BY ROGER WATSON
The mistress of magical realism has struck again. Elif Shafak’s latest novel There Are Rivers in The Sky is a masterpiece. Perhaps, given her feminist credentials, that ought to be a ‘misstresspiece’. As intriguing as anything in her output to date, like most of her novels, this is rooted in her own Turkish culture.
The novel has three characters separated in space and time but the narrative transitions seamlessly, temporally and geographically between chapters, with a series of threads linking the characters. Their links are resolved in the apotheosis, but in the run up to that point, each has a captivating story.
As the title suggests, the book is about rivers or, more precisely, water. The book begins with a raindrop forming in a cloud, making an exhilarating plunge towards the ground wondering where it will land. The technique used here by Shafak is reminiscent of the same device used by her compatriot Orham Pamuk in his novel My Name is Red where the opening paragraphs are written from the perspective of a coin dropped from someone’s pocket.
That novel probably netted Pamuk his Nobel prize. Given that There Are Rivers in The Sky is tinged with hints of climate change, themes of oppression and European appropriation of historical artefacts from her region, it would not be surprising if Shafak were not similarly honoured soon.
The raindrop lands on the head of Ashurbanipal the King of Assyria and, thus, the tale begins. The opening chapter is unique in that it stands alone, we do not return to the court of Ashurbanipal, but we are informed that he is a scholar, a right royal tyrant and that his capital Nineveh is destroyed during his reign. We meet the lamassus, a mythical carved creature that protected (or failed to protect) the realm of Nineveh and to the Epic of Gilgamesh.
The lamassus and the Epic of Gilgamesh link two of the characters, both located in London, across time. One is Zaleekhah, a hydrologist of Turkish origin involved in a divorce and newly living on a houseboat. The other is Arthur Smyth, King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums, of Victorian times. Brought up in poverty his family supplement their living by mudlarking on the banks of the Thames. Through a combination of autism and determination, Arthur finds himself at a publishing house where he encounters the book and later at the British Museum translating cuneiform tablets that transpire to be the Epic of Gilgamesh.
Zaleekhah is on a mission to prove that water retains a memory of what it has once contained. While homeopathy is not mentioned in the book, this is probably a hint that the author is an adherent. Zaleekhah, who owns an expensive antique ornament of a lamassus given by her rich and powerful uncle, is also interested in the Epic of Gilgamesh. She encounters a tattooist, Nel, who understand cuneiform symbols and whose uses the symbols on clients in her tattoo parlour. Nel is a modern-day mud larker hobbyist thus establishing a link with Arthur.
The third, contemporary, character is a young Turkish girl, Narin, from a Yazidi family. She lives on the banks of the Tigris in Turkey and through her conversations with her sage grandmother we learn something about the historical and ongoing persecution of the Yazidis. They are considered by those of other faiths to be ‘devil worshippers’. They make a pilgrimage back to Iraq which leads to a tragic encounter with ISIS.
Arthur, despite lacking any formal education, gains fame as an authority on translating cuneiform and on the Epic of Gilgamesh. He raises money for an archaeological dig to find some verses which, he establishes, are missing from the cuneiform records at the British Museum. He arrives at the site of Nineveh in Iraq and encounters the Yazidis. Thus, across time, his story is now linked to that of Narin. He falls in love with a Yazidi girl, but marriage is forbidden outside of their religion so his love, whilst not unrequited, can never be fulfilled.
Arthur returns in triumph to England having located the lost verses. His life is one of fame and recognition. He marries but remains restless to be back amongst the Yazidis. After a few years of marriage and children he returns to Nineveh on another dig to find that things were not as he left them.
The penultimate chapter contains a twist so exquisite that not many will see it coming. It is, in fact, the device which brings the three characters together simultaneously and in close proximity in a final poignant chapter. Of all Shafak’s work to date, There Are Rivers in The Sky would make a superb televised series.
Roger Watson is a Registered Nurse and Editor-in-Chief of Nurse Education in Practice.