“She didn’t like it when the places she knew changed owners and names. It caused her inexplicable anxiety. She wanted the world to stay the same while she herself changed.”
The Silence of Scheherazade by, Defne Suman is a novel about four families (Levantine, Greek, Turkish, Armenian) in the Ottoman Empire, in the Ancient City of Smyrna. The narrative shifts between these families and alludes to the past and the period right after World War I (1922). These families are intertwined and it is told in a way that pieces the narrative together slowly. Some of the main questions are, “What happened to Scheherazade and why is she mute, and who exactly is she?”
The way this novel is constructed is really unique -the story shifts between these four families and the past and present are constantly being alluded to. As the novel begins to “narrow” down and Suman starts to connect the dots, the narrative begins to focus in on one character specifically and this character has a strong tie to the mysterious Scheherazade. There were times, while reading this novel, where I couldn’t quite figure out where Suman was taking me, but as she continued to flesh things out, it became more clear exactly what she was doing.
The second half of this story really hones in on the impact that war has on a society and how it brings out the some of the worst in human nature.
- How far people are willing to go for an ideal - “The devastation that Hilmi Rahmi saw around him had to be the work of the devil. So this was what happened when man lost faith and his conscience; when he broke his bond with himself and with God. He turned into a monster cut loose from his chains, a base creature, a slave to lust, greed, anger and cruelty."
- War is a constant cycle - “There is always a war going on somewhere, Edith. Since the beginning of time, human beings have created with one hand and destroyed with the other. What is yours today was someone else’s yesterday and will pass to someone else tomorrow … There will never come a time when wars will cease and the world is peaceful.”
- A period in history often forgotten and how WW2 overshadows WW1 - “This misery of the Second World War had made the world forget the First.” “There was no one left to call it Smyrna any more. In one night, hundreds and thousands of citizens who had lived there for centuries disappeared into nothingness. After forty days and forty nights, no one honored them. Church bells were silenced forever. It was only the ghosts that roamed the ruins that remembered the past.”
- PTSD - “… it was if he was seeing ghosts. It’s like he’s living in a dream. Or as if everything he sees is a hallucination. ... It’s like he’s been shot in the heart and his soul has leaked out, gone, leaving only the shell of his body.”
As previously mentioned, where as the first half of this novel is introducing the reader to these four families and setting up the framework, as well as letting the reader experience the beauty of Smyrna before it was destroyed, the latter sections of the novel begins to really reveal who is Scheherazade, and just how intertwined everyone is.
The novel comes from the perspective of Scheherazade, in the latter years of her life, and is the main narrative voice of the novel in an interesting, omniscient voice. Her narrative reveals how a person can live many lives within one life, based on their experiences.
“This is the tale of a young girl who was born three times before she was eighteen.”
It’s evident early on in the novel that Scheherazade is mute because of something she experienced, the reader just doesn’t initially know why. However, one thing that’s very well done in this novel is the the emphasis that is placed on how telling one’s story is healing.
I really enjoyed The Silence of Scheherazade! This novel is unique, engaging, heartbreaking and evocative. It’s rich with so many details and clues that one reading most certainly is not enough and I know I’ll need to reread this novel in the future to catch the details that I missed. I also find that this was a difficult book to review, because saying too much can easily spoil key elements of the plot, so hopefully I provided just enough insight to spark your interest in this novel. I hope to read more from this author in the future.
Rating: 4/5
Like my bookish content? Follow me on Instagram for more!
Post a Comment