He meets an assortment of characters, from schoolboys, aging actors in a traveling troupe, and outlaws on both sides of the legal system, each trusting or not trusting, liking or disliking Ka in accordance with their own religious and political beliefs.
Some are reluctant to talk, seeing him as the foreigner he is to their world, though he too is a Turk.Īs the snow continues to fall, cutting the city and the reader off from the outside world, Ka finds he's not totally friendless in this foreign but nostalgic place. Ka then receives a harrowing and enthralling picture of the region's poverty and hopelessness by interviewing the families of the deceased schoolgirls.
Ka's first order of business is to look up an enigmatic man who often publishes events before they happen in the 'Border City News.' From there, due to the recent troubles with regional terrorists, Ka is taken to register with the local police who inform him that the city is safe, but still recommend a police escort. Tension mounts early on as the bus makes its way through a raging blizzard and passengers aid the driver in guessing where the road may be, perhaps a portent of Ka's own inner workings in trying to find his way in a part of his native land he's not experienced much of. In Istanbul, he is convinced by friends to take a trip to Kars to write about the upcoming municipal elections and the reports of recent suicides by girls refusing to take off their headscarves to attend school.
He is a poet and self-proclaimed atheist who has spent the last 12 years living in Germany and has only returned to attend his mother's funeral. The story opens with the hero, 'Ka', on a winter bus to the eastern city of Kars, near the Georgian border. In Snow, Pamuk brings his pen from Turkey's rich past up to present time, examining more current events in a novel combining politico-religious turmoil, farce and romance. His reputation as a writer grew with his detailed and colorful novel of Ottoman history called My Name Is Red, which won international acclaim. Three of his books, The White Castle, My Name Is Red and Snow are now available in English. An essay of his was recently published in the Maissue of The New Yorker. Orhan Pamuk stands unique among Turkish writers as he continues to garner attention by the western media.
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