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Snow (Unabridged)
written by Orhan Pamuk
Studio : audible.com
by audible.com
Publisher : audible.com
Availability : Usually ships in 24 hours
Avg. Customer Rating: (based on 135 reviews)
List Price : $34.95
Our Price : $18.35
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Product Description |
From the acclaimed author of My Name Is Red (“a sumptuous thriller”–John Updike; “chockful of sublimity and sin”–New York Times Book Review), comes a spellbinding tale of disparate yearnings–for love, art, power, and God–set in a remote Turkish town, where stirrings of political Islamism threaten to unravel the secular order.
Following years of lonely political exile in Western Europe, Ka, a middle-aged poet, returns to Istanbul to attend his mother’s funeral. Only partly recognizing this place of his cultured, middle-class youth, he is even more disoriented by news of strange events in the wider country: a wave of suicides among girls forbidden to wear their head scarves at school. An apparent thaw of his writer’s curiosity–a frozen sea these many years–leads him to Kars, a far-off town near the Russian border and the epicenter of the suicides.
No sooner has he arrived, however, than we discover that Ka’s motivations are not purely journalistic; for in Kars, once a province of Ottoman and then Russian glory, now a cultural gray-zone of poverty and paralysis, there is also Ipek, a radiant friend of Ka’s youth, lately divorced, whom he has never forgotten. As a snowstorm, the fiercest in memory, descends on the town and seals it off from the modern, westernized world that has always been Ka’s frame of reference, he finds himself drawn in unexpected directions: not only headlong toward the unknowable Ipek and the desperate hope for love–or at least a wife–that she embodies, but also into the maelstrom of a military coup staged to restrain the local Islamist radicals, and even toward God, whose existence Ka has never before allowed himself to contemplate. In this surreal confluence of emotion and spectacle, Ka begins to tap his dormant creative powers, producing poem after poem in untimely, irresistible bursts of inspiration. But not until the snows have melted and the political violence has run its bloody course will Ka discover the fate of his bid to seize a last chance for happiness.
Blending profound sympathy and mischievous wit, Snow illuminates the contradictions gripping the individual and collective heart in many parts of the Muslim world. But even more, by its narrative brilliance and comprehension of the needs and duties |
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Once again, at odds with the larger community |
I read Pamuk's "The Black Book", which is favorably reviewed on Americancivilwar. I sincerely did not like it. I found it boring, flat, and far too long. I picked up "Snow" semi-reluctantly, willing to give Pamuk one more chance. I'm glad I did, but suddenly I discover that "Snow" is thought to be (by many) boring, flat, and annoying, rather as I felt "The Black Book" was. Curious.
So despite my being at odds with the greater Americancivilwar community, I really did enjoy this book. There's something about Pamuk's misty descriptions of the snow-covered town, the way he never truly lets us in on Ka's deepest thoughts (his poems), and how he brings us easily from one place to another in the story that's pretty nice. Sure, the writing style is a bit pretentious at times (the word "lovemaking" was used too many times - you talked about sex shops, call it as it is!) and the love is passionate-based-on-shallow, but in the end there is so much humanity to the book and the characters that it's hard to not to appreciate it.
There's no doubt that the middle of the book gets slower than the amazing beginning. However, it never once stops. It moves at a gentler, calmer pace, reminding readers that the main plot is spanning over precisely three turbulent days. The political views are fascinating for those interested in Turkey and the entire background idea is intriguing. Some may dismiss it as "ripped from the headlines". Perhaps. However, it delves into the heart of the issue, bringing to light all sides of it, black, white, and gray. It should not be so casually dismissed.
In the end, "Snow" is an intense, fascinating read. I personally enjoyed it immensely, unlike the overly long "The Black Book". Pamuk's books seem to me like they can go either way - some readers might love them, others might truly despise them. But push comes to shove, it's down to the reader. Just as I did not go as far as to say because I didn't like "The Black Book" Pamuk didn't deserve to win the Nobel Prize, I won't say the opposite now. There was something really great in the angsty depth of "Snow", something politically fascinating in the greater story, and a lot of interesting facts and enlightening moments for readers seeking to learn more about Turkey and the world.
