The Mookse and the Gripes discussion
This topic is about
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
Booker Prize for Fiction
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2019 Booker Shortlist: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World
My reviewhttps://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
A conclusion
This is the third Shafak book I have read – she is always an author I have been disposed to like.
She writes about one of my favourite cities (which I used to visit for work); her talks and essays are clearly written and insightful; her activism across a whole range of causes admirable (as shown by the opposition she attracts, even recently from Turkish conservative authorities); her literary involvement shows great taste (most recently as Goldsmith judge and Wellcome Prize chair – both of which recognised the brilliant “Murmur” by Will Eaves and where she must have been the comment factor).
And yet … my previous reads have been three stars – due to their implausibility of plot, rather overtly forced themes and really poor endings.
As a writer I am reminded of Zadie Smith – brilliant and admirable in so many ways, and yet just not quite able to convince me in a novel.
However this is the strongest of Shafak’s novels that I have read – the central conceit of the novel is a clever new way of approaching a technique which goes back beyond Proust even to Lawrence Sterne, and functions as an excellent way to examine her themes. The key moments that made Leila’s fate seemingly inevitable, which led to her lifelong but fully unjustified sense of guilt, and her perpetual status as undeserved victim, were I thought conveyed in a subtle but powerful way.
I was less enamored with the five, their backstories and even more so with the Body part of the novel, but was able to reflect that this was, I think, meant to be a deliberate, enlightened twist on the Hollywood ensemble/buddy quest movie – albeit one which I think works slightly to the disservice of the novel.
So overall a fairly strong and enjoyable novel – and I would not be surprised to see the author this year receiving rather than giving out literary prize longlistings
I’m getting ready to start this one too and I agree with Manda the premise is a bit disconcerting!
Mod
Bastard of Istanbul is brilliant
The two I read before (see my opening comment) were Three Daughters if Eve and Honour and both were rather ruined for me by the endings. There is an element of that here but for me this is the book that finally gets close to her undoubted talent and I think appropriate that it’s got her first Booker longlisting
A literary challenge for the group. Has anyone else other than Elif Shafak judged Goldsmith, MBI and Women’s Prize.
I’m up to 8 minutes and I really like this. I’ve been meaning to read Shafak for ages and have two other books of hers languishing on my shelves. I think this is an original way to tell the story. It’s interesting to me that each memory starts with a smell. I don’t necessarily associate memories with smell.
Interestingly do you associate memories with taste?
No more with feel. Like if I think about memories of being at the beach I think of the feel of the sand between my toes or the tightness of my skin from sunburn. Things like that. Or sometimes feel in the emotional sense of being happy or upset, frustrated or excited. I can’t think of a single memory that I associate with smell or taste.
And in thinking more about this sometimes sounds.
Thanks. I guess the book is consciously (I guess that should be unconsciously or in this case fading-consciously) following Proust (and the taste of madeleines) but transferring to smell.
Studies show that smell is the sense most associated with memory. Interestingly, hearing is the last sense to go before death.
About 10 years ago I DNF'ed The Forty Rules of Love for being melodramatic and overwrought, although I don't remember anything else about the book but my reaction to it. Since then I've avoided Shafak, but even though I'm skeptical, maybe it's time for a second look.....
I am up to Seven Minutes and that chapter starts with a taste not a smell - soil.
Quick scan ahead and Ten Minutes also starts with a taste.
You have literally spoiled the taste Neil.
The first half is brilliant. The second half less so I feel.Really quite tricky to say too much about the ending without massive spoilers.
Let's just say the word implausible sprang to mind when I was reading it.
That said there was much more to admire in this novel than to not.
Gumble says neatly most of what I felt about this one.
Thank you.
Mod
My first Shafak, too. I am keeping quiet for a while about it!
Mod
I won't say any more - that is why I put the review in spoiler tags.
A brilliant set up, the last 10mins 38s of brain activity, totally undercut by the plodding storytelling (surely should have been genuinely fragmentary and fleeting?) and then the switch to omniscient narrative for the section about her friends. Really annoyed me, despite some really wonderful images and bits of writing. But I just couldn't get past how it betrayed its own structure
Marc I agreed with you on Night Boat but will slightly disagree here on the first part. I can see she could have done this as fragmentary but from the very start she says (emphasis mine)
“her brain .... entered into a state of heightened awareness ... She recalled things she did not even know she was capable of remembering, things she had believed to be lost forever. Time became fluid, a fast flow of recollections seeping into one another, the past and the present inseparable”
So while you suggest a alternate approach and may have conceived and written it differently (I still remember your brilliant Genome base dialogue) I don’t think she is undermining the structure she chose to create.
Effectively I saw it as her finding an ingenious way to justify techniques that go back to Sterne (an autobiography starting with the character’s own birth) and Proust (taste or smell evoking copious memories) - both of which lead to a rambling style.
But she just uses the Proustian bit for the first line of each chapter then discards it and switches to a very conventional narrative, including in the first chapter things she doesn’t know (not because she can’t remember them).
