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A review by forraever
The Island of Missing Trees by Elif Shafak
emotional
informative
reflective
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? N/A
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? N/A
Structure
1. Summary
2. Review
1. Summary
"If families resemble trees, as they say, arborescent structures with entangled roots and individual branches jutting at awkward angles, family traumas are like thick, translucent resin dripping from a cut in the park. They trickle down generations."
In The Island of Missing Trees, Elif Shafak tells a story of intergenerational trauma from the perspective of a family who lives in London, but has Cyprian roots. Ada's mother Defne is Turkish, her father Kostas Greek -- both are islanders. They met in their teens right before the Turkish invasion in 1974. Tensions between the Greek and the Turkish population already determined their lives. Their sole refuge was a tavern where they could meet in secret. But with the invasion, their lives were quite literally blown apart.
Kostas' mother sent him to England. Defne remained in Cyprus. Both suffered terribly, especially the pregnant Defne who has brought shame of her devout Catholic family. She has to give up her child for adoption, and the child dies as a toddler. Kostas and Defne grow apart. Years later, in the early 2000s, they are reunited and fall in love again.
In the early 2010s, their daughter Ada is 16 when she loses her mother Defne who chose to end her life. Ada is trying to understand why, but her parents never talked about Cyprus let alone visited the island with her. The only visible reminder is the tree in their garden: a ficus, grown from the cutting of a tree that grew in the Cyprian tavern where Defne and Costas used to meet. A reminder of neutral ground -- and a narrator in the story.
2. Review
Elif Shafak writes elegantly, her prose is enthralling, moving and to the point. Her pacing is excellent.
The tree as the narrator was not only charming, it added really interesting ecocritical insights and perspectives. I loved that. I will add some quotes here later. It also leads to some repetitions, in terms of plot, though, when the omniscient narrator and the tree narrator overlapped. Those passages began to read lengthy after a while.
All of the characters are drawn up in a way that made me want to spend more time with them. Meryem, Ada's aunt and Defne's sister, was a surprising favourite. But my actual favourite was Kostas. His family history was beautifully depicted and enlightening because it represented the possible rifts within Cypriot families themselves -- a microcosm that allowed me to imagine the overall conflict on the Island more complexly (made me long for more details about Defne, also).
Kostas' love for plants and his vulnerability were described so empathetically and poetically. Some of the most heart-wrenching passages were written from his perspective, and they intersected beautifully with the narrative of the tree -- they both seek to combine human and natural occurrences, non-human and human life. They signify, extract, explain and beautify the entanglement, the emotion, the kinship...
And of course Yusuf and Yiorgos, the owners of the tavern. Such tendernes in these characters. I loved that Yiorgos and Yusuf were gay, but I wish they had not died. I am unsure how I feel about this as a plot point. It becomes instrumentalised as something for Defne to torture herself with -- she is convinced their disappearance/death is her fault, and she has misused Yusuf posthumously to dampen the consequences of her pregnancy, naming him as the father (less horrible for her parents as he is not a Greek!).
I loved that Ada started screaming in the middle of class. I thought something about that was so poetic and relatable. The fact that she turns into an internet meme was quite scary, and I am personally unsure how exactly she dealt with the mental pressure of that. It is concerning that she did not tell her father, just as concerning is that the people who filmed her just get away with it. This says something about the internet... Ada has convincing arguments here, saying it would not make a difference anyway, which may be true, but it's still a fight that needs to be fought. But it speaks to a certain powerlessness in this technological age. How devastating that must feel... to have to bring up the power to fight when you are already at your lowest. The psychological damage of that ordeal falls to the wayside a bit because the inherited trauma is in the foreground of this story.
Structurally, the novel makes perfect sense in how it conveys its information, how it reveals itself to the reader. This reveal also creates an imbalance, however. The first half of the book focuses heavily on Ada's perspective. The second half zooms in on the parents' past and their re-acquaintance in the early 2000s, and on Kostas trying to find out about Defne's pregnancy back in 1974. I loved reading about it, but I did not particularly love finding out about everything while Ada did not. It's as if she is still shielded. I understand this psychologically. Trauma is hard to be stomached all at once, it works in waves and circles, and so does memory in general, especially when being passed on to another. So the things she has gained due to her aunt's visit, and her father's gradual opening up, are overall satisfying. But there was a bit of a disconnect there still for me, personally -- maybe also because I had not heard from her for a while and the focus was on the parents. A bit of a veil that separated me from there. I did not quite understand her, she could have been a bit more well-rounded. Yet, upon reflecting on this again, it is probably the most realistic ending for this particular story because it signifies how trauma is never really 'finished' and done with -- the book shows ways of connecting despite and through grief and trauma, which is difficult and heart-wrenching, yet rewarding to read. The unspoken lingers in the background, teased by all that can be spoken, and that is interesting in its own right.
I felt similarly about Defne, but only in one respect. Overall, her hardness and simultaneous tenderness carry something intangible, fragile, desirable yet unattainable. We want to reach her, but we cannot, because of all the baggage in between. I loved her dedication to finding the remains of islanders who were killed. I thought that storyline was moving and important, and I genuinely learned so much. Shafak lost me, however, when Defne insisted that as parents, they could not tell Ada anything about the past and the burden they carried because of it. This may have been psychologically sound, but not narratively -- Defne is the one interviewing people from different generations, people who have lived through the invasion, the rift in Cyprus. She is the one who is focalised when we learn that third generation people (like Ada) want to learn about the past -- they do NOT want to block it out. Defne is so passionate about helping, I struggle to believe that she would have given that up despite all the personal pain. This could have been strung together in a more convincing way. Similarly, I am not 100% sure about the mother's spirit being inside the tree, the final revelation of the novel.
