There Are Rivers In The Sky, by Elif Shafak
This was a beautiful book. It was one of those big, sweeping novels that draws you completely into its world and makes you care deeply about everything you encounter there. To read it is to be fully immersed. I was captivated from page one, and Shafak held me enthralled all the way through - even when I'd put it down, I often found myself compelled to pick it up again (an urge I only resisted in the final few chapters, which I eked out because I didn't want it to be over). Lyrical, thoughtful, powerful and moving, 'There Are Rivers In The Sky' is a love letter to rivers and human connectedness, and I really enjoyed it.
The novel follows three lives. First there is Arthur, in Victorian London. Born into poverty on the banks of the River Thames, his greatest possessions are his thirst for knowledge and his astonishing memory. Thanks to these, he works his way up to a position in the British Museum translating ancient poetry, and his discoveries set him on a journey across the world. Then there's Narin, in Turkey in 2014. She's a nine-year old Yazidi girl, living with her family near the River Tigris. When her baptism ceremony is cruelly interrupted, she and her grandmother set off on pilgrimage to the holy land of their ancestors - but Iraq is war-torn, and their people persecuted. Last is Zaleekhah, in London in 2018. Reeling from the breakdown of her marriage, she moves into a houseboat on the Thames to continue her work as a hydrologist. A meeting with the boat's owner brings up unexpected memories of her homeland and her past, and Zaleekhah must face the depths in order to heal.
What struck me straightaway was the vastness of this novel's span. Shafak's characters are separated not only by hundreds of miles but by hundreds of years - and their circumstances are completely different from one another. Apart from the obvious parallel that all three live by a river, there seems at first to be little that connects them. But as I followed each narrative thread, I began to see the tapestry that Shafak was weaving. These three lives intertwine in unexpected and beautiful ways, and their surprising juxtaposition speaks profoundly to the interconnectedness of humanity.
It wasn't just the Thames and the Tigris that they had in common. All three also had a connection to the ancient Mesopotamian poem, 'The Epic of Gilgamesh'. The same piece of literature traverses time and continents to reach the hands, eyes and ears of each of them: words endure, and our stories bind us together. Our experiences connect us too, and despite their distance from one another, Arthur, Narin and Zaleekhah each face the same obstacles and the same hurts. Arthur a child of the slums, Narin a hated religious minority, Zaleekhah an immigrant: all three are rejected, existing on the edges. All three are displaced from their homes, too. Arthur travels and becomes untethered from his family, Narin is forcefully uprooted, Zaleekhah is quite literally cast adrift. Shafak shows us that these are human experiences, which transcend time, space and culture. We are all so alike, and that's a beautiful thing.
Water was the theme that underpinned the whole novel, and I absolutely loved what Shafak did with this. All the way through, she tracks the journey of one raindrop: it's a snowflake on Arthur's tongue, it's in the wave that baptises Narin, it's a drop in Zaleekhah's coffee and a tear on her cheek. This one drop traces a shimmering thread from London to Turkey and back, morphing and moving but in substance the same; it's a very nice extended metaphor for humanity. Water also flows through Shafak's language: laughter washes over people, anxiety floods them. It's easy to overdo such linguistic metaphors and tip into heavy-handedness, but Shafak writes dexterously and subtly - I loved her lyricism.
Another thing I really rated about this book was how well-researched it felt. I don't mean that it was an info-dump - far from it - I mean that it seemed thoughtful and authentic. You can just tell that Shafak is well-read (and the fascinating author's notes at the end testify to this!). The book is rich and full of insight into history, geography, religion, literature, archaeology, and hydrology. It also engages very sensitively with the surrounding debates, asking questions about the ethics of excavating artefacts, about the place of museums, about how stories get passed on and who owns culture. This ticked all my boxes: 'There Are Rivers In The Sky' is a book that fosters empathy, awareness and care, which is surely what literature is for - but it also feeds the intellect. It's a perfect balance of heart and head. I feel enriched by having read it.
Overall, I would highly recommend 'There Are Rivers In The Sky'. Impressive storytelling on a grand scale, exquisite prose, beautiful characters, rich cultural insight, and the message that all humankind is connected through water and stories: it's nothing short of a masterpiece.
You can buy 'There Are Rivers In The Sky' from Waterstones by following this link (I'll receive a small commission if you do):
There Are Rivers In The Sky, Elif Shafak - Waterstones
