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A review by ridgewaygirl
Honor by Elif Shafak
3.0
The novel begins with a woman driving to pick up her brother on his release from prison. She's deeply ambivalent, and the novel then goes back in time; to Iskander's time in prison, to the months before he commits the crime, and farther back to the childhoods of their parents in Turkey, especially that of his mother, Pembe, who grows up in a small Kurdish village with her twin sister, who doesn't emigrate to England, but remains behind, unmarried and respected as being the closest thing that area has to a doctor.
Şafak varies the writing in the novel, with the Kurdish and Turkish portions reading like unfamiliar folktales and the parts set in London written in a more straightforward style. This is a novel about immigrants and their children, how they change in response to their new home and how they refuse to change, and how their children juggle two very different worlds.
This was an interesting and thought-provoking book. At times I was frustrated with the hypocrisy built into the patriarchal society the characters come from, but the writing was lovely and the issues and questions raised never took precedence over the characters.
Şafak varies the writing in the novel, with the Kurdish and Turkish portions reading like unfamiliar folktales and the parts set in London written in a more straightforward style. This is a novel about immigrants and their children, how they change in response to their new home and how they refuse to change, and how their children juggle two very different worlds.
This was an interesting and thought-provoking book. At times I was frustrated with the hypocrisy built into the patriarchal society the characters come from, but the writing was lovely and the issues and questions raised never took precedence over the characters.