Title: The Architect’s Apprentice
Author: Shafak, Elif
Publisher: Viking
Pages: 424
Date Read: 27 June 2023
Bookshelves: read, favorites
My Rating (out of 5): ⭐⭐⭐⭐
In this book, as usual, Shafak holds the reader spellbound by the excellence of her words. Here, she writes about the Ottoman Empire, the art of construction, apprenticeship, war, plagues, and death. She writes of Sinan, the legendary architect responsible for the construction of some of the most famous mosques that stand to this day and the philosophy that guides his approach to design. She writes of Chota, a white elephant gifted to the sultan from the king of a faraway land. She tells of how decades of service and spectacle wove her into the very fabric of the city. She writes of Jahan, the elephant keeper, who would later train under Sinan and eventually raise buildings of his own. She writes of his search for love, his want for meaning and his quest for legacy. With an abundance of characters that stretch through decades, wars and plagues, this book was a slight departure from how a typical Shafak book would read.
Shafak is my favourite author alive. This preface is vital because of the sentences that will follow. I am sure I speak for a good number of people when I say that I am fortunate this was not the work that introduced me to Shafak. The reason is simple: it’s not her best work. It scares me to think about how the wrong reading order would have left me with an incomplete recognition of Shafak’s ability as a writer. This book was longer than it should have been; some parts of the story moved quickly but lacked urgency, a consequence of the centuries the story spanned; and a few characters did not have the depth I have come to expect reading Shafak over the years.
By all means, read this book. But let this not be the book that introduces you to Elif Shafak.