“The Architect’s Apprentice” by Elif Shafak

Set in sixteenth century Istanbul, this novel follows an architect’s apprentice, Jahan, who is also the mahout to the sultan’s albino elephant, Chota. The novel is historical fiction, but takes liberties with dates and chronologies of real events, sometimes truncating timelines or fudging a historical figure’s age. Portends in the sky, battles at sea, and the spread of plague on the ground are all instrumental. Three Ottoman sultans, Suleiman, Selim, and Murad, feature prominently, as well as their industrious Chief Royal Architect, Sinan. In his almost hundred years, he supervised the construction of hundreds of mosques, tombs, palaces, and shrines. “Upon finishing it, no matter how great the building, he would leave within it a flaw—a tile placed the wrong side up, an upended stone or a marble chipped on the edge. He made sure the defect was there, visible to the knowing eye, invisible to the public. Only God was perfect.” The book is also a love letter to the magic and mystery of the city of Istanbul. “But Istanbul is a city of easy forgettings. Things are written in water over there, except the works of my master, which are written in stone.” The book contains warfare, mystery, bitter professional rivalry, murder, and unconsummated love; but it is, above all, a story about fate and the contingencies of life. “Fate was odd. The day before he was drawing designs on the floor with shit. Now he was perched on silk cushions, eating caviar from the hand of his beloved. And as he closed his eyes for a moment, he could not tell which was real and which was someone’s else’s life.” It is also a love story between a mahout and his beast. “Gradually Jahan forgave the elephant for the way he behaved on the battleground. He covered his knife-like tusks with two silken balls, and made a new mantle for him with his own hands. He garnished the trims with silver bells and sewed on blue beads against the evil eye. Languid and placid sunsets slipped by. Blissful days these were—though, as too often happens with blissful days, they would be appreciated only when they were no more.” In this bildungsroman, Jahan comes to realize late in life who and what are the essential things. “In that moment Jahan understood that life was the sum of the choices one did not make; the paths yearned for but not taken.”