“Including things she doesn’t know”. This is interesting. I made notes as I read and one of my first notes was “Is this going to be like Death of a River Guide?” where the narrator “remembers” things that they don’t know. I wasn’t sure where it was going at that point.
To be fair looking back I think it was only the first factory - the story of her birth which explains in detail how the mothers were switched, things she only ever suspects. After that the narration is I think from her perspective. Ultimately the memories - smells, tastes - are more cues to the narrator than to her. Ie I took it she just remember the brief scenes, the third person narrator then explained them for our benefit.
I really enjoyed the first part of this book. The second was just not as consequential/consistent.I once saw a short movie of 30 minutes, where the viewer follows the body of a dead person, which was super interesting and I kept thinking of that during my reading.
Shafak, probably wanted the break, to emphasize that the mind has died after 10' 38''. But I keep thinking, how the book would have turned out, if Leila were narrating from her POV her friends digging her up and hence having her narrating from the hospital, the graveyard and the cardrive the whole of the second part.
I think two of the key things she is trying to encompass in the novel (and in much of her writing) are:- Writing from the viewpoint of the outcasts - those on the peripheries of Turkish society, and part of the Istanbul the tourists don't want you to see (as I think it says somewhere in the novel).
- Trying to reclaim urban Istanbul as a feminine space. Again I think there is a reference in the novel to the city always being seen as female in Byzantine days - e.g. (my example here rather then hers) the church of St Sophia as the most important in the City compared to St Peter's in Rome.
The second section I see as an attempt to do that by taking a standard ensemble/buddy quest/caper movie but narrating it as a group of female outcasts burying the body of their friend and giving a lie to her being "companionless" despite her blood family having disowned her - even though she was a victim of their neglect and abuse.
And yes as Cristiano says its fairly conventional as this is the section when Leila is simply a dead body - her mind has died and her soul is not yet freed.
Did it work for me - not entirely - but I can see why she did it.
(replying to Cristiano) Exactly, what rationale is there for the pov switch in the second part? Then we return to her POV for the third part as her soul narrates. Just think Han Kang did that much better in "Human Acts"
My (as always) opinionated view.I've got 70 pages to go and this has slipped from a possible shortlisted title to one closer to the bottom of the list. I'm close to putting it aside, however 70 pages should be done today so I will persist.
The early sections I thought were quite readable, the later parts endlessly frustrating.
We have every type of outcast known to mankind (if a vegan pops up I will THROW it across the room), they are thinly veiled with homogenized bland statements about their conditions (the depression "make it your friend" comment was TOO much for me).
Throw in the historical moments like chasing out the USA, the worker uprising and shootings and this just feels like a huge melting pot that has blended into a big mess, not a distinctive flavour discernible (even though our main character has distinctive taste recollections every minute).
At this stage I'm tossing up if I put it above or below "My Sister The Serial Killer" (which I have second bottom on the list) and it will need to improve in the last 70 pages to move into the top 10.
I won't read comments until I finish the book, I just wanted to say that I am pleased that I like this so far. I thought Forty Rules of Love was not good, I think I found The Bastard of Instanbul okay, but not memorable, and I have not been able to get far in The Flea Palace the few times I've tried. I admire Elif Shafak so I want to like her books, but I've been unimpressed with the earlier novels. I'm only half way through and feel the story is starting to wane just a bit, but still, this is her best book so far. I hope I end up giving it at least 4 stars, but I can't see this moving ahead of the others I've finished.
I think your thoughts echo mine Wendy- The author is one you admire and whose books you want to like
- You have struggled with others you have read (interestingly a different set of books to the ones I read)
- You feel this is her best yet
I will be interested to know how you find the rest of the novel
I loved it. I gave it 5 stars and I hope this means Ms Shafak has found her voice. The story was paced well for the most part, the characters were believable, and I had a sense of the city. I think this is her best writing.I loved that the ending was sweet, but sappy, with just enough humor to stop it from feeling tragic.
Rating books is too subjective to mean much. I enjoyed this book more than I enjoyed Lost Children Archive, but I recognize that LCA is the better book. I agree the second half was weaker, but I was okay with switching povs. Although, I was also struck by the sudden wisdom of Leila when she told a friend to befriend her depression.
I still have 7 books to read, but of the six I’ve read I would be happy to see this Shortlisted.
I have just finished this too. I found the first section (The Mind) to be wonderful. I loved the tastes and smells and the way it allowed the central character to tell her backstory and introduce her five friends. Parts of it reminded me of olden-days Rushdie (such as The Enchantress of Florence with a bit of Haroun and the Sea of Stories).
But then comes the second part (The Body) which had elements of farce, but also words of deep wisdom. It left me conflicted, because I loved the first part so much, and wanted more. But isn't that what real life is like, others come along and take over and they do things differently and not in the way you wanted or intended.
#6 on my Booker reading. Starting Ducks next, but for me Lanny is still my favourite.
Mod
I admire the unique structure of this novel. I also enjoyed the setting, and Elif Shafak writes some beautiful sentences, but I found the novel to be too meandering and slow-paced to truly hold my interest. I was bored and pushed myself to finish this one, though I greatly respect the unique structure. I would give the first half four stars and the second half two stars for an overall average of three stars.
