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Saturday, July 28th, 2007
Chapter 23 of Snow contains the most detailed and almost-sympathetic presentation yet of a (bloodthirsty) Turkish nationalist viewpoint. I am not sure what to make of how familiar it sounds to me: it reads almost exactly like thousands of American conservative/hawkish opinion pieces -- ok, more eloquent than 99% of those pieces, but not different in kind. But where do I go with this? Some possibities: - The Turkish context is a huge factor which I am missing totally because I am not Turkish. Pamuk is writing for a Turkish audience.
- Pamuk is writing for a western audience and is eliding over distinctions that exist between our nationalists and their nationalists.
- They really are exactly the same.
What else?... Ka's ironic distance is making sense here as the only way to keep himself clear of Sunay's nationalism. If I'm understanding correctly his cosmopolitanism means the presumption is that his sympathies are with the nationalist in a dispute with fundamentalists -- my own sympathies would certainly default that way.
posted evening of July 28th, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Snow
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Thursday, July 26th, 2007
Tonight's open mic at Here's to the Arts turned out really nice when Michael introduced me to William Hart Strecker. I played four songs with him, and starting at the second one I was really digging the music. The third song, Things Don't Always Turn Out Like You Planned, was really beautiful and I think the violin part I came up with added a lot to it. Nice feeling.
posted evening of July 26th, 2007: Respond
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Heebie-Geebie has given me the idea: a mashup of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf with Married With Children. Specifically, the season Peggy was pregnant, as a prequel to WAoVW. I think it would be fantastic.
posted evening of July 26th, 2007: Respond
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Wednesday, July 25th, 2007
The two most recent records on my car stereo were Key to the Highway and The Last Waltz; and the lyric that has been running through my head all morning is: Ashes to ashes, mama,
Dust to dust;
Show me a woman that a man can trust, like
Ophelia
Where have you gone?
posted afternoon of July 25th, 2007: Respond
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Tuesday, July 24th, 2007
Just now I walked into my company's break room and saw that the receptionist had brought in a box of cookies, and found myself exclaiming, out loud, "Cookies! Hooray!"
posted morning of July 24th, 2007: Respond
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Monday, July 23rd, 2007
...And as of chapter 22, I'm back to despising Ka for his narcissism, and myself for sympathizing with it. The lack of awareness he demonstrates for the violence around him (and/or his maintaining ironic distance from it) is really troubling, and is seeming to have real-world repercussions for people not as privileged as he is, for instance the people in the tea house after curfew when he stops in with his police escort, or the Georgian migrant workers whom they pursue. The violence seemed to me like a farce at first reading, only gradually sinking in how serious were the events being described, and I sort of think this was Ka's reaction as well -- he is so caught up in his constructed reality that he is experiencing the world around him as scripted. And maybe he is in shock? That is the only way I can explain his demeanor at the veterinary college in a way that allows me to remain sympathetic to him.
posted evening of July 23rd, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Orhan Pamuk
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Sunday, July 22nd, 2007
The events in chapter 17 of Snow have totally knocked me for a loop. The confident grasp of the book's plot and structure that I was feeling in 15 and 16 is out the window. I sort of had an idea what was going to happen based on the spoileriffic back cover blurb; that idea was completely wrong.
posted evening of July 22nd, 2007: Respond
➳ More posts about Readings
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Saturday, July 21st, 2007
I'm really intrigued by Ka's drunkenness -- I am dying to figure out what Pamuk means here. More to say about this but I haven't figured out what, yet.
posted evening of July 21st, 2007: Respond
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A brand new site is online called Kidlit: Grownups writing about children's books. Looks very promising.
posted evening of July 21st, 2007: Respond
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Chapter 15 is where this story is really beginning to come together for me. I had been liking a lot of disconnected stuff, and feeling fairly befuddled by the whole thing -- now all of a sudden I am grinning in agreement, underlining every other sentence, absolutely wincing when I see some bad news about a character I have come to love. The moment of transition might have been at the end of chapter 14, when İpek used Ka's phrase "the silence of snow" in a totally natural-seeming way. At this point I realize I am no longer condemning Ka for his narcissism (and myself for sympathizing with him) -- his narcissism seems like the most natural thing in the world to me. Another important cusp: "I think you're right," said Ka. "As it happens, I've already decided to answer the call that's been coming from deep within me my whole long life and open my heart to God."They caught his sarcastic tone -- for what it was worth. Knowing he was very drunk, they all suspected that this witticism might well have been prepared in advance. Up until now, I have been taking Ka's dialogue as generally pretty earnest. I think going forward, reading it with more irony assumed will make things easier to understand. -- Although that was not the case in reading Ka's conversation with Necip later in the chapter -- straight and ironic are both plausible interpretations, and both equally hard to decipher. I am really dreading Necip's fate.
posted evening of July 21st, 2007: Respond
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