Book : Thoughts and Elif Shafak's Fiction

February 26, 2016

The thing that worries me has always been the static silence of my thought. If I'm not able to hear the voice that helps me to write, when I stare at the monitor for far too long, and I can't open up to things inside. Some people feel like they are bound to their private thoughts, keeping it away from the public - in search of their own serenity. As for me, what's written here, or in my mind, have always been one. Some people can see what's not been written, and some people can't even see things in front of their eyes.  The one who decides on the mystery of things aren't us from the start. So I don't mind sharing, because I am as curious as strangers towards what's there in my thoughts. This is a journey of finding myself as a writer and I share my humble thoughts and present life here, for all of you, the one that has been in your personal life-searching journey as well :) May all of us find peace deep inside.

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Current book : The Architect's Apprentice by Elif Shafak.

My previous book that I just finished reading this week is Elif Shafak's The 40 Rules of Love. I got it as a present, little did I know part of the fiction is telling a story on Shams Al-Tabriz and Rumi, the Sweet Blasphemy and sufism. I don't know how much of it is fiction but I love the flexibility in having it 50% true and 50% fiction. I've always see life as that, non-taken too seriously, or putting up extreme rules either right or wrong, or as a mystery that needs to be solved. 

I love the questions, it somehow makes me feel like I'm alive and I'm thinking and feeling. I don't really mind if there are questions with no possible answers, or questions that might trigger your faith to wobble aside for awhile. It actually make me feel more human. As Shams Al-Tabriz did in Rumi's life - asking questions to let Rumi wander in the void that he never reached before. The beauty as he changed from being a well-respectful scholar to a dervish and a well-known poet.

I've never thought about the importance of having someone like Shams Al-Tabriz in our life, until I read the story. It makes Rumi's poems more meaningful and beautiful, once you see the hidden stories behind it. One layer at a time.

A great book for people that have a lot of unanswered questions :

A photo posted by azreenchan (@azreenchan) on


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Previous book read in Jan 2016 : In a Strange Room by Damon Galgut, a South African writer. The story is divided into 3 sections : "The Follower", "The Lover" and "The Guardian". The writer went on a backpacking to several countries and met different people in each places that changed his life. His life as a follower in one journey, as a lover in another and as a guardian in the last journey before heading back home.

I've never heard of Damon Galgut before this. I found the book at the previous BBW that sold for RM 5. So I just bought it - knowing that it is about life-searching journey.

2 comments on "Book : Thoughts and Elif Shafak's Fiction"
  1. This thing has lingered in my mind for awhile. How do you pick up new vocabularies in every lines of the story in your reading? New words really help me understanding the whole storyline but it slows my reading at the same time. :/

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    1. Honestly as an avid reader, I kinda pick up new words quite fast just by reading through the whole line. Our brain can detect the new word and will try to fit it in with something that is already known - so it's like I understand the word, but not quite sure, kan. What I do is just keep reading, I don't use dictionary anymore - sbb I'm super malas.

      But that's the thing with reading so much, you keep on bumping with that new word over and over again sampai you will know what the word really means :D So just keep reading, train your mind to fill in the blank spaces, you will learn so much faster.

      PS : Not including the fact that I have several books of new words that I found from reading fictions all through my teenage years. I used to write down the words and checked the dictionary and wrote the meaning down in my "new-word-books" all the time. Dulu laa.. :p

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