Book Review : The Forty Rules of Love, Elif Shafaq - Part 1
Elif, a Turkish British author, described as Turkeyβs leading female novelist.
Don't be mistaken by the title, for it to be a classic love story - you will be surprised how it takes you a step closer into the world of Sufism.
A tale of Rumi & Shams - Ella & Aziz. π
BOOK : The Forty Rules of Love
AUTHOR : Elif Shafaq
PUBLISHER : Viking
RELEASE DATE : JANUARY 2009
MY RATING : 4/5
PROBABLE SPOILERS AHEAD!
To be honest the book did take me a couple of tries before I could get hooked to it. But having finished the book now, I can definitely recommend it for all Rumi admirers. π
After a big scuffle at home over her college going daughter wanting to marry her boyfriend - she decided to divert herself and started work on her first assignment.As she pulled out the manuscript from the package - in it she found a novel titled as the βSweet Blasphemyβ by a first-time novelist named Aziz Zahara.
Unmindfully she started to read, and the first few lines from the manuscript hit her hard : βFor despite what some people say, love is not only a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away.β, she felt a quick rush of emotions as it was in total contradiction from what she had said earlier in the day to her daughter Jeannette - "Love is only a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away."
Elif beautifully portrays the forty rules of love in various encounters between the characters within the manuscript. The forty rules are the the rules that Shams of Tabriz had devised which encompassed the essential Sufi wisdom, defying every social and religious conventions that humans believe in.
Uncanny as it was, Rumi and Ella, through their relationships with Shams & Aziz respectively, began to question their conventional life and choose to explore beyond the uncertainties of life.
On one hand, Rumi, who never thought he could be a poet, yearning for the presence of Shams went on to become the greatest poet the world knows off today and in a parallel world Aziz inspired Ella to break free of all shackles and live the life she had always wanted.
What Aziz was to Ella, was Shams to Rumi - the chain breaker!
Elif with her beauty of writing leaves it to the reader's imagination to draw parallels between the two stories - a novel within a novel.
As I was flipping through the last pages of the novel in my Kindle, I must confess I did have a tear in my eye. The string of words did have a perpetual effect of wanting to infer beyond what was written.
BOOK : The Forty Rules of Love
AUTHOR : Elif Shafaq
PUBLISHER : Viking
RELEASE DATE : JANUARY 2009
MY RATING : 4/5
PROBABLE SPOILERS AHEAD!
MY THOUGHTS:
Ψ¨Ψ§β
Link to the rules which forms the Forty Rules Of Love .
The narrative starts with introduction of the protagonist, Ella Rubenstein - a typical housewife stepping into her forties, with an appearing-ly happy family. Albeit, the stark realities of her life, spoke another language. Putting in the author's words, Ella's life consisted of still waters - predictable, lacking survival techniques, and a world that revolved only around her husband and three children.
The narrative starts with introduction of the protagonist, Ella Rubenstein - a typical housewife stepping into her forties, with an appearing-ly happy family. Albeit, the stark realities of her life, spoke another language. Putting in the author's words, Ella's life consisted of still waters - predictable, lacking survival techniques, and a world that revolved only around her husband and three children.
Despite all of it, Ella had still managed to make peace with the agonies of her life and lived a very monotonous and conventional life to maintain her sanctity.
Little did she know that a new job as a part time reader for a literary agent, would change her life altogether and she would muster the courage for the unbelievable.
Unmindfully she started to read, and the first few lines from the manuscript hit her hard : βFor despite what some people say, love is not only a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away.β, she felt a quick rush of emotions as it was in total contradiction from what she had said earlier in the day to her daughter Jeannette - "Love is only a sweet feeling bound to come and quickly go away."
As she went on to read, βBecause love is the very essence and purpose of life. As Rumi reminds us, it hits everybody, including those who shun loveβeven those who use the word βromanticβ as a sign of disapproval.β she was in complete disbelief with the timing of this review that she had to work on.
The manuscript, revolved around the transformational journey of the thirteenth-century distinguished scholar Jaal-ad-Din Rumi. It talked about how a foundation of a solid, unique friendship between him and the Sufi teacher Shams of Tabriz who was in a quest to find his spiritual companion was laid.
The book revealed how this journey contributed to largely what Rumi is widely known for today - a committed mystic, passionate poet, advocate of love, and originator of the ecstatic dance of the whirling dervishes, daring to break free of all conventional rules and prevail over oneβs ego, nafs.
Page on page as Ella read the manuscript, her interest piqued to know more about the author Aziz - and she began her search to know more about him. One thing let to the other, which eventually led to an inception of email exchanges between them. That forum where they were able to share their emotions, stories, understand each other's views and connect.
Mind you, the book revolves around multiple characters, but each character has a dedicated chapter to enunciate the multiple points of view.
Uncanny as it was, Rumi and Ella, through their relationships with Shams & Aziz respectively, began to question their conventional life and choose to explore beyond the uncertainties of life.
On one hand, Rumi, who never thought he could be a poet, yearning for the presence of Shams went on to become the greatest poet the world knows off today and in a parallel world Aziz inspired Ella to break free of all shackles and live the life she had always wanted.
What Aziz was to Ella, was Shams to Rumi - the chain breaker!
Elif with her beauty of writing leaves it to the reader's imagination to draw parallels between the two stories - a novel within a novel.
As I was flipping through the last pages of the novel in my Kindle, I must confess I did have a tear in my eye. The string of words did have a perpetual effect of wanting to infer beyond what was written.
An entwined tale of two stories mirroring each other across two very different cultures across centuries - WOW! π
Image credit
Note : Sufi mystics say the secret of the Qurβan lies in the verse Al-Fatiha, And the secret of Al-Fatiha lies in Bismillahirrahmanirrahim. And the quintessence of Bismillah is the letter ba. And there is a dot below that letter.The dot underneath the B embodies the entire universe.
The review is not in any way plagiarised from any other source, it is solely my hard work put into creating the content - except few excerpts from the book picked for citation. It is a narrative of my views - folks are more than welcome to agree or disagree with the above review.
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