Shafaq’s new novel, 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World, is a marvelous piece of fiction that takes the reader on a journey of thrill and excitement. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World story begins
with the death of the protagonist, Leila Tequila. Her death, however, is not a
neat transition from being into non-being but rather it is described by Elif Shafak
as a slow slipping away of the mind into the clutches of death, still
struggling to keep hold of consciousness as memories rush to illuminate the
screen of Leila’s mind. The ensuing 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World not
only visually replay the major events of her life but also allow her to
experience past emotions, tastes, and smells.
“Four minutes after her heart had stopped beating, a fleeting memory surfaced in Leila’s mind, bringing with it I smell and taste of watermelon”… “Five minutes after her heart had stopped beating, Leila recalled her brother’s birth. A memory that carries with it the taste and smell of spiced goat stew - cumin, fennel, seeds, cloves, onions, tomatoes, tail fat, and goat’s meat”… “Six minutes after her heart had stopped beating, Leila pulled from her archive the smell of a wood burning stove… “Seven minutes ....As Leila’s brain fought on, she remembered the taste of soil-dry chalky, bitter”… “Eight minutes had gone by, and the next memory that Leila pulled from her archive was the smell of sulphuric acid”… “Nine minutes...The taste of chocolate bonbons with surprise fillings inside — caramel, cherry paste, hazelnut praline...”
The very first minute after her
death, Leila, recalls her birth. This first memory of her as a baby is steeped
in the sense of loss, pain, and separation as she is taken away from her
biological mother, Binnaz, and handed over to her father’s older barren wife,
Suzan. While Suzan rejoices the bliss of motherhood, Binnaz, is denied the fruits
of her womb. Leila only learns of this secret at the age of seven as her Aunt
(mother) confides in her and asks her to keep this a secret. Thus, for Leila,
her life becomes a mystery, her identity a secret, and her relationship with her
parents a confusing affair. As a child, Leila is pushed to the margins of family
life as the central stage is occupied by the adults of her family. As the second
tick by after her death, the other memory that overwhelms her is the sexual
harassment by her uncle who succeeds in pressurizing her and scaring her into
silence. Just as Leila was too young as a baby to resist her being given away
to her father’s second wife, similarly, Leila in this incident is too young to
understand the consequences or to resist her uncle’s lustful advancements.
Her teenage life opens another era
of challenges and oppression for her as she discovers her pregnancy shortly
followed by a miscarriage. Her father fails to support her and Leila is forced to
flee from home in order to escape a forced marriage to her younger cousin. This
decision of leaving home proves to be equally disastrous, as Leila ends up
working in a brothel. Shafak describes in 10 minutes 38 seconds in this strange world, how vulnerable women are in male-dominated Turkish society. Even the metropolitan Istanbul whom she describes as,
“a liquid city” fails to offer safety to the abandoned, homeless people. As the
story progress and Leila’s mind slows down sending her to the permanent slumber
of death, we learn how she had befriended several other people in Istanbul such
as Nalan, a transsexual, Sinan, her childhood friend, Jameelah, a Somalian
Muslim smuggled as a sex worker to Istanbul, Hollywood Humera, a young bride who
had run away from an abusive husband and cruel in-laws to live in Istanbul with
a new identity and a constant fear of being tracked down and killed in the name
of honor by her husband. Similarly, Zainab122 a dwarf of women who traveled
to Istanbul in search of a job and ended up working as a cleaning woman at
Leila’s brothel. The group of five friends stands out as pillars of strength and
comfort for each other.
Leila’s otherwise sad life is
sparkled up as she meets D/Ali, a communist supporter and a student who falls
in love with her and marries her. Her married life proves to be a blissful
interlude which shortly ends with D/Ali’s being killed due to firing in a
procession. Leila is once again forced to work in order to live. However, she
is shortly afterward murdered and her body is dumped. Police refuse to hand over her body to her group of friends claiming that they are not family.
Sadly, Leila’s father refuses to claim her body, and consequently, she is buried
in the graveyard of the companionless. The novel moves towards its end as
Leila’s friends refuse to give up and decide to unearth Leila’s body from the
abandoned graveyard and bury her next to her husband with a proper burial. This
novel proves that bonds of friendship can sometimes be stronger than one’s own
family. It is worth mentioning at this point:
Nostalgia Nalan believed there were two kinds of families in this world: relatives formed the blood family and friends the water family. If your blood family happened to be nice and caring you could count our lucky stars and make the most of it and if not there was still hope things could take a turn for the better once you were old enough to leave your sour home. As for the water family, this was formed much later in life and was to a large extent, of your own making. While it was true that nothing could take the place of a loving, happy blood family, in the absence of one, a good water family could wash away the hurt and pain collected inside like black soot.” (pg. 199)
This group of friends succeeds in
accessing Leila’s body and finally by dumping it into the sea fulfilling her wish
to merge and lose herself into the vastness of the sea. The novel ends with all
the friends living in Leila’s flat. Their decision is taken keeping in mind the
social rejections all of these outcasts and rejected individuals have faced in
their own ways. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World ends with a new collective beginning of Leila’s
friends living in her flat. 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in this Strange World has a huge postmodern outlook as the
metanarrative of the family is not only broken but challenged. All of the
characters’ families including Leila’s fail to offer support, love, and comfort
as expected, on the contrary, Leila’s family proves to be the root cause of her
oppression and ultimate failure in life. Her friends offer her love, comfort,
sympathy, and care thus proving that in modern times friendship can prove to
be a source of greater strength as compared to a family.
M.Nazir
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