Dr. Sonika Sethi
Assistant
Professor of English
S D College,
Ambala Cantt
Haryana-134001
Book Review
BOOK DETAILS:
Title: Three Daughters of Eve
Author: Elif Shafak
Publisher: Penguin/ Viking
Year: 2016
Place: UK
Pages: 367
Price: 12.99£
ISBN: 978-0-241-28804-7
Genre: Fiction
Elif Shafak’s latest novel Three Daughters of Eve takes her idea of
a contemporary world devoid of spiritualism a step further. A world lost in
religious animosity, fanaticism, intolerance towards every type of belief
whether religious or popular, political bigots, crime, underworld, superlative
pseudo-intellectualism, exaggerated corruption, probably has only one path to
salvation— stepping out of the metaphorical closet of one’s constrictive
beliefs. Peri or Naaz Peri belongs to a middle class Turkish family. Always
caught between the nexus of dualities such as theism-atheism, believer-non-believer,
educated-uneducated, conservatism-liberalism and so on, she is always
indecisive and confused about her views and beliefs. Only one man in the entire
world holds the capacity to bring her face to face with her true self. Yet, it
is this man who becomes the cause of her breakdown and she the cause of his
ruin and disgrace. Peri, brought up in the midst of a feuding family with the
father supporting liberal ideas and democracy and the mother supporting
religious fanaticism and intolerant towards modern ideas and beliefs, is always
on the lookout for “God”. Her search for “God” continues even when she goes to
England to study at Oxford. Her friendship with, the American-Iranian girl
Shirin who is a non-believer and hence considered to be the metaphorical
“Sinner” and the Egyptian-American girl Mona, a staunch follower of Muslim
ideology and hence the metaphorical “Believer”, rips apart because of one wrong
step of hers towards the much adored and equally criticized controversial
Professor Azur. More than two decades later, when she reconnects with both
Shirin and Azur to apologize for her cowardly act, she is in the middle of a
life-crisis, hiding in a closet of a nouveau-riche Turkish businessman’s
sea-facing house. The closet has been beautifully employed as a metaphor by
Shafak and Peri’s stepping out of the closet/ wardrobe is an act of daredevil.
With this act she unburdens herself of the guilt she had been carrying in her
heart for over twenty years. The novel has a beautiful narrative weaving across
continents with its continuous shuffle from Turkey to England. The storyline is
not linear rather the reader has to get accustomed to the time lapse between
Turkey of 1980s and later of 2016 and England of the Twin Tower attack. The
Philosophical, spiritual and theological discussions by the characters in the
novel not only represent the author’s immense knowledge but also her power to imbibe
them inextricably into the fabric of the storyline. Azur definitely acts as the
mouthpiece of the author, thereby, highlighting the importance of acceptance of
spiritualism to save the world from becoming a seething cauldron of misbeliefs.
The novel is an eye-opener and a must read for both believers and non-believers
of faith.
