Review by triviahanni - The Forty Rules of Love

triviahanni 's review for:

The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

4.0

adventurous challenging hopeful informative inspiring mysterious reflective sad medium-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Yes

— 4/5 ★ //

“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough.”

This is the third Elif Shafak book that I have read and I am just as charmed and soothed by her words as I was when I first read There Are Rivers in The Sky. Shafak has an immense talent for storytelling, a talent that consistently and blatantly stands out in each of her works. The worlds that she creates are woven together beautifully, often reminding me of a tapestry, or perhaps a piece of pottery that has been shaped and decorated by a careful and steady hand. Her gift for words is remarkable and I always come away from her works finding myself attached to her warm and comforting locution. She truly is an author dear to my heart.

This book was somewhat challenging for me initially, I didn’t find myself as hooked onto the storyline as much as I normally am, but I see now that perhaps that was for the best as it caused me to read slower and more methodically. I felt like I truly inspected the text and digested it slowly, instead of rushing forward to see what happened next.

This book contains important spiritual wisdom within its pages. A deep and stirring wisdom that leaves you feeling like you want to go out into the world and explore different countries and cultures, faiths and borders. It’s a book that has you open your mind to things that you hadn’t even considered before reading.

The Forty Rules of Love features two different narratives placed within two separate timelines, both stories showing the depth of love and insight in its entirety. In one timeline (set in 2008 — 2009) we see an American housewife, Ella, inwardly battle with the relationships she has with her loved ones, confront her husband’s infidelity, as well as her “logical” brain over heart mentality, as she reads through a book published by a Scottish Sufi writer, Aziz. We see her take momentous steps in alternating her way of thinking, drifting further from “reason” and “sense” towards the passions and longings of her heart, as she falls in love with Aziz through correspondence online.

Meanwhile, in the alternate timeline, we are met with the story of Shams and Rumi. One a Sufi, the other an Islamic scholar. We see the two bond and enlighten one another with a kind of understanding that many never achieve within their lifetime. Throughout the story, we see Rumi come face to face with challenges that change his life and shape his future, the lessons learnt along the way forging a new path of enlightenment and understanding of God and his place in the world, as well as the importance of love. With Shams we see him come to face to face with disbelievers, skeptics, and adversaries as he challenges their way of thinking about themselves, their God, and their values and beliefs, leaving droplets of wisdom in his wake. These drops of wisdom are actually what the book is named after, The Forty Rules of Love.

Ultimately, I think I was more connected and intrigued by the 13th century storyline, but I did appreciate the transformation we see in Ella, something that somewhat reflected the drastic changes we see happen within Rumi. In the end, they both gained wisdom and insight and love, but they also found loss and pain and suffering, something that deeply reminisces this quote we see in the book, ”How can love be worthy of its name if one selects solely the pretty things and leaves out the hardships? It is easy to enjoy the good and dislike the bad. Anybody can do that. The real challenge is to love the good and the bad together, not because you need to take the rough with the smooth but because you need to go beyond such descriptions and accept love in its entirety.”

For someone with hardly any religious or spiritual education/knowledge, I found this book deeply enlightening and educational. It left me thinking about things that I have never really thought about in a deep and meaningful sense. Something I found interesting, something that I think I have always found interesting, is how everything is a cycle. Our ideas, our art, our thoughts, our feelings; they’re all just apart of one big cycle. And it doesn’t matter if you’re in the 13th century or the 21st century — knowledge, wisdom, love, all have the capability to change the world, for better or worse. The universe doesn’t mind, it simply lets whatever needs to happen, happen, and watches on as our choices and emotions shift and change shape, ultimately changing everything, including the very course of our futures. Poetry from over 700 years ago still holds the power to change minds and transform our existence on this planet. Things that happened centuries ago still have the capability to impact the way we think, feel, and see things today and I think that’s beautiful.

In conclusion, while this isn’t my favourite of Shafak’s works, it still stands as a great novel that I’m incredibly grateful to have read. Despite the fact that there are still many Elif Shafak books yet for me to read, I can definitely tell that she has only grown as a writer. From the year this was written (2011), to her most recent novel (There Are Rivers in The Sky, 2024), I can truly tell that she has only improved and developed and blossomed as a writer. Truthfully, it no longer feels write to call her an author or writer, when the title Wordsmith feels much more fitting for her ability and talent.

There is beauty in these pages and I feel blessed to have had the chance to read it… I look forward to my next Shafak read. ♡

Content Warnings