Scan barcode
qudsiya's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
alisarae's review against another edition
I started Snow with the idea that it would follow the lines of a literary noir, but it is definitely not that. This book is a masterful reflection on the devout and the secular, the traditional and the contemporary, the East and the West. I already like books set in "crossroads" cultures, and I was pleasantly surprised by the elegant discussions and characters. I plan to read more of Orhan Pamuk's books.
stanley_nolan_blog's review against another edition
4.0
Snow is basically a fictional biography on a volume of poems of the same name from the poet Kerim Alakusoglu (Ka), who traveled to a small Turkish town on the Armenian border in the dead of Winter, supposedly to investigate the proliferation of suicide girls for a paper but actually to re-connect with a woman he knew that had recently broken up. It's about his three days in the city in which he's at the center of a frozen stand-off between Islamists, ageing former Leftists, and various sets of nationalists. The action is punctuated by two plays, the first one staging mock performances that ends with a bloody coup by former Stalinists, and the second one at the end of the book that....sorry not spoiling.
Orhan Pamuk writes fluidly, sometimes neurotically, about the differences between East and West using a style of writing that places those struggles one-step removed from the narration. In Snow, Pamuk is the writer telling the story about Ka, who tells his story about his time in Kars confronting it's hostilities (which are literally staged). He did the same in The Museum of Innocence, his novel published six years after Snow, in that time he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is named dropped in Snow as a text he was working on. In that novel as well, a sexually angsty man is lunging towards a young woman as a form of East-West literary détente. Both relationships remain impossible, of course.
This would've been a perfect five/five if the dialogue wasn't so strained to points of cliché. Each of the identities form the character's dialogue rather than allowing them to breath as individuals, which is an interesting note that Pamuk is told in the final pages. In any case, I still recommend it.
Orhan Pamuk writes fluidly, sometimes neurotically, about the differences between East and West using a style of writing that places those struggles one-step removed from the narration. In Snow, Pamuk is the writer telling the story about Ka, who tells his story about his time in Kars confronting it's hostilities (which are literally staged). He did the same in The Museum of Innocence, his novel published six years after Snow, in that time he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, which is named dropped in Snow as a text he was working on. In that novel as well, a sexually angsty man is lunging towards a young woman as a form of East-West literary détente. Both relationships remain impossible, of course.
This would've been a perfect five/five if the dialogue wasn't so strained to points of cliché. Each of the identities form the character's dialogue rather than allowing them to breath as individuals, which is an interesting note that Pamuk is told in the final pages. In any case, I still recommend it.
book_darner's review against another edition
emotional
informative
reflective
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? It's complicated
- Loveable characters? No
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
alexriley69's review against another edition
challenging
dark
informative
slow-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
3.5
mobyskine's review against another edition
4.0
Snow tells a story of Turkish political, social and cultural in the 90s. The views of the whole plot-- just like how Pamuk written any of his novels-- was very detailed and descriptive, vivid explaination that somehow can be draggy but it sparks gripping narratives to the whole storytelling. I love Ka's character-- his string of random incidents during his visit to Kars involving in catastrophe of islamist vs atheist, secularist and orientalist stuff which giving me a depth view about the modern Turkish liberal ideas, acceptance and judgement also their freedom of thoughts. It was engaging and 'heavy' (as some suicide scenes took place), mysterious and despair.
I'm not really fond with the love story part, but somehow Ka's obsession in finding and examining his own happiness was beautifully narrated and quite intriguing-- his poetry journey and all the lovable feeling and admiration. It was interesting to see how the author trying to make use of all the characters as important as the main character, so I get to know everyone and about everything. Strange as how they were all having different background of perspectives-- an islamic extremist, fascist, revolutionary, secularist, nationalist.
Snow was poetically captivating. A restless lengthy journey of reading it, but I think it was blizzardly beautiful and thought-provoking.
I'm not really fond with the love story part, but somehow Ka's obsession in finding and examining his own happiness was beautifully narrated and quite intriguing-- his poetry journey and all the lovable feeling and admiration. It was interesting to see how the author trying to make use of all the characters as important as the main character, so I get to know everyone and about everything. Strange as how they were all having different background of perspectives-- an islamic extremist, fascist, revolutionary, secularist, nationalist.
Snow was poetically captivating. A restless lengthy journey of reading it, but I think it was blizzardly beautiful and thought-provoking.