|
|
|
The Turkish writer Orhan
Pamuk is a wizard. Think the political metaphysics of Kafka
mixed with the magical realism of Gabriel Garcia Marquez dashed
with the Western construct of narrative and the theme of a Russell
Banks and you start to get the idea. In Snow, Pamuk’s
fourth novel translated into English, the poet Ka returns to the
small town of Kars after spending the last 12 years living in exile
in Frankfurt, Germany. In the middle of a terrible snow storm, Ka
sets out to explore the town and write an article investigating
a recent rash of suicides occurring among devoutly religious schoolgirls. Perfectly
juxtaposing the ideas of radical Islam and Western thought,
Pamuk uses Ka as his alter ego as he takes the reader on a journey
through Turkey’s history, its current poverty, Kurdish separatists,
corrupt government officials and youthful radicals. Through
all the twists and turns, Pamuk’s writing maintains a beautiful
sense of the personal, and while the tone is nonetheless at
times purposely distant—emotions constantly challenged and
kept at bay—it is precisely this sense of confusion as felt
through Ka which makes the novel so ultimately remarkable and moving.—Steven
Gillis
What is hip? The editors
of Paper magazine, the venerable New York culture magazine,
want to tell you. While it may be hard to consider a book “hip”
when it’s blaring its hipness at every opportunity (in fact
the word hip actually appears twice on the back cover, just in case
you weren’t sure what this was supposed to be), you wouldn’t
buy this book to read it. You buy it to enjoy the lushness and surprise
of its spreads. As a compilation of trends, the book makes for spicy
eye candy. Paper magazine started as an underground indie
pub in the ’80s, when the East Village in New York was a frightening
and wild place, crawling with crackheads and club kids. The magazine
documented, and continues to cover, nightlife and fashion with wit
and abandon, but the book seems to take itself a tad too seriously.
After a while you give up on knowing your Miu Miu from your Sui
and you feel a bit silly for caring, because any one of these pages
would look perfectly at home in an “edgy” fashion spread
this month (well, except maybe grunge). It’s a sort of Greatest
Hits collection of street styles, and that’s a cool thing
to have, even if the “We’re cool right? Huh? Look!”
tone is just, well, uncool. While the choices can seem random (fashion
notes of 2004: Martha Stewart’s Hermes bag, krumping) the
idiosyncracies are part of the point. So let Paper celebrate
itself. It’s cool.—Laura J. Williams |
|
 |
INTERVIEWS COLUMNS PLUS: |
| MUSIC |
| MOVIES BOOKS |