamuk's chief insights is that the East and West are not necessarily in opposition - they are essentially striving for the same things. So, you end up with Eastern and Western characters who are more reflections of each other than oppositions.

After reading this book, I was left with an appreciation for just how deeply suspicious the East and West are of each other and also just how close this divide is to a common understanding. Pamuk takes a powerful step towards building this bridge with "Snow." He has said he'll never write another political novel. Hopefully, enough people will read this one and gain a better understanding of the complex relationship between the East and the West.

This is going to be a rant, and it's even more so because this book is written by a Nobel Prize Winner, honored for how he represents Turkey in his books. It made the NY Times Best Books for 2004. But where is the saving grace of this piece of junk trying to pass itself as a novel?

Ka, the pompous main character, is probably the vilest creation I've come across in a while. That's quite an achievement, considering how much I dislike most protagonists. This idiot is an exile who returns to Turkey for his mother's funeral. Once that's done, he reveals his utter selfishness and decides to travel to Kars. He has noble intentions - to write about an election that no one cares about and to examine the string of suicides among Karsian women. But his all-encompassing, in-your-face obsession is Ipek, the beautiful woman who now lives in Kars, is single, and whom Ka wants to marry without actually knowing her. Because, you know, when your name is Ka, you think, "I can never fall in love with a woman unless I know nothing about her." He then proceeds to do everything in his power to have sex with her, oops sorry, to "make love" to her. For example, he sends her old father off to a potentially dangerous meeting with a known terrorist who he knows is being monitored by the state. But, what can you do, he's in love. And he just knows he'll be so happy with Ipek! When they do "make love", Ipek looks a bit too confident - not fragile enough for our hero - so he hurts her. She, being the idiot masturbation fantasy (for the author as much as the characters, he even admits it in the novel) that she is, enjoys it. From there, the plot devolves into utter stupidity, surprising me as to the depths it could sink to, considering how low it was to begin with. It's definitely deeper than the "true love" referred to in this book.

Pamuk introduces issues very early in the novel - covered girls, poverty, Islamist political movement, the craziness of the state, suicide. But these are just for show and to build up to the 436 pages (in my edition) of the novel. Every time someone begins to talk about the issues and gets in about two lines, the author cuts to Ka, who is daydreaming about the many ways he can have sex with Ipek instead of following the conversation. If the main character doesn't think any of these issues are interesting, why should I, the reader, care? In any case, Pamuk barely scratches the surface of the rich material available to him. For example, twice he paints himself into a corner pertaining to a covered girl's faith, and twice he uses the same out - "I am not going to discuss my faith with an atheist!" Pamuk cleverly doesn't write a theist who could drag this explanation out. As for the suicides, that's just a frame. No one bothers with it after Ka does some initial half-hearted investigation. Apparently, no girl decides to bother with suicide while he's there. Some investigative journalist he would make too - a more incurious literary journalist you'd be hard pressed to find. He just blows with the wind and stops the would-be interesting plot routinely at least twice in a paragraph for the following reasons in any order:
1. How beautiful Ipek is! How much he loves her! How they'll be happy in Frankfurt!
2. How beautiful the snow is! I can hear the silence of God in it for the first 200 pages of the book! After that I'll conveniently forget that I had any dilemma about God. But, even then, the snow is so beautiful!
3. Hold your military coup for a minute! My brain is like an incontinent bladder and it's leaking a poem! Go boil your heads for ten minutes while I scribble this down!
4. Isn't my poem beautiful? Isn't it really beautiful? I'll put it down on the memory axis of my nice little snowflake, leaning towards the imagination axis. (Authors Note to the Readers: Suckers! Ka lost the poems!!!! I'll waste 300 pages carping about his poems, but I'll refuse to include them in the novel. Nope, not even the one that I say I recovered from a TV program. You can all go away!)
5. Ten minutes after 4, ah! Ipek doesn't love me! My poems don't come anymore! I want to die!! (Readers: Please go find a well, Ka. Ka ignores the readers and goes back to 1 after spending a couple of lines on the issues!)

