Snow - Orhan Pamuk

I miss snow. I grew up with stereotypical snowy winters and it just doesn't snow much where I live now, and around this time of year I miss it. (OK, I don't miss shoveling.) There is nothing better than a winter night, when it gets dark by 5 pm and snow is falling in big flakes. Taking a walk and having the snow fall through the glow of streetlights is magical. So while reading this book I was able to picture the snow vividly, and the way it shuts down a town when it has been falling for a long time; the way it softens sounds and enhances the glow of artificial light. That did a lot to contribute to reading this book, as it provided a backdrop for imagining the events as they take place. I suspect that if I knew more about Turkish I would have picked up on the relationship between the main character's name, Ka, the Turkish word for snow (Kar) and the name of the town in which the book takes place, Kars, as I suspect there is some interesting wordplay there that is lost in translation - maybe I can Google it. All in all this felt like a slow book; it felt like watching snow fall. I enjoyed it.