Disclaimer: I read this as an ARC via Netgalley. Thank you, Penguin.Good literature, a good story, stirs something in you besides emotion. This is because we, humans, learn though stories. Whether it is though the fables of Aesop or the narrative that the nightly news uses, stories are an integral part of your life. A good story, or to be more exact, a good presentation of story makes the listener or reader think, to move outside of herself, to move beyond the habit and culture that she knows. A good story tries to explain the unexplainable. This is what Honour by Elif Shafak does. At first glance, the book seems to be along the lines of Brick Lane - a story of two sisters, Pembe and Jamila – one of whom immigrants to London where she meets her eventual fate at the hands of her son. At second glance, the book looks like a fictional story about an honor killing in the United Kingdom. Both glances are right and both are wrong. In many ways this book is similar to Brick Lane, though Pembe is not depressed and the story is more active, and it is about an honor killing. Yet the book’s main focus is honor, but honor beyond that of the idea of honor that leads to what critics call “so called honor” murder. It is honor that sets the story in motion, long before the birth of Pembe, Jamila, or Pembe’s children Iskender, Esma, or Yunus. It is an old honor code that effects the lives of Pembe, and her husband Adem, and not the type of honor you are thinking of as you read this. The narrative is told though shifting viewpoints, covering most of the family members, and this choice puts the reader in a unique, and perhaps, disconcerting place. In her book about honor killings, Rana Husseini relates her encounters with the men in the families who sanctioned the killings of their female relatives or those men who killed the women. She wanted to understand or at least come close to an explanation of for the action. That is in part what Shafak does here. By using multiple viewpoints, by having the reader know a crucial outcome of the story, Shafak is able to get the reader to see what drove Iskender to the murder. The reader may not like Iskender but the reader does not feel hate towards him. In part because the reader can see the forces that move him – the racism in society, the displacement, the lack of a father figure, the choosing of someone to replace that figure, the rejection by family - that lead to the action. The reader can also see what saves his two siblings from making the same choices or reacting the same way. The society that is liberating for some can cause others to fail, fall, and crash if a safety net is not there. I confess that I was somewhat surprised to see the viewpoint of Iskender but in many ways, his viewpoint is central to the novel. The first thing it does is stop the book from being like the movie of the week or the sensationalism that some news stories use. It goes deep, and the reader not only recoils in horror but also sorrows with pity and anger. There is a desire for change in the novel – change at every level not just in the family but in both types of societies – the Kurdish region of Turkey that Pembe and Jamila come from and the society of England that Pembe lives in. The sisters are let down by both even as other members of the family are supported by both. Shafak’s style not only invokes the settings of her novels, but she captures characters well, engages the reader without preaching to the reader. There is intensity in the writing, but there is also a story telling quality to it. In many ways, it feels like the reader is sitting with Shafak at table, on which sits sesame halva and tea.
Chris' Fish Place
Thoughts on things, mostly books.
Disclaimer: I read this as an ARC via Netgalley. Thank you, Penguin.Good literature, a good story, stirs something in you besides emotion. This is because we, humans, learn though stories. Whether it is though the fables of Aesop or the narrative that the nightly news uses, stories are an integral part of your life. A good story, or to be more exact, a good presentation of story makes the listener or reader think, to move outside of herself, to move beyond the habit and culture that she knows. A good story tries to explain the unexplainable. This is what Honour by Elif Shafak does. At first glance, the book seems to be along the lines of Brick Lane - a story of two sisters, Pembe and Jamila – one of whom immigrants to London where she meets her eventual fate at the hands of her son. At second glance, the book looks like a fictional story about an honor killing in the United Kingdom. Both glances are right and both are wrong. In many ways this book is similar to Brick Lane, though Pembe is not depressed and the story is more active, and it is about an honor killing. Yet the book’s main focus is honor, but honor beyond that of the idea of honor that leads to what critics call “so called honor” murder. It is honor that sets the story in motion, long before the birth of Pembe, Jamila, or Pembe’s children Iskender, Esma, or Yunus. It is an old honor code that effects the lives of Pembe, and her husband Adem, and not the type of honor you are thinking of as you read this. The narrative is told though shifting viewpoints, covering most of the family members, and this choice puts the reader in a unique, and perhaps, disconcerting place. In her book about honor killings, Rana Husseini relates her encounters with the men in the families who sanctioned the killings of their female relatives or those men who killed the women. She wanted to understand or at least come close to an explanation of for the action. That is in part what Shafak does here. By using multiple viewpoints, by having the reader know a crucial outcome of the story, Shafak is able to get the reader to see what drove Iskender to the murder. The reader may not like Iskender but the reader does not feel hate towards him. In part because the reader can see the forces that move him – the racism in society, the displacement, the lack of a father figure, the choosing of someone to replace that figure, the rejection by family - that lead to the action. The reader can also see what saves his two siblings from making the same choices or reacting the same way. The society that is liberating for some can cause others to fail, fall, and crash if a safety net is not there. I confess that I was somewhat surprised to see the viewpoint of Iskender but in many ways, his viewpoint is central to the novel. The first thing it does is stop the book from being like the movie of the week or the sensationalism that some news stories use. It goes deep, and the reader not only recoils in horror but also sorrows with pity and anger. There is a desire for change in the novel – change at every level not just in the family but in both types of societies – the Kurdish region of Turkey that Pembe and Jamila come from and the society of England that Pembe lives in. The sisters are let down by both even as other members of the family are supported by both. Shafak’s style not only invokes the settings of her novels, but she captures characters well, engages the reader without preaching to the reader. There is intensity in the writing, but there is also a story telling quality to it. In many ways, it feels like the reader is sitting with Shafak at table, on which sits sesame halva and tea.
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