Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Snow by Orhan Pamuk is a novel set in Trukey. Ka, a journalist, goes to a remote city on the Turkish border to investigate what appears to be a suicide epidemic of young women. The novel touches of complex issues, such as religion, Western views of the Middle East, Turkish views of the West, fanaticism, but also love, aspirations.

I gave the book 4.5 stars because it starts very intersting, but the last 70 pages are a bit too much, and the love triangles started to be to less interesting. Overall though the book is very interesting and some people might enjoy the love stories too. I can’t talk too much about the book without giving out spoilers, so I will, instead, share 3 quotes from the book.

‘Were you happy as a child?’
‘People don’t know then they’re happy, at least not while it’s going on. It was only years later that I decided I’d been happy as a child; but, the truth is, I wasn’t. On the other hand, I was not unhappy in the way I was during the years that followed. I just wasn’t interested in happiness when I was a child.’

‘I have no desire to play the hero. Heroic dreams are the consolation of the unhappy. After all, when people like us say we’ve being heroic, it usually means we’re about to kill each other – or ourselves.’

‘Beliefs? High ideals? Only people in rich countries can enjoy such luxuries.’

Snow by Orhan Pamuk

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My rating: 4.5/5 Stars
Would I recommend it: yes
Published by: Faber & Faber
Year it was published: 2005 (first published in 2002)
Format: Paperback
Genre(s): Fiction
Pages: 436

About the author: Orhan Pamuk was born in Istanbul in 1952 and grew up in a large family similar to those which he describes in his novels Cevdet Bey and His Sons and The Black Book, in the wealthy westernised district of Nisantasi. As he writes in his autobiographical book Istanbul, from his childhood until the age of 22 he devoted himself largely to painting and dreamed of becoming an artist. After graduating from the secular American Robert College in Istanbul, he studied architecture at Istanbul Technical University for three years, but abandoned the course when he gave up his ambition to become an architect and artist. He went on to graduate in journalism from Istanbul University, but never worked as a journalist. At the age of 23 Pamuk decided to become a novelist, and giving up everything else retreated into his flat and began to write.
Snow was selected as one of the best 100 books of 2004 by The New York Times.
Maureen Freely (Translator)
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