Snow – Orhan Pamuk

The book-packing journey makes its exit from Asia via this novel set in Turkey.

A poet, Ka, has made the two day journey from Istanbul to the far flung eastern city of Kars, close to the Armenian border. The final leg of the journey, by bus, is along roads made perilous by heavy snow. The bus gets through just before the roads are closed by drifts. The forecast is for more snow; Kars will be isolated for days.

Why has Ka made the journey? He tells everyone he is here to write about the rash of suicides by young girls in the city. Some say they are due to civil authorities banning the wearing of headscarves to college – a lightning conductor for the ever-present tensions between western liberal ideas and traditional religious orthodoxy. But there is another reason. Kars is the home of a couple of friends from university days in Istanbul – the beautiful Ipek and her husband who, Ka has learned, are now separated.

Once in Kars, things get complicated. As Ka moves around the snow filled streets, meeting the movers and shakers, it is clear that power struggles abound within and between the civil, security, religious, and political players. Thrown into the heady mix is a recently arrived theatre group whose lead actor/manager has his own agenda.

Ka ricochets from meeting to meeting, sometimes as a pawn, sometimes as agitator. He has deep thoughts and discussions on the true nature of religious faith, on what constitutes love, and of course on the headscarf issue. And the snow keeps falling.

Ka examines his faith, falls in love, gets involved in politics, and is stimulated to write a collection of poems based on a snowflake’s structure. A coup of sorts is staged, people get hurt, killed. It keeps snowing.

The prose is wordy, the setting is oppressing and atmospheric. Along with the Byzantine motivations and machinations of the characters, this makes for a Kafkaesque reading experience, for good or bad according to taste.