To get back to the serious issues, even if Pamuk refuses to, the women in this book are portrayed abominably. Also, shall I dare say this? They conform to every stereotype the non-Islamic world has about Islam and women. There are only two main girls in the book that supposedly deals with women: Ipek - the paragon who everyone is in love with, and Kadife - her sister, a covered girl intensely jealous of her sister. They ultimately establish the view that whether covered or bare-headed, woman is objectified. What's more, she's okay with being treated the way she is. Everyone seems to fall in love with one woman after the other. Ka is indecisive to the point that several times he wonders if he might make out with Kadife while he's mentally masturbating to the image of Ipek. Ipek seems to have one trait: her beauty. She doesn't have any pride, no matter how horribly Ka treats her (or the terrorist Blue for that matter). Her only moment of decisiveness comes because of a man. There is a lot of lip service paid to the fact that Kadife is very respected because she chose to wear a headscarf, but all this is undone when it is revealed that she did it to get into bed with Blue. Blue is a player - he sleeps with Ipek, and then cheats on her with Kadife, then cheats on Kadife with a random girl who's supposedly her friend - and all this achieves is that the women share some kind of twisted bond. Even before that, when she supposedly stands in a room filled with men and is able to pronounce something provocative and win the respect of everyone, she can only do so because she's sleeping with Blue. And when Blue storms off in a snit, the girl is completely traumatized and regrets everything she's said and is willing to do anything if only Blue would speak to her! Some role models these paragons are.
There are so many glib pronouncements in the book that I would be quoting it in its entirety if I were to comment on that. All the characters seem to be stuck at a mental age of four. But, I was disappointed even before I could read ten pages of this book with the poor language. I have no idea if it's something specific to Turkish writing or it lost something in the translation. These are some examples of what I'm talking about. Ka and Kadife are strolling around Kars talking about Blue, when Kadife says, "Everyone's afraid of him. We are too. These are the butcher shops." At another point, Ka is absolutely untroubled by the fact that he will fall in love with Ipek. In the next sentence, he is filled with dread by the very same thing. If I made a drinking game of any of these words/phrases - "happy in Frankfurt", "Ipek...beautiful", "snow/snowflakes", "fallen in love with [insert female character of your choice]", "had a poem coming on" - I would have died by alcohol overdose midway through the book.
I could expend more vitriol on the book, but I'm tired, and my head hurts, and I hope I never remember this book again.

The poet Ka returns to Istanbul for a visit from his exile in Germany. There, he accepts a journalistic commission offered by a friend to cover two news stories in the distant city of Kars, where he will be trapped by a snowstorm that isolates the city.

During his stay, he will discover love, which, together with his fascination for the snow, will inspire a prolific poetic creation. However, the situation in Kars is far from idyllic; there are tensions between secularists and Islamists, the latent rebellion of Kurdish nationalists, and a hallucinated play that will trigger a military coup sustained by the isolation.

While Ka moves among the different actors in the city, protected by his innocence but suspected by all.

Years later, the narrator, Orhan, will appear, trying to recover the notebook where he recorded his poems and following Ka's footsteps in Kars.

A well-narrated novel, with a long breath, against the backdrop of Turkey's unresolved conflicts, in which at times it is difficult to know what role each character plays. The themes of love, happiness, poetry, and the possibility of communication between human beings, beyond their circumstances, emerge. It has cost me, but I have liked it, and it has left me thinking a lot.

Orhan Pamuk wrote this novel in 2002, and together with a series of journalistic articles regarding the Armenian genocide, it earned him a trial and a death sentence, from which he was able to be released due to international pressure. He won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2006 and currently lives in Germany.

5 Prickin Stars.

I find it extremely difficult to put into words my thoughts about this book. It is so distinct from "My Name is Red," and yet, there are also remarkable similarities. Due to this, I will simply state the following:

"Snow" (Kar) is an exquisitely beautiful, breathtaking, and truly magical journey that takes us along the snowy paths, through the dark alleys, into the happy moments, and deep into the minds of the poets. Pamuk is indeed one of the finest living writers. In fact, I would go so far as to say that he is among the very best in the last 100 years.

My next stop is the Museum of Innocence. I am eager to explore what lies within its walls and see if it can offer me further insights into the captivating world that Pamuk has created.

Snow is a captivating tale that weaves together a myriad of disparate yearnings. Pamuk, with his remarkable skill, masterfully intertwines the desires for love, writing, happiness, power, and religion. The story delves into the political landscape of contemporary Turkey, vividly drawing the line between radical Islamists and Western secularists. It showcases the reasons and ways in which they are unable to coexist, and the devastating consequences that result from this inability.

