Honour
By Elif Shafak
Summary
"Turkey’s leading female writer, Elif Shafak has won international acclaim for her lyrical blend of Eastern and Western storytelling styles. In this heartbreaking tale of love and misunderstanding, Shafak draws upon the dazzling insight, emotion, and drama that infused The Bastard of Istanbul to explore the controversial issue of honor killings as it tragically plays out in one family’s life.
Twin sisters are born in the mid-1940s in a small Kurdish village on the border of Turkey and Syria. Jamila becomes a local midwife. Pembe marries Adem, and they immigrate to London in the 1970s. Bitter and frustrated with his new life, Adem moves out and Iskender, their eldest son, must step in as keeper of the family’s honor. But when Pembe begins to spend time with another man, Iskender will discover that you could love someone with all your heart and yet be ready to hurt them."
-bn.com
Quotations
"Since time immemorial the natives of Mesopotamia had called diamonds 'The Tears of Gods'. They believed they were made of the dust that fell from the stars above or from splinters that broke off from lightning bolts on stormy nights. Jamila had even heard some say they we the crystallized drops of sweat shed every spring when Mother Earth and Father Sky made love. Wild imagination! People let their thoughts run smock when they came across things over which they had little control, as if by inventing stories they could make sense of all that was painfully confusing, Including their brief stay in this world."
"Heartbeats are like drums heard from afar, like sounds of war. The human body was a mystery. It loved to fight. Though most people didn't realize this the body was a warrior, and far more resilient than the soul. But, like all great warriors, it had an unexpected weakness. It was frightened of the unknown. It needed to understand its enemy so as to be able to resist, strike, deter and pulverize it. If it didn't recognize what it was fighting against, it couldn't prevail. This was where Jamila came in. Since time had begun, healers like her helped patients regain their strength so they could get to know their illness. She didn't cure them so much as enable them to cure themselves."
"Heartbeats are like drums heard from afar, like sounds of war. The human body was a mystery. It loved to fight. Though most people didn't realize this the body was a warrior, and far more resilient than the soul. But, like all great warriors, it had an unexpected weakness. It was frightened of the unknown. It needed to understand its enemy so as to be able to resist, strike, deter and pulverize it. If it didn't recognize what it was fighting against, it couldn't prevail. This was where Jamila came in. Since time had begun, healers like her helped patients regain their strength so they could get to know their illness. She didn't cure them so much as enable them to cure themselves."