Trice’s Reviews > The Forty Rules of Love > Status Update

“/Hell is in the here + now. So is heaven. Quit worrying about hell or dreaming about heaven, as they are both present inside this very moment. Every time we fall in love, we ascend to heaven. Every time we hate, envy, or fight someone, we tumble straight into the fires of hell./ This is what Rule Number Twenty-five is about” (182).
How many have said similar - the only reality is now. Everything else as a dream

So many people come into our story
And the 5th element - the ineffable - as well

Understanding the leper though wow is that so far beyond any experience in the modern world…isn’t it?

Sometimes it feels like most plots must be driven in some way by neurodivergence. In this case Shams seems clearly adhd in his over the top honesty, impatience with surface level things, quick learning and then boredom with a thing once learned, his annoyance at routine and need to keep moving, as well as perceiving things so differently from the norm and accepted way. It’s like a dx list

“he said one should keep the intellect satisfied + yet be careful not to spoil it. It was one of his rules. ‘Intellect and love are made of different materials,’ he said. ‘Intellect ties ppl in knots and risks nothing, but love dissolves all tangles and risks everything. Intellect is always cautious and advises, ‘Beware too much ecstasy,’ whereas love says, ‘Oh, never mind! Take the plunge!’ ‘ “

❤️❤️❤️

And between sitting for a while and getting so suddenly excited about this novel (started the internal novel), I can’t at this moment focus on the novel except to notice we have a murderer and a death/dead body in a well which of course makes me think of Pamuk’s My Name is Red and wow…going for a walk and will go back to this *glee* a bit later

Hehehe!! *glee*
The novel within the novel begins with a note on an Arabic letter, B, and “The /Mathnawi/ starts with B, Just like all the chapters in this novel….”
Which they do!!
But so do the chapters and sections that preceded the novel within the novel! I checked 😄
(No I don’t know what this means yet)

Lol “Little did she know” will always make me think of Stranger Than Fiction and wow, the book that changed her life, that’s enough to make Ella start at the sky + yell just like our STF protagonist
Honestly annoyed this is another damp doormat housewife as main character book - not sure how I missed that or how I seem to have hopped on this train. Esp for my 1st Shafak book 🫠 that I was so excited to start