The Architect’s Apprentice: Elif Shafak
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A dazzling and intricate tale from Elif Shafak, Booker-shortlisted author of 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World – chosen for the Duchess of Cornwall’s online book club The Reading Room
‘There were six of us: the master, the apprentices and the white elephant. We built everything together…’
Sixteenth century Istanbul: a stowaway arrives in the city bearing an extraordinary gift for the Sultan. The boy is utterly alone in a foreign land, with no worldly possessions to his name except Chota, a rare white elephant destined for the palace menagerie.
So begins an epic adventure that will see young Jahan rise from lowly origins to the highest ranks of the Sultan’s court. Along the way he will meet deceitful courtiers and false friends, gypsies, animal tamers, and the beautiful, mischievous Princess Mihrimah. He will journey on Chota’s back to the furthest corners of the Sultan’s kingdom and back again. And one day he will catch the eye of the royal architect, Sinan, a chance encounter destined to change Jahan’s fortunes forever.
Filled with all the colour of the Ottoman Empire, when Istanbul was the teeming centre of civilisation, The Architect’s Apprentice is a magical, sweeping tale of one boy and his elephant caught up in a world of wonder and danger.
‘A gorgeous picture of a city teeming with secrets, intrigue and romance’ The Times
‘Exuberant, epic and comic, fantastical and realistic . . . like all good stories it conveys deeper meanings about human experience’ Financial Times
‘Fascinating. A vigorous evocation of the Ottoman Empire at the height of its power’ Sunday Times
‘Intricate, multi-layered, resplendent, vividly evoked, beautifully written’ Observer
*** ELIF SHAFAK’S NEW NOVEL, THERE ARE RIVERS IN THE SKY, IS AVAILABLE FOR PRE-ORDER NOW ***
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Additional information
| Publisher | Penguin, 1st edition (23 April 2015) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Paperback | 464 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 9780241970942 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-0241970942 |
| Dimensions | 19.7 x 12.9 x 2.77 cm |
by Grace Beyler
This is the charming – and alarming – fictional tale of a young Indian boy who accidentally becomes the mahout of a white elephant which finds its way into the palace of the Ottoman Sultan in Istanbul. Jahan also accidentally becomes an apprentice to the real-life Mimar Sinan, the Ottoman architect who built some of the finest buildings in the world. Set as it is in the prime of the Ottoman Empire and in the courts of some of the greatest sultans, the story is loosely based on historical facts and wonderfully recreates the atmosphere of Istanbul during that period. Everything that is glamorous and grand has a dark counterpart, something that Jahan learns gradually over the course of his many years caring for his elephant and helping to construct the magnificent mosques, tombs, aqueducts and other buildings commissioned by the sultans. In the midst of all this, Jahan has several encounters with the sultan’s daughter with whom he falls in love.
Although I enjoyed the beginning and, eventually, the end,I did have a problem in that the love interest, which I had thought would be pivotal, was slight, and other events seemed too disconnected, too peripheral to carry the story through to the end. The book sagged noticeably in the middle. The ending did bring together many loose ends but left some as well (what about the stolen goods?), and I found the “revelations” increasingly hard to credit.
I know Istanbul well and I love reading anything about it. Shafak’s writing brings the city and Jahan’s world to life. We can smell the smells, hear the sounds, imagine the wonders of a place that is endlessly fascinating. Scratch the surface and there is always something more. This, in many ways, is true of the book, but I have to wonder if readers who are not already interested in Istanbul and the Ottomans would find it as – mostly – enjoyable as I did.
by Amazon Customer
Shafak at her best.
by Anecdotal
This epic novel had a predictable plot and I think that, with a little tinkering, it would be better directed at a Young Adult audience. The episodic arc of this story would suit a TV adaptation too.
I like the idea of architecture and key characters being real buildings and people, but this did not improve the long series of events in this book.
At one time I was reminded of the religious police in Saudi Arabia and the plague reflects the pandemic we are living through.
A 2019 article for The Guardian declared that although Shafak “writes with apparently equal fluency in English and Turkish she says she still feels “her mind runs slightly ahead of her tongue” in her second language.” For me, the language did not flow well and every now and again a colloquialism jumped out from the page to disrupt my reading. Perhaps if she had written this in Turkish first and then had a good translator prepare the book for the UK market, it might have flowed better. But I think I would still find the book meandering and hard work to read. Too much was crammed into it. It meant the characterisations were superficial, more symbolic than realistic. I remember the constant bowing and kissing of feet a little too much.
In another article Elif Shafak said “sometimes, when I look at the ways novels are being judged, we are very used to measuring them against the European classics, but there are other ways of storytelling, from China, the Middle East. There is not one way of writing a novel. It is a bit like food, there are other cuisines, other traditions, no less rich and no less real.” I do agree with her but this book didn’t do it for me.
This book seems like a long love letter from Shafak to Istanbul, written with longing because Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Turkish politics make it too dangerous for her to return. I have not read any of her other books and I probably will not do so, although her new title, The Island of Missing Trees, might tempt me. It will be released in August.
I admire Elif Shafak’s breadth of knowledge but I would not recommend this book.
by Cornwallgurl
I was glancing through the book reviews, as usual, when I saw an article about a list of book recommends by the Duchess of Cornwall (who despite the slightly snippy tone of the article implying surprise that a member of the Royal Family could actually read) does a lot of work for literacy. This book, which I hadn’t heard of, was one of her recommends. (A good, but “mainstream” selection, according to the article). Fine by me, I thought, and anyway the theme intrigued me.
I hadn’t heard of the author, and was interested to read she writes in both English and Turkish and that although this book was first written in English, it was initially published in Turkey. Despite the glossary, you do have to be on point for Islamic terms and customs. I fell in love with Istanbul when I went en route to a family wedding in deepest Turkey. It is truly one of the great capitals of the world, with breath taking architecture, so a story based around Sinan (of whom I had vaguely heard from our guidebook) was fascinating to me. I did wonder if having been there helped my enjoyment, although we didn’t manage the Süleymaniye Mosque, merely seeing it from the Bosporus Ferry. I’m now desperate to go back and see the mosques and buildings described that we couldn’t fit in – at the risk of being completely mosqued out!
So, there’s a slightly magical realist story based around a lot of facts about building mosques, Sinan, Ottoman rulers and other fascinating stuff. The story itself requires a bit of suspension of belief – I am not convinced that Suleiman the Magnificent’s only daughter would have had access, let alone fallen in love with, a humble mahout/draughtsman. But, such is fiction. I found the information, history and descriptions (helped by having been to some of the places) wonderful, but about two thirds of the way through the book I was beginning to feel a sense of déjà vu, as they built yet another wonderful mosque, suspicious stuff happens, rulers die, and so on for ever. Of course the best character in the whole book is Chota, the wondrous white elephant gifted to Sultan Suleiman. His story is really the centre of the book, despite a vivid cast of eunuchs, animal keepers, janissaries, and the other apprentices of Sinan the great architect. Just when I was beginning to feel a distinct sense of ennui – not enough to stop reading, but definitely not as enthralled as I had been, the mood of the book changes and it almost becomes a whodunnit.
So, there’s a nifty twist near the end, which reawakened my interest, and then you’re slightly left wondering about various other parts of the story. So, on the whole, I enjoyed this book and would recommend it – although I’m not quite sure of the target audience and who would find it interesting. If planning a trip to or just returned from Istanbul, I think it would definitely hit the spot.