This book was recommended by a friend (the same who recommended The Berry Pickers), and was already in my book pile, so it was a good next choice. The poet Rumi has always seemed like a mythical romantic, someone one “should” read, and this seemed like a gentle way to get introduced.
The novel has two interwoven threads. In the present (2008 in the novel), Ella is a housewife in the US, with a prosperous but philandering husband and three children, one of whom declares their plans to marry. Ella has recently taken work with a literary agency, and finds herself enthralled by her first assignment, a historical novel about Rumi and his muse, Shams of Tabriz, set in the mid-13th century. Ella’s reading of the manuscript forms the other thread of the novel. Alongside learning about the life and philosophy of Shams, Ella falls in love with the author, eventually leaving her family for him.
The forty rules are revealed bit by bit through the historical sections of the story, and while these are prosaic, they are not quite poetry. Shams’ life and relationship with Rumi provides the revelation to Rumi of his poetic destiny, but there is little of that here. Like with Ella’s story of late-found love, the stories are about realizing one’s true path, illuminated by love. It was a bit disappointing to find little of Rumi here (especially for a novel subtitled, “A Novel of Rumi”, but the story of Shams was compelling on its own. The historical sections were much more interesting than the modern ones, where some of the revelations were less believable. Still, it was an effective way of telling the old story.
I assumed this book was a translation to English from Turkish, but in fact the novel was written in English by Shafak, and then re-written in Turkish by her. In this way, this is the truest kind of translation, by the author themselves with no intervention by another writer. Shafak is well-known and admired in Turkey, and her English novels are also well-received. This was a good and enjoyable, if a bit light, book.
Fate: little book library
1 – a murder
8 – a female author
13 – somewhere I’ve never been
15 – a number
19 – based on a true story
25 – a new author to me
rclr 
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