"Honour" by Elif Shafak: Review:

“Never had it occurred to him that you could deceive the person you held dear. It was his first lesson in the complexity of love.”

This is a story of twins, Pembe and Jamila, born in a small Kurdish town in Turkey. Jamila left her sister at the age of 33, following her husband Adem to London. With their 3 children: Iskender, Esma and Yunus, they try to fit in their new life in England, and leave their traditions behind, something that they didn’t really succeed in doing.

While Adem left his family after his marriage with Pembe started falling apart, Iskender, their elder son and a 16 years old teenager, tried to control the family, and prevent it from any shame. But when Pembe began seeing another man, Iskender will do anything possible to stop it, and like he said, to preserve the family’s honour.

This is my second Elif Shafak’s novel, after reading “Forty rules of love”, which I found by the way amazing, and is without a doubt my favourite read of 2020. “Honour” is astonishing, it’s a phenomenal page-turning! It’s really rare to find a novel talking about crime of honour, especially in some conservative cultures. But what I really like about this novel is how Elif makes family’s Honour related to women, which is true in all Arab Muslim countries. The men in the novel are all drinking, gambling, taking drugs, and the reason why Adem left his wife is because of another woman, but when all of those things were done by a woman, we talk about bringing shame and dishonouring the family. But all of those things are forbidden in Islam, not for women only, right? Elif just shows us that we live in a schizophrenic society, where we privilege men over women, even when we know that some things done by men are considered as sins.

Another important subject discussed in this novel, which is by the way the prime subject, is a crime of honour. Iskender kills his mother to prevent shame, and preserve the family’s honour, a crime he did in cold blood! It just shows how our traditions, rituals, stereotypes and cultures can affect us in such a dark way when excusing such terrible crimes. Iskender didn’t try to talk to his mother, he just went for it!

The writing is fluent, easy to read, catchy, and intense. As I said it’s a page-turner! The characterizations are good, and the story telling quality is present. It’s a tragic, sad, shocking, interesting, mesmerizing, heart touching novel that left me blown away! I’m so glad that I discovered Elif Shafak last year, and I can’t wait to read more of hers!