Saturday, August 14, 2004
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A Little Press From Across The LakeThe English Translation of Orhan Pamuk's Kar or Snow has been released. Harper's says that at one point it's "as if Nabokov and Rushdie had taken their circus act on the road, or Carlos Fuentes was anatolian instead of Aztec, or Milan Kundera remembered how to laugh." The review concludes by saying "Snow is also written by the man who got into trouble for supporting the rights of Kurds and opposing Iran's fatwa on Rushdie...[who] makes fun of intellectuals like himself even as he acknowledges the bull's-eye on his back. From the Golden Horn, with a wicked grin the political novel makes a triumphant return."
The Atlantic gets harrased by a non-Turkish reader who points out their heading for a piece called the "Arab World's response to the Passion of the Christ"--or some variation thereof--is incorrect since Turkey is not a Arab country. But I wonder what kind of person sucks in his stomach and bothers writing something like this. It could be worse, like when Powell said Turkey is a great role model for a Islamic state--that was great (apparently, he meant Pakistan).