The narrative unfolds through the eyes of the exiled poet Ka, as he returns to a desolate Turkish town. There, he encounters the families and friends of girls who took their own lives after being prohibited from wearing their headscarves at school. He also reunites with a woman he is passionately in love with, a religious boy in search of his identity and dreams of becoming a fantasy writer, and a covered woman striving to establish herself and win the love of a charismatic fundamentalist.

Set against the backdrop of a snowy atmosphere, which brings Ka closer to God and challenges the religious beliefs of the strict Muslims in the provincial town of Kars, the story raises thought-provoking questions. Is religious belief solely the domain of the poor, while atheism is a luxury of the rich? What is the place of women in Turkish society? The painful reality is that the women of Kars kill themselves in the hope of attaining something, while the men do so due to ideological confrontations and the loss of hope.

On a larger scale, Pamuk explores the theme of the impossibility of happiness, a recurring motif in his novels. He expresses the view that life is not about principles but about happiness, and in a country like Turkey, where human life is devalued, it is senseless to sacrifice oneself for the sake of beliefs. Only those in wealthy countries can afford such luxuries.

Snow offers a rich reading experience, encompassing themes of politics and religion, love and hate, art and primitivism, belonging and non-belonging, and the East and the West. However, the book does have its drawbacks. It drags on at times, even for Pamuk's melancholic writing style. If it were written by someone else, it might have received a higher score. But given Pamuk's previous achievements, one can't help but feel that he could have trimmed some of the repetitiveness and made the story less oppressive.

So, is my scoring fair? Perhaps not. But when you are Orhan Pamuk, the expectations are set extremely high. Nevertheless, Snow remains a brilliant work in its own right, albeit just good in comparison to what Pamuk is truly capable of achieving.

Say you shell out 100 dollars for prime seats at a show. You're positively brimming with excitement and anticipation. You settle into your seat and catch the familiar sounds of the instruments tuning.

Only to have the ensemble sit there, instruments in hand, doing absolutely nothing for a whopping 4 minutes and 33 seconds! 4 minutes and 33 seconds filled with coughing, fidgeting, and someone loudly shouting "When are they going to start?"

This is precisely how this book strikes me. You assume it'll be brilliant since it won a Nobel prize. Surely, it ought to be outstanding, right? The best book you've ever read, filled with captivating characters who leap off the page and draw you into the story.

Well, you won't find that in this book. Instead, you'll be subjected to the narrator droning on and on about snow, about how beautiful Ipek is, and even what seems like it would be interesting, such as the conflict between religion and secularism, women's rights, and poetry. But it's not! Because this book centers around the dull and unremarkable main character, Ka.

Moreover, the worst offense of all - AUTHOR SELF INSERTION!

I'm attempting to read this book again. It still stinks! I still can't abide it! The writing, the characters - everything about it irritates me. I thought Saints by Orson Scott Card was annoying.

6/8/15

Making the horrendous mistake of trying to read this book again. It's dreadful. So bad that you'd die of alcohol poisoning from drinking the weakest alcohol if you took a swig every time you saw the word snow in this book. And I'm at a part where an extremist holds a gun to a principal and rambles on and on about headscarves and how girls wearing them will prevent them from being raped or harassed. He goes on about how headscarves help a man respect a woman.

But you should respect women as individuals in the first place and NOT rape or harass them regardless of whether they're in a bikini, naked, or covered from head to toe! Men aren't evil rape beasts who have to harass every woman they see unless she covers her hair.

UGH! I loathe this book!

Another aspect that sucks about this book is that it's a sausage fest. It's as if all the interesting details about these young girls are pushed aside and no one gives a damn about them. The rest of the women and girls in this are merely props or love interests to obsess over. They're not real, complete people. Avoid this like the plague. A plague would be easier to handle than reading this blasted book.

December 21, 2018

So, because I clearly have a death wish, I read this book again.

It's still terrible.

How on earth is every single character in this book obnoxious and annoying? Every woman exists solely as some man's fantasy. Men in this book think they're in love because they lay eyes on a pretty woman and go *boing*. You're not in love, Ka, you're just horny! You don't even know this woman. You're like, come with me to Frankfurt. Okay, and what will you do for her? She has to leave her elderly father, whom you sent on a dangerous mission so you could have bad sex with his daughter! You just want a mother you can make love to! Throughout the book, Ka witnesses people getting killed, sees the bodies of teenagers, and all he can think about is sex with Ipek!

