Orhan Pamuk

Not enough nice things are being said about Orhan Pamuk. Some think that the Nobel Prize is inconsequential, and its selection committee driven by politics; others, in the vein of Edward Said complaining about V.S. Naipaul, would rather debate the politics of audience and representation than recognize good writing. I, on the other hand, read Snow and half of My Name is Red (it got boring), and decided that even if Pamuk isn’t an amazing writer -- at least in translation -- the mere presence of his roguish photograph in the newspapers, not to mention all the talk he’s incited about a renaissance of the political novel, makes me happy. That may sound like highly qualified praise, but I have to start somewhere.