Honor by Elif Shafak: Why You Should Read It
Last Updated on August 22, 2024 by Ingrid
To explain why I loved Honor by Elif Shafak, I should dwell a bit on my background.
Being born in a Soviet-style communist country was far from a blessing but had its advantages. For one, women were encouraged to have an education and a job, the same as men, at least in the large urban centers. It is perhaps why, to this day, Romania has one of the highest percentages of women in leadership positions (mainly in business but also in politics).
Yet, with financial emancipation (such as it was in a then-dirt-poor country) came social liberation, at least up to a point.
Given this background, you might understand why the notion of women being somehow inferior or having fewer rights is such an alien concept for me. I find the entire idea preposterous and revolting. And I admire all and any female character who is fighting against this injustice being forced upon them.
I read Honor by Elif Shafak in this key. Let me tell you why I loved it!
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Table of Contents
Honor by Elif Shafak
First of all, it deals with a very current topic.
Not only that, but it also has a great plot that will keep you guessing and waiting for more.
Honor is dedicated to “those who hear, those who see,” unraveling surprising facts with every page turned. When you think you have all the information to conclude, the author will give you something you were not expecting.
You think you know the hearts of the main characters, but you are walking in thick fog straight until the end.
Synopsis
Shafak creates a spiderweb made up of fragments of the Toprak family’s history, where several stories run in parallel:
- The abrupt development of present events within Pembe and Adem’s family, where their three kids coming from Turkish Kurd backgrounds integrate differently into English society (Esma, the liberal feminist; the young innocent Yunus who spends his time with a group of punkers in an abandoned house; and the rebel yet traditionalist Iskender);
- The life of Jamila, Pembe’s twin sister, who lives alone in the wilderness near a small village on the Euphrates;
- The stories of Adem’s childhood, marked by a drunken father and a runaway mother;
- The love story that blossomed in Toprak’s family many years ago.
This book made me think about inequality even in a seemingly free and liberal world and made me scream (on the inside, I’m a zen lady, after all).
I am not a rebel nor one to flaunt rules, but I can never grasp the reason for norms designed to regulate LOVE. As long as they are consenting adults, it is nobody’s business to decide who can love whom.
Why can one not share their life with someone who brightens her/his day? Is it just because of some outdated norms designed centuries ago?
Norms that make it acceptable for a man to abandon his family and shack up with a mistress without any consequences. However, when a woman elopes or simply finds happiness after being abandoned, or worse, has been kidnapped, she is presented with a rope as an unspoken instruction to take her life.
Favorite quotes from the book:
- “There were many legends about these rocks, and behind every legend, a story of forbidden love.”
- “To her, the future was a land of promises. She had not been there yet, but she trusted it to be bright and beautiful. It was a place of infinite potential, a mosaic of shifting tiles, now in seamless order, now in mild disarray, forever re-creating itself. To him, the past was a shrine. Reliable, solid, unchanging, and above all, enduring. It provided insight into the beginning of everything; it gave him a sense of center, coherence, and continuity. He visited it devotedly and repeatedly, less out of need than out of a sense of duty – as if submitting to a higher will.”
So what do you say? Will you give the book a chance?
I only read “The Bastard of Istanbul” by Elif Şafak but this one seems interesting too. I also have on my list “The Architect’s Apprentice” and “Black Milk”
I totally recommend it if you liked The bastard of Istanbul. I have tried to read Black Milk as well but unfortunatelly I cannot really relate, since she is describing her life and the issued she had to face once she became pregnant. Let me know what you think abou the Architect’s Apprentice, I have it on my phone in Italian but I haven’t started it 🙂