Ever since I have read Elif Shafak '10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in This Strange World', I have wanted to buy and read another one of her novels, but for one reason or another, only recently got around to it. Upon seeing 'Three Daughters of Eve' in my local Watersones, and reading some quite positive reviews, I decided that this would be the next novel by her. Unfortunately, while this element does have a lot of the same elements I enjoyed in '10 Minutes, 38 Seconds in This Strange World' I must say that it is less successful in many ways. The story felt more like a draft that somebody rushed to publish than an actual fully fleshed out narrative. My reading experience was actually frustrating because I kept waiting for Shafak to spread out her luxurious talent, but that just never truly happened. While I will keep reading Shafak's work because I do think she is one of the most important contemporary voices, I thought this novel could have been so much more than it was at the end.
'Three Daughters of Eve' is advertised as the story of three women, different in many ways, whose paths cross when they all study at Oxford University. However, the story does heavily focus on one of them-Peri. Peri is an only daughter to a divided Turkish household. While her father is a secular man, admiring Ataturk to the point of worship and is against organized religion, especially Islam, her mother is quite the opposite. The story follows two timelines of Peri's life, one of her life before the present moment when she is a guest at a fancy dinner and a photograph triggers her memory of her time studying at Oxford. This is an interesting approach that Shafak employs well, to keep the readers interested in her story. Readers are aware that something went wrong that caused her to come back to Turkey, but not really clear what that is. While there are parts of the story familiar from the start, the author does leave breadcrumbs throughout the story that should result in the big reveal and explain the big change in Peri's life.
Peri as a protagonist worked well for me. I can imagine that a person, especially a girl and later a woman, from such a divided family and from severe trauma that her family went through, would be just like her. Through her, Shafak was able to present really fascinating ideas of religion and philosophy that feel very current and important as ever. At times, though, it did feel like the other people around her were placed so that she can get into pseudo deep discussions with them and show how 'not like other girls' and unique she is. I did enjoy the sections depicting her struggles of first coming to England and trying to study in a language that she has only learned from formal settings and books. I wish there was more of that fish out of the water story and less of her losing her whole personality because of her crush on a weird professor.
Additionally, her parents felt incredibly real to me and their motivation and point of views clear and precise. However, besides these three characters, the rest of the characters felt like mouth pieces for ideas to discuss in the novel. This felt especially true for Mona and Shirin, the two girls from the title of the novel. I understand that the three of them are imagined as some kind of scale of spirituality and religion, with Shirin rejecting Islam and religion all together, Mona is a devout Hijabi woman and Peri in between, but that just never went anywhere besides a few discussions about how they see God. Besides their stance on religion and a little bit about their family history of moving, we did not really get a lot of information about them and who they are as people. I would also love to get a novel with Shirin or Mona as the main characters. The way they were portrayed feels like a huge disservice to Muslim women in general, as they had no depth and were defined exclusively by their religion or lack thereof.
Another huge point that simply did not work for me is the professor Azur He is just so inappropriate in many ways that it is a miracle he kept his job at Oxford for as long as he did. I will not be convinced that his relationship with any of his students is by any means appropriate or allowable nor will I be convinced that such a man should be a thought leader in any sense of the word. He felt sleazy and manipulative, and while it is realistic that such people do wield a lot of power, I did not like the fact he was presented as a moral and just person, and that we should somehow feel sorry for him because he had to suffer the consequences of his own actions. His means of teaching and overall discussion about God were unconvincing and the fact he always speaks like he is giving a speech or a lecture got tiring after a while. At times, we were given descriptions of his classes and I was excited to see interesting discussions about God and religion with a rather diverse group of students that he hand picked, but again, it felt just uninspired and shallow. A lot of passages about the main themes of the novel were interesting, but felt shoehorned in and out of place. In this novel, everyone simply has a role to play in Peri's life.
The novel starts with a kind of confession and a promise that something big will be revealed to us if we just stick with it. But then nothing of note happens for chapters on end at times or we are presented with an honestly rather dull conversation at the rich people's dinner. Characters that surround Peri read as tropes and at times I could not differentiate one from another and had to go back a few pages to understand who they were and how they were introduced. To say I did not care for them or what they had to say would be an understatement. To be completely honest, sometimes I would glance over some of the conversation, as most of them simply did not add anything to the overall story. Maybe Shafak presented the reader with a sharp social commentary, but it flew over my head. To make matters worse, by the time we did get to the big reveal, it was extremely underwhelming and disappointing. Maybe the pacing of the novel tired me out, but I just did not care anymore.
The ending kind of just happened. I understand there does not always have to be any kind of climactic ending, especially in stories that are supposed to be realistic, but it left so many loose ends with almost all characters. So many of the questions asked are still unanswered and unaddressed that I wonder what was the point of posing so many. None of the characters had moved very far from where they started, both physically and as a people. While that is probably the intention of the author, it did not feel like the right choice for me in this case.
At the end, like I said, I will keep reading Shafak's stories because I do enjoy her writing and think she is an incredibly important author, but this book was not my cup of tea. I rated it 2/5.
Did you read this novel or anything else by Shafak? What were your thoughts? Let me know!
source: wikipedia.com
source: wikipedia.com
Comments
Post a Comment