You might not like it, but I still recommend it. Library, then? |
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An engaging listen |
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I listened to the unabridged version of this book and found it engaging the whole way through. |
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something went wrong |
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When I started to read this (the first novel I have read by this author) I thought it was going to be excellent and give me a real insight on Turkish and Islam mentality and tell an interesting story. While it more or less succeeds in the former the plot limps, falters and ultimately becomes boring. I think there is a problem with the emptiness of the central character who is not very interesting or involving. Which is a pity because there are many interesting characters and nice touches to the story. I will certainly check out some of his other works - I may be wrong but I feel that (maybe) by the time Pamuk wrote this work he was too powerful to be cut down to size by pre-publication critical feedback. |
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Pamuk: Turkish historian, lumpen, or exchange-student in a writing program ? |
In the early 2000s, amid much publicity, writer Orhan Pamuk had left his beloved Bosphorus flat for Kars, a poor Eastern Turkish town. He was reported to have spent several weeks in a hotel there. This experience must have provided him with profound insights into the Turkish reality--which found expression in his book Snow or the Turkish "Kar" (a pun on Kars, the town where the events take place).
Snow is taken as a deliberate historical narrative providing insights into the 20th century Turkey. (The Economist declared Orhan Pamuk the "chronicler" of modern Turkey). In fact, the novel collects Pamuk's reveries. Few Turks are further from Turkish reality than Orhan Pamuk, a lumpen with a view of Istanbul's magnificient Bosphorus strait. There is a privileged elite stationed in that narrow stretch of land who fantasize about high-life in the 19th century Ottoman realm with its "pluralism" of pleasures and joys and with their backs against the crowded Istanbul streets and mainland Turkey. Needless to say Pamuk became the darling of an intelligentsia in the West who would like to see a Turkey much less the way it was imagined in 1919's Sevres treaty: Ethnic-religious tribes scattered across Anatolia governed by a puppet caliph in Istanbul. Kemal Ataturk had spoiled this dream in 1923, by creating a "little republic" in Orhan Pamuk's words. His legacy still stands in the way of the lumpen's dream. Here we have Orhan Pamuk, an agnostic and a free spirited writer--who'd most likely be persecuted as an "apostate" if "Atatürk's Little Republic" weren't in place.
Pamuk, the free spirited dreamer, is another gift of "Atatürk's Little Republic" to the Western world. He has produced, yet another novel, worthy of a C+ as a term paper for a writing program. I heard he received a Nobel for it, too. Enjoy Pamuk's Snow with a critical distance and a cup of Turkish coffee. I'd say, pick up a real Updike or a Doctorow, not a knock-off from a so-so Turkish exchange student. |
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Snow lacks imagination and is utterly BORING |
I'm half way through the book reading it English (I'm Czech myself though). And I must say that Pamuk is utterly BORING BORING BORING, self-righteous, snobbish, and totally lacking any imagination. We're just reading his accurate, detailed notes that he scribbled down somewhere on his knee after rushing to the cafe (similarly to his character Ka) so that he didn't forget how the atmosphere outside felt and how the streets looked like.
His recurring imags of snow is described in such a banal way... He's very incosistent in his writing...and his story is utterly unbelievable. In the beginning Ka hates German language and states that he never learned it. 200 pages later he makes up a story about being in the German reporter's house where they were so kind and spoke Enlish to him anytime he couldn't understand German. Ka is having a conversation with Ipek in a cafe...she tells him - look there's a director of the education institute sitting over there. No mention of anyone else sitting with him at the table. After a while Ka sees a man suddenly rising from his chair and pointing a gun at the director, mumbling something and shooting him. The next chapter that follows is called The First and Last Conversation between the Murderer and his Victim and 11 pages (!) of a dialogue follow! (The whole time the guy is pointing a gun at him and of course no one in the cafe notices this).
Pamuk simply cannot write and his characters are completely flat. This is my first novel by him and I'm still hoping it gets better towards the end, I hate to put down books unfinished, but I must say it is hard not to with this one. I was curious since Pamuk won the Nobel Prize but I keep wondering why??? Just because a writer writes political fiction doesn't mean he's a good writer! His politics and proclamations..rather a several confused manifestos which this book is turning into simply are not good enough for a literature masterpiece (which is what Nobel prize winners are meant to be writing in the first place right?)
Snow just leaves you untouched and cold. |
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