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A review by arcshade3001
Honor by Elif Shafak
3.0
This book left me bewildered.
The central idea, of course, is easy to catch- men, even newborn ones, are honourable and important. Women have no honour, only sham- everything in their lives revolves around avoiding dishonour to their menfolk.
Inherently dishonourable though the idea itself, I recognize that this is a code that millions of women and men around the world live by. What I cannot come to terms with is how easily Elif Shafak's characters accept it in this book. Having read Forty Rules of Love and The Bastard of Istanbul, I can't help feeling let down by the characters, and the narrative too. The writing is fluid and easy to read, asynchronously leading to the major event of the story where Iskender stabs his mother to death for the sake of the family's 'honor'. Shafaq's characteristic prose and astute observations shine through the cloudy world of conservative immigrants in London in brief sparks in which I recognize the author I love. What lets me down throughout the novel is how each woman in the book is resigned to quantify herself with the flimsy honour of their menfolk- their fathers, their husbands, and their children- accepting her enforced sense of shame in being born as a woman, living in fear of 'dishonouring' her family, sticking only to the tenets she has imbibed from her childhood, never questioning their validity. I am not a mother, and I wonder how a mother can forgive her son who stabbed her for having a life separate from his own, and for being happy in that life. Being a woman, she had brought shame to her family because she loved a man other than her husband, and went to watch movies with him. Being a man, her absentee husband, who classically spent all their money gambling, was still honourable, still commanded respect.
I am aware that this basic difference is the cornerstone of the patriarchy women struggle against from the day we are conceived, but I had never expected Elif Shafak's narrative to be so accepting, so forgiving of sins so great and widespread. I am bewildered, and disheartened.
On another note, I have to compare this to We Need To Talk About Kevin, another book with a tangled mother-son relationship, another book where a son kills a parent- and many others. We..Kevin was entirely from the mother's perspective- her difficulties trying to understand her son as a person, her efforts to give him the parenting that he needs. She recognizes the deviance in her son that no one else can see, but is helpless in the face of his masterful personality. Her parenting is a direct contrast to Pembe's in Honor. Pembe, a full-time mother, is described by each of her children as being distant and aloof, always being occupied by something else. She communicates with her daughter only to tell her what she must never do- yet another aspect of the honour-shame equation. She only dotes on her sons, yet they too describe her as being curiously absent. Her innate favouritism for her elder son is disturbingly similar to his girlfriend's needy adoration, both keep growing the worse Iskender treats them. So many strained and halfway relationships leave much to think about, though, but not coming to conclusions is rather perplexing.
The central idea, of course, is easy to catch- men, even newborn ones, are honourable and important. Women have no honour, only sham- everything in their lives revolves around avoiding dishonour to their menfolk.
Inherently dishonourable though the idea itself, I recognize that this is a code that millions of women and men around the world live by. What I cannot come to terms with is how easily Elif Shafak's characters accept it in this book. Having read Forty Rules of Love and The Bastard of Istanbul, I can't help feeling let down by the characters, and the narrative too. The writing is fluid and easy to read, asynchronously leading to the major event of the story where Iskender stabs his mother to death for the sake of the family's 'honor'. Shafaq's characteristic prose and astute observations shine through the cloudy world of conservative immigrants in London in brief sparks in which I recognize the author I love. What lets me down throughout the novel is how each woman in the book is resigned to quantify herself with the flimsy honour of their menfolk- their fathers, their husbands, and their children- accepting her enforced sense of shame in being born as a woman, living in fear of 'dishonouring' her family, sticking only to the tenets she has imbibed from her childhood, never questioning their validity. I am not a mother, and I wonder how a mother can forgive her son who stabbed her for having a life separate from his own, and for being happy in that life. Being a woman, she had brought shame to her family because she loved a man other than her husband, and went to watch movies with him. Being a man, her absentee husband, who classically spent all their money gambling, was still honourable, still commanded respect.
I am aware that this basic difference is the cornerstone of the patriarchy women struggle against from the day we are conceived, but I had never expected Elif Shafak's narrative to be so accepting, so forgiving of sins so great and widespread. I am bewildered, and disheartened.
On another note, I have to compare this to We Need To Talk About Kevin, another book with a tangled mother-son relationship, another book where a son kills a parent- and many others. We..Kevin was entirely from the mother's perspective- her difficulties trying to understand her son as a person, her efforts to give him the parenting that he needs. She recognizes the deviance in her son that no one else can see, but is helpless in the face of his masterful personality. Her parenting is a direct contrast to Pembe's in Honor. Pembe, a full-time mother, is described by each of her children as being distant and aloof, always being occupied by something else. She communicates with her daughter only to tell her what she must never do- yet another aspect of the honour-shame equation. She only dotes on her sons, yet they too describe her as being curiously absent. Her innate favouritism for her elder son is disturbingly similar to his girlfriend's needy adoration, both keep growing the worse Iskender treats them. So many strained and halfway relationships leave much to think about, though, but not coming to conclusions is rather perplexing.