Writing Portfolio

October 30, 2018.

Forty Rules of Love

The book I have chosen for review is “40 Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak. This book focuses on contemporary household lives and the way it contrasts with the orthodox implications of the Sufism aspects. The characters in this book hold great importance in the modern and the Orthodox world, Shams of Tabrizi, A. Z. Zahara and Ella. The books revolve around these characters and describe the stories that these characters are interlinked with each other.

The story starts with the character Ella, a housewife with three kids, and a husband. The illustration is focused on a standard household, and how the family has been facing issues and how they try to find an escape through these issues. Ella finds trouble with her marriage, her husband seems to be occupied with infidelity, and Ella seeks to find an escape from and the household work by enrolling herself in a literature review club, and she is given a book to write a review on. Upon inquiring the book and in her struggle to know more about the author, she comes across A.Z Zahara and starts to send emails to and fro and develops a bond between him and her.

The book describes two stories, in different eras but the same context. One being the Shams of Tabrizi, in search of his to seek the true meaning of life and knowledge and becoming an accomplice to Rumi, whereas on the contemporary side of the book, Ella and A. Z Zahara develop a bond, and share emails and conversations. The one thing that pulls the reader towards it, is the attention provided to the details of this book, and how this has been explained from two different perspectives and interlinked with each other.

The book describes mainly about how the human perception of love is not in its pure form and how there have been different instances where love is not seen the way it should be seen as. The focus on the customary meaning of love and the great Shams of Tabrizi and Rumi, explains how love is and it should be recognized. Ella, on the other hand, inquires and seeks love, after her marriage with her husband and comes across the infidelity factors in her marriage. The search for knowledge and true wisdom of life for Shams of Tabrizi has been described as a critical aspect of how there should be well seen in every walk of life.

Now coming back to the contemporary part of the book, Ella is keen to learn about A. Z Zahara and has put her mind and consideration into inquiring more about him. She looks forward to his emails, and she seems to find an escape from the daily life and feels less worried and cared about her house and more specifically about her husband. Her perception about love has started to change, and it seems to be going in a different direction for her. Elif shafak has portrayed Ella a 40-year-old, falling in love all over again and redefining the meaning of love. The family she has and the responsibilities she holds, they seem to make less sense to Ella (Shafak, E. 2010. Ella). This has given a strong message and implies how one can find love and be happy at any stage of their lives.

A.Z Zahara on the other hand, another important character has been seen as a follower of the Shams of Tabrizi, and has written a book about Shams of Tabrizi, "Sweet Blasphemy." This illustrates how he is an avid follower of the folk Sufi, Shams. Living in the contemporary world, A. Z Zahara can be noticed to have an outlook adopted just as the same as Shams of Tabrizi. And Ella falls in love with this illustration of A. Z Zahara.

The character shams of Tabrizi, in the book “Sweet Blasphemy” has been said to be a wandering dervish and how he seeks his in a world that seems to be different than him and how he finds his way in it. Going from places to places and under the apprenticeship of different masters and learning different behaviors of the world, Shams is described as a versatile character and how he has changed over the years. In the later context of the book, Elif Shafak has described the tragedy which took place with Shams and how he turned away from the world and became the wandering dervish. The author has expressed his story as a young man who falls in love with someone elder than him and is a well-earning man and then marries the woman. The love described by the author for the woman is immense, and one day after the tragic death of his wife, Shams loses control over his life and indulges into drugs and never start wandering. Upon wasting his life for an extended period, he comes across dervishes who guide him and from there onwards Shams has been on a journey to find the true meaning of life and love. During his path, he comes across many incidents and events. His true search was the understanding of the divine power, God.

Elif Shafak describes different characters and their various implications on life and how they have perceived life to be. There can be noticed two sides in this book, the orthodox and the contemporary side. Both sides play their parts in bringing together the characters and the way they have been described in their sense. This book draws attention to the simplicity of the minds of the character and their understanding towards love. It is interesting to read because the book describes and understands how the contemporary world of Ella and the orthodox world of Shams of Tabrizi has defined love.

The book “Forty Rules of Love” by Elif Shafak gives a mystic and sense of better understanding towards Sufism and how it describes and has been narrated by the Shams of Tabrizi on different accounts. There are forty rules described by the Shams of Tabrizi throughout the book and how these rules have been deemed important for the understanding of the book. For instance, to give a more precise account of the book and Shams of Tabrizi, he describes an understanding of the Holy book, Qur'an as there are three different interpretations of the holy book, the outer, the inner and the innermost understanding of the holy book. The outer explains the layperson understanding of the holy book, the inner interpretation explains how the people who are labeled as "Maulvi" understand the holy book, but the innermost interpretations are understood by Sufi's and Dervishes (Shafak, E. 2010. Shams). Thus the illustrations of Elif Shafak has been avidly focused on the Sufi and Dervish and what accounts of knowledge they illustrate through their teachings and understanding of the world. But at the same time, the author has linked this understanding of Sufism with the contemporary world of knowledge, and we can find a comparative analysis between the two in many occasions and depicts the true outcome of the writing of the author.

References

Shafak, E. (2010). The Forty Rules of Love. London: Penguin Books.