'Be yourself,' a beautiful woman called Ipek says to Ka, the protagonist of Orhan Pamuk's newly translated novel, Snow (Kar, 2002), when he asks how to win her heart. Though kindly meant, it's discouraging advice to give one of Pamuk's characters, for whom being themselves is difficult. 'No one can ever be himself in this land,' says the shadowy figure who may or may not be responsible for the double murder that closes The Black Book (Kara Kitap, 1990; translated in 1994). 'In the land of the defeated and oppressed, to be is to be someone else. I am someone else; therefore I am.'

LRB 5 August 2004 | PDF Download