Pathed Waters, Dreamed Shores
"Later, when the storm has passed, everyone will talk about the destruction it left behind, though no one, not even the king himself, will remember that it all began with a single raindrop." So begins "There are Rivers in the Sky."
Thousands of years ago, on the banks of the Tigris River in Nineveh, the world's largest and wealthiest city, a single raindrop fell on its king, Ashurbanipal. The raindrop, before dissolving and returning to the sky, bears witness to the king cruelly setting fire to his mentor, a man who has betrayed him.
This drop of water falls, thousands of years later, on a newborn, Arthur, in 1840, on the banks of the Thames. Springing ahead to Turkey in 2014, a young Yazidi girl, Narin, touches a drop of water which was to have been part of her baptism in the Tigris. Finally, in 2018, a hydrologist by the name of Zaleekhah, is moving into a houseboat on the Thames. A tear falls from her eye-- water once a snowflake or a wisp of steam. These three characters are all connected by the endless threaded journey of a single drop.
Aquatic memory. "Water remembers. It is humans who forget."
Arthur's people christened him King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums. Based on a historical figure, George Smith, Arthur is born into the most adjunct poverty. He has hyperthymesia, an extremely rare condition which allows tremendous amounts of sharply edged details to be recalled. He becomes obsessed with a book, "Nineveh and Its Remains," and stumbles onto Assyrian tablets in the British Museum, tablets he alone seems able to decipher. His life's goal focuses on chasing the completion of "a poem."
A substantial amount of Elif Shafak's message on water is brought out by Zaleekhah. As a water scientist she gives voice to climate crisis - water crisis issues. Man has sought to control river shapes-- burying rivers by boxing them in concrete, covering them with dirt, and building over them. Water has been weaponized, too, throughout history, reshaping the flow of rivers in order to benefit, as well as to devastate.
Young Narin's passages stress the suffering her people have been subject to throughout history. Dehumanized with labels like "devil worshipers," it is said the Yazidis have been massacred seventy-two times--from antiquity to ISIS. At one point Arthur is sickened when he hears an official judgment on breaking promises to these infidels,'"...the Yazidis are kaffirs. Therefore, you do not need to worry about lying to them. In the eyes of God, it is lawful to snare a heathen; you can deceive them into thinking you mean them no harm and then do with them as you please.'
Sprawling? Absolutely. A lot of ground is covered, a lot of history. This is all tied together with more than just that traveling drop of water. The amount of research required here is staggering, but the characters, the information, and plot twists prevent it from sinking under its own weight. There is so much fascinating world history here, presented in a way rarely uncovered in the classroom.
"And what is passion if not a restlessness of the heart, an intense yearning to surpass your limits, like a river overflowing its banks?"
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
"Later, when the storm has passed, everyone will talk about the destruction it left behind, though no one, not even the king himself, will remember that it all began with a single raindrop." So begins "There are Rivers in the Sky."
Thousands of years ago, on the banks of the Tigris River in Nineveh, the world's largest and wealthiest city, a single raindrop fell on its king, Ashurbanipal. The raindrop, before dissolving and returning to the sky, bears witness to the king cruelly setting fire to his mentor, a man who has betrayed him.
This drop of water falls, thousands of years later, on a newborn, Arthur, in 1840, on the banks of the Thames. Springing ahead to Turkey in 2014, a young Yazidi girl, Narin, touches a drop of water which was to have been part of her baptism in the Tigris. Finally, in 2018, a hydrologist by the name of Zaleekhah, is moving into a houseboat on the Thames. A tear falls from her eye-- water once a snowflake or a wisp of steam. These three characters are all connected by the endless threaded journey of a single drop.
Aquatic memory. "Water remembers. It is humans who forget."
Arthur's people christened him King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums. Based on a historical figure, George Smith, Arthur is born into the most adjunct poverty. He has hyperthymesia, an extremely rare condition which allows tremendous amounts of sharply edged details to be recalled. He becomes obsessed with a book, "Nineveh and Its Remains," and stumbles onto Assyrian tablets in the British Museum, tablets he alone seems able to decipher. His life's goal focuses on chasing the completion of "a poem."
A substantial amount of Elif Shafak's message on water is brought out by Zaleekhah. As a water scientist she gives voice to climate crisis - water crisis issues. Man has sought to control river shapes-- burying rivers by boxing them in concrete, covering them with dirt, and building over them. Water has been weaponized, too, throughout history, reshaping the flow of rivers in order to benefit, as well as to devastate.
Young Narin's passages stress the suffering her people have been subject to throughout history. Dehumanized with labels like "devil worshipers," it is said the Yazidis have been massacred seventy-two times--from antiquity to ISIS. At one point Arthur is sickened when he hears an official judgment on breaking promises to these infidels,'"...the Yazidis are kaffirs. Therefore, you do not need to worry about lying to them. In the eyes of God, it is lawful to snare a heathen; you can deceive them into thinking you mean them no harm and then do with them as you please.'
Sprawling? Absolutely. A lot of ground is covered, a lot of history. This is all tied together with more than just that traveling drop of water. The amount of research required here is staggering, but the characters, the information, and plot twists prevent it from sinking under its own weight. There is so much fascinating world history here, presented in a way rarely uncovered in the classroom.
"And what is passion if not a restlessness of the heart, an intense yearning to surpass your limits, like a river overflowing its banks?"
I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
