There Are Rivers In The Sky

Sam's Review 

How do our stories define us? Do they paint the full picture of our lives? Do they convey how we felt while living them? Are they propaganda, documentary or fable? In Elif Shafak's latest novel, There Are Rivers In The Sky, an epic that stretches from ancient Mesopotamia to Victorian London to the present day, all these questions are asked and, in recognition of the complexity of life, none is definitively answered.
 
The story begins in Nineveh with King Ashburnipal, a collector of stories, a builder of libraries and a ruler of cruelty. As the River Tigris bursts its banks and sweeps away the king’s palace, we move to the River Thames to watch the birth of King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums, a child of Victorian poverty blessed with a remarkable intellect. In 2014, Yazidi girl Narin is preparing to make a pilgrimage from her village beside the River Tigris to a holy site in Iraq. And finally, on a houseboat in present day London, hydrologist Zaleekah is coming to terms with the end of her marriage.   
 
The story weaves between the characters as rivers weave through their landscapes, at times gently undulating, at others dragging secrets from the depths to upend lives on the surface. As is the case in Shafak’s previous fiction, the lives of the individuals become the learnings of communities; in particular, communities who have emigrated and face the challenges of rebuilding lives in a foreign land.
 
Water in the book flows through every incident and every life. It acts as a metaphor for both our helplessness and our ability to adapt to what befalls us. Shafak also warns us about the impending social upheaval as the liquid our lives depend on becomes a scarcity and a commodity. Her extensive research on the subject is skilfully woven into the characters’ lives rather than presented as mere information or as a lecture. 
 
There Are Rivers In The Sky is an epic in all senses of the word: in scope, scale and ambition. And while ambition has its risks – in this case, some passages that could be omitted or the occasional flagging pace - changes in timeline and characters quickly re-engaged me. Each character’s story justifies a book of its own but in telling them as part of a whole Shafak shows us how little we learn from history and how much we need to do to overcome differences in class, countries, centuries and civilisations. Most importantly, this is a book in which to lose yourself, succumbing to its ebbs and flows before emerging, if not refreshed, then in awe of the tides on which we have been swept away.

Publisher's Review 

The new novel from the Booker-shortlisted, internationally bestselling author of The Island of Missing Trees and 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World.

'A storm is approaching Nineveh, the sky swollen with impending rain. One of the clouds approaching the world's largest and wealthiest city, built on the banks of the river Tigris, is bigger and darker than the others-and more impatient. It floats suspended above a majestic building adorned with marble columns, pillared porticos and monumental statues. This is the North Palace, where the king resides in all his might and glory. The cloud casts a shadow over the imperial residence. For unlike humans, water has no regard for social status or royal titles.

Dangling from the edge of the cloud is a single drop of rain - no bigger than a bean and lighter than a chickpea. For a while it quivers precariously - small, spherical and scared. How frightening it is to observe the earth open down below like a lonely lotus flower.

Remember that raindrop, inconsequential though it may be compared to the magnitude of the universe. Inside, it holds a miniature world, a story of its own...'