Fredrika read and liked Darcy's review of Snow:

"<spoiler alert!>

In a lot of ways, Snow isn't much different from some of Pamuk's other novels--Ka wanders around Kars just as Galip wanders around Istanbul in The Black Book, and Ka's vacillation between acute perception of others ...more <spoiler alert!>

In a lot of ways, Snow isn't much different from some of Pamuk's other novels--Ka wanders around Kars just as Galip wanders around Istanbul in The Black Book, and Ka's vacillation between acute perception of others and paralytic insecurities about himself is straight from Black in My Name is Red. It's almost as though Pamuk keeps writing the same novel over and over--a novel about how men define themselves, particularly those men who discover they no longer seem to fit into the very physical space they occupy; in this case, Ka can't decide if he can still be Turkish after living in Germany for so many years.

It isn't a question that the book ends up answering, either. Ka returns to Turkey only to discover that writing doesn't make it any easier to deal with the decisions he finds himself making throughout his stay in Kars: does he believe in God or not? Does he love Ipek or not? Should he stay in Turkey or not? Does he support Westernization or not? It would be easy to reduce this novel to a story in which East meets West through the figure of Ka, but the novel seems to be much more interested not in that intersection, but in what occurs when one tries to write about that intersection. In fact, this is a novel made up entirely of all kinds of writing--newspaper articles, play productions, poems, speeches, video recordings, and Ka's notes. All these are filtered through the narrator, who is attempting to locate "Ka" in those very documents--as though if one could simply find the green notebook, or discover the meaning of the snowflake diagram then one could concretely define Ka's identity. The end result is a rather nasty joke--Orhan Pamuk the narrator spends ages collecting all the bits of paper that comprise the life of Ka and then spends even more time piecing it all together, only to come up with not much: Ka is not a terribly interesting person. He's a washed-up poet and a crappy lover. The intense focus on identity leads only to a dead end in which Ka cannot be recovered through writing, just as the events in Kars cannot be explained or understood through the novel.

Ka's motivations, his misogyny, and his indifference to others generally go unremarked by the narrator, causing the reader to wonder where, exactly, the narrator's fascination with Ka comes from. It is, of course, an ironic fascination--in becoming so wrapped up in Ka and Ka's actions, the narrator has failed to understand the underlying problems in the system and in the coup: there is no "right" side in this novel--the secularists, the Kurdish Nationalists, the Islamic fundamentalists, the Westernized Turkish exiles, the ex-Communists are all simply passing around the same system of power. It is a system (and one that Ka participates in throughout the novel) in which women become icons for men, just as Ipek is an icon for Ka. As a result, the initial story that brings Ka to Kars--the suicide girls--drops out of the narrative until even Kadife becomes fed up with it. This story fizzles out as Kadife neatly sums it all up: "I'm sick of hearing men talking about why suicide girls commit suicide." It is this story--this initial narrative that Ka sympathizes with but does not apply in his own life--that provides the keys to the other stories of isolation, social pressure, and political coercion. But the suicide girls end up forgotten in this book as the men talk about them to the point of rendering those women only stories.

I like Pamuk's novels, but I find them very difficult to read. They are slow, philosophical, and the main character is often so contradictory as to be slippery. This novel doesn't have the same type of experimental structure as My Name is Red--the narrative framework is more subtle. But I think that given the focus on writing (Ka cannot discover himself through his poems, Orhan Pamuk cannot discover Ka through the novel, and no one can figure out the suicide girls), identity and politics, this strategy is better. (less) "

Fredrika read and liked Liza Bolitzer's review of Snow:

"I have to say, it's been a while since I liked a novel as much as this one and it's been even longer that I've had the chance to lie on a beach and read for a week, so I will say that you may want to take this review with a grain of sand. Pamuk remin...more I have to say, it's been a while since I liked a novel as much as this one and it's been even longer that I've had the chance to lie on a beach and read for a week, so I will say that you may want to take this review with a grain of sand. Pamuk reminded me of what really defines a novel, what moves it beyond a series of events and into a world and Pamuk's Kars is certainly its own world, full of characters whose degree of nuance is exactly as deep as those in a real place--in life you don't know everyone well and so to should it be in a novel. But if what makes a novel a novel is the creation of a world, what makes a novel good is the creation of a tone, a space, a way of seeing the world that reaches outside and it is this quality which I really loved. It's hard to describe, and I think the Russians do it best, Gogol in particular, but Pamuk constantly maintains a funny sadness that is neither light nor depressing. I am sure there is a word for this in some language, but it is complete and it made me forget that I was reading at many points. However, it is also distinct enough that I can see how not everyone would love it. You have to read for the humor, indulge the poetry (this is not a veiled language reference, I mean the actual poetry in the text) and take the characters just seriously enough to care but not to mourn. So maybe, just to indulge my english teacher self once more, what makes a novel great is also this quality--it must be singular enough to be disliked and good enough to love.
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