Snow

Using imagery, allusion, metaphor, irony, and a switch to first-person perspective for an entire chapter, the author creates a sense of disorientation characteristic of postmodern fiction: It is unclear what is real and what is fictional (or even whether this division holds up to scrutiny). The narrator’s identity as Orhan Pamuk further troubles the distinction between real life and art, stripping the author of any distance from the narrator or the story being told. This increases the sense of intimacy but calls into question the notion of authorial objectivity.

Similarly, that Ka’s unpublished collection of poems was also going to be titled Snow blurs the lines between Pamuk and the character Ka. However, in his discussion of Ka’s difficult life in Frankfurt, the author points out his own failure to fully empathize with Ka’s life, explaining that his own life has not been as hard. Pamuk’s commentary points out the limitations of art and imagination in portraying the hardships of those who are suffering: A writer can render a realistic and fully developed universe in a novel, but there is a limit even there to human understanding. Fazıl makes this point explicitly at the very end of the novel, telling the author that he doesn’t want the novel’s readers to believe that they fully understand his country or his society.

The author gives more insight into Blue’s complicated emotions toward the Western world and his hidden motivations. When Blue asks questions about Hans Hansen, Ka conjures up a detailed story about having dinner with Hans Hansen’s family and feeling dejected when he was not invited to Hans Hansen’s house again. Blue and Kadife’s curiosity about the details of the décor, the meal, and the way that the family looked provides an opportunity for Ka to showcase his talent for deception: He describes “lemon yellow” chairs, the “Viennese torte with figs and chocolate” for dessert, and the “beautiful scenes from the Alps” that decorated the walls of this fictional Germany family home (231-32). As Blue and Kadife vicariously enjoy the imagined meal that Ka describes, Blue’s fascination with the West and European society is evident. The image of “a dog barking on a chain” while Blue glares at Ka is a metaphor for the envy and disgust that Blue feels toward the more westernized and “modern” Ka (232).

The use of dramatic irony in this moment deepens the symbolic significance of the story that Ka invents. The author lets the reader know that Ka is spinning the entire story. Pamuk is emphasizing the human fascination with “the other,” but he is also pointing out the gap in understanding that refuses to be bridged. Ka tells Blue what he wants to hear and what he thinks will be believable rather than the truth. By including this instance of deceptive storytelling, Pamuk also suggests that readers not get too comfortable suspending their disbelief about the story that he (Pamuk) is telling about Kars. 

Turgut Bey explains his dilemma about siding with Blue or with the coup, asking, “[W]hich should I put first, the enlightenment or the will of the people?” (242). This alludes to one of the introductory quotes of the novel—an excerpt from Dostoevsky’s notes for The Brothers Karamazov that states, “the European enlightenment is more important than people” (iii). Snow is full of allusions to Russian literature, suggesting a parallel between Russia and Turkey as countries similarly torn between East and West.

The discussion of pornography and Ka’s addiction to pornography highlights the depths of Ka’s loneliness in Frankfurt before his death. Ka’s lack of rootedness and his disconnection clash with Ka’s reputation in Kars as a celebrated poet. Even the narrator, Ka’s close friend, is stunned when he realizes how poor Ka’s living conditions were, noting imagery such as his old clothing, the treasured gray coat, and the “Bally shoes that […] he had continued using as house slippers once his toes had poked through the leather” (256). This imagery increases the mood of despair. The narrator’s affection for his friend also manifests in how he finely combs the apartment for Ka’s lost green notebook and how he fondly remembers Ka’s scent, which reminds him of his youth.