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black milk by Elif shafak a very distinctive novel talks about many confusing issues for me sofar: feminism, post-feminism, oddities,arrange marriage and love marriage, the struggle of being a female writer, and our inner voices whom we can't manage and control easily .she talked about several female writers and their real struggles in life to organize it , how to be a wife a mother a housekeeper and a writer at the same time equally well?! she mentioned Leo Tolstoy and his wife Sophia, JANE AUS...
3.5 *Black Milk is a book on motherhood and writing in which Shafak depicts her life both as a young promising author with big dreams and "A MANIFESTO OF THE SIGNLE GIRL".. married to books/ literature, and her life aftergiving birth stuggling to overcome her postpartum depression, told with sub-stories of all the great writers/ authors that you may know, heard of, or reading about for the first time.She also talks about her different personalities (using fingers to portray them)that she couldn'...
a good book ,a gifted novelist and most importantly a dedicated ,loving mother Elif Shafak...
I liked the way she wrote melting her own story of motherhood with essays about different writers who never liked to be mum's. I read it twice
Excellent. I postponed reading it for so long, but apparently, this was the perfect timing for this book and I. Quite intriguing, what I didn't like at its fullest now was Shafak the fiction writer. I could have been spared the conversations between her and the choir of discordant voices/Thumbelinas/finger-fairies, but then again, I completely understand the need of inserting the dialogues in the book, and maybe if I listen attentive enough I can hear my own Thumbelinas asking for their rights,
I'm pretty luke warm about this book. While some of it is insightful I'm finding it often ridiculous. The "harem" of voices that Elif battles with while she debates the issue of whether it is possible to be both a writer and a mother comes across as silly, which undermines the seriousness of her investigation. I can see using aspects of the self in order to stage internal debates, but I would argue that Shafak takes the trope too far. Her voices are given literal bodies and are presumed to physi...
a memoir by Elif Shafak about being a mother and the conflict she felt between her roles as a writer and mothershe suffered of postpartum depression which she didn't know anything about itwrote about her life and different characters within herand lives and experiences of other female writersbeautifully written memoiri think that becoming a parent for the first time is a life changing experience
Usually I read books because I want to step out of my own views. However, I genuinely feel Black Milk could have been written by me in a few years (although, with far less writing skills talent and wit, Elif Shafak is just brilliant). This memoir is an ode to motherhood and writing. It is hard to describe how much I related to Shafak. A nomadic writer, Shafak was convinced that she was not interested in having children. However, as fate would have it, she realizes she is pregnant. We follow thr...
For those readers who don’t know the Turkish writer Elif Shafak, let me preface this review by saying that she is a brave woman and thinker, first and foremost, and a compelling novelist, the most famous in Turkey (she has quite a following in the United States as well). She writes novels in both English and Turkish, something that Orhan Pamuk should attempt, as it is hard enough to write a novel in one language, writing one in a language that is not your mother language is quite a challenge. We...
Rate: 4.5I so liked the idea of multiplicity which is called "Harem Within" here and infers that every person (women, here) has several very different and contradictory personalities and each one of them has the right to speak and be heard by the bigger Self. However, we, due to circumstances and the very fact that society does approve of "singularity", repress some or most of them so there's either Oligarchy or Monarchy or Fascism that has taken control. Very interesting, isn't it?🤭What I'm rea...
For a sensitive theme like an account of her encounter with postpartum depression, I found Shafak's use of wit and imagination quite commendable. As a female writer trying to make sense of motherhood, Shafak looks within to the fragments of her self ( the harem of thumbelinas which constitute what she calls her Choir of Discordant Voices) and across the inspirational long line of women authors before her. Even though her characterization of thumbelinas is fascinating, her portions on some of the...
Loved this book. It couldv'e been a favourite read.....BUTThere are alternative selves of Elif in the book namely some little women with different names; one is motherly, one is cynical, one is practical and ambitious etc. They were SO ANNOYING. Which is funny since the whole book revolves around these women through which we understand the thoughts in Elif's head.I hated them so much. But I loved ALL aspects of the rest of the book. Thoughts on writing, motherhood, societal expectations of women...