Book Review: January

A writer is only as good as the material she reads. The more you read, the more you'll write and grow. There are so many good books out there. Each month I'll do an in-depth review of a book that I have read. If you have a book that you think I should read, submit the name below in the comments!

January for new beginnings. This month's book is "The Forty Rules of Love" by Elif Shafak.
My mother brought this book to my attention several years ago. I was in high school when I initially read it and now I own a copy that I peruse frequently. It was published in 2010.

This is my copy of the book. I got it off of Amazon and it came from a library.
It has that shiny plastic covering on the outside and even a barcode.

The book starts with a quote from Shams of Tabriz, who the reader will learn is a wandering dervish and a main character of the book.

Then the story begins with a prologue in a way that is part philosophy, part metaphorical imagery and very captivating. It's actually in second person yet seems to transition to third person as it describes Ella Rubinstein. However, back to that second person, it brings you into the story by giving you an action: throwing a stone into flowing water. The sentences are lyrical and flowing with the right paragraph breaks to make you think.

Now, Ella Rubinstein is the main character. She is the one that sets the story in motion. Ella Rubinstein is a housewife. She lives with her husband and has three kids, one is in college, the other two are twins. They live in Massachusetts and the prologue makes it clear that everything is very normal, very quaint. A simple life with no ripples. Then comes the curve ball, the author tells us that Ella files for "divorce in the fall of 2008 after twenty years or marriage."

Some people say they read a story because they want to be caught off guard or surprised. This story lays out the main thread right in the beginning. We know that Ella will divorce her husband, but what we don't know is why. The why is important; it is a question that will lure a reader on and keep them invested in the story.

The first part after that is titled "Ella" which will became a recurrent theme in the book. Each "chapter" will have a character's name to keep you up to date with who is narrating. Each chapter also has the location, day and year. This first Ella chapter sets the scene and brings us into the action of the story. It leads us to the next part of the book which is the real trip. Because "The Forty Rules of Love" is not just any book, oh no, it is a book inside a book!

Ella takes a job as a reader for a literary agency and she is given her first assignment. A manuscript from a certain writer named A.Z. Zahara and his book is called Sweet Blasphemy: A Novel. Thus begins the second main thread of the story. While modern day Ella is facing her own struggles, we are also given the chapters of Aziz' book which also alternates characters. There is even a foreword and a title page which make the book inside a book idea more poignant. And the first chapter of Aziz' novel? It is narrated by "The Killer" how is that for a hook. The killer explains that he has killed a man, a dervish, and that event has haunted him even years later.

Follow that with "Part One: Earth, The Things that are Solid, Absorbed, and Still" and you know that this is a deep story with a purpose, because no writer goes to the trouble of dividing their story into parts without a purpose. There is so much symbolism and aphorisms in the book that it may take you longer to read. This isn't a story to be skimmed. It is a story to be cradled and loved and cried over.

Now I'm going to go even more in-depth and there are spoilers, so if you haven't read it or if you don't like to read spoilers before you read a book, then you can stop reading now.



So you've decided to read on. Well, I'll give another warning just in case. This was a subjective review to begin with and now it will become even more subjective. All of these words are my opinion on this book. Alright then?

Still here. Good. Now we get into specific events of the story.

I love how this story is written. Absolutely love, because there is a fantastic theme across the characters. We've got two timelines a modern day 2008 and a past history beginning in 1242. Shams and Rumi, Ella Rubinstein and A.Z. Zahara. They're mirrors and foils.
Shams is a mirror for A.Z. Zahara and Rumi is a mirror for Ella Rubinstein while Shams is Rumi's foil and A.Z. Zahara is Ella's foil.

We learn early on that Shams does not hold to societal conventions, at least not in the way everyone is expected to behave. He wants to pass on the knowledge he has learned from traveling around and he needs a partner - a companion, not a student. Someone already knowledgeable. He wants to educate an educated man. He doesn't know it is Rumi to begin with which seems like an accurate representation of how events unfolded historically. Shams asked for a sign and he was led to Konya and Rumi.

Ella doesn't know she is reaching out and craving love, but she finds Aziz (A.Z. Zahara). They don't meet for practically half the book, but that waiting is important. It begins as an email. She contacts him first and they begin a correspondence. Sometimes letters are stilted or lacking in information but the author succeeds in capturing realistic voices in these emails. Even when the emails become a couple of sentences long, they are intense. Then Ella and Aziz finally meet. It's like a dam breaking after we waited for so long, but instead of the swelling flood that we expected, it's more like a stream that brushes gently into us as it moves us along. Ella changes just as we see changes happening in the Shams/Rumi storyline.

The Shams/Rumi storyline has an important piece that becomes embedded in Ella's storyline as well. The title of this book is "The Forty Rules of Love" and that is what Shams is teaching Rumi. There are forty rules which explain love and the practices that will help one to achieve a state of love. They're not rules that dictate how and what you should do. They're more like gentle advice with the truth embedded in them.

Here is an example:
"Patience does not mean to passively endure. It means to be farsighted enough to trust the end result of a process. What does patience mean? It means to look at the thorn and see the rose, to look at the night and see the dawn. Impatience means to be so shortsighted as to not be able to see the outcome. The lovers of God never run out of patience, for they know that time is needed for the crescent moon to become full."

Is it a religious book? No, I don't think so. Religion plays a role in the story, but this isn't a book trying to convince you to join a religion, quite the opposite in fact. It seems more likely that this book asks you to not subscribe to a religion at all. Perhaps some prodding toward the religion of love, but it is about self-growth and how we can learn ways to lead a fruitful life.

One of my favorite parts of the book is when Rumi and Shams meet for the first time. Rumi is at first incensed as Shams has stopped him to ask a question. Rumi is riding a horse at the time and Shams will not ask the question until Rumi gets down from his high horse. ("Get off your high horse" sound familiar to anybody). Then Shams asks his question, which of the two is greater the Sufi Bistami or the Prophet Muhammad?

Rumi is first dismissive. How could Shams compare a sufi to the prophet, he asks. Then Shams expands the question asking him to really consider it by giving Rumi two statements. Bistami says something along the lines of he carries god in his cloak while Muhammad says, forgive me for we do not know you as we should. The essence of the question is that it seems like one man is greater because of his connection to god than the other. On a surface reading, it seems like Bistami's statement was higher, but Rumi tells us that Muhammad's actually is and explains why with a metaphor of the ocean. It's very philosophical and intriguing to read this part. It gives me chills. This is the first moment where Rumi and Shams see each other and have a feeling of respect for one another.

Off on another thing that I really liked. Above, I mentioned the book is divided into parts and I am absolutely inspired by that. You have to write the story with that intent in mind and you have to know that the story can be divided into parts which is not an easy feat. Some people believe that they can chop up their story however they want, but that is foolish, because the story must make sense. You can't divide it unless you understand where the transitions are and some people get so lost in their work that they can't see overall themes or story arcs.

I know that I sometimes get lost and I have never attempted to divide a story into parts. I would like to. I really would, but I'm not at that level yet. So I really appreciate and admire this book because it gives me something to aspire to. I am not Elif Shafak and I don't write in her genre and I won't write like her, but I can take those ideas to fuel my own and use those techniques to challenge myself and grow.

So this is my review of "The Forty Rules of Love". I hope I didn't make your head spin too much with all of these words. I get carried away and start typing the way I think and speak so if an idea runs wild or if the order of things doesn't make sense - blame it on my mind. My brain puts things in a logical order that isn't always apparent or actually logical.

Thanks for reading!