Man's best friend outside of a dog, 1: Snow, by Orhan Pamuk

Outside of a dog, a book is man's best friend. Inside of a dog it's too dark to read. -Groucho Marx

As some people may know, I reviewed a bunch of books at my old department website, and figured this would be a good venue to continue the tradition. In a bit of fortuitous timing, the first book I'll review here is by the winner of the 2006 Nobel Prize for literature, although some have suggested that he earned it as much for his political stances as for his writing. He was recently put on trial for "insulting Turkishness" for making comments about the Armenian genocide, before the charges were eventually dropped. I cannot psychoanalyze the Nobel committee, but I can at least say that his most recent book is a fine work of modern political literature.

Snow, by Orhan Pamuk ISBN: 0375706860 Compare prices at fetchbook.info Categories: European Authors, Magical Realism, Post-modernism (?), Nobel Prize Winners

Just to clear up one misperception quickly, Pamuk is often referred to as a post-modernist, which some people regard as a literary turn-off (I love PoMo literature myself, but more on that in later reviews). In this case, it is because Pamuk has inserted himself into this novel as a narrator. However, the narrator by any other name would leave us with essentially the same book. Pamuk just happened to name his literary alter ego after himself, which is a rather mild flavor of post-modernism if it qualifies at all. Let me suggest instead the book is more properly classified as being in the magical realist school, albeit the more Eastern European-inflected introverted school (a la Ismail Kadare), rather than the extroverted South American version.

Our protagonist, a poet known to us as Ka (I have trouble not seeing it as a Kafka reference), revisits his hometown in Eastern Turkey after many years away. Upon arrival, he sets out to woo an old acquaintance, even as the town is taken over by a theater troupe-led coup his first night there. In many ways, the action in the book is secondary to its meaning, as in some ways are the characters, who stand in for the political archetypes to be found in the region: Islamists, Kurdish nationalists, secularists, students, soldiers, police, and more. Opinion is mixed online as to how well he draws characters; I found them to be intentionally sketchy, as what they have to say is more important that who they are and what they do.

The fascinating aspect of this book is its introverted perspective (our narrator has Ka's extensive journals from his three days in Kars), which lends an air of detachment that defines the whole novel. In the midst of a coup featuring arbitrary imprisonments, executions, and tanks in the street, Ka spends his time looking for love, even as he goes back and forth and back again on behalf of virtually every major political faction in town. While it takes getting used to, such detachment has real-life examples, most recently to my knowledge the coup in Thailand. In a city (or country) under the gun, there is a very odd combination of panic and daily routine; some people find themselves on one end or another of anarchic violence while some just try to pass the time waiting for stability. Even though no reference is made to conditions in Iraq (the war must have started either during or immediately after the book was finished), it is hard not to view events there in this light; imagine, if you will, tens of millions of people trying to feed their families, be a part of their community, and not get blown up by a car bomb. Ka, as an outsider, is detached both psychologically but also practically from those he meets, the bearer of mostly bad news of great relevance to everyone but himself. On a day where we find American and Iraqi politicians debating the political motives of Iraq's leading cleric and Islamic scholar, Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, it is hard not to see a parallel in Ka's philosophical discussions with the local Islamists and rebels, whose beliefs and actions possess the same complicated and convoluted relationship. Ka is very much Pamuk's doppelganger, but for a western reader he is clearly ours as well, looking around at an unfamiliar culture that we can describe in words but barely begin to understand. As a cultural critique alone this book is a worthy addition to anyone's reading list; that he is a gifted wordsmith and storyteller only adds to the enjoyment.