I loved Elif Shfak's novel 'The Island of Missing Trees', so when I saw the author's new book, 'There Are Rivers in the Sky', I snapped it right up.
This sweeping novel extends over millennia, and by way of a drop of water, takes us from ancient Mesopotamia to modern Europe and back to the Middle East.
In the course of the water cycle, H₂O falls as precipitation; lands on people, places and things; drains into waterways; travels far and wide; evaporates; forms clouds; gets buffeted by winds; and eventually falls as precipitation again.
The Water Cycle
Thus, over a period of 2500 years, a water droplet that once nestled in the hair of an ancient Mesopotamian king can land as a snowflake on a British baby; be sipped by a girl in Iraq; fall as a teardrop in England; and so on. This story revolves around three major waterways: the Tigris and Euphrates Rivers in the Middle East, and the River Thames in London.
The Tigris-Euphrates River System
The River Thames
The book opens in the palace of King Ashurbanipal, who rules the vast Mesopotamian Empire - near the Tigris-Euphrates River System - in the 600s BCE. Ashurbanipal is one of the most brutal rulers of the era, known for horrendous cruelty and genocides.
King Ashurbanipal
Conversely, the king is very interested in the literature and art of Mesopotamia, and he assembles a vast library in the city of Nineveh, many of the contents having been looted from conquered states.
Library at Nineveh
Ashurbanipal's favorite literary work is the 'Epic of Gilgamesh', and his most treasured copy of the work is inscribed in cuneiform on a slab of lapis lazuli.
Part of 'The Epic of Gilgamesh' in cuneiform on an ancient clay tablet
A lapis lazuli seal with ancient writing
Ashurbanipal's library is destroyed and buried towards the end of his reign, when Nineveh is attacked by the king's enemies. Centuries later, European archaeologists unearth many of the library's contents - tablets, statues, artworks, etc. - and make off with the treasures. The tablets are in pieces, and modern scholars can't read the cuneiform markings, so most Mesopotamian tablets are contained in museum storerooms.
Archaeologists excavating ancient Nineveh
The book now enters the modern and contemporary eras, and the story rotates among three main characters: an English fellow named Arthur Smyth; a Yazidi girl called Narin; and an Iraqi-British hydrologist called Dr. Zaleekhah Clarke. I'll give a nutshell description of each character's role in the story.
➽ Arthur Smyth
In 1840, an impoverished mudlarker (scavenger) gives birth to a baby on the riverbank of London's River Thames. The woman's mudlarking companions name the mite 'King Arthur of the Sewers and Slums', which perfectly describes little Arthur Smyth's life.
Mudlarkers on the River Thames
Young Arthur grows up in a cold dirty crowded London flat; wears rags; is hungry all the time; and is mistreated by his lazy good-for-nothing father, who drinks away any pennies Arthur's mother manages to collect.
Ragamuffin in historic London
Arthur is no ordinary boy though. Arthur Smyth is gifted with an extraordinary memory - visual, verbal, and sensory. Arthur remembers every moment of his life - and everything he sees, reads, hears, experiences, etc. - from the second he was born.
When Arthur is an adolescent, his unique gift gets him hired by London's Bradbury and Evans Publishers, where Arthur learns the business from the bottom up.....and even gets to meet Charles Dickens. A visit to the British Museum exposes Arthur to tablets from Nineveh, and - using his exceptional abilities - Arthur teaches himself to decipher the cuneiform inscriptions.
British Museum
Employed by the British Museum, Arthur comes upon fragments of the 'Epic of Gilgamesh', and becomes obsessed with the poem. The museum is missing some pieces of the saga, however, and - after much time and preparation - Arthur travels to Nineveh to dig up the lost bits. In Nineveh, Arthur meets a Yazidi community, which has a profound effect on his life.
➽ Narin
In 2014, nine-year-old Narin is a Yazidi girl living with her grandmother in the Turkish hamlet of Hasankeyf, near the Tigris River.
Hasankeyf will soon be flooded by a new dam, and the residents will be displaced from their homes. This is just one more challenge in the lives of the Yazidis, who are erroneously called 'devil-worshippers', and who have been persecuted, enslaved, murdered, raped, and so on from time immemorial.
To honor their spiritual beliefs, Grandma wants Narin to be baptized in her ancestral home, the Valley of Lalish in Iraq. Shortly before the flooding of Hasankeyf, Grandma and Narin travel to Iraq. Unfortunately, this is a time when members of ISIS are roaming the country, murdering Yazidis and abducting young Yazidi girls to sell.
ISIS
Author Elif Shafak doesn't skimp on describing the genocide of the Yazidis, and the scenes are stomach-churning and appalling. (It makes one really skeptical about humanity, that's for sure.)
➽ Dr. Zaleekhah Clarke
Zaleekhah Clarke lost her parents in a flash flood in Turkey when she was seven-years-old.
Zaleekhah's wealthy Uncle Malek, who had emigrated to England, came to Turkey to fetch the girl. So Zaleekhah grew up in a luxurious London home with Uncle Malek, Aunt Malek, and their daughter Helen, who was like a sister to Zaleekhah.
It's now 2018, and 31-year-old Zaleekhah is a hydrologist and college professor.
Zaleekhah's mentor, Professor Berenberg - an eminent hydrologist, biochemist, and climate scientist - had a hypothesis he called 'aquatic memory'. "Berenberg argued that, under certain circumstances, water - the universal solvent - retained evidence, or 'memory', of the solute particles that had dissolved in it, no matter how many times it was diluted or purified.....Water, in other words, remembered." Berenberg thought that if he could prove that water possessed some kind of memory, this would have groundbreaking implications for hydrology, biology, medicine, homeopathy, and various methods of healing. Sadly, when Berenberg published his findings, he was lambasted by other researchers and his reputation was tarnished.
Zaleekhah is now writing a paper on aquatic memory, and though she once feared being ridiculed like Berenberg, Zaleekhah no longer cares. Zaleekhah is depressed, getting divorced, moving into a houseboat on the River Thames, and thinking about suicide. Nevertheless, Zaleekhah feels guilty about killing herself because her cousin Helen has a very sick daughter who requires a kidney transplant, and Helen needs Zaleekhah's support.
As it happens, Zaleekhah is renting the houseboat from a female tattoo artist called Nen, who's very knowledgeable about ancient Mesopotamia. Nen specializes in cuneiform tattoos, and bakes biscuits with cuneiform symbols. The women find they have a lot in common and become friendly.
At the book's climax, all these story lines - Arthur Smyth, Narin, and Zaleekhah Clarke - come together in a very inventive way.
I enjoyed the book, and learned a good deal about rivers. It's sad that people throughout history have made rivers into garbage dumps, using waterways to dispose of human waste, dead bodies, industrial effluents, and every kind of pollutant. This leads to terrible smells, dead fish, disease-causing microbes, and ecological disasters.
Polluted river
I didn't know that some major rivers, like the Bièvre in France, have been covered over. Zaleekhah observes, "It was an important waterway until the nineteenth century, when it became heavily polluted. They covered it over and basically forgot about it. The tourists who walk around Paris today admire the Seine, but they don't realize there's another river flowing beneath their feet." And there are other 'lost rivers' - rivers that have been covered over - in New York, London, Vienna, São Paulo, Sydney, Beijing, Moscow, Toronto, Tokyo, Athens, and elsewhere. Who knew, right??
Paris is resurrecting the Bièvre River to combat climate change.
This is a very good novel with a triplet of fascinating stories. Highly recommended.
Thanks to Netgalley, Elif Shafak, and Knopf for a copy of the book.
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