The Speigel piece is also interesting because of the interviewer’s constant attempts to portray Pamuk as the beleaguered victim of a reactionary state, and Pamuk’s refusal to play to the script…I liked the part where he outright said “you tend to over-dramatize things,” and then proceeded to respond to a question about being imprisoned as a “badge of honor” for Turkish writers by pointing out that it would be a greater honor to be the first who was not. Here’s hoping.

and setting the story of Ka in the (yes, very real!) city of Kars is another of his verbal tricks—the word for snow in Turkish, and hence the original title of the book, is Kar.

My comments would be nowhere near as in-depth as yours, I’m afraid. I was just distracted by what a total idiot Ka was, and therefore unable to enjoy the book, because I just wanted to yell “stop being so self-absorbed, you moron!” at the central character every few pages. Artistic musings got tainted by the fact we’ve got a central character who insists on reading his poem to the leading lady twice and directly asking her if she thinks it’s beautiful – way to get kicked out of bed – and so since I couldn’t take him seriously, I couldn’t take that seriously, either. Ah well.

Yes—I wrote a rather long post on it on The Valve this past summer.

Some parts of the book are a bit chore-ish, I would agree; what really gripped me was the idea of a theatrical performance that resulted in members of the audience getting killed.

There’s sort of a theory of literature in it:

Theater: violence, absurdity, spectacle, major social impact; always bordering on propaganda

Poetry: solipsistic, quasi-religious activity for loners and freaks

The Novel: go back in to the scene of the crime; try and figure out what happened; mull it over; speculate.

• * *
  I don’t know if you’ll buy it. Either way, if you have any further comments on my take on Snow, I would welcome them.

I read Snow after the trip, and I found it strange… this was not the Turkey I had just seen. In Snow, it was clearly a more divided place, one more wracked in the political sphere by the secularist/Islamist, Europe/Middle East tension that is the core of the book. When I was in Diyarbakir and Van and Erzurum, I saw quite a bit more obvious solidarity and universal acceptance of the idea of “development”, from all kinds of people… It seems like the Islamists have transformed into technocrats under the AK Party. In the words of someone I met in Konya, “In the past few years Turks have stopped treating political parties like football teams..” So I really don’t see a problem with Pamuk’s characterization of Snow as a historical novel. The book now actually makes much more sense to me, realizing that it is a story of the early 90’s.

In a side note, many of the Turks I talked to, as well as my girlfriend, who visits the country every few years, are astonished at the material progress the country has made in the last five years or so. Highways are being built everywhere, prosperous suburbs are springing up, everything has a new coat of paint, more TVs, computers, internet cafes… that sort of thing. I’m excited to see where this country goes.

Also striking to see that he considers it a “historical novel”! As in this section of the interview:

Pamuk: In Holland a friend said to me: “You know, I used to be in favor of Turkey’s accession, but now I’ve read your novel and I’m horrified. Is it really that dismal in your country.” My answer to him was that it’s an historical novel.

SPIEGEL: But it takes place in the 1990s!

Pamuk: Exactly. A lot has happened since then. Just the hope of some day being able to join the EU has changed the legal situation in Turkey. In my imagination, the events in the novel happened in the early 1990s, when there was great concern that Islamic fundamentalists could assume power. That’s why I said that it’s an historical novel.

It’s hard to know whether he’s being sincere here. On the one hand, it’s true a lot seems to have changed in Turkey since the arrest of Ocalan and the rise of Erdogan… But it is still a stretch to use the “historical fiction” label.