Snow (Pamuk novel)

Snow

First edition (Turkish)
Author	Orhan Pamuk
Original title	Kar
Translator	Maureen Freely
Country	Turkey
Language	Turkish
Publisher	İletişim
Publication date	2002
Published in English	2004, Faber and Faber
Media type	Print (Hardback & Paperback)
Pages	426 pp.
ISBN	(United States ed.)
OCLC	61119056

Snow (Turkish: Kar) is a novel by Turkish writer Orhan Pamuk. Published in Turkish in 2002, it was translated into English by Maureen Freely and published in 2004. The story encapsulates many of the political and cultural tensions of modern Turkey and successfully combines humor, social commentary, mysticism, and a deep sympathy with its characters.

Kar is the word for Snow, but the main character also abbreviates his name to Ka (his initials) with the novel set in the eastern Turkish city of Kars. An opening (and recurring) theme concerns reasons behind a suicide epidemic among teenage girls (which actually took place in the city of Batman).

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. At times, the action seems somewhat dream-like. The story is set in the city of Kars which creates a sense of alienation for Ka as the city is unlike anywhere else in Turkey, due to its history as a Russian garrison town.

Ka is a poet, who returns to Turkey after 12 years of political exile in Germany. He has several motives, first, as a journalist, to investigate a spate of suicides but also in the hope of meeting a woman he used to know. Heavy snow cuts off the town for about three days during which time Ka is in conversation with a former communist, a secularist, a fascist nationalist, a possible Islamic extremist, Islamic moderates, young Kurds, the military, the Secret Service, the police and in particular, an actor-revolutionary. In the midst of this, love and passion are to be found. Temporarily closed off from the world, a farcical coup is staged and linked melodramatically to a stage play. The main discussion concerns the interface of secularism and belief but there are references to all of Turkey's twentieth century history.

Ka reunites with a woman named İpek, whom he once had feelings for, whose father runs the hotel he is staying in. İpek is divorced from Muhtar, partly due to Muhtar's newfound interest in political Islam. In a café, the pair 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 educationalist. Ka is questioned and Muhtar is beaten.