Dual timeline story – one set in present-day Istanbul at a dinner party and the other in the early 2000s at Oxford (told via flashback) during protagonist Peri’s university days, where she was heavily influenced by a charismatic and unorthodox professor. Peri is a young Turkish woman caught in an identity struggle between her mother’s traditional religious beliefs and her father’s modern secularity. While at Oxford, she meets Shirin, an Iranian feminist, and Mona, an Egyptian-American devout Muslim.

“Is there really no other way, no other space for things that fall under neither belief nor disbelief – neither pure religion nor pure reason? A third path for people such as me? For those of us who find dualities too rigid and don’t wish to conform to them? Because there must be others who feel as I do.”

As with most dual timelines, I preferred one over the other. In this case, the storyline based in Oxford is more compelling. The three daughters, Peri, Shirin, and Mona, form a friendship that is strained by their differing outlooks. They take a philosophy class called “The Mind of God” by eccentric Professor Azur – and what a great character! He comes across as rather full of himself but also challenges his students to expand their viewpoints.

“He had wanted to develop God into a language that was, if not spoken, at least understood and shared by many. God, not as a transcendental being or a vengeful judge or a tribal totem, but as a unifying idea, a common quest. Could the search for God, when stripped of all labels and dogmas, be turned into a neutral space where everyone, including atheists and non-monotheists, could find a discussion of value? Could God unite people, simply as an object of study?”

The Istanbul dinner party segment, held by a wealthy businessman, is less riveting, but provides a platform for discussing business, political, religious, and cultural forces that influence life in modern Turkey. But at the heart of this novel is Peri’s personal struggle:

“She always knew that she was different. A strangeness she must do her best to hide; a scar that would remain forever etched on her skin. She put so much effort into being normal that often she had no energy left to be anything else, leaving her with feelings of worthlessness.”

Shafak is one of my favorite authors. Her writing is stellar. She knows how to craft a story to maintain interest while commenting on today’s social issues. Themes include feminism, spirituality, and multiculturalism. Highly recommended!

4.5
( )

this book is very interesting. Elif shafak really did good job with this ( )

Very slow burning, character driven story line.

The main character is Peri who always finds herself "in between". She's from Istanbul Turkey, a city that sits partly in Europe, partly in Asia - and a country that sits uncomfortably between secularism and religion.

Her family mirrors this split - one very religious parent, the other more secular and ambivalent. Same split with her two brothers, and finally two best friends when she reaches Oxford University.

Lots of internal dialogue and philosophical discussions about the nature of God. I loved this aspect along with the characters themselves.

The only thing that felt a little off by the end was that each character ended up being almost one-dimensional, based on a single attribute: the religious one, the feminist, the bitter ex-student, the corrupt businessman, and so on. Very little nuance allowed per character, and not until the very end do we see some growth for Peri and her former professor. ( )

Elif Shafak is a Turkish author who also lives in Britain. Her novels have been nominated for the Booker, the IMPAC, the Man Asian and the Women's Prize for Fiction. She writes in both Turkish and English, and since no translator is credited in the edition I read, I assume that Three Daughters of Eve was written in English.

Although it was nominated for several prizes, I was disappointed by Honour (2013), a novel about so-called 'honour killings' but Three Daughters of Eve is better constructed and more plausible. The settings — Istanbul and Oxford — are superbly realised, contrasting the chaotic energy of Turkey's largest city and financial centre with the static charm of British academia's historic heart. These settings frame a novel of contrasts, tugging at the intellect and emotions of its central character, Peri.

Peri grows up in a family rent by spiritual conflict. Her father is a belligerent atheist while her mother is a pious Muslim. They argue constantly, sniping at each other at every possible opportunity. Peri, whose brothers embody these conflicts, witnesses the fallout from political repression and of extreme religiosity, and longs for a middle ground, developing a naïve belief that she might be the one to bring harmony into this divided home. Though it's a financial struggle for her family, her chance comes, she thinks, when she takes up a place at Oxford and encounters a charismatic professor whose course explores issues surrounding God. Not the least of these is, of course, the problem of reconciling a benevolent omnipotent God with the evils of the world.

It's no spoiler to reveal that Professor Azar has a God complex. He's not just interested in sectarian conflict, he likes to generate it, and has deliberately chosen his students to represent different attitudes towards religion and faith. He manipulates their activities so that those holding extreme positions have to work together, and some of the other academic staff are dubious about the psychological distress he has been known to cause. He goes so far as to engineer Peri into joining a share house with the radical Shirin and the pious Mona, reproducing the tension and conflict from Peri's home in Turkey as the women argue passionately about identity, Islam, feminism and modernity.

The structure of the novel hints at some dramatic conflict that impacted on these women and their professor. Three Daughters of Eve begins with middle-aged Peri with her teenage daughter Deniz on her way to a dinner party in Istanbul. The traffic and her tiresome daughter combine to transform Peri from a respectable woman who represses her emotions into an Amazon who takes off after a handbag thief but almost gets raped in the back streets. With a bandaged hand and torn dress, she finally arrives at the dinner party but refuses to conform to the expectations of the guests that she tidy herself up. The progress of this dinner party is woven through the novel, enabling Shafak to comment on male entitlement and women's rights, the gulf between rich and poor in modern Turkey, the secular-Islamist divide, and the tension between Turkish identity and Europeanising influences such as the movement for democracy and acceptance into the EU. But for Peri, the photo that fell from her bag brings back memories of her time at Oxford and the people who were so important in her life.

To read the rest of my review please visit https://anzlitlovers.com/2021/09/16/three-daughters-of-eve-by-elif-shafak/ ( )

Over one turbulent evening and night in Istanbul, Peri goes back in memory to her childhood and brief period of study in Istanbul. She is driving to a dinner in a wealthy mansion with her daughter and is subjected on the way to a robbery and attempted rape. As she retrieves her belonging from the street robber, an old photo tumbles out of her bag depicting a younger version of her with two other middle eastern women and their older professor. The three young women in the photo are the confident and heavily made-up Shirin, a rebellious Persian woman with strong views against religion, and Mona a pious Egyptian-American with a head-scarf and Peri herself, the confused one growing amidst the strict Muslim observance of her mother and the liberal outlook of her father.

I was quite drawn to the description in the story, of Istanbul society, the way it sits uneasily between East and West, as matter of Geography and also of mindset and ethics. The conversations between people in the book rang quite true for me and mirrored the lively arguments I have often witnessed in other places in the middle east. The book itself, as well as Peri's character and that of her Professor Azur, argue for a middle way between the mystic aspirations of faith and the quest for reason and knowledge. It is a viewpoint that I can relate to. I also found the main character Peri very relate-able and authentic in her confusion and her three passions, I think I was/am like her in many ways. Shirin as the rebel was somewhat less interesting, whereas Mona was stereotypical and served only as a counterpoint to the three girls. There was nothing in the book about her journey and where her piety eventually led her.

The story in the book is less of a focus. It more about the ongoing conversations and tensions between East and West and between dogma and doubt. Very nicely done with choice readings from the classics, philosophy and religious teaching. ( )