There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
A Book Review
There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak
Memory plays a central character in most of Shafak’s novels. Be it the memory of a corpse in 10 minutes 38 seconds in This Strange World, or the conflicting familial memories in The Bastard of Istanbul. In her more recent publications such as The Island of Missing Trees, her keen observation of our relationship with history and the memories embedded within the collective consciousness of minority groups was given a new meaning and in my opinion continues in her latest release, There are Rivers in the Sky. This new addition to her repertoire compels the reader to look beyond the conventional form of human memory expressed via mere speech or writing. In it she brings to the centre-stage yet another pivotal character who has safeguarded memories since the beginning of time, an almost forgotten narrative of the memory of nature and our planet. This time her chosen narrative is the point of view of a droplet of water.
A droplet of water brings together the epic Tale of Gilgamesh from the library of the well-read yet cruel King Ashurbanipal in the forgotten city of Mesopotamia in 600 BC to three different stories in three different timelines. King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums of London, a fictional character inspired by the life of George Smith, an English Assyriologist in the 1800s, to Narin, a disabled Yazidi girl caught in the Yazidi genocide in Iraq in 2014 to Zaleekah, a hydrologist living in London in 2018. If this feels like a mammoth of an endeavour to you, let me tell you that you are right.
‘There are Rivers in the Sky’ is a historical tale that blends seamlessly with the contemporary, and has a strong moral to the story particularly fashioned to hit the nail on its head, regarding today’s global scenario. As you flip through the pages you will see the extent of careful effort put into researching the historical and cultural accuracy of all the stories in their respective timelines. She narrates the stories unapologetically and is not scared to leave a bitter taste in the tongues of many. The dash of humour that she employed as a tool in her previous novels to veil the seriousness of difficult topics was replaced by a raw and accurate depiction of incidents in this one. She raises her strong and unwavering voice against the injustice imposed by the majority by wiping off the existence of an entire sect, a generation of memories and its storytellers. She reminds us of all the stories that should be treasured and how history has a way to repeat itself. She shoves the ugly truths about the violent acts of silencing into your face, will force you to unflinchingly stare straight into its eyes, and live with the shame you carry along. There is nowhere to hide when you read this book and that is exactly its intention.
‘There are Rivers in the Sky’ is vast in its scope and I applaud her for that. Her astute ability to build the imagery of a story that lasts across various periods of times and different characters keeps your imagination alive. I found a treasure trove of beautiful lines and paragraphs that I will carry with me forever. But like most epic pieces of work that encapsulates the varying shades of reality in an attempt to paint the truest picture of the world we live in, this too is not perfect. I could see its imperfections, but having now spent a few weeks reminiscing about my opinion of the book, I believe they are of little significance to this feat of a novel!
Throughout my reading of this book, I couldn’t help but notice a common thread that bound it to her previous novel The Island of Missing Trees. There she chose to narrate the past lives of minorities engraved into our lands and carried within the spirit of a fig tree that sprouted from it, whereas here we see it through the lens of a droplet of water throughout its water cycle. Is Elif Shafak creating her own series of historical fiction through the lens of the looming climate crisis? We’ll have to wait and find out.
