Snow

A Novel

By: Orhan Pamuk

Narrated by: John Lee

Length: 18 hrs and 33 mins

Publisher's summary

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, and 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.

©2007 Orhan Pamuk (P)2007 Random House Inc.

Critic reviews

• Wiinner, 2006 Nobel Prize in Literature

"Ka's rediscovery of God and poetry in a desolate place makes the novel's sadness profound and moving." (Publishers Weekly)
"Pamuk's gift for the evocative image remains one of this novel's great pleasures: Long after I finished this book, in the blaze of the Washington summer, my thoughts kept returning to Ka and Ipek in the hotel room, looking out at the falling snow." (Ruth Franklin, Washington Post Book World)

Melancholic

I enjoyed the book but it was rather heavy touching apon heavy themes of unrequited love and the darker side of Turkish history.

Pushing limits

It’s an interesting story with lots of question marks as if the story is history which doesn’t really exist.
I wanted to know what happened to KA and listened to the story till the end, enjoyed the narration skills of John Lee and on the other hand it was a very long and too detailed story which I struggled and fought with myself not to quit as my curiosity won I finished listening to it until the end. Wow!

Moving and informative

Masterly written and read, it enthralled the Western reader to a rather remote and difficult to understand world

A lot of words around a few good chapters

Gosh, this was long. Too long. And I like long books, but this story has soo many redundancies. Also, very kitschy. There are a few very good chapters about the different political factions in Turkey, very well hidden in chapters and chapters about „happiness“ and a rather stilted love story. Maybe read „My name is Red“ instead.

Lovely Story

Does all of love end with a broken heart? Maybe there is such a thing ad too much happiness or too good to be true.

The Snow, The Conflict, The Love

After reading "Istanbul - Memories and the City" by Orhan Pamuk I knew that his Snow would be a great reading. But the impression I had greatly outgrown my expectations. The book's plot is set in the eastern, border city of Kars (BTW, Kar means Snow in Turkish), the city that bears the memories of its Russian, Georgian and Armenian past. A poet, named Ka, returns to Kars after long life in Istanbul and in Germany. He meets here his love, witnesses a political/religious murder, faces the mysterious young women suicides and gets involved in the conflict - which is no less than the main Turkish conflict between secularism and violent religious extremism - on a microscale. When it comes to this very conflict, still so important in Turkey and other Islamic countries - he is really even-handed. He spurns the murderous nature of some of Islamists, while he condemns despicable and completely unjustified action of Turkish army that led to a military coup in the city.

In beautiful narration, Pamuk uncovers the motifs of both sides, contemplates the deep philosophical questions, and shows how human emotions of love, hatred and jealousy cast shadow on the historical events.

The thread of love between the main protagonist and beautiful, yet troubled woman is described with such truth and tenderness, without false pretence of romantic innocence - that I must say it was one of most beautiful yet not-naive love story I ever read.

The language of Snow is simple but beautiful; the poetry is in flow of thought more than in words and sentences.

Last and not least - Pamuk is another great story teller - at some moment of the book, about 2/3 of it, we are suddenly exposed to the tragic finale of the plot. I was almost sure the book ends just then, or it will no longer be worth reading. However, at this moment the story starts to be even more intriguing, and the fact the reader knows the end - not only spoils the reading - but makes it even more fascinating.

Not for everyone.

I had to read this book for class and over all I found it to be ok. There are some moments of brilliants, but those are overshadowed by tedious dialog and unlikeable characters.

The Politics of Precipitation

[rating = A+]
One of my: Best Books of the Year (for 2016)
I have had this novel on my shelf for some time. I actually got around to reading it as an audio book which actually made it more enjoyable. Orhan Pamuk is an incredible writer. He mixes contemporary issues and the art of the tale to create a brilliant work of art. Written as if Orhan is writing a travel-journey for an old friend, Snow takes place in Kars Turkey. The protagonist Ka, a poet of some repute, has came to write about the "Suicide girls", and this is where the political and religious angles come in. The whole story is built around the problem of the Islamists and how they are perceived in their own country and in the West (whose own image is rather condescending and mean). Throughout the novel, Orhan, the mysterious speaker, slowly becomes more present in the narration. I am still not sure if I like this intrusion, or if I think it masterfully constrained. Snow deals with a roguish terrorist Blue, two sister, Kadife and Ipek, and several naïve school boys, who all inspire Ka to write poems about his experiences in Kars. What most impressed me about the novel, is the shear feat of story-telling. In the 5th chapter, Pamuk does something very unorthodox and brings it off magnificently; it is a dialogue between two people, one who is killed by the other, and which discusses the main plot-driving force, religion-controlled vs state-controlled. The prose is swift and crafted to perfection, nothing superfluous, and the image of snow in every chapter may seem tiresome, but it really adds a layer of continuation that helps to drive the narration. A wonderful book, exciting and heart-felt: Orhan Pamuk cares deeply about his country and its place in the world.

Splendid story

Splendid story about East and West, seeking personal happiness versus living by belief and principle, the local versus the cosmopolitan, as well as much beauty and art, love and longing.

Beautifully told, but..........

Would you recommend this book to a friend? Why or why not?

What a story, loved it's historical value; and John Lee did an amazing job narrating, but it really seemed to drag on endlessly.