'Snow' by Orhan Pamuk

[donnie]

I am reading this at the moment. It is very interesting but I am finding it quite hard work, perhaps because it's a translation. Anyway I am around half way through and I just wondered if anyone else has read it.

I read it - also found it hard work I'm afraid, but less so than My Name is Red which is the other one of his I read. My gut feeling is that it was the translation that was the problem - both books were kind of interesting, but the prose was clunky.

I've read My Name is Red. Hard work but interesting - not sure whether I followed it all, though.

[http://www.mumsnet.com/Talk?topicid=1377&threadid=163249 Here]]. I read it in Turkish original, btw.

Orhan Pamuk writes beautifully. It's a shame the translation wasn't so good.

I read it - also found it hard work but well worth it

couldn't manage "my name is red" but absolutely plan to return to it when I can give it some proper attention

I've also read "the white castle" and one other I can't remember now and really enjoyed them. tbh think the difficulties may come from a combination of translation issues and just a different way of writing, different concerns etc coming from such a different culture.

I would rate Snow as one of my favourite books I think.

Keep going, if you are enjoying so far I think you will find it worthwhile

regularly - If you liked those books, I heartily recommend "Black Book", which I personally feel is Pamuk's best book.

"The New Life" is also quite good (I thought, when I read it in my early 20s). Very easy to read and dream-like in parts.

"Snow" deals with issues that are specific to Turkey and uses references to current affairs of the country, so I am quite surprised that it has found such a following in translation.

CdA - will look those ones up, thakns for recommendation

I think one of the reasons I liked Snow so much was that it was very specific to Turkey, and the recent history etc, which hitherto I'd known nothing much about. So as well as really enjoying the writing (bastardised as it may have been in translation) I enjoyed finding out about those issues...although am fairly sure (having read your input on the other thread) that most of it probably went over my head

he writes in an almost allegorical way (I think that's what I mean at least), which I find inviting as it is so different to how a lot of western writers approach thing, but quite difficult possibly because I am so unused to it

CoteDAzur - having read your post on the other thread, I can see how the nature of Pamuk's writing means so much gets lost in translation. I'm sure that's true for most things, but there are definitely some books that suffer more than other.

I loved My Name is red and Black Book - but get the new translation of the latter (even as a non-turkish speaker I could tell that the one I read was laughably bad). Snow is sitting on my bookshelf for when I don't have two kids under 2.5 (and a 300 page book on metaphysics to review by next week )

Orhan Pamuk published a new book, by the way. It's called "Museum of Innocence" and is currently sitting on my desk, waiting for me to finish "The End of Mr Y"

will look out for that - thanks