📖 In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak
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Review of an advance copy received from NetGalley.

Elif Shafak is a genius. Her writing has this mystical, ethereal quality that instantly pulls me in and refuses to let go. She’s one of my favorite writers, so I couldn’t wait to get my hands on her newest novel. And it was worth every second of the anticipation. I could have spent weeks lost in these pages, but instead I devoured all 600 of them in a single weekend.

In In One Brief Moment All Eternity, Shafak imagines the life of Gustave Flaubert through the women who loved him, cared for him, inspired him, and even the fictional women he brought to life on the page. At its center is Madame Bovary, but the novel reaches far beyond Emma, giving voice to the women who have often been pushed to the margins of literary history.

I knew almost nothing about Flaubert going in, and I’ve never read Madame Bovary, but that didn’t stop me from being completely fascinated. Shafak made 19th-century France feel vivid and alive, while weaving together history, creativity, memory, love, loss, and the complicated relationship between an artist and the people who become part of his work. And, of course, Madame Bovary has officially been added to my TBR.

There’s something so immersive about Shafak’s storytelling. Her prose feels both grounded and otherworldly, and she has an incredible ability to bring history and the lives of people who might otherwise have been forgotten to vivid life. Her prose is beautiful without ever feeling ornamental, and there’s something almost hypnotic about the way she moves between the real and the imagined, the past and the present..

This is only my third Shafak (I’ve also read The Island of Missing Trees and There Are Rivers in the Sky), and I’ve loved each one more than the last. Next up: 10 Minutes 38 Seconds in This Strange World. I have a feeling I’m going to be working my way through her entire backlist.

In One Brief Moment All Eternity comes out October 15, and I have a feeling this one is going to be a huge hit. If you love historical fiction, literary reimaginings, beautiful prose, and stories that blur the line between the real and the imagined, this is one to watch for.

What makes Elif Shafak’s novel so extraordinary is how it bridges profound historical interest with a human story that feels breathtakingly substantial, poignant, and real.
It’s a brilliant- enjoyable novel with layers of captivating tales and themes.
“‘Madame Bowery’ was not created in an artistic vacuum, but was forged through Gustave Flaubert’s real-world interactions with marginalized women during a time of intense historical crisis”.
“Art is a collective echo”.
Elif Shafak reimagines history through the eyes of the women behind Flaubert…..
including his devoted nanny, his intense mistress Louise Colet, and an Egyptian dancer.
It’s a perfect mix of fascinating history, and compelling personal stories.
What captivated me profoundly was the way Shafak blended the rich historical backdrop seamlessly into personal narratives. She blended education into the emotional narrative.
Our deeper understanding of the historical truths surrounding Madame Bovary are eye-opening.
I found myself drawn both to the magnificent history and personal storytelling.

Sharing an example….
The connection between Gustave Flaubert and his nanny, Julie, at the beginning was an emotional foundation of early life, showing that before Gustave was an internationally acclaimed author, he was a vulnerable boy shaped entirely by a wonderful nanny. Their relationship felt sacred. Julie protected him through sickness …giving him his first sense of safety.
In contrast, the mother‘s coldness with Julie’s warmth is powerful.
Early into this novel I felt ache and love for Gustave and Julie.
“Julie is a born storyteller, a colourful raconteur. Her tales, unlike her personality, are full of darkness and menace. Goblins and ghouls dwelling in the hollows of ancient trees; druidic runes painted with the blood of sacrificial animals, brigands lying in wait behind boulders, eager to ambush and slaughter any unwitting soul who dares pass by. Werewolves, witches, vampires, changelings and shapeshifters, she impersonates them all in the various dialects of Normandy, her voice undulating with thrill and terror. With each new adventure that he hears from her, the child’s apprehension of the outside world grows, yet, so does his fierce attachment to the maid. Yes, Julie‘s fairytales frighten him, but they pulse with a sense of wonder and excitement that he finds infinitely more compelling than the strict discipline and suffocating etiquette that Maman calls
‘proper manners’”.

For a long time, I felt this novel belonged to Gustave Flaubert….(I felt enormous empathy for him), but the true brilliance of this book lies in how the perspective shifts away from the famous creator and “hand-the-quill” back to the vibrant lives of Julie, Emma Bovary, and the women history chose to forget.
So, what started as a fascinating look into the brilliant man’s mind seamlessly evolves into something much larger; a deeply moving reclamation of female history, where Emma and the women who shaped Flaubert finally get the loudest word.

