Aug 21, 2007 03:44 PM
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Some of the best books that I’ve read are the once which I’ve picked up by instinct and sans any recommendation.
'Snow'(Translated from turkish in to english) is a journey back home or should I say a nostalgic journey back home of a poet named 'Ka'.In a small border city of kars where the winter has bared all its nothingness in form of snow, the protagonist arrives. The city of Kars, although small and rather sleepy is a hotbed for religious activism and the movement being fulled by the suicide of young Muslim girls.
The burning issue being the downing of head-scarves by the Islamic girls in educational institutes. The city of kars is divided in to two opinions - the fundamentalists believe in opting for the veil whereas the liberals feel that such practices would invite western scorn and will stall the development.
Ka's journey is a tortuous curve of loneliness, love, faith and a little pain. A poet by profession, Ka has been exiled from his homeland for his rather strong political views on a specific government agenda (not mentioned in the book). He meets his old sweetheart (Ipek), being a poet of some stature and acclaim, he receives a hero's welcome in kars. Suffering from a writer's block for years, ka suddenly begins to get inspired from the happenings and the atmosphere and starts writing again.
Ka struggles with his faith and confesses to a sheikh that he's afraid that his country would fall pray to the fundamentalists. He meets a Islamic extremist (named Blue) and a boy called Necip (a menber of local Islamic group), amidst other main characters is Turgut bey (Ipek's father) and Kadife(Ipek's sister and the leader of head-scarf girls)
Amidst the love story of ka and Ipek is a political upheaval where the city of kars wherein a local theatre actor named Sunay Zaim stages a coup, the authorities in Turkey are unable to take any action as all the roads to kars are blocked by snow. Ka is rounded off by the policemen for he has been seen with fundamentalists. The book finally ends with a dramatic turn in everybody's life and the melting of snow .......
Orhan Pamuk scores in sketching his emotionally complex characters with subtle ease. He masterly slips the east-west divide as a sub-theme in his book (yet the theme makes itself strongly present throughout the story). The narration is unique, the concept wherein he introduces himself (as Ka's friend) is something novel. The emotional rollercoaster of ka and Ipek is something which touches the reader to the very core. It is heartening to see such great artistry wherein Pamuk is able to evoke feelings for all his characters, the story literally takes you along with all the emotions - of love, pain, despair and hatred. The characters of Ka and Ipek are the skillfully crafted ones, whereas that of Blue beams with charisma and martyrdom.....
The only flip side I found in the book was too many parallel stories (or political and social allusions) covered by Pamuk - while one side deals with religious conflicts, other takes a closer look at the personal life of Ka, of his faith and his writing. A part of the book also deals with the post-kars days of ka (which he spends in Germany) - not all the aspects have been greatly touched and much has been left to inferences or have been patched up later - this definately hampers the readbility.
Just as I finished the book I felt a strange kind of void - a void, not comprised of oblivion, but a heady mixture of beautiful prose, characterization and of a land less heard of.
