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Thread: Christmas Reading: Snow by Orhan Pamuk

  1. #16
    Pièce de Résistance Scheherazade's Avatar
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    "Modernist facade"?

    You sound like you know more about Turkish politics and history than you let on!

    After finishing the book, I think it was essential it to be this almost God forsaken place for them to be cut off so easily from the "real world".

    I really enjoyed the book; interestingly the beginning and end more than the middle, which is just the opposite for me usually. It has the same feel of a Marquez book... Almost challenging the reality. All characters are compelling even though they are not fully developed or well-rounded.
    ~
    "It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
    ~


  2. #17
    Bohemian Marbles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scheherazade View Post
    "Modernist facade"?

    You sound like you know more about Turkish politics and history than you let on!

    After finishing the book, I think it was essential it to be this almost God forsaken place for them to be cut off so easily from the "real world".
    By 'modernist facade' I mean that the tourist's Turkey is in many respects different from the native's Turkey. Main cities are build on an imported and imposed idea of secularism that has been pasted on to the fabric of Turkish life. This decorative glittering veneer does not match with the traditional aspirations of the people and their way of life elsewhere in the country. In Snow, Kars is selected to represent that process in a nutshell - a place 'cut off' from the outside world so it can't grow organically, so it must be changed by swift force. We see it in young girls' suicides when the state dictates them how to dress up. For them to show their hair in public is like ordering a Christian nun to sunbathe at a nudist beach or to humiliate a Sikh to make him cut his hair. Sacrilegious. Hence the intense reaction. Similarly, when the Kemalist theatre actor comes to Kars, his idea of how Turks must behave meets with stiff resistance. The oppression of Kurds in the name of Turkishness, too, is a product of post-Ottoman direction the Turkish nation took. And so is religion-inspired terrorism: though brutally crushed, it continues to inspire many people. Why? Because it attempts to redress some deep grievances of a society that was made to mould too forcefully and absolutely in too short a time into something that it was not or was not willing to be. As I see it, though there might be and must be other interpretations, Kars encapsulates the history of the modern Turkish state from the ouster of the last Sultan till the present.

    I really enjoyed the book; interestingly the beginning and end more than the middle, which is just the opposite for me usually. It has the same feel of a Marquez book... Almost challenging the reality. All characters are compelling even though they are not fully developed or well-rounded.
    Indeed. All Pamuk's books that I have read left me with the same feeling. His beginnings are compelling and endings fascinating. In the middle he somewhat drags the story where his improvisation is strongest. I read The White Castle recently, which is his debut in English. I wasn't expecting much from it as it comes from before he found his voice but I thoroughly enjoyed it. I think that novel was his first attempt at challenging the reality. A sort of intellectualised madness pervades the atmosphere of the novel, just as in Snow. But it is more personal and less ideological, which was a positive for me. There you have a brilliantly worked swapping of identities between a captive from Europe and a sort of Turk scientist in the service of the Ottoman Sultan, both embarking on a project that makes them one and the same despite all their personal differences. It has a historical setting but then his magnum opus, My Name is Red, is also historical and arguably his best work.

    If you haven't already read it, I recommend The White Castle for whenever you want to return to Pamuk's work.
    But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel
    You were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves.
    ah, I can say nothing! You were made of everything.

    _Pablo Neruda

  3. #18
    Pièce de Résistance Scheherazade's Avatar
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    I have read his My Name is Red a few years back and I truly enjoyed it.

    You sound like you know a lot about Turkish history and politics. Combining that with your avatar, is it safe to assume that you are of Turkish origin? Or from that region?

    I think your explanation for "religious terrorism", as you put it, is somewhat simplistic... And if you blame it on Turkey's "modernist facade", how can you explain the same brutal, merciless attitude festering all over the world?

    I think what is a "facade" is to pretend that Islam - or any other religion or philosophy - can live in a capsule or in a cocoon, ignoring what has been happening outside them throughout the centuries, expecting people to pretend that they still live in a gloried bygone era....

    No, not just pretending to live but also keep insisting on celebrating that bygone era and its rather outdated code.
    ~
    "It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
    ~


  4. #19
    Bohemian Marbles's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Scheherazade View Post
    I think your explanation for "religious terrorism", as you put it, is somewhat simplistic... And if you blame it on Turkey's "modernist facade", how can you explain the same brutal, merciless attitude festering all over the world?
    Err...I'm afraid a detailed discussion on this topic would take us into the realm of contemporary politics the discussion of which is discouraged on LitNet.

    Facades are erected when things are portrayed with a cosmetic masking that hides the reality that lies beneath. In that respect I agree that all fundamentalist or extremist movements (Islamic or others, religious or nationalistic) have their own false facades which are divorced from reality.

    Like everything else, the reasons for Islamist terrorism around the world are complex. I agree things are never explained so simplistically. I am sorry if it came across as though I was blaming Turkey's turbo secularism as a sole or main reason for the existence of Islamist terrorism in that country. I intended only to point to it as a catalyst or a contributing factor that strengthens the complaints of the conservative-fundamentalists and helps them recruit disgruntled youth.

    The roots of Islamist terrorism are essentially political, as in Snow, and manifold, but its intellectual raison d'être is couched in Islamic rhetoric for popular appeal.

    Contrast Turkey with Iran. Turkey is portrayed as a Muslim success story, a modernist democracy etc. But while we hear so much about the violation of women rights in Iran for making them put on headscarves etc, we don't hear a peep in the mainstream media about women rights violations in Turkey which until recently forced its women to take off headscarves and dress up against social norms to get education and jobs. People are reacting to coercion in both countries. If in Iran they defy the state by taking off their headscarves, in Turkey they are doing the exact opposite. Two facades, two falsehoods, being challenged by people who don't want to be forced intro following one or the other lifestyle.

    I'm not Turkish but I come from the Muslim world.
    Last edited by Marbles; 01-24-2015 at 08:40 AM.
    But you, cloudless girl, question of smoke, corn tassel
    You were what the wind was making with illuminated leaves.
    ah, I can say nothing! You were made of everything.

    _Pablo Neruda

  5. #20
    Pièce de Résistance Scheherazade's Avatar
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    Rather limited for time at the moment but I wanted to add that it must be quite a temptation for those people who are unable to find "comfort" (material or otherwise) to have the promise of an eternal life that will offer nothing but happiness in evergreen pastures of Heaven. And I find it quite interesting the promises of Heaven often target the male audience even though - as in the example of Snow - it is often the females who make the ultimate sacrifices in this world.
    ~
    "It is not that I am mad; it is only that my head is different from yours.”
    ~


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