Readers Dessert

The idea easily could have been hokey. A single droplet of water travels throughout generations and plays a role in multiple lives. “There Are Rivers in the Sky” by Elif Shafak has much to say. She tells three different stories with protagonists bonded by water’s ability to remember events for longer than humans can, even when Arthur has an eidetic memory.

In addition to Arthur, we have Narin and Zaleekhah in more modern times. Narin is a ten-year-old in Iraq, and Zaleekhah is a hydrologist living on a houseboat in London. We have confidence in authors to believe everything will fall into place, but you cannot fully understand the endgame. Arthur’s study of cuneiform could have been a novel itself.

One common mistake that Shafak avoids is making the ancient story as relatable as the more contemporary ones. We know Arthur and understand his professional predicaments concerning knowledge and opportunity. On the other hand, Narin finds that your ancestors’ suffering can strike fear in future generations, and the rivers remember what the people have forgotten. All three protagonists know this.

Zaleekhah has lost her husband and remains focused on the memory of water after a relative lost his career in pursuit of this theory. This idea drives the advancing narrative. Reminding us about how destroying water could wipe out an entire ethnic group gives the motif power. I knew very little about the Yazidi population, and it shows a dangerous side to Iraq.

We focus so much on ISIS and its relationship to America that we forgot about how often terrorist organizations like that destroy ethnic groups in their land. When the story’s threads come together, we are pleased with the resolution and horrified by the atrocities we have read. As a fiction book, it succeeds on almost every level.

There Are Rivers in the Sky is a big book in terms of ideas, writing style and plotlines. It combines science, religion, history and literature. It’s the very definition of epic. It’s like a huge tapestry, weaving people and objects across the time periods. And through each story, the power of water.

The story jumps back and forth between the Middle East, specifically the Tigris River in Turkey and Iraq and the River Thames in London, between 660 BC,1840, 2014 and 2018 and between three diverse characters.

In 1840, Arthur lands a job at a publishing house in London thanks to his photographic memory. He develops a fascination with the book, Nineveh and Its Remains, which in turn leads to him translating cuneiform tablets. Arthur is based on the real life George Smith, the first man to translate the Epic of Gilgamesh into English. His story was the most appealing, covering the discoveries of that time period.

In 2014, Narin, a 10 year old Yazidi girl, is slowly going deaf due to a genetic disorder. Her grandmother is determined that she be baptized in the temple in Iraq. This section taught me about the Yazid faith and the persecution of their sect.

And in 2018, Zaleekah is a hydrologist in London studying the effects of climate change on water. She has just left her husband, moved into a houseboat on the Thames and is looking to find meaning in her life. I loved learning about hidden rivers in her section.
All three of these characters and their stories immediately drew me in. And I was entranced by Shafak’s ability to interweave these stories together into a meaningful whole. The ending has literally left me a bit shellshocked.

Each different section taught me something new. It combines the best parts of historical and literary fiction. As much as it taught me, it also sent me down numerous rabbit holes trying to learn more. This may end up being my number one favorite book of 2024.

This is a book that begs to be read by a book club. I will also be amazed if it doesn’t end up on the lists for all the big prizes.

“Water remembers. It is humans who forget.”

The earth is a closed system, therefore the total of premoridal waters that have ever existed, still exist in one form or another. Life in its most basic form is transformed in an everlasting cycle of life, death and renewal. Elif Shafak takes this tenant and weaves a beautiful and enchanting epic, There Are Rivers in the Sky.

The tale begins with a single droplet of water landing on the head of the ruthless, but erudite King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia in the ancient city of Nineveh. Ashurbanipal is remembered for his legendary library which fell into ruins with the demise of his reign. Out of its ashes emerge the blue fragments on which the Epic of Gilgamesh has been preserved. In parallel fashion, we piece together the story of three characters, their connection to two ancient bodies of water, traversing centuries, and cultures, all bound to a little blue tablet. In 1840, King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums, an archeologist, born on the banks of the Thames, gifted with an uncanny ability to decode ancient texts. In 2014, Narin is a Yazidi girl who comes from a line of water-dowsers. Born with a rare disorder that will leave her deaf, her grandmother seeks to have her baptized in the holy Valley of Lalish where they discover that Isis is systematically eradicating their people. The melancholic, Zaleekhah lives in on a houseboat in modern day London, and is a hydrologist studying a unique property of water.

Sure to become a modern classic, There Are Rivers in the Sky blends the story within a story Oriental structure, with Dickensian sensibilities and characters, and modern eco-political concerns. Suffice it to know that you will care deeply about the fate of these characters, relish the lyrical writing and have a new appreciation for the life giving element that is water.

TW: mental health issues, suicide, suicidal thoughts, sexual assault, murder, genocide