Orhan Pamuk

I was very happy to see Orhan Pamuk receive the Nobel Prize for Literature. I have only read two of his books, but enjoyed them both immensely. What's more, I feel that by having read them, I understand the history, culture and controversies of Turkish society more than I ever have.
Within Turkey there is much anger that an author who is seen as capitulating to the West was chosen. Pamuk has been arrested for 'insulting Turkishness,' and reviled for writing about the Armenian genocide that most Turks deny ever occurred.
That's one point, but I think that if one reads his works carefully, one does not find condemnation of these aspects of Turkish society, but a careful consideration of them. In Snow, which is set in the small Turkish town of Kars during a snowstorm that cuts off all contact with the outside world, a very westernized young poet comes face to face with radical Islamists, terrorists, and simple faithful people whose positions are all examined in almost excruciating detail. You cannot read the book without gaining a greater understanding of and empathy for these people. That's not to say it makes you sympathize with terrorists -- but neither does it do anything to make you love the west and hate Islam.
The other book I read is My Name is Red, which is a sort of mystery involving competing calligraphers in medieval Istanbul. Just the setting is fascinating, and one imagines Pamuk's research to have been exhaustive. The story is intriguing, lusty, funny -- everything a good story ought to be. But I will say this, I have recommended My Name is Red several times to people, and usually they have put it down and told me they couldn't get into it. I don't know why that would be. Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose, which is the only book I know to compare it to, was wildly popular, even made into a movie, so I don't know why people don't like My Name is Red.
Has anyone else read Orhan Pamuk's work? Wanna talk about it?