Then you have the narrator, who is the author inserted into this book. I swear the people of Kars, Turkey, need to gang up and give him a good kicking for how he portrayed their town. It's bad enough that in Saga, Hazel knows things that make me wonder how she knows that, considering she was an infant and wasn't there. But Saga has fascinating characters. This book doesn't. Especially the author, who confesses his love to his own fictional woman.

Who does that?

Why did this book win a Nobel prize? It pains me! The constant mention of snow. The conflicts that make me want to scream, "IF SHE WANTS TO WEAR HER HEAD SCARF, LET HER! WHY IS THIS EVEN AN ISSUE?!" Don't marry your daughters off to creepy old men. Being an atheist doesn't make you a bad person. Stop being so smug, Blue. You're not even supposed to have premarital sex. You're Muslim! And you had sex with two sisters and one sister's friend. Why the heck did they even like you so much?

How is it believable that this actor staged (heh) a coup like this? Over a dozen people get shot, and everyone is so nonchalant about it all. It seems more like a dream than reality.

And what kind of a friend reveals to the entire world what kind of porn his friend liked? A true bro would delete his bro's browser history.

And even though Orhan got one poem down, we don't get to see it. We don't get to see any of these perfect poems Ka wrote, and it angers me to no end. Why mention them in the first place if they won't even be in the book? Or is it because the writer can't write poems or get a poet friend to write them for him?

Plodding through this book is like trying to trudge through 5 feet of snow when you're only 5'3 1/2". It's unpleasant! And the snow gets into your shoes, your clothes, and home is 3 miles away, and it's still snowing, and you're just going to drown in snow and freeze to death. But that's okay because at least you're not reading this awful book.

Also, Ka is just an irritating incel.

This book caught my attention nearly 4 years ago, shortly after I joined Goodreads.

So, when it was presented as an option for this quarter's challenge, I gladly added it to my list. I was so stubborn that I couldn't put it down.

The prose is ordinary and unappealing, sometimes even dull. There is no genuine character development. The women are either beautiful or fat, and one of the important yet minor characters has blue eyes. That hardly qualifies as character development.

However, my main objection is the content. There was frequent, hateful dialogue from political Islam that constituted an attack on the West. To be fair, this didn't come from the main character. In fact, he was often the target of this hate speech as he represented the atheistic west. I didn't know he was an atheist until it was mentioned, long after he realized that snow made him think of God. I found it难以置信 that an atheist would suddenly think of God when seeing snow out of nowhere.

This book is on Boxall's 1001 Books You Should Read Before You Die. Opinions differ. My view is that you would pass away more easily and happily without having read this.

Blood on the Snow and Snow on the Blood:

A poet who has been in exile and solitude for years, as he looks out the car window at the slushy road and the snowfall, recalls a distant and forgotten village where a group of girls recently committed suicide. This is the gateway for the reader to another image of the Middle East. Turkey, which has always been striving to be recognized as a progressive and European country by presenting a false image, is floundering in the mud in this border and distant city.

The cold, sad, lonely, and politicized atmosphere of this city and its people is less familiar to Western readers. Therefore, perhaps no nation can feel this story as deeply as the Middle Easterners. The main character of the book is one of the most understandable people I have ever encountered. Because despite his name and appearance, one can clearly see his fears and weaknesses. He is an ordinary person with good intentions and sometimes self-willed, and like any other person on earth, he is a defeated person. Defeated by his dreams, but still striving to approach that desired image.

This novel is the first and last political book of Orhan Pamuk, in which he has managed to gather all his concerns. From his political concerns to the issues of love, exile, solitude, happiness, sadness, and self-will, even religion, fanaticism, and excessiveness, and the relationship and friendship between nations.

In my opinion, the story has four plots: love, sociological, religious, and political. Pamuk, without a clear border, successively leads the reader between these four spaces and presents a general framework with excellent short stories. However, the brightest part of the story, in my opinion, is the portrayal of the tragic fate of the exiled and lonely poet who was never understood, and love betrayed him and disintegrated and fell apart from within. A highly symbolic, bitter, and tear-jerking image.