Shafak's novel wants to do a lot of things, and it succeeds at most of them.
1. Summary
2. Review
1. Summary
"If families resemble trees, as they say, arborescent structures with entangled roots and individual branches jutting at awkward angles, family traumas are like thick, translucent resin dripping from a cut in the park. They trickle down generations."
In The Island of Missing Trees, Elif Shafak tells a story of intergenerational trauma from the perspective of a family who lives in London, but has Cyprian roots. Ada's mother Defne is Turkish, her father Kostas Greek -- both are islanders. They met in their teens right before the Turkish invasion in 1974. Tensions between the Greek and the Turkish population already determined their lives. Their sole refuge was a tavern where they could meet in secret. But with the invasion, their lives were quite literally blown apart.
Kostas' mother sent him to England. Defne remained in Cyprus. Both suffered terribly, especially the pregnant Defne who has brought shame of her devout Catholic family. She has to give up her child for adoption, and the child dies as a toddler. Kostas and Defne grow apart. Years later, in the early 2000s, they are reunited and fall in love again.
In the early 2010s, their daughter Ada is 16 when she loses her mother Defne who chose to end her life. Ada is trying to understand why, but her parents never talked about Cyprus let alone visited the island with her. The only visible reminder is the tree in their garden: a ficus, grown from the cutting of a tree that grew in the Cyprian tavern where Defne and Costas used to meet. A reminder of neutral ground -- and a narrator in the story.
2. Review
Elif Shafak writes elegantly, her prose is enthralling, moving and to the point. Her pacing is excellent.
The tree as the narrator was not only charming, it added really interesting ecocritical insights and perspectives. I loved that. I will add some quotes here later. It also leads to some repetitions, in terms of plot, though, when the omniscient narrator and the tree narrator overlapped. Those passages began to read lengthy after a while.
All of the characters are drawn up in a way that made me want to spend more time with them. Meryem, Ada's aunt and Defne's sister, was a surprising favourite. But my actual favourite was Kostas. His family history was beautifully depicted and enlightening because it represented the possible rifts within Cypriot families themselves -- a microcosm that allowed me to imagine the overall conflict on the Island more complexly (made me long for more details about Defne, also).
Kostas' love for plants and his vulnerability were described so empathetically and poetically. Some of the most heart-wrenching passages were written from his perspective, and they intersected beautifully with the narrative of the tree -- they both seek to combine human and natural occurrences, non-human and human life. They signify, extract, explain and beautify the entanglement, the emotion, the kinship...
And of course Yusuf and Yiorgos, the owners of the tavern. Such tendernes in these characters. I loved that Yiorgos and Yusuf were gay, but I wish they had not died. I am unsure how I feel about this as a plot point. It becomes instrumentalised as something for Defne to torture herself with -- she is convinced their disappearance/death is her fault, and she has misused Yusuf posthumously to dampen the consequences of her pregnancy, naming him as the father (less horrible for her parents as he is not a Greek!).
I loved that Ada started screaming in the middle of class. I thought something about that was so poetic and relatable. The fact that she turns into an internet meme was quite scary, and I am personally unsure how exactly she dealt with the mental pressure of that. It is concerning that she did not tell her father, just as concerning is that the people who filmed her just get away with it. This says something about the internet... Ada has convincing arguments here, saying it would not make a difference anyway, which may be true, but it's still a fight that needs to be fought. But it speaks to a certain powerlessness in this technological age. How devastating that must feel... to have to bring up the power to fight when you are already at your lowest. The psychological damage of that ordeal falls to the wayside a bit because the inherited trauma is in the foreground of this story.
Structurally, the novel makes perfect sense in how it conveys its information, how it reveals itself to the reader. This reveal also creates an imbalance, however. The first half of the book focuses heavily on Ada's perspective. The second half zooms in on the parents' past and their re-acquaintance in the early 2000s, and on Kostas trying to find out about Defne's pregnancy back in 1974. I loved reading about it, but I did not particularly love finding out about everything while Ada did not. It's as if she is still shielded. I understand this psychologically. Trauma is hard to be stomached all at once, it works in waves and circles, and so does memory in general, especially when being passed on to another. So the things she has gained due to her aunt's visit, and her father's gradual opening up, are overall satisfying. But there was a bit of a disconnect there still for me, personally -- maybe also because I had not heard from her for a while and the focus was on the parents. A bit of a veil that separated me from there. I did not quite understand her, she could have been a bit more well-rounded. Yet, upon reflecting on this again, it is probably the most realistic ending for this particular story because it signifies how trauma is never really 'finished' and done with -- the book shows ways of connecting despite and through grief and trauma, which is difficult and heart-wrenching, yet rewarding to read. The unspoken lingers in the background, teased by all that can be spoken, and that is interesting in its own right.
I felt similarly about Defne, but only in one respect. Overall, her hardness and simultaneous tenderness carry something intangible, fragile, desirable yet unattainable. We want to reach her, but we cannot, because of all the baggage in between. I loved her dedication to finding the remains of islanders who were killed. I thought that storyline was moving and important, and I genuinely learned so much. Shafak lost me, however, when Defne insisted that as parents, they could not tell Ada anything about the past and the burden they carried because of it. This may have been psychologically sound, but not narratively -- Defne is the one interviewing people from different generations, people who have lived through the invasion, the rift in Cyprus. She is the one who is focalised when we learn that third generation people (like Ada) want to learn about the past -- they do NOT want to block it out. Defne is so passionate about helping, I struggle to believe that she would have given that up despite all the personal pain. This could have been strung together in a more convincing way. Similarly, I am not 100% sure about the mother's spirit being inside the tree, the final revelation of the novel.
Shafak's novel wants to do a lot of things, and it succeeds at most of them.
Content Warnings
Moderate: Suicide