The Island of Missing Trees
Ratings17
Average rating4.2
15
Ratings17
Average rating4.2
A REESE'S BOOK CLUB PICK Winner of the 2022 BookTube Silver Medal in Fiction * Shortlisted for the Women's Prize for Fiction "A wise novel of love and grief, roots and branches, displacement and home, faith and belief. Balm for our bruised times." -David Mitchell, author of Utopia Avenue A rich, magical new novel on belonging and identity, love and trauma, nature and renewal, from the Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. Two teenagers, a Greek Cypriot and a Turkish Cypriot, meet at a taverna on the island they both call home. In the taverna, hidden beneath garlands of garlic, chili peppers and creeping honeysuckle, Kostas and Defne grow in their forbidden love for each other. A fig tree stretches through a cavity in the roof, and this tree bears witness to their hushed, happy meetings and eventually, to their silent, surreptitious departures. The tree is there when war breaks out, when the capital is reduced to ashes and rubble, and when the teenagers vanish. Decades later, Kostas returns. He is a botanist looking for native species, but really, he's searching for lost love. Years later a Ficus carica grows in the back garden of a house in London where Ada Kazantzakis lives. This tree is her only connection to an island she has never visited--- her only connection to her family's troubled history and her complex identity as she seeks to untangle years of secrets to find her place in the world. A moving, beautifully written, and delicately constructed story of love, division, transcendence, history, and eco-consciousness, The Island of Missing Trees is Elif Shafak's best work yet.
Reviews with the most likes.
The Island of Missing Trees is as much heartwarming as it is heartrending. The story is storm of generational trauma affecting everyone as it tears through everyone's lives <spoiler> alongside the aftermath of the Turkish Invasion of Cyprus and deep mistrust festering between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. </spoiler>
Kostas and Ada are trying to move forward after a devastating loss they each handle in their own way. Their emotional turmoil almost causes them to pass each other like two ships in the night; one turns inward and the other lashes out. Kostas has seen the damage caused by families trying to impose their will on their children, so he chooses a different path, but through a misguided promise of refusing to talk about the past he's only poisoning the present.
Ada's unresolved emotions suddenly manifests as <spoiler> a panic attack in the in the middle of class. </spoiler> Everyone is stunned. Ada is embarrassed and ashamed. Kostas is confused and disheartened. Kostas's quiet sadness can't calm Ada's hurt and fiery reactiveness.
Aunt Meryem, as well as the Fig Tree, become unexpected bridges between the Old World and New World but they also become a salve. Aunt Meryem doesn't have all the answers, but her unconventional beliefs in djinns and evil spirits make both Ada and Kostas realize they can't just ignore their problems or each other.
I loved this book although it was a heavy read. Change is hard and incremental. Older generations like Aunt Meryem can't forgive and forget, but younger generations like Ada can start the work of understanding the past to heal the present and nurture the future.
It was just good, you know? A bit slow to get the ball rolling, but once it was, I really found myself enjoying it and depuzzling the pieces of Define and Kostas lives in Cyprus.
Bookclub read [UoG]: I found this well written but not always enjoyably so. Sometimes the phrases seemed too formulaic, causing the reader to focus on the creation of the text rather than generate emotion. I do seem to like a multi-generational tale and learning some of the history of a land I visited as a child tourist was interesting. I really felt I should have liked this book more but I struggled to give it the 3 stars. I just really didn't like the tree! I'm with Ada “your fig gives me the creeps”. Yes, I get it was a useful narrative structure (and, as we discover in the end, much more than that) bringing together tales, weaving history and situations that no one else could possibly know. But I didn't like it, I found it creepy and unpleasant and, although I had warmed slightly towards it by halfway through the book, I never really enjoyed it's voice. I also really didn't like the end... Wow, I'd better stop now – the more I write the more I'm tempted to knock stars off!!
