The Flea Palace

Every city has its apartment complexes. And every apartment complex has its stories. Stories of love, hate, worries, compassion, stress, depression, exhiliaration and a gamut of other emotions. And it has its secrets. Secrets that the apartment dwellers harbor from each other and a lot of times from themselves as well.

The Flea Palace by Elif Shafak is a story of one such apartment complex with a known problem which hides so many interesting issues in it. Under the expert hands of Elif Shafak, the angst and psychosis of each of the ten flats are revealed in it we see a slice of life in Turkey. Not from the beautiful postcards that the governemnt would like you to see and believe but from the true eyes of people who live the daily life. And that's what makes this book so interetsting. As you read the story of the 10 apartments in Bonbon Palace plagued by the smell of a garbage dump outside the building, you realise that each one of these could be someone you know from your apartment complex as well.

Could the person in Flat 203 in your apartment complex be actually like the divorced academician in Flat no. 7 of Bonbon Palace who loves to indulge in philosophy and talk big things while unable to deal with the fact that his wife left him but is having an affair with someone in the apartment complex as well as another friend? Could he?

Elif Shafak offers us a varied mix of emotions and issues through the residents of Bonbon Palace. She introduces us to a woman who has been forced to become independent because she perceives her husband to be a wimp, who is pregnant with a second child but is obsessed with protecting the pregnancy and her first child through all sorts of superstitions because she lost her first three pregnancies. The beauty is how Elif Shafak also shows us her son's emotions and how because of the overbearing nature of the mother, he too is going the same route as the father.

There is a student with his dog in one of the flats who is obssesed with death, who has pasted various forms of posters, writings, pages and slips on the ceiling of his flat. Who has no direction in life and would rather be lost in a haze of smoke alone with his dog than be found mingling with people and interacting with them. Twin hairdressers who were seperated at birth and lived in different countries but now together, who have nothing in common but stick together. Their touching story of guilt and redemption. A wife who has lost her identity and is only known by her husband's name, who is an alien in a foreign land and is unable to adjust herself to this new life. A woman who is a mistress to a fat olive merchant but happy in that existence with no expectations from life, who is clear with the academician that they can never be friends or lovers but only sex partners. Her descent into misery and self infliction is especically interesting and left unanswered. A lady with a hygiene OCD whose child gets lice and it turns her world upside down. A woman whose house is forever closed and who does not invite anyone inside. A family living in a fortress of a house with some sort of pet always kept outside. Another family with working parents leaving their three kids with their grandfather who loves to tell scary stories to them.

Bonbon Palace is a smasgosbord of emotions and glimpses into the daily lives of everyday people. The permeating garbage smell is the common link which unites them and seperates them at the same time. It is a treatise of social issues and makes you think as you read through it.

The book does get verbose in some parts as Elif Shafak seems to get carried away with her writing and goes off on a tangent. While there are some brilliant insights into some aspects, there are also some stories that sound redundent in the long run. Some flat residents that would best have been left untold because they have nothing to offer. She does try to link each of the flat residents and their stories with the others but it comes out as forced in some parts and nicely obvious in others. And therein lies the issue of the author. If you read this as her first book, you may miss out on reading her most brilliant book - Forty Rules of Love. But if that's the first one you have read, you will be like me - wanting to read her other books to rediscover the magic of Forty Rules of Love.

This is not a breezy read book. It takes time and sometimes effort to run through the story hoping to find some connection somewhere. Don't read this book expecting a serial fashion of one chapter leading to another with a logical ending. Rather read it as a documentary of daily life with parallel chapters and stories that hope to come together at the end with a logical ending. Do they? Not completely because the twist in the tale is at the very end and believe me it is a wonderful twise that will make you question everything that you read.

I would rate this at 3/5.

Forty Rules of Love

I got 'introduced' to Elif Shafak through TED Talks. I was surfing the site one day when I came across an interesting video called ' The Politics of Fiction'. Being a prolific reader I was intrigued about why politics was being mixed with fiction and how was it relevant? Elif Shafak impressed me with her talk on perceptions that authors have to face in their own field and from their peers.

