Water remembers | Review of Elif Shafak’s ‘There are Rivers in the Sky’

A woman in Cappadocia, Türkiye, where parts of the story are set. , Photo Credit: Getty Images

a drop of water. It falls from the sky on the Assyrian king Ashurbanipal. From then on, it changes its structure, but not its DNA, and enters the system of other main characters: Arthur, the king of sewers and slums, the self-taught genius who grew up by the Thames; Narin, a talented young Yazidi girl living along the Tigris River; Zalikha Clark, a scientist studying the nature of water in London, lives in a houseboat on the Thames. Author Elif Shafak binds these four very different characters together in a bond that’s stretchy, giving us what may be her best story yet in her new novel, there are rivers in the sky,

We follow a time-honored tradition here: the storyteller weaves for us a fascinating thread that connects the historical with the contemporary, and the reader absorbs it completely, coming out of its spell only after turning the last page. .

It is ‘old times’ and we see Ashurbanipal in a scholarly setting, his legendary library where the jewel in the crown epic of gilgameshWe are horrified when we see that he has approved an act of extreme cruelty – burning his old teacher alive.

an epic path

Then we go to the banks of the misty Thames; It is 1840 and a boy has just been born to a toshar, a river bank sweeper. Living in extremely difficult circumstances, young Arthur Smith makes the best of his gift, a prodigious memory, and gradually teaches himself how to decipher cuneiform, while climbing out of the gutter. Arthur eventually begins working at the British Museum, and makes finding the missing eleventh tablet from the Gilgamesh epic his life’s quest.

We then move to 2014 and to Zerav in Turkey, where the construction of a new dam threatens to flood a small settlement bordered by the Tigris, threatening displacement of villagers. Narin is just nine years old but is gradually becoming deaf, although her grandmother tells her that her talents will increase as she grows up. The child has no idea what these gifts may be, but she does know that the woman comes from a family of saints, including her ancestor Lila, with whom, coincidentally, Arthur Smith falls in love some 200 years earlier. , when he goes to Nineveh to excavate the missing people. The Gilgamesh tablet is inscribed on a lapis lazuli surface. We watch with a certain sense of unease as grandmothers and granddaughters leave for Iraq, while Daesh/IS gradually tightens its brutal grip on the region and singles out the Yazidis, “Satan-worshippers,” for special treatment. ” is choosing.

We then fast forward to 2018 and see hydrologist Zalikha Clarke grappling with a crumbling marriage, depression, and a feeling of life being meaningless. She meets Nan, the owner of a houseboat on the Thames, which she is currently renting. Nan is very taken with yes, the epic of gilgameshAnd introduces Zalikha to her healing powers.

And by the end of the story, it all comes together decisively, not in an enjoyable way but in a way that promises some hope and redemption to some, if not all, of the characters.

Author Elif Shafak | Photo Credit: Getty Images

European domination and the Orient

The author conveys much through the narrative-binding device of water: how the lush lands of Nineveh in Mesopotamia are first flooded, then transformed into barren desert. In this case, sewage-filled water in the River Thames in the mid-19th century spread cholera faster than the blink of an eye. How people mix poison in water to destroy a tribe. How the Yazidis, victims of the genocide and taking refuge on Mount Sinjar, yearn for a drop of water to soothe the dry throats of their children. And quite outside the topic of water, but not too far, how the British plundered the treasures of other countries with impunity, the larger implication of this plundering is that the idea of ​​European supremacy needs an Orient full of deprivation and despair.

If his style is typically florid, this is a highly researched tale of what happens on the banks of three mighty rivers – the Tigris, the Euphrates and the Thames – when they come together. Because Shafak wants us to understand that “water remembers.” It is humans who forget.”

The reviewer is a Bengaluru-based writer, journalist and manuscript editor.

there are rivers in the sky

elif shafak

viking

₹899