The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak

Book Blurb

“Every true love and friendship is a story of unexpected transformation. If we are the same person before and after we loved, that means we haven’t loved enough…”

Ella Rubinstein has a husband, three teenage children, and a pleasant home. Everything that should make her confident and fulfilled. Yet there is an emptiness at the heart of Ella’s life – an emptiness once filled by love.

So when Ella reads a manuscript about the thirteenth-century Sufi poet Rumi and his mentor Shams of Tabriz, and his forty rules of life and love, she is ready to look at her life anew. Compelled to embrace change, she embarks on a journey to meet the mysterious author. It is a quest infused with Sufi mysticism and verse, taking Ella and us into a faraway world where faith and doubt are heartbreakingly explored. The Forty Rules of Love is a mesmerising tale of discovery, language, truth and, of course, love itself.

My Review
We all have book that we mean to read at some point and The Forty Rules of Love by Elif Shafak is one of those books for me. This book has been named by the BBC as one of the hundred novels that have shaped the world, and after reading it I can see why. I was excited to be invited to take part in the blog tour for this book by Penguin books and Anne Cater from Random Things Tours to celebrate being part of the list.

I really didn’t know what to expect when I started The Forty Rules of Love, although I have heard amazing things about it. Sufism is not something I know anything about so this was a learning curve for me as it was for the main character Ella. Ella is approaching forty and has always put her family first, but when her eldest daughter announces she is getting married Ella is shocked and it makes her reasses her life. After twenty years of marriage Ella realises she is unhappy in her marriage and in her life in general. This realisation coincides with her starting a new job reading manuscripts for a publisher and her first book is Sweet Blasphemy by Aziz. Z Zahara, a book about the relationship between dervish Shams of Tabriz and scholar and poet Rami in thirteenth century Turkey.

I think that Ella’s story will resonate with many that realisation that your children are growing up and don’t need you as much, and you begin to question who you are and what you want from life. I felt empathetic to Ella’s story, having to deal with teenage children who think they know best, and as a mother making the wrong decisions for the right reasons. She begins to email the author of the manuscript Aziz.Z Zahara and in him finds someone who understands her, someone who listens to her and someone who makes her look at her life differently.

At the heart of this book is the story of Shams of Tabriz, a travelling dervish, in thirteenth century Turkey, and Sufist who is destined to meet scholar and teacher Rumi and become his spiritual leader. What I liked was that their story was told not only through their eyes but also through those that Shams meets on his journey, a beggar, a harlot, a man with leprosy all of whom he treats with compassion and Rumi’s family, his wife, sons and a female student, Kimya. The women’s plight is highlighted through his wife and Kimya in that they are not normally aloud to read, study or enter a Mosque: Kimya has a gift and is an exception to the rule. I really enjoyed learning about Sufism, the concept of love but not necessarily the romantic kind, but a love of the world, of those around you and of yourself; if you can’t love yourself you can’t love others including God. The forty rules of love from the book’s title are the rules that Shams teaches and lives by. Whilst reading about Sufism the realisation grew that even todays society could benefit from these rules of acceptance of yourself and others, of loving yourself before you can love others, and the importance of living in the present.

I’m really glad this blog tour came along making me finally read The Forty Rules of Love. This is a thought provoking and enlightening read that really made me stop and think about life and about myself. Elif Shafak’s writing is beautiful and nuanced, she really gets into her characters lives, their vunrabilitues and strengths. Her descriptions of thirteenth century Turkey really capture the atmosphere of that period in both the sights and sounds and the many different people living there. This is truly a stunning read and if you haven’t read it then I highly recommend you do.