Music and Snow

We thought Neighboorhood #1 (Tunnels) by Arcade Fire best represented the novel Snow.
And if the snow buries my,
my neighbourhood.And if my parents are crying
then I'll dig a tunnel
from my window to yours,
yeah a tunnel from my window to yours.
You climb out the chimney
and meet me in the middle,
the middle of the town.
And since there's no one else around,
we let our hair grow long
and forget all we used to know,
then our skin gets thicker
from living out in the snow.
You change all the lead
sleepin' in my head,
as the day grows dim
I hear you sing a golden hymn.
Then we tried to name our babies,
but we forgot all the names that,
the names we used to know.
But sometimes,
we remember our bedrooms,
and our parent's bedrooms,
and the bedrooms of our friends.
Then we think of our parents,
well what the hell ever happened to them?
!You change all the lead
sleepin' in my head to gold,
as the day grows dim,
I hear you sing a golden hymn,
the song I've been trying to sing.
Purify the colours,
purify my mind.
Purify the colours,
purify my mind,
and spread the ashes of the colours
Oh Valient heart of mine!

Art and Snow

In the novel Snow, you don't really see any paintings or any of that kind of art. Most of it is the art of performance. In the book, they have a group of people who travel and a big part of the book is about the two performances that the group did. I think that the point of the performances is to show how big of a role the arts plays in many people's lives and a way of expressing one's emotions and feelings, or just their view on certain things.

Other themes

There are a couple of different themes throughout the novel Snow. One of them is happiness. Ka is trying to find happiness throughout the novel, mostly trying to get happiness with Ipek. "Life's not about principles, it's about happiness." (338).

His passion for happiness with Ipek shows another theme, that you leave the past in the past and go on with the future. He had a great relationship with her in the past and didnt want to let that go, which effected his relationship with her in the future.

Trying to get Ipek to fall for him is another theme. He was trying to get her to fall in love in a short amount of time, which shows that you need to have patience with everything.

One last theme that is probably one of the biggest is love. His love for Ipek and his poetry is strong and got him through some of the rough times in his life and made him feel better.

jessica- the song is:

Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)- The Arcade Fire

Philosophy

Philosophy plays a large role in Snow because many characters look at it differently. Some take ethics from a religious stand point and others make their own morals.

Necip is probably the most philosophical character in the novel. He kind of takes a step back from his own life and looks at the way things work beyond him. He explores religion and his own life in a manner that seems more mature and impressive than others in the novel. 

Religion

Religion is a big part of this novel, weather it's Ka questioning himself or someone else like Nicep questioning Ka. Nicep is a religious school student who often questioned Ka about his beliefs and atheism. With all these questions Ka started to question what he thought he believed in and he often asked himself if maybe he was starting to believe in God. He questioned his beliefs because when he looked at the snow falling he could not help but start thinking of God.

When you first start reading this novel you know that religion will be a main theme in this novel. Ka travels to Kars to look into the suicide girls. The girls in Kars started commiting suicide because the director of the institute would no longer allow covered girls to attend. At the begining of the novel there is already conflict between the girls and their religion. The girls who felt like they had no choice commited suicide and others decided they were not going to take them off. Which most of them ultimatly ended up taking their headscarfs off in plays.

Plot Summary

The novel begins as poet Ka returns to Kars, Turkey. He meets up with an old flame Ipek and they begin a short lived romance. Ka meets Muhtar, Ipeks ex-husband, Blue, a radical muslim, and Kadife, Ipek's sister. After a bit of drama concerning the actions of young Islamic women removing their headscarves, Ka attends a theatrical production at the National Theater. Violence breaks out and his friend Necip is killed. Ka meets with Sunaiy Zaim, a leader of the Nationalist group and actor at the National Theater. He later negotiated an agreement with Sunaiy Zaim to release Blue after he is arrested. The deal consists of Kadife acting in a play and removing her head scarf. Kadife agrees to do so on television. Later, Ka and Ipek agree to leave Turkey together. However, before they are about to leave, they learn that Blue was killed. Ipek decides to go to the theater to try to stop Kadife from performing in the play and Ka leaves alone as the snowfall begins to slow. This novel has a lot of relationships through which characters are connected by terms you wouldn't normally think of. 

Ipek

This is what we think Ipek looks like in Snow.

Ipek

In the novel, Ka returns to Kars to see Ipek. Ipek was married to Muhtar, but they got a divorce because Muhtar started getting involved with political Islam. Ipek and Ka went to the university together and Ka wants her to go back to Germany with him when he leaves. Ipek is described as a very beautiful woman with nice hair and according to Ka she is even more beautiful than she was back at theuniversity.

Setting

Snow takes place in the city of Kars, Germany. One of the main Places in this novel is the Snow Palace Hotel. The hotel is where Ka spends most of his time in the hotel because that is Ipek's fathers hotel and it is also where he is staying. Ka also spends alot of time in the streets of kars and it the cafe's. When he is walking in the streets Ka is usually waiting for his next poem to come to mind or trying to keep one in. In the cafe Ka likes to write his poetry in them and also listen and talk to other people who live in Kars. The National Theater is also an important place in the novel. At the theater Ka reads one of his poems and it is also where the revolution begins.

POETRY

Throughout the novel Snow poetry plays a large role in the main character, Ka's, life. Poetry is alos revealed as a theme when Ka begins to write poetry again after a long writers block during which he failed to write even the slightest amount of poetry.  Author Orhan Pamuk directly addresses Ka's need for poetry as life changing events unfold around him. As Ka begins to write hi first poem in Kars, "It was like copying down a poem someone was whispering into his ear, but he gave the words on the page his full attention nevertheless. Because he'd never written a poem like this, in one flash of inspiration, without stopping..." (94). Poetry plays a large role in the novel because it is Ka's occupation and becomes a large part of his life again after arriving in Kars. He finds so many new sources of inspiration and everything seems right in his writing. poetry becomes thematic as is becomes more and more evident that the poetry isn't just art. It becomes a life form in which the events in Kars become more extreme.

Orhan Pamuk

Author Orhan Pamuk, born in Istanbul in 1952 dreamed of being an artist when he grew up. He studied architecture at the Istanbul Technical University. He soon switched to studying journalism and began writing. Snow was published in 2002 and he described it as "my first and last political novel."

His other novels include:

Istanbul

My Name is Red

The New Life

The Black Book

The White Castle

House of Silence

Cevdet Bey and His Sons

http://www.orhanpamuk.net/

Ka

In the beginning of the novel, Ka is naive about the situation and really doesn't know how bad it is. He soon learns how the citizens in Kars are affected when he is questioned for a murder. He also has to learn to cope as people he knows are killed. After Necip dies, Ka realizes that this situation is more out of hand that he imagined, and he views a clash of western concepts versus Islamic traditions. In the end, Ka still seems selfish and leaves Kars as soon as he is able to. Throughout his short stay, he made Ipek fall in love with him, then hate him after she thought he betrayed Blue.


If this novel was to become a movie, we would consider Keanu Reeves for the role of Ka.

Ka is a poet who goes to Kars because he is curious about a number of suicides that have taken place in the city. He immediately becomes infatuated again with a lost love, Ipek, bringing out his somewhat obsessive personality.

Setting

Kars is located in Eatsern Turkey. In the novel, Kars is struck by a blizzard and is covered in snow. The characters introduced in Kars seem to be connected by fear, love, the search for answers and the politics behind certain events.

Hour 1 Snow blog by Claire, Erin, Jessica and Sara.