I really wanted to write about my personal connection with this book, which was read in a bookstore and on the metro in Tehran on cloudy and rainy days, and I would take refuge in tea and cigarettes to escape the cold and bitterness of it, and with each sip of tea and each puff of my cigarette, I would think about that city, those people, and above all, that exiled poet.

Despite all the bitterness and of course the pleasure, I keep this book for myself and only recommend its reading to my interested friends.

P.S: I'm sorry that this book came to the market with this cover design and this publisher, but it has been worth waiting for years for an accurate translation of this book. The book has a wealth of details that may not be appealing to everyone, and of course, the main story takes place within a period of three or four days. Although Pamuk is borderless in most of his works, he has a certain style. With all these details and the detailed story, I find it space-creating and useful in many cases, but again, it may be tiresome for some.

October 1402

1,5

If you think about how to say snow in Arabic, Kar, it won't be difficult at all to understand why Pamuk set this novel in Kars. Just as the snow falls undeterred and blocks the streets of Kars, a city on the border of Turkey, but in fact, if we want, on the borders of the world, so prejudices corrode the human mind, blocking the process. If Pamuk didn't even think of this assonance Kar - Kars, I solemnly apologize to the Nobel Prize, but I still take the cue from this associative idea of mine to explain to you what this reading experience was like for me.

I have seen the chador in many parts of Europe, I have seen the burka especially on the streets of Egypt, but I have also seen'su muccaloru' on the heads of Sardinian women in inland countries, and not only.

When the talk about the 'chador', the'veil' started in schools, everyone seemed to have an opinion, everyone seemed to want to say it, or rather shout it, because the obligatory tone of voice in pretentious talk-show conversations seems to have now become that of shouting, and yet no one has ever asked the directly interested parties.

Now, leaving aside the Sardinian women who have always made the chador seem a rather irrelevant fact to me because of habit, if we consider the Turkish women who cover their heads, who cover their hair, especially the Turkish women of Kars who were committing suicide because Ataturk prohibited the use of the veil in schools and in public places, we must open our eyes to a relevant fact: that never has any veiled woman in Kars been questioned on this matter. Even Italian parliamentarians have talked about it, and with that I have said it all. But the women of Kars have not talked about it, and not because they are dead, but because even when they were alive no one ever bothered to question them.

Our problem, with our meaning 'of us Westerners', is that of filtering any perspective that is proposed to us through the Western prism, which has taken for granted its own superiority and the inferiority of others.

If you read 'Snow' you will find yourself being a jerk because unfortunately you will be Ka, willingly or unwillingly, you will be the Western bourgeoisie, even if in his case there is the aggravating circumstance of Turkish origin, and you will evaluate everything that happens in the East and Islam, labeling it as 'wrong'. And if for once we were on the other side of the mirror? Not to give an assent that does not come from a true sharing of ideas, but simply to give a look free from views that millennia have made for us and from which we are unable to free ourselves?

I am against the veil that completely covers the visual connotations of a person for reasons of simple public order, but why couldn't the Orientals be justifiably against the Veline who go on TV to show breasts and buttocks that are then emulated by girls who for money are desecrated in the school gardens so that they can buy Hogan, the iPhone or the BlackBerry?

In short, I am quite angry. Not with you, and not even with Pamuk, who writes divinely. I am quite angry with myself for always being so Western, and so little intelligent in evaluating situations that happened both in our dear Europe and in that East of the Thousand and One Wars.

Beyond the style, the plot, the love, the poetry, the intrigue, the wisdom of an author with a chip on his shoulder, excuse the not very decent image, but it was the most effective one, the reason why I want to recommend Pamuk to you is the following: because he teaches you to reason.

If before you took an apple in your hand and started eating from any side, after Pamuk evaluate the apple to understand well from where to start eating with greater yield of the fruit.

Okay, the metaphor was awful, but it was just to convey to you what Pamuk has been for me.

Pamuk has been for me a new window on the East, but also a window on the need I have to learn well and better about anything I want to talk about, before saying stupid things, Western and superfluous.

In short, after my review I doubt that you will buy 'Snow', fortunately Pamuk has literary agents who know how to publicize it better than me, of one thing I am sure, that you have understood that I am angry, but maybe it's just for the cycle.

See you soon Orhan, and thank you for the teachings (and for the anger, which maybe is just for the cycle, who knows).