Book Review•Book Review｜"Black Milk": How many Thumbelinas do you have?

Elif Shafak is my favorite Turkish-born female writer. She has more than one million followers on Twitter. She is also a human rights activist and often speaks out for women. Her book "Black Milk: On Writing, Motherhood, and the Harem Within" was something I started reading almost immediately after having my baby, and I read it for more than a year. I have gained a lot of experience and growth over the past year.

1. The voices of Elif’s Thumbelinas

The subtitle of "Black Milk" makes it very clear, it is about "the Harem Within". It is an extremely personal memoir, but also a collective writing for all women who have become or are about to become mothers. In 2006, after the birth of Elif's first child, she suffered from severe postpartum depression. She was unable to write and began to question whether she could be a competent mother. In the book "Black Milk", Elif starts from herself and gives names to the voices that appear since pregnancy, turning them into Thumbelinas (Finger-Women) with named names and different personalities. She talks, quarrels, listens, and reasons with these Thumbelinas in different chapters and under different themes... This is the meaning of the title of her book "the Harem Within". To me, Elif Shafak transformed the different sides of his personality and the various inner voices into these Thumbelinas, accepting each of them with sharp edges and distinctive personalities, as if they were members of various seats in the parliament. They all have their own positions, tendencies and opinions, and they are all worthy of being heard and seen, and the pros and cons should be weighed and analyzed in the face of all the rules set by society as a whole for women.

Probably, any woman has felt daunting before becoming a mother, a feeling that is mixed with happiness, sadness, joy and the unknown. Elif Shafak shows readers this intertwined melancholy in her "Black Milk" by giving each Thumbelina a voice that represents itself.

Therefore, "Black Milk" is a book that constantly discovers itself: the Thumbelinas did not appear all at once. At the beginning, there were only four of them, four different voices that Elif Shafak himself realized. . On the road to motherhood, a professional Thumbelina jumped out and told Elif that giving birth to a child means the end of her career, and specifically quoted Beauvoir's "In The Second Sex, de Beauvoir reiterates Hegel's famous dictum that The birth of children often goes in hand with the death of parents.” (In The Second Sex, Beauvoir reiterates Hegel’s famous saying that the birth of children often goes in hand with the death of parents.) In the future, Before giving birth, I heard this statement a lot, and many women even heard it from their own mothers. Imagine a child growing up accompanied by his mother’s resentment towards her own existence. She feels that she is holding back her mother’s career and life. What a heavy shackle it is. I admire Beauvoir, and if I realize this, I might as well not have children, so as not to harm another life. More mothers give birth to children but let them take responsibility for their failed lives and useless choices. They are cowardly and unwilling to take responsibility, which is contemptible. Of course, there is also a realistic Thumbelina who considers everything from the most practical perspective and always gives Elif the most practical advice, but from time to time she falls into the trap of opportunism.

However, as he read along, Elif also discovered many different Thumbelinas. One of them was called "Madame Bovary, the blue enchantress" by Elif. Every time Elif finds a Thumbelina that he is unaware of, Thumbelina will ask him: "Don't you recognize me? How deep do you have to bury me in your heart to not recognize me?" "Blue Enchantress Bag" Mrs. Farley" as well. This Thumbelina sees through the efforts made by all female writers who want to stand out in the still male-dominated literary world. Those efforts are nothing more than moving closer to men and deliberately removing their femininity. Elif also admitted that sometimes she would not wear heavy makeup and would rather This allows readers to see her as a "scholar" rather than a combination of sensibility and body. "Madame Bovary, the Blue Enchantress" thinks this is women's self-castration. Who says that beautiful women must be blonde but have nothing in their minds?

Elif spent the most space describing the different voices of Thumbelina in his heart. I can feel that she is listening . Fortunately, I am gradually realizing the Thumbelinas in my heart. In the past year, their outlines have become clearer one by one, from far to near; I believe that soon, I will also hear their noise😊

2. Elif Shafak’s transformation from self-silencing to rebirth

Elif's Thumbelinas are already halfway through the book, and Elif begins to tell readers how she "silenced" her name and then "reborn" it.

The father's role was absent in Elif's upbringing. After her parents divorced early, my mother chose not to marry again. Elif has always retained his biological father's surname. Before a magazine published her article, she told the editor that she wanted to change her name because she did not want to write under the surname of a man who had never fulfilled her father's responsibilities to her. In the end, she chose to use her mother's first name "Shafak" as her last name, and thus, there was Elif Shafak, a reborn and wise woman: a woman who had been hurt, did not receive complete father's love, and vowed not to marry. The infertile girl grew up to become Elif Shafak, who found her soul mate and had a child of her own.

"The right to surname" once also caused a small wave in the Chinese feminist scene. In fact, it seems that a woman’s surname has never been important, because sooner or later she has to change it to her husband’s surname. Although there are fewer and fewer places to change it, most children follow their father’s surname. Elif lists a large number of female writers throughout the book, many of whom changed their names and rebranded themselves - Ayn Rand, George Sand... These shining women are like those in Elif's writings All are shining stars, seen and heard. Among them are my favorite poet Sylvia Plath and socialite Zelda Fitzgerald. Their stories will be discussed in the sequel.

When I saw Elif Shafak's choice of pen name and the chapter she dedicated to Sylvia Plath, who ended her 30-year-old life by suicide, I thought of my pen name "Mary Ventura". I briefly mentioned the source of Mary Ventura - a short story written by Plath when he was still a student - in my article on the ten books that changed my life in competition with Germany's Die Zeit . Mary Ventura has since become my doppelgänger, and it also appears in my self-introduction, mainly written in Chinese, because in my native language, I am the Mary Ventura who got on the train inexplicably, but she finally got off. I have never deliberately avoided using my birth name, but Mary Ventura is definitely my rebirth. She is my Thumbelina like any other name🧚‍♀️.

Elif Shafak's "Black Milk" is the waltz of Thumbelina in every woman's heart. If you listen to it, you will find that the fate of women can be very similar. Whether you are Zelda or the free Beauvoir, you all bear the weight of the patriarchal society. pressure.In order for the brilliance of women to breathe through and even shine under such heavy pressure, it must be recorded, in any form.

Additional note: Elif named his daughter Zelda❤️