Snow (Pamuk novel)

File:Orhan Pamuk Snow.png

Cover of the US edition

Snow (Kar in Turkish) is a novel by Turkish author Orhan Pamuk. It was published in Turkish in 2002 and in English (translated by Maureen Freely) in 2004. Capacious in scope, the story encapsulates many of the political and cultural tensions of modern Turkey into a few snowy days in a small Turkish town and successfully combines humor, social commentary, mysticism, and a deep sympathy with its characters.

Plot

A poet who goes by the name Ka returns to Turkey after a twelve-year political exile in Germany. A friend in Istanbul who works for a newspaper suggests that he go the town of Kars, near Turkey's far eastern border, posing as a journalist. Recently, the suicides of a number of young women in the area has brought attention to the small town. Ka begins to interview residents and learns what he can about the deaths. The suicides are causing much controversy among local Muslims as suicide is forbidden in the religion.

Ka reunites with a woman named Ipek, whom he once had feelings for and whose father runs the hotel he is staying in. Ipek had married a man named Muhtar, but the two are now divorced, partly due to Muhtar's newfound interest in political Islam. While Ipek and Ka are in a café, they witness a shooting of the local director of the Institute of Education by a Muslim extremist from out of town who blames the director for the death of a young woman named Teslime, claiming she killed herself because of the director's ban on head-scarves in school. After the incident, Ka visits Muhtar, who tells him about his experience of finding Islam, which relates to a blizzard and meeting a charismatic sheikh named Saadettin Efendi. The police pick up Ka and Muhtar due to the killing of the minister. Ka is questioned and Muhtar is beaten.

Though most of the early part of the story is told in the third-person from Ka's point of view, an omniscient narrator sometimes makes his presence known, posing as a friend of Ka's who is telling the story based on Ka's journals and correspondence. This narrator sometimes provides the reader with information before Ka knows it or foreshadows later events in the story.

Though he has suffered from writer's block for a number of years, Ka suddenly feels inspired and composes a poem called "Snow," which describes a mystic experience. Other poems follow. At Ipek's suggestion, Ka goes to see Sheikh Saadettin and confesses that he associates religion with a backwardness that he does not want himself or Turkey to fall into. But he feels a sense of comfort with the sheikh and begins to accept his new poems as gifts from God.

Other significant characters Ka encounters include a wanted Muslim radical named Blue and Ipek's younger sister Kadife, who has joined and become the leader of the "head-scarf girls," those who insist upon being "covered." Through Kadife, he meets another head-scarf girl, Hande, who suggested suicide to Teslime but insists she did not intend for the girl to follow through.

Ka is impressed by Necip, a student at the religious high school, who, like many of the young Muslims at the school, is quite taken by Kadife. The narrator lets the reader know that Necip will die soon. Growing tensions between secularists and Islamists explode during a televised event at the National Theater, during which one secular group puts on a classic play condemning head scarves. When Muslims protest, three nationalists take the stage and start firing. Necip is among those killed. The police and military establish martial law, and Ka is taken in for questioning because he has been seen with Islamists. He is shattered to find Necip's body in the morgue and identifies him as the one who led him to Blue.

Ka is taken to meet Sunay Zaim, an actor whose group put on the play at the National Theater and who is now orchestrating the round-ups and investigations of suspicious persons. As the snow has made the roads and railroads impassable, no outside authorities are able to intervene in the coup. Ka is then taken by Kadife to speak with Blue, who is Kadife's lover. Ka convinces Blue that he has a contact at a newspaper in Germany who will be willing to print a statement denouncing the coup if Blue can get support from non-Islamists. To further this fiction, Ka returns to his hotel to convince Kadife and Ipek's leftist father Turgut Bey to collaborate on the statement. After the father and Kadife leave, Ka's longing for Ipek is fulfilled when the two make love.

At this point, the narrator, who identifies himself as a novelist named Orhan, flashes forward four years and relates that Ka spend the last years of his life obsessing over Ipek and writing unsent letters to her before being murdered in Frankfurt. The narrator will play a much larger role in the story in the later chapters of the novel. We are clearly meant to identify the narrator with Orham Pamuk himself as he later identifies The Black Book as one of his works.

Turgut Bey attends a meeting at which representatives from the various factions opposed to the coup, including Islamists, leftists, and Kurds, attempt comically to produce a coherent statement to the European press denouncing the action. After Blue is arrested and held by the nationalists, Ka negotiates a deal with Sunay Zaim that will result in Blue's release but only if Kadife agrees to play a role in Zaim's production of Thomas Kyd's The Spanish Tragedy and remove her head-scarf on live television during the course of the play. Both Kadife and Blue agree.

Ka is soon picked up and beaten by two policeman who are trying to keep tabs on Blue. He is also given the devastating news that Ipek was Blue's mistress during her marriage to Muhtar and still keeps in contact with him. Ipek confesses the affair and further indicates that Kadife only got involved with Blue out of envy. Ka's jealousy is intense and the two fall asleep after weeping together. She still believes that they can go to Frankfurt and be happy, and he eventually comes around to believing it again too. However, before they can leave he must convince Kadife to not take her head-scarf off during the play as both Ipek and Turgut Bey have become very concerned at the possible reaction of the students from the religious school.

Despite Ka's urging, Kadife insists upon uncovering herself during the performance. Ka is taken by the military to the train station, where he is put on the first train scheduled to leave now that the routes from the town are open again. Ka complies but sends soldiers to retrieve Ipek for him. However, just as Ipek is saying her farewells to her father, news arrives that Blue and Hande have been shot. Ipek is shattered and blames Ka for leading the police to Blue's hideout. Instead of going to Ka, she and her father go to the theater to see Kadife.

The novel's narrator describes events at the theater as if he has reconstructed them from various sources. Kadife and Zaim have an on-stage discussion about suicide and the different reasons why men and women kill themselves. A garret and noose are set up, and Zaim hands Kadife a gun after he demonstrates that it is not loaded. When Kadife shoots Zaim much of the audience assumes his death is staged, and even Kadife appears to be surprised that the gun is in fact loaded. As the snow has subsided, Ka's train departs and local authorities enter the town to stifle the coup and restore order.

Years later, the narrator goes to Kars to uncover details on Ka's story. He meets with many of the principles, including Kadife, who served very little time for what was ruled an accidental homicide and is now married to a student from the religious school. In his talk with Ipek he tells her that Ka was a shattered man who never forgot about Ipek but was prevented from returning to Kars due to a warrant for his arrest. Ipek is still convinced that Ka betrayed Blue. Indeed, the narrator soon finds evidence that suggests that Ka went back to talk to the police after his visit to the theater and probably told them where to find Blue. Ipek has remained unmarried and devotes herself to her nephew. The narrator also hears that Blue's death inspired radical Islamists to track down and kill Ka in Germany. The narrator leaves Kars much affected by his experience.

See also

• My Name is Red
• The Black Book

External links

• 'Virgin suicides' save Turks' 'honor' (IHT)