Book Review: Snow by Orhan Pamuk

There are very few writers of our time who can give us a palatable version of poetic prose. Orhan Pamuk, who came into the international spotlight only recently, is a gifted wordsmith who can craft magical scenes in even the most joyless of landscapes.

Snow, the seventh novel by Pamuk traces the journey of Ka, a poet exiled to Germany for many a year back to the small, sleepy and isolated town of Kars. Kars has been grappling for the last few decades with the ideas of modernity and Islamism. This tussle of idealogies has come down to a dangerous triviality. A spate of young women who have been barred from wearing headscarves are killing themselves in the most routine and disturbingly unobstrusive way. Ka who has turned up in this town only on the vague hope of reuniting and wooing an old acquaintance, the beautiful Ipek, claims to be there to research and report the suicides of the headscarve girls for a western newspaper.

The narrator is Ka's friend, very unsurprisingly called Orhan, who retraces the journey, the changes, the thoughts and the etchings of the protagonist from the moment he reaches Kars to his eventual demise.The novel boasts of well devised and memorable characters. Kadife, the headstrong sister of Ipek and secretive lover of a prominent Islamist named Blue, provides another strong female viewpoint and a breath of fresh air to a largely male narrative. The mystique and danger represented by the enigmatic Blue is captured well and provides a dynamic spearhead to the idea of a likable radical.

The interactions of the well bred city boy Ka, with the provincial inhabitants are natural and provide a glimpse into Turkey's version of the bourgeios and the poor struggling to come to terms with each other. Each character has a clearly defined history and a vague suggested motivation for the events that take place in Kars, be it the fading stage actor who attempts to lead a coup or the religious Sheikh who dominates the hearts and minds of the orthodox Muslims.

The book provides a genuine and empathy arousing look at a country which has for quite sometime now been engaging in the eternal cascading of progressive and regressive movements. There are moments of dark comedy when the hopelessly out of tune with the times play called "My Fatherland or My Headscarf" is enacted in front of the bewildered populace and the coup that follows. There are some uniques viewpoints presented such as the idea that it is not poverty that drives the poor to religion but the fact that they are the most anxious to know why they are on Earth and what is their purpose.

Snow, in the end tries to address all the major issues facing small towns in Turkey and while this is done seamlessly, at times the ceaseless stream of depressive ponderings and happenings can get dreary. But then again, the colours that must be used to paint this period in the history and civilization of this ancient country can be anything but gray.