Think of the wizard….in ‘The Wizard of Oz’
….when the curtain is pulled back …..
and in this case:
…..to reveal that Gustave Flaubert’s masterpiece was actually forged by a course of extraordinary women who finally stepped out of his shadow.

Many themes …many tales …. feminist revisionism, cultural heritage, a look at creativity during political juncture …. and the power of storytelling itself exploring how history is remembered through literature …. surviving war, social, upheaval, and darkness..
Shafak doesn’t just chart historical actions of the characters; she charts their internal world….their psychological terrain > isolation, claustrophobia, desperation, grief, sickness, confusion, defeat, disillusionment, depression, loneliness, shame, secrets, financial ruins, hidden desires of women trapped by rigid societal expectations of the 19th century.

“Epilepsy. When with others, he refers to it as ‘my enigmatic disease’, ‘the flame in my eye’, or ‘my nervous malady’. When alone, he calls it, simply, ‘the hypnotic bird’. An intense emotion; a visual, auditory, and, at times, olfactory hallucination; an affliction he must endure alone. He is confused, frightened, and ashamed. His illness is yet another defeat in his long list to failures”.

This is not a novel to be read only once ….
[opens in 1885 ….spans across decades and locations…. France, Istanbul, Egypt, Palestine, and Beirut].
—I loved the symbolism that plays out across these continents:
….The Quill - women “seizing the quill” - symbolizing taking control away from the male dominated classic book … women claiming narrative authority.
…. The silent voices represented groups of women who struggles symbolize the broader fight against political abolition and social inequality
….Emma (the fictional construct), represented the trapped, tragic constraints placed on women in the 19th century. By attempting to rewrite her fate, the novel uses her symbolize rebellion against historical destiny.
….The East-West Metaphor …. interactions between European and Middle Eastern characters symbolized the dialogue between western crows and eastern poetry, highlighting, how interconnected the world‘s culture really is.

What elevates this awe-inspiring monumental novel is its mastery of the emotional and psychological dimensions.
Ultimately, this book taught me that ‘Madame Bovary’ was not created in an artistic vacuum.
Instead of a traditional linear biography, the novel is narrated by a chorus of about thirty female and non-human voices—including lovers, family, servants, historical figures, and Emma herself (who expresses rage over the bleak fate Flaubert wrote for her.

“While history labels Flaubert as a master of the female mind, the novel directly flips this premise on its head. By letting the female ‘ghosts’ in his life seize his quill, the book questions the ultimate authority over the women he created and encountered”.

I will love this book forever — read it again …
It’s an incredible reading experience — a magnificent, haunting triumph— where we are guided impeccably through history by a wonderful craftswoman of contemporary literature!

It’s one of the best books I’ve ever read!!!!

5.0. I have liked Ms. Shafak’s other novels, but this one really hit it out of the ballpark. A remarkable historical fiction on the French author, Gustavo Flaubert, along with the turbulent times in France, woven together through the voices of various females, human and otherwise. It was not an easy read but the writing was breathtaking. Although Flaubert was clearly a troubled soul, he had a lot of interesting qualities and sensitivities to the plight of the poor, dispossessed, and those who were not of the bourgeoisie or privileged class though he himself was raised in a well to do family. A very well researched novel. Ms Shafak did an excellent job in conveying his tortured and reclusive personality while also showing his unique insights into the human condition. An extremely engaging novel. Thank you to Netgalley for providing me an advance copy in exchange for an honest and candid review.

Thanks to Knopf and Netgalley for an eARC of In One Brief Moment All Eternity by Elif Shafak. My introduction to Shafak was her previous novel, There Are Rivers In The Sky, which I absolutely loved. Both novels are historical literary fiction epics that follow characters over a length of time that glides by. In One Brief Moment All Eternity focuses on Gustave Flaubert and the creation of Madame Bovary, specifically on how the real and fictional women surrounding Flaubert influenced him. I love how the novel feels like an intimate coming of age novel from Flaubert's perspective, however on top of that we also get additional commentary from the women mentioned concerning these pivtal moments in Flaubert's life. It is a mesmerizing meditation on art and how impactful it can be in tough times.