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Elif Shafak10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World

2020; University of Oklahoma; Volume: 94; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1353/wlt.2020.0026

1945-8134

Michelle Lancaster,

South Asian Cinema and Culture

Books in Review an unflinching desire to believe in the power of love against all odds remain at the crux of the novel. Through the sprawling and deep love stories of Quichotte, Rushdie unveils the deteriorating postcolonial condition and posthumanist imaginations. Quichotte’s conviction that “love will find a way” shapes his entire being, and this rumination dominates his life in all aspects. The multifarious aspects of love and acceptance find an array of expressions in the novel. Fact and fiction are interspersed, and the reality of living in contemporary times is unleashed through real and fictional stories. Rushdie thus shows, through this invigorating narrative, the urgency of going beyond existing definitions of love, denouncing intolerance in all forms. He is not the kind of storyteller who is admired by everyone, but he does not flinch from narrating the truth of the human condition . The novel offers a brilliant commentary on the sabotaging effect of intolerance and bigotry in major economies of the world: the oppression of minorities in India, racism against Asians in the West, and the deteriorating political climate in the United States and the United Kingdom. Even so, the novel is not without its flaws. Even as Rushdie obsesses over the problems of the privileged class, his treatment of the lower strata of society is somewhat lopsided and wanting. Fathima M New Delhi Elif Shafak 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World New York. Bloomsbury. 2019. 320 pages. THE TALE OF Tequila Leila begins with an end. The first page of Elif Shafak’s new novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, finds Leila in a garbage dumpster on the outskirts of Istanbul: “she now realized . . . that her heart had just stopped beating, and her breathing had abruptly ceased, and whichever way she looked at her situation there was no denying that she was dead.” This surprising device immediately captures the reader’s attention, and curiosity commands you turn the page and continue turning pages—faster. Leila’s brain is busy for ten minutes and thirty-eight seconds after her heart stops, and the next two-thirds of the novel trace Leila’s life: her early years in a small Turkish city, how she ended up in a brothel in Istanbul, the hardships and hard-won comforts of that life, and how it ended. The final third of the story is taken up by Leila’s five closest friends, a band of outcasts who make difficult lives endurable—sometimes joyful—on the fringes of a city, country, and society in constant flux. The structure of this novel is both intellectually satisfying and intuitive, divided into three parts: mind, body, and soul. The chapters of the mind are titled to indicate how many minutes have elapsed since Leila’s heart has stopped. Each memory is associated with a taste or a smell—lemon, cardamom, chocolate, wedding cake, single -malt whiskey, sulfuric acid—which is inextricably linked to a transformation in her life. The backstories of Leila’s band of friends—her chosen family (“in the desert of life, the fool travels alone and the wise by caravan”)—are interspersed throughout the narrative as each makes their entrance into Leila’s life. The cast is rich and diverse, each sharing a common characteristic: the homesickness and vulnerability of those who don’t fit into the increasingly narrow confines of the socially acceptable. The many disparate cultures of Turkey suffuse this tale, illuminating the charms and conflicts that both destroy and sustain. Superstition, such as not eating peaches during pregnancy so the baby won’t be born covered in fuzz, coexist alongside such modern marvels as the fourth-longest bridge in the world, spanning the Bosphorous and linking Asian Istanbul with European Istanbul. Shafak firmly places Leila’s life and death in context, playing out against the backdrop of a convulsing Istanbul in the 76 WLT WINTER 2020 grip of revolutionary forces from right and left. Shafak weaves intricate details, juxtaposing the changes in Leila’s personal circumstances with the changes in Turkey ’s societal circumstances. Leila, whose father’s family is Kurdish, grows up in a house abruptly abandoned by a deported Armenian family. Her father...