Blue says: “…are we to conclude that democracy, freedom, and human rights don’t matter, that all the West wants is for the rest of the world to imitate them like monkeys? Can the West endure any democracy achieved by its enemies who in no way resemble them?” (p. 228)

If we add two words, ‘speech’ after the first freedom and ‘and freedom’ after the second democracy, I think this could have come out of the mouth of the Iranian President. It would be a brilliant attack on ‘the West’ and one that should make us think. I feel more and more that Pamuk’s book is so very relevant to the current state of the world.


Also:
I have been reading “My Name Is Red” and chewing over the narrative style and issues of reality and fiction as I do so. I still am not quite sure what to think of the end of Snow: how we find out who the narrator is and the request on the last page. I will post on that but not yet.