Snow by Pamuk

There are many excellent reviews of Pamuk's Snow, and after reading the book, I read the reviews in this order, Margaret Atwood, to see what a Canadian woman would see in Snow. She calls it the Male Labyrinth Novel, and yes, it is one of the many political novels that I have read recently by men that falls into a genre. I might call it the oppressive politics as a bitter sweet love song; but the twists and turns, the farcical thriller aspects all complicate this. Why read other books when you can read a real author?

Michael McGaha's review adds considerably information about Pamuk and the real political circumstances of his career. Definitely read this review to see how it all fits together. Then I browsed a few other reviews, also good.

It is not quite the intricate tapestry of My Name is Red, but Snow is a more immediate political novel, taking the reader across the lines of race and gender into another reality. Personally, I like Pamuk because of his absorption in books and literature and poetry and history, but in this novel the women come into their own. The plot centres around the suicide of the "head scarf girls". Only a novel with a parade of individual characters can do justice to a complex issue like this. I will keep on reading Pamuk.