Snow by Orhan Pamuk

Most recently I finished reading Snow by Orhan Pamuk. It is the story of Ka, a rather melancholy Turkish poet who returns to his native land after living in exile in Germany for over a decade. He travels to the town of Kars to investigate a story, and also, to see a woman he may still be in love with. But the country Ka returns to is very different from the one he left, and he quickly becomes entangled with the government and its politics.

I liked a lot of things about this novel -- the snapshots of Turkish culture, the mysterious main character and the poetic word combinations that made me want to read line after line aloud.

But -- and maybe surprisingly -- what I really loved about this book were the stirring descriptions of what it feels like to be totally alone. The main character, Ka, is a poet, and I think that for that reason he has an intriguing intuition regarding human character and his surroundings, and he finds his own way of connecting with the other characters in the book, including Necip, the wonderfully optimistic young boy, and Ipek, the woman Ka fell in love with in his youth.

I think every individual has felt completely alone at one point or another in his life -- a time when he has felt so much of nothing that he seemed almost to feel everything all at once. Pamuk was able to sum up such complicated emotions in ways that were hauntingly simple, and just loved that he was able to pen a scene that made me think: I've felt that way, too.

Below are some of my favorite lines from the novel:

For a time they stood there dumbstruck, as if witnessing a miracle, watching the endless stream of snowflakes sailing silently through the night.
"How beautiful the universe is!" Necip whispered.
"What would you say is the most beautiful part of life?" Ka asked.
There was a silence. "All of it!" said Necip, as if he were betraying a secret.
"But doesn't life make us unhappy?"
"We do that to ourselves. It has nothing to do with the universe or its creator."


"This must be what they mean by happiness," said Necip. "We could be the poets of our own lives if only we could first write about what shall be and later enjoy the marvels we have written..."


"It may not happen in the first instant, but within ten minutes of meeting a man, a woman has a clear idea of who he is, or at least who he might be for her, and her heart of hearts has already told her whether or not she's going to fall in love with him. But her head needs time to understand what her heart has decided. If you ask me, there's very little a man can do at this point except wait for time to take its course. If you really love her, all you have to do is tell her all the beautiful things you feel about her: why you love her, why you want to marry her." -- Ipek's sister, Kadife, to Ka


Here, perhaps, we have arrived at the heart of our story. How much can we ever know about the love and pain in another's heart? How much can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?


Happiness is holding someone in your arms and knowing you hold the whole world.


She felt herself age suddenly. To reconcile and grow old in peace, and have the wit to want nothing from the world -- this was her wish now.