Michael
Elif Shafak is one of my favorite authors. Her stories are always moving and original, her writing is always beautiful. There are Rivers in the Sky continues the pattern of beautiful, original stories.
This novel covers three basic timelines: the 18140s-1870s; 2014; and 2018. There is a kind of prologue in the time of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. t takes place in the UK and the Middle East in London, Constantinople (Istanbul), and Ninevah. There are two rivers that are almost characters in the novel—the Thames and the Tigris. And the stories and places are connected by a drop of water.
The major characters are Arthur, a man who is never able to forget and who rises from the London slums to become a respected authority on cuneiform tablets. He is obsessed with Ninevah and discovers tablets with the Epic of Gilgamesh; Zaleekhah, a scientist who researches rivers, who lost her parents in a flood by the Tigris River. And finally, there is Narin, a 9-year-old Yazidi girl, who survives the massacre of the Yazidis by ISIS in Iraq, only to be turned into a slave. Somehow Shafak ties all their stories together at the end.
This novel is beautiful and lyrical; ugly and cruel. It is at times heartbreaking, but at the same time, kindness is found in the most unexpected of places.
It is about our destruction of the natural environment and our destruction of each other. It covers the topics of modern slavery and genocide and who owns the cultural heritage of peoples that are no housed in museums and private collections.
Obviously, I loved this book, but it won’t be for everyone. The story is a little meandering, sort of like a river running through flatlands, and it dips into a type of magical realism. However, for me, it was another outstanding novel by Elif Shafak.
Elif Shafak is one of my favorite authors. Her stories are always moving and original, her writing is always beautiful. There are Rivers in the Sky continues the pattern of beautiful, original stories.
This novel covers three basic timelines: the 18140s-1870s; 2014; and 2018. There is a kind of prologue in the time of the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. t takes place in the UK and the Middle East in London, Constantinople (Istanbul), and Ninevah. There are two rivers that are almost characters in the novel—the Thames and the Tigris. And the stories and places are connected by a drop of water.
The major characters are Arthur, a man who is never able to forget and who rises from the London slums to become a respected authority on cuneiform tablets. He is obsessed with Ninevah and discovers tablets with the Epic of Gilgamesh; Zaleekhah, a scientist who researches rivers, who lost her parents in a flood by the Tigris River. And finally, there is Narin, a 9-year-old Yazidi girl, who survives the massacre of the Yazidis by ISIS in Iraq, only to be turned into a slave. Somehow Shafak ties all their stories together at the end.
This novel is beautiful and lyrical; ugly and cruel. It is at times heartbreaking, but at the same time, kindness is found in the most unexpected of places.
It is about our destruction of the natural environment and our destruction of each other. It covers the topics of modern slavery and genocide and who owns the cultural heritage of peoples that are no housed in museums and private collections.
Obviously, I loved this book, but it won’t be for everyone. The story is a little meandering, sort of like a river running through flatlands, and it dips into a type of magical realism. However, for me, it was another outstanding novel by Elif Shafak.