Reflection's Edge

Book Review: The Gaze, by Elif Shafak

Reviewer: Romie Stott

Summary: A loose and meandering narrative about the effects of being looked at, and of looking, The Gaze weaves the scattered experiences of an obese woman and her dwarfish lover, the dwarf's obsessive attention to his "Dictionary of Gazes," a semi-mystical carnival in 1885, and Siberian fur traders from 1648.

Length: 264 pages. The reviewer finished it during 20-minute train rides spaced over a fortnight.

From the cover, you might think this book is about: A romance between two circus freaks, and an exploration of their attitudes toward social assimilation and notoriety.

But it's actually about: Love, ostracism, eating disorders, obsession, madness, and loosely-connected vignettes about beautiful women, half-sable shamans, isolated cherry trees, babies made of wax, and unhappy outcasts.

Odds that the author is familiar with Laura Mulvey's theory of "the male gaze": High; Shafak holds a Master of Science in Gender and Women's Studies, which is reflected throughout the book.

Odds that the author possesses talismans against the evil eye: Moderate to high; nazar are extremely common in Turkish jewelry and decoration, and Shafak is passionately involved with her home country.

If this book were a food, it would be: Thick yellow pudding and almond wafers.

Mainstream appeal: High. The Gaze spends equal time grappling with broad social issues and evocative side stories; it similarly strikes a comfortable balance between mysticism and realism. As a result, The Gaze can be justified as both desert and main course.

Fringy-ness: High. Elif Shafak is a Turkish author whose works have only recently been translated in to English. Orhan Pamuk, a Turkish author to which Shafak is often compared, just won a Nobel prize. This lends The Gaze elite and insider cachet. Be prepared for discussions about Turkey's bid to join the European Union.

People are saying: The Gaze is perhaps best read in pairs, as it intentionally stirs debate about what it means to be a man; what it means to be a woman; what it means to be in love; the importance of beauty; the value of physical satisfaction. The strength of The Gaze is its middle; the beginning is self-consciously obscure stream of consciousness, and the sweeping realignment of the ending, while powerful, never lets the reader forget the hands of the author. Although it is a book which deserves, and perhaps requires, re-reading, the emotionality of the issues involved will leave many readers uncomfortable and unwilling to return to the book immediately. Nevertheless, it mixes humor with its seriousness, and is filled with evocative images.

The author is: A professor of Near Eastern Studies at the University of Arizona, where she also keeps her hand in women's studies and political science. She remains a regular contributor to several Turkish newspapers and is an outspoken activist in favor of cultural and religious tolerance within Turkey, acknowledgement of the 1915 Armenian genocide, less isolationism among Turkish intellectuals, and Turkey's bid to join the EU. Within Turkey, she has been criticized for her novels' use of Ottoman words officially purged from the language in 1925, and she may face persecution for writing about forbidden political subjects. Her website can be found here.

To buy a copy of this book, click: here.

If you liked this book, check out:

The White Castle, by Orhan Pamuk



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