I also liked the first half, then felt it started to lag in the middle, but when the friends were interacting after the death it picked up again. I wish that instead of isolating the friends each in their own chapter and telling their stories in relation to Leila that she would have had them all interacting throughout the second half. The first half was a story, the second half felt too much like an inventory. That sounds more negative than I mean it to, because I did enjoy the book, but on reflection I think it was 3.5 rounded up to a 4 since it’s her best book yet, but not a 5.
I loved loved loved the bits where a sense brought a memory back - that's a very real neurological situation. In fact, it's the reason I went into neurology in the first place: my aunt had a massive brain trauma when I was 9. SHe knew nobody, couldn't really see, was making zero sense, etc. And we were all crowded around her in the hospital room. My older sister came in - she wore Rive Gauche By Yves Saint Laurent, tons of it - back then and never was missing a cloud of it. My aunt who had said nothing coherent all day sat up when Kelly walked in & said, "That smells like Kelly." Later we were discussing food and out of nowhere, she licked her lips and said, "Joyce makes the best pie crust" (a true statement - Joyce is my mom.) She said little else and three days later died. The impression stuck with me. I remember thinking we just had to find the right key to unlock her brain (I was a kid and full of magical thinking) but that idea stayed with me and years later, I went into traumatic brain injury. My dissertation was on sense memory and TBI. So while the book may have some other issues, I loved those bits.
That is really interesting, Ella, thanks for sharing that. I love when books strike a chord for personal reasons.
Really enjoyed this one and feel it’s borderline shortlist material. The part that fell a little flat for me was the grave digging scene. The five seemed like helpless children - it felt like I was reading about 12 year olds trying to do something without getting caught by their parents. The dialogue was pretty poor in that section as well. But otherwise I thought this was a very strong effort.
I liked the grave digging scenes only because we saw the relationships of Leila’s friends with each other and I would have liked to have seen more of that throughout the book.
One thing I happened to notice today is that a group of people on twitter are spamming the Booker prize and the chair of judges when they tweet on the shortlist, basically accusing Shafak of plagiarism and demanding she is disqualified from the prize. I don’t know the facts not least as the references are to a book written in Turkish but I can hazard a guess at their true motivation. I think it is likely to have the opposite effect on the judges to that intended.
Gumble's Yard wrote: "One thing I happened to notice today is that a group of people on twitter are spamming the Booker prize and the chair of judges when they tweet on the shortlist, basically accusing Shafak of plagia..."Yikes. And I agree that this won't harm her chances at all (unless someone has some actual proof. You'd think that would've come up before the booker shortlist though, wouldn't you?)
Antonomasia wrote: "New interview with Shafak: https://www.theguardian.com/books/201..."Thanks - love this paragraph:
“Sometimes when I look at the ways novels are being judged, we are very used to measuring them against the European classics,” she says, 'but there are other ways of storytelling, from China, the Middle East. There is not one way of writing a novel. It is a bit like food, there are other cuisines, other traditions, no less rich and no less real'.”
I liked that as well but it seemed more of a reason to vote for Orchestra of Minorities on this list.
Mod
“Sometimes when I look at the ways novels are being judged, we are very used to measuring them against the European classics,” she says, 'but there are other ways of storytelling, from China, the Middle East. There is not one way of writing a novel. It is a bit like food, there are other cuisines, other traditions, no less rich and no less real'.”
Have seen a bit about this on Twitter mostly via Tilted Axis, I think. e.g. about books that bigger/older presses rejected because they didn't fit Western standards of what they thought readers expected /considered quality and how they are wanting to publish stuff like that, and also arguing that these ideas in Eng lang literary culture need to be reformed.
There was a long thread or post about this a few months ago which I thought was by the Indonesian-to-English translator Tiffany Tsao, but I can't find it now. Paul, do you remember it? Was it by someone else?
The Mookse and the Gripes
Books mentioned in this topic
The Bastard of Istanbul (other topics)The Architect's Apprentice (other topics)
10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World (other topics)
The Enchantress of Florence (other topics)
Haroun and the Sea of Stories (other topics)
More...
The ninth novel to appear in English from Turkish-British author Elif Shafak, and her first Booker longlisting. Shafak was also a judge for the 2018 Goldsmith's Prize and the 2017 Man Booker International Prize.
'In the first minute following her death, Tequila Leila's consciousness began to ebb, slowly and steadily, like a tide receding from the shore. Her brain cells, having run out of blood, were now completely deprived of oxygen. But they did not shut down. Not right away...'
For Leila, each minute after her death brings a sensuous memory: the taste of spiced goat stew, sacrificed by her father to celebrate the long-awaited birth of a son; the sight of bubbling vats of lemon and sugar which the women use to wax their legs while the men attend mosque; the scent of cardamom coffee that Leila shares with a handsome student in the brothel where she works. Each memory, too, recalls the friends she made at each key moment in her life - friends who are now desperately trying to find her. . .
Published in the UK by Viking (an imprint of Penguin Random House) and forthcoming in the US on 3rd December 2019 from Bloomsbury.