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Summary and Reviews of There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak

There Are Rivers in the Sky

A Novel

by Elif Shafak
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  • Aug 20, 2024, 464 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

In the ancient city of Nineveh, on the bank of the River Tigris, King Ashurbanipal of Mesopotamia, erudite but ruthless, built a great library that would crumble with the end of his reign.

From its ruins, however, emerged a poem, the Epic of Gilgamesh, that would infuse the existence of two rivers and bind together three lives.

In 1840 London, Arthur is born beside the stinking, sewage-filled River Thames. With an abusive, alcoholic father and a mentally ill mother, Arthur's only chance of escaping destitution is his brilliant memory. When his gift earns him a spot as an apprentice at a leading publisher, Arthur's world opens up far beyond the slums, and one book in particular catches his interest: Nineveh and Its Remains.

In 2014 Turkey, Narin, a ten-year-old Yazidi girl, is diagnosed with a rare disorder that will soon cause her to go deaf. Before that happens, her grandmother is determined to baptize her in a sacred Iraqi temple. But with the rising presence of ISIS and the destruction of the family's ancestral lands along the Tigris, Narin is running out of time.

In 2018 London, the newly divorced Zaleekah, a hydrologist, moves into a houseboat on the Thames to escape her husband. Orphaned and raised by her wealthy uncle, Zaleekah had made the decision to take her own life in one month, until a curious book about her homeland changes everything.

A dazzling feat of storytelling, There Are Rivers in the Sky entwines these outsiders with a single drop of water, a drop which remanifests across the centuries. Both a source of life and harbinger of death, rivers—the Tigris and the Thames—transcend history, transcend fate: "Water remembers. It is humans who forget."

Please be aware that this discussion guide will contain spoilers!
  1. At the beginning of each chapter, the character in whose point of view it is told is represented by a chemical symbol: H or O. How do you interpret the assignment of Arthur as O and Narin and Zaleekhah as Hs (creating a complete H2O molecule)?
  2. Arthur is responsible for uncovering a great epic story, and the tone of his own narrative is laced with an epic story of his own. What other legends does his story bring to mind, including via his grandiose name, King Arthur Smyth of the Sewers and Slums?
  3. How is Arthur shaped by his early days working at the printing shop? How does this exposure to stories—and responsible, loving adults—motivate him to expand his worldview and ambitions? Consider not only his discovery of the book ...
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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

BookBrowse

Elif Shafak's novel There Are Rivers in the Sky follows three disparate individuals separated by time and location. As the characters' lives unfold on the pages of this remarkable book, readers gradually learn how they're tied together, with the last pieces falling into place at the very end of the story. Shafak begins her tale with a sentient drop of water falling on King Ashurbanipal of Ninevah (reigned 669–631 BCE). The variability yet permanence of water is a major theme. "While it is true that the body is mortal," the author writes, "the soul is a perennial traveler — not unlike a drop of water." Later, "Many kings have come and many kings have gone…never forget the only true ruler is water," and, "Women are expected to be like rivers — readjusting, shapeshifting." Shafak's writing is lyrical, bordering on poetic, as she weaves this theme into her narrative...continued

Full Review (820 words)

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(Reviewed by Kim Kovacs).

Media Reviews

Financial Times (UK)
Richly evocative. A fascinating stream of storytelling.

Guardian (UK)
An absorbing novel. Shafak is a novelist whose interest in mapping the intricately related world and its history goes beyond literary device.

The Spectator (UK)
Gloriously expansive and intellectually rich... a magnificent achievement.

I Paper
Engrossing. I turned the pages hungrily, carried by Shafak's energetic prose and confident that it was heading towards a coherent and rewarding ending. As ever, Shafak did not disappoint.

Library Journal (starred review)
Elif Shafak raises critical questions about one's connection to and responsibility for the past in this highly readable and engrossing novel.

Kirkus Reviews
An engaging story is marred by an overblown narrative style.

Reader Reviews

Labmom55

Perfect mix of historical and literary fiction
There Are Rivers in the Sky is a big book in terms of ideas, writing style and plotlines. It combines science, religion, history and literature. It’s the very definition of epic. It’s like a huge tapestry, weaving people and objects across the ...   Read More
Mary Ann

What if water had memory?
“Water remembers. It is humans who forget.” The earth is a closed system, therefore the total of premoridal waters that have ever existed, still exist in one form or another. Life in its most basic form is transformed in an everlasting cycle of ...   Read More

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Beyond the Book



Cuneiform and Ashurbanipal's Library

Tablet from Ashurbanipal's library, containing part of the Epic of Gilgamesh, displayed on a stand at the British Museum There Are Rivers in the Sky by Elif Shafak begins with the story of King Ashurbanipal (c. 685–631 BCE) of Ninevah, an ancient city on the eastern bank of the Tigris in part of what is now Mosul, Iraq. Although cruel even by the standards of his day, Ashurbanipal valued learning, and sometime around 647 BCE he built a library to house the collective knowledge of the past. At the time Ninevah was sacked in 612 BCE, the library contained thousands of cuneiform tablets.

Cuneiform is a system of writing believed to date back to around 3500 BCE. The name comes from cuneus, the Latin for wedge, since the characters are largely comprised of wedges. It was developed by the ancient Sumerians of Mesopotamia, in southwestern Asia ...

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