It prompted me to want to read her books and so the first one that I laid my hands on was 'Forty Rules of Love'. I'm glad about the co-incidence that got me to TED Talks.

Forty Rules of Love is in part a love story, in part history, in part a representation of life as we know today and in part the transformational power of friendship. The book starts off as a simple story of Ella, a jewish housewife in Massachusetts whose life is going nowhere. Her life revolves around her family and has settled into a mundane existance. Her husband cheats on her, her children don't love or understand her and everyone takes her for granted. Into this boring existance she is delivered a manuscript that she must review.

Through the book 'Sweet Blasphemy' written by a first time author Aziz Zahara, Ella travels to 13th century where she meets a travelling dervish Shams of Tabriz and his travails to meet his destiny with Mawlana Rumi. As she reads the book, Ella starts to understand the reason for her angst against the world and her bleak outlook to life. She starts corresponding with Aziz and unwittingly finds herself falling in love with him and understanding the different forms of love.

The book shifts between the two stories of Shams' and Rumi in 13th Century and Ella and Aziz in present day. Ella's story is written in third person while the other story is in first person from the perspectives of different people in the story. This can sometimes take a little time to understand as to who is narrating the story now.

Rumi and Sham's story is authentic history. Prior to his meeting with Shams-e Tabrizi, Rumi was an accomplished teacher, cleric and a maulana in a mosque. His friendship with Shams' exposes him to the highest degree of love; not in the romantic sappy Valentine form but love in its purest form - love for fellow being, love for God, love for life - and transforms him into an ascetic and a modern purveyor of Sufism. Its a beautiful story

• Of Realisation - Rumi's realisation that life was so empty before Shams)
• Of Dedication and Loyalty - Rumi's dedication to the teachings of Shams' inspite of the world branding him a heretic and ruing his slide into oblivion from the highest office of the mosque
• Of Differing perspectives to the same story - each member of Rumi's family has a different perspective to what is happening to Rumi - from his wife, to each of his sons, to his adopted daughter and to the different people that are exposed to Shams
• Of Heartbreak - Rumi's abject depression when Shams' disappears from his life
• Of Joy and Fear - Rumi's joy to see Shams' back but his fear that he will go away again
• Of Acceptance and Transformation - Rumi's state when Shams' is murdered and his transformation into a poet using the pain of his loss

'Forty Rules of Love' exposes us too to the Forty Rules of life, love and living that Shams' shares with us along his journey.

Just as Shams-e Tabrizi had opened Rumi's eyes to the glorious forms of love and the joy of finding love and keeping it, so does Aziz and his book open Ella's eyes and world to the joys of letting love into one's life. 'Forty Rules of Love' is a book about the transformational power of love and friendship and it will transform you too.

Elif Shafak's writing style is simple and understated. While Ella and Aziz's characters and story is not too fleshed out, 'Forty Rules of Love' is really the story about Rumi and Shams-e Tabrizi. The modern day story seems superimposed to give the book a contemporary feel and make it appeal to a wider audience. The book could have stood alone as the story of Rumi and Shams'. While the 13th century story keeps you engrossed and turning the pages, there are times when Ella's story seems to intrude on the flow and you want it to get over fast. Elif Shafak too seems to have devoted less attention to Ella's story not giving us enough reasons for her angst and transformation.

From the first rule " How we see God is a direct reflection of how we see ourselves. If God brings to mind most fear and blame, it means there is too much fear and blame welled inside us. If we see God as full of love and compassion, so are we" to the fortieth "A life without love is of no account. Dont ask yourself what kind of love you should seek, spiritual or material, divine or mundane, Eastern or Western - Decisions only lead to more divisions. Love has no labels, no definitions. It is what it is, pure and simple. Love is the water of life. And a lover is a soul of fire! The universe turns differently when fire loves water!" the book is filled with nuggets that will open your eyes, make you think and transform you a little bit.

Forty Rules of LOve is a book that must be read again and again at different times of your life. I rate it 5/5.