There are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak (Literary Fiction)

Writing: 4.5/5 Characters: 5/5 Plot: 4/5

A long and highly complex book following three elaborate storylines, all influenced in some way by the Epic of Gilgamesh — the epic Babylonian poem from about 2000 BC. Arthur Smythe — also known as King Arthur of the Sewers and Slum — is born into abject poverty but has an extraordinarily keen mind, an eidetic memory, and an absorbing passion for the artifacts in the British Museum. His story runs from his birth in 1840 to his death 36 years later in Iraq. Zaleekhah is a passionate researcher who focusses on the study and conservation of the Earth’s water in 2018 — focused on theories that would earn her derision were she to try to publish. She is also is pulled in to a fascination with the region through her own Iraqi heritage and feels a despair at the state of the Earth, both politically and environmentally. Narin is a nine-year old Yazidi girl whose village is to be subsumed from flood waters once a new, large dam is completed. A trip to Iraq in 2014 before they must leave the area exposes her to the cruelty of ISIS. Woven throughout the story are themes and entangled details about Mesopotamian history, antiquity looting, modern ISIS, grand scale pollution, language processing and the underpinnings of water throughout.

Shafak’s brain is many orders of magnitude more erudite and complex than mine. The way she can pull together an apparently disjointed collection of data points, commentary, and occurrences and create an interconnected narrative of great scope is inspiring. Her facility with language is impressive — she has a lyrical style that nevertheless manages to convey real content. An example of a one sentence physical description that manages to combine visual depiction, origin, and impact: “… neither grey nor white, the air is a soupy ochre that glows green in places. Particles of soot and ash float above, as domestic coal fires and factory chimneys belch sulfur-laden smoke, clogging the lungs of Londoners, breath by breath.”

I have mixed feelings about how much I enjoyed reading this book. I loved all the detail — giving great depth to so many aspects of the world and bringing so many pieces of information — that could have easily remained hidden — to the surface. These days it feels like we have access to so much information, we are forced to have strong opinions based on a very shallow understanding of the topic, so I appreciated the deep dives on … everything. I loved all the unusual minutiae that came into the story — underground lost rivers, Ashurbanipal’s lost library, a tattooist who works only in cuneiform. However, a real sense of impending doom suffused the pages, and that only got worse at the story went on. It’s hard not to feel as though the world were hopelessly hurtling towards a bad end, with genocidal maniacs (real ones, not Israel, and if you don’t know the difference do some research), environmental disasters, and a generous helping of greed, power-hunger, cruelty, cynicism, and general disregard pervading the text. I freely acknowledge that the world has many, many, problems, but I prefer to read about the many ways we continue to try to improve the many problems and not to succumb to melancholy and hand wringing. I also had a real problem with the ethical dilemma presented at the end. I felt the character’s resolution (clearly representing the author’s opinion) was surprisingly poorly thought out given the depths of her big picture thinking through the rest of the book.

So — if you can read for the history, the beautiful prose, the increased awareness of the interconnectedness of the Earth and the people running mad upon it, you will probably love this book. If your mood is one that is highly influenced by what you’re reading, you might want to pop a Prozac or two before diving in.

Thank you to Knopf and NetGalley for providing an advance copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. The book will be published on August 20th, 2024.