Snow: A Look at Orhan Pamuk's Novel by the Same Name

The first time I saw snow I was nineteen. Pretty ironic, considering I am a native Canadian, born in Halifax, Nova Scotia, however, before memory serves me my parents relocated me (I wound up in Hawaii, and it's not like I'm complaining) and so I spent most of my Christmases dreaming of white capped trees and sleigh rides. The snow for me is as beautiful as it is uncomfortable, a substance that had been conjured into imagination for so long it was difficult to see it as dangerous until I first felt the numbing cold penetrate my poorly chosen winter wardrobe. This awe and fear is so closely linked to the sentiments of Orhan Pamuk's leading character, Ka, from his novel, Snow, that it suggests this natural phenomenon may give all its spectators this hot and cold reaction.

It seems Pamuk chose the snow as both a mirror of and an antithesis to the human inclinations for extremes. The novel begins in Kars, a city compounded by a storm that becomes, eventually, isolated from the rest of the world due to the severity of the weather. This dreamy ice wall encloses them into a world so small they begin to feel enamored by the conviction to belong. Sunay, the antagonist, brings Kars terror through his twisted revolutionist dogmas, and angst-ridden Blue cannot see the whole picture because of his zealous bond to Islam. The players all become consumed by their own thoughts - rolling into dangerous extremes just as a snowball when there is no warmth to reason with the extremity of ice. The snow is beautiful, just as human thoughts and emotions, but only up to a point.

There seems to be a tendency for us to grasp ideas and cling to them as if the world outside would steal them away and render is naked to an overwhelming array of possibilities. Thoughts make us sacred, just ask Descartes, yet it is dangerous to swallow them and let them curdle in the belly of our prejudices. I think that there may be something beautiful in emptiness, meaning that we can allow the various temperaments of our hormonal concoctions to ebb through our tidal life-experiences and remain changed, yet still vulnerable to more metamorphoses - if only we could sit still and quiet enough to let them. Ka, our hero, wove through this novel relatively unattached to any particular ideals, and yet he fell when he obeyed his growing convictions. The most extreme example was his alleged destruction of Blue, driven from his surrender to jealousy.

Now I am not saying that Ka is an example of greatness. He was, for the most part, unlikable. My contention is to point out the danger in extremities that Pamuk demonstrates in his characters.

On the matter of suffering, we spent much of our time debating and divulging in this notion. Page 259 has a great couple of lines to substantiate this point:

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 can we hope to understand those who have suffered deeper anguish, greater deprivation, and more crushing disappointments than we ourselves have known?

This is so profound, when considering starving Somalians, child slaves in Angola, or all the tragic stories of the physically, nutrionally, and spiritually malnourished. How can we - the big, fat, rich Americans - ever hope to understand this? How can we possible complain at the wrongdoings etched upon our past? The inclination to cling to the sufferings of our past has led to so much destruction, especially when we think we've had it the worst. Enough complaining. There is a fine line between love of culture and obsession with historical suffrage, things that were, are no longer, and can never be altered. Therefore, all one can do is move on, take in the joy of simply being alive - because this is the only truth that we take with us to death - once we're gone, the only truth left is that we have lived. It is a matter of changing one's view of the world, for though we all have tragedy, we all have the capacity to make it through, and to enjoy the simple beauty of existence. We have this amazing gift to perceive this graceful and ephemeral experience - just look at the way a branch sways in the passing breeze, still in song from the flight of a blue jay. Or, as Pamuk writes:

The cold took Ka by surprise; it made him think how weak and thin are men's dreams and desires, how insubstantial the intrigues of politics and everyday life compared with the cold wind of Kars (198).

Pamuk seems to make this very claim himself. No one can pretend to fathom the depth of another's experience in this cosmos. All perceptions are unique and wonderful for their individuality. It is ugly only when one refuses to accept that his convictions are simply that - beliefs - and being right is less important than being happy, than being alive.

"Listen to me, life's not about principles, it's about happiness"

-Ka to Kadife (312)

After reading this novel, I will never look